Advice Needed: AMD or Intel?

Next gen games will all be using 8 cores where available, so get an 8320 over a 6300 - it's only £25 or something more. In older games that use 2-4 threads only, there's far less of a difference. Also bear in mind that the only difference between an 8320 and 9590 is clock speed, so if you run the 8320 at 4.7GHz, you'll get the same as a stock 9590.

I wouldn't go 2x7850 though as the memory will be more of a problem with new games and high AA settings. A second 7950 could be added later if wanted.
 
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If money is tight stick with the 7950 and swap the board+cpu out for the cheaper Gigabyte board and FX6300?
 
If you buy a 7950 and overclock it, it can be better than a 7970 and not far off dual 7850's. So it's not going to be enough a year and a half to two years down the line. A 7950 is cheaper than two 7850's at the moment as well anyway. ;)
 
ExtremeIC3cream said:
Also do all motherboards overclock?
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Pretty much, even this cheap Gigabyte will get the FX6300 up over 4Ghz.


YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) **FREE SHIPPING** £185.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £59.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter (TL-WN881ND) £16.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.95
Total : £616.80 (includes shipping : FREE).




Looks like a well spec'd PC for £616 to me.
 
stulid said:
Pretty much, even this cheap Gigabyte will get the FX6300 up over 4Ghz.


YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) **FREE SHIPPING** £185.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £59.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter (TL-WN881ND) £16.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.95
Total : £616.80 (includes shipping : FREE).




Looks like a well spec'd PC for £616 to me.
Click to expand...

The only thing I'd say about that mobo is that its VRM's aren't very reliable. I had the very similar DS3 (non-p) version of that board and I burnt out the VRM's after I overclocked by 955 be to 3.9Ghz. :D Silleh me.
 
Spudbrains said:
The only thing I'd say about that mobo is that its VRM's aren't very reliable. I had the very similar DS3 (non-p) version of that board and I burnt out the VRM's after I overclocked by 955 be to 3.9Ghz. :D Silleh me.
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The two boards are not related;)

Notice the VRM heatsinks:)
 
If you get an 8320, you won't be able to overclock it on a cheap board. The 6300 puts less demand on the board and so can sometimes get a bit higher.

I'd recommend an 8320 over a 6300. If going Crossfire, I'd definitely want an overclocked 8320 - at about 4.5GHz.
 
ExtremeIC3cream said:
Also what SSD would you recommend as I will be getting one in future along with more RAM and another Graphics Card
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Hi, for ease's sake I'd recommend getting the SSD first, sticking Windows on it, and then getting a storage hard drive later (Seagate 64MB cache ones are great unless you want to spend extra on a Western Digital Caviar Black) which you can stick right in with little hassle. Just format it as NTFS, label the drive (if you're asked) and you're rolling. Doing it the other way around won't be as easy. You'd have to transfer the OS to the SSD, parts of it can get left behind etc. It's just more hassle.

Maybe you're aware of this already and you are confident that you know how to avoid any issues. Just thought I'd give a shout about this.
 
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