AMD FX-4170 Gaming build, Nvida GPU, Watercooling

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 09:47

Forgot to mention, I have ordered some Red Cold Cathodes hoping they will arrive today (Due to arrive 21st but only got the dispatched email last night)

SubPrimePrePar · 21 Aug 2012 at 09:48

You're missing the bigger picture ghost; ignoring the fact it's an AMD based system, op paid over the odds for that spec. For 900 he could have had a 7970/670 and 3570k/amd alernative. Sunk too much money on a mobo for a dead platform, went for one of the least cost effective gpus on the market and overspecced areas that don't impact on performance.
Had he come along and suggested an i3/£200mobo/full tower case/1000w psu/550ti etc, as a gaming pc, he would have recieved a similar reception.
People could have responded in a more gentle manner but this type of reaction to stubborness is typical on the internet.

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 09:56

SubPrimePrePar said:
You're missing the bigger picture ghost; ignoring the fact it's an AMD based system, op paid over the odds for that spec. For 900 he could have had a 7970/670 and 3570k/amd alernative. Sunk too much money on a mobo for a dead platform, went for one of the least cost effective gpus on the market and overspecced areas that don't impact on performance.
Had he come along and suggested an i3/£200mobo/full tower case/1000w psu/550ti etc, as a gaming pc, he would have recieved a similar reception.
People could have responded in a more gentle manner but this type of reaction to stubborness is typical on the internet.

I am hoping the next generation of AM3+ Cpu's (Vishera) will make up for what Bulldozer lost. They will also be compatible with my mobo. If you read about my mobo you will realise it has many features. Many of which I use daily; Audio through although PC is off, Powered down USB Charging (Great for mobile phone charging at night when i leave my charger at work), Turn power LED off for nigh time downloading, accelerate USB 3+2 Speeds (not sure if this actually works as i think my USB Devices are limited)

The dual LAN thing is also cool but I use wifi...

Fatyl1ty mouse port, overrides polling rate of USB mice.

Many features you do not find on cheaper Mobo's that support this CPU..

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2012 at 10:46

ghost12 said:
Not once have I suggested you suggest an inferior cpu. The point I will make again is that he made his choice, albeit a poor one if compared to what could be purchased at the price points in the current market if go on performance alone and not choice. But the op stressed in several of his initial posts that he wanted amd, purchased amd and had chosen amd. To that point alone it is irrelative the performance of competing components and brands. We as a performance community should now help him get the best from his chosen system. saying it rubbish is pointless. he will be able to game with a decent/modest overclock of both the cpu/gpu/ram get a decent performance with help from this forum. The rest is irrelative to the op.

The point of giving advise is to stop someone from making a mistake. What the OP done is basically "I'm determine to burn my food during cooking...any suggestion to make the burnt food taste better?" People: "Em...wouldn't you be better off just to NOT burn your food in the first place? I can show you how to do it..it is not that hard at all." OP: "I don't care if my burnt food is not as good as properly cooked food as long as it is still edible...so you want to help me or not?" People: "......"

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 10:52

Marine-RX179 said:
The point of giving advise is to stop someone from making a mistake. What the OP done is basically "I'm determine to burn my food during cooking...any suggestion to make the burnt food taste better?" People: "Em...wouldn't you be better off just to NOT burn your food in the first place? I can show you how to do it..it is not that hard at all." OP: "I don't care if my burnt food is not as good as properly cooked food as long as it is still edible...so you want to help me or not?" People: "......"

The police could tell him to do a couple of flips for the spectators especially if he was bungie jumping for charity.

On a side note some food does taste a little better on the burnt side, Roast potatoes for one example, you could then say, well yes, i can make your burnt food better if you like it burnt, cook it in goose fat as it tastes better and will give the potatoes more of a glow....

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2012 at 11:26

OliverDavis said:
The police could tell him to do a couple of flips for the spectators especially if he was bungie jumping for charity.

On a side note some food does taste a little better on the burnt side, Roast potatoes for one example, you could then say, well yes, i can make your burnt food better if you like it burnt, cook it in goose fat as it tastes better and will give the potatoes more of a glow....

Burnt as in like a piece of toast burn to the point of black rather than brown...

ghost12 · 21 Aug 2012 at 14:36

OliverDavis said:
Ah thanks, I shall Benchmark with DiRT Showdown tonight for you as soon as I get in from work. I don't play the game much as I have bought my self a few other games recently.

Sorry for the inactivity, I have been on holiday in the last week.

As for cooling temps I also have the processor up to 4.5Ghz (couldn't justify the temperatures at 5Ghz) and on load (Prime 95) I only get 2'C higher then standard clock.

Here is a list of all the games I have and play on 1080p with maximum graphic settings (Ultra if supported) (Custom with everything up full) with 60+ frames per second;

Skyrim

DiRT Showdown

GTA IV + EFLC (Bought complete GTA Pack from Steam with every GTA PC game for £19.99 (includes EFLC, IV, SA, VC, III, II, I) even though GTA IV was £19.99 also?)

Off-Road Driving (Only game of its kind, google it!)

Batman Arkham Asylum (Girlfriend plays it and the PhysX Feature is awesome!)

Batman Arkham City (Again girlfriend mainly plays)

Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Little brother wants to be in the RAF so he plays it occasionally)

Minecraft (I know its not demanding, I just like building... )

Serious Sam HD (Was gifted it by a friend, played for 10 mins, don't really like it)

Team Fortress 2 (Mainly girlfriend plays it as to be honest I am terrible...)

Thanks for the support Ghost12, finally a reply that i was looking for and it only took 9 pages....

Not a problem oliver, If you intend to use this forum as a regular I expect you will get used to it regards your personal choice of cpu. You should be fine with most of those games, some im not so sure about personally though with the fx, Microsoft flight apparently works better with intel so would be interested to hear your results. My wife plays wow on the fx4170, another game not suited to fx from what I believe but I can Factually tell you its great in that game even in raid with the gtx560 1gb gpu. After you start using your machine for your games I will absolutely personally guarantee you, you will wonder what all this fuss is about. The problems are not as apparent in the setup you chose as some would have you believe. On one 60hz screen if you get 80fps instead of 100fps and above sixty minimum in most games or even playable minimus round 40-50 you would never tell the difference. Don't be perturbed by non constructive comments. post your results. There are people interested

ghost12 · 21 Aug 2012 at 14:41

SubPrimePrePar said:
You're missing the bigger picture ghost; ignoring the fact it's an AMD based system, op paid over the odds for that spec. For 900 he could have had a 7970/670 and 3570k/amd alernative. Sunk too much money on a mobo for a dead platform, went for one of the least cost effective gpus on the market and overspecced areas that don't impact on performance.
Had he come along and suggested an i3/£200mobo/full tower case/1000w psu/550ti etc, as a gaming pc, he would have recieved a similar reception.
People could have responded in a more gentle manner but this type of reaction to stubborness is typical on the internet.

I don't think im missing any picture. read my comments fully. I would never advise someone to spend that amount on that system. I agree with a lot of what has been posted about the choices. But by the same token, after he has made a choice then the more experienced members of this community should be helping him and encouraging him. I may be in the minority about how to treat people and respect their decisions but im quite happy to be stood alone

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 14:52

ghost12 said:
Not a problem oliver, If you intend to use this forum as a regular I expect you will get used to it regards your personal choice of cpu. You should be fine with most of those games, some im not so sure about personally though with the fx, Microsoft flight apparently works better with intel so would be interested to hear your results. My wife plays wow on the fx4170, another game not suited to fx from what I believe but I can Factually tell you its great in that game even in raid with the gtx560 1gb gpu. After you start using your machine for your games I will absolutely personally guarantee you, you will wonder what all this fuss is about. The problems are not as apparent in the setup you chose as some would have you believe. On one 60hz screen if you get 80fps instead of 100fps and above sixty minimum in most games or even playable minimus round 40-50 you would never tell the difference. Don't be perturbed by non constructive comments. post your results. There are people interested

Flight Simulator X seems to run smooth at full, haven't actually checked FPS though. I have the GTX 560ti (Higher Clocked as its the Asus one = 900mhz) and its also the 2gb Edition.

Should be able to get you results in a few hours. Going to Redo 3DMark11 as the Ram was running at 1333mhz not 1600mhz, AMD Cool and quiet was left on. Graphics card was running on the Drivers from the CD, not from nVidia. Now its all up to date i will let you know

Sasahara · 21 Aug 2012 at 15:10

Ok, the case is nice at least.

james.miller · 21 Aug 2012 at 18:32

ghost12 said:
I may be in the minority about how to treat people and respect their decisions but im quite happy to be stood alone

interesting. I would ask you why you think other people cant 'respect' that somebody might make a poor decision that isnt based on logic or facts, without having to agree with it, but I believe this thread has already been pulled far enough off topic. Suffice to say your view of other people in this thread is somewhat skewed, and i can't help but think it has something to do with your owning a bulldozer. Perhaps another thread should be started to discussion these issues more fully? After all, the op isnt listen to anybody trying to make him see sense (just about anybody but yourself) so it seems futile to continue in this one.

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 20:16

james.miller said:
interesting. I would ask you why you think other people cant 'respect' that somebody might make a poor decision that isnt based on logic or facts, without having to agree with it, but I believe this thread has already been pulled far enough off topic. Suffice to say your view of other people in this thread is somewhat skewed, and i can't help but think it has something to do with your owning a bulldozer. Perhaps another thread should be started to discussion these issues more fully? After all, the op isnt listen to anybody trying to make him see sense (just about anybody but yourself) so it seems futile to continue in this one.

I am actually reading every comment, just don't see the point in having more disputes.

I am now focused on fine tuning my build and just seeing what I can get out of it.

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 20:27

ghost12 said:
Some very decent rig parts there oliver. I would be interested to know how you get on with temps with the h80. I bought an antec 620 and for the fx4170 it stays well within temps up to around 4.5 I find under prime 95 stress. The antec was no good whatsoever with the fx8120 though when overclocked as the 8120 is a different beast to the fx4170 in real use. For my fx8120 I now use a corsair h100 and under full load its more than enough even at my oc of 4.6. I have four x 120mm fans in push pull config though and a 220mm side panel fan on my case so have no heat issues whatsoever.

Everything up to Max!

55fps average and 44fps probably when the fireworks went off at the end I would say is good

First time I have turned Global Illumination on, it did not pre-select it when selecting ultra so I must have missed it before.

Sorry it took so long, Steam wouldn't sign in for over an hour. Even after restarts. Done a windows update and it worked oddly.

OliverDavis · 21 Aug 2012 at 20:31

No clue as to why the second picture is so big, imgur messed up my upload and saved pic 1 twice, just one with pic 2 thumbnail, so i had to reupload pic 2 but its not in the album as i posted as guest.

Proof: http://imgur.com/a/QpwPn

Look at thumbnails on the right.

scrlk · 21 Aug 2012 at 20:45

Now try and play FSX at 30 fps.

It's a 6 year old game, should run fine.

Mason- · 22 Aug 2012 at 00:56

Wow I jut read this thread all the way through and 55fps average? Wow.

I don't understand how stupid you can be.

Oh well I guess somehow I can link this to natural selection.

wannabedamned · 22 Aug 2012 at 09:39

Woh...I cant believe I missed this thread.

Next time OP, Send me the money. I'll build you a system that performs similar to yours and send it to you. No problems!

I'll use the other £500 to build myself a nice I5 system

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 22 Aug 2012 at 09:43

I hope the OP makes sure they get their £10 cashback on the CPU. An FX4170 is not far off a Core i3 2100 I use ATM IIRC,although with some overclocking should be a bit better but with higher power consumption,but they are in a similar price-range,although OcUK is quite overpriced for many AMD CPUs it seems.

The motherboard is quite expensive,although the OP wants some of the features it seems. One of the 990X motherboards for around £90 to £100 probably would have been more appropriate IMHO,and that would have been £60 less. PSU seems a bit OTT even for dual graphics cards IMHO,but I suppose if the OP is going for a PD or SR CPU in the future,maybe these will be good enough to drive two cards well?? Don't know TBH.

However,the choice of graphics card,is definitely not what I would have gone for.

There are plenty of better alternatives for around £215. If I were the OP I would DSR it pronto,as you can get an HD7950 3GB for only a few quid more. These will overclock to HD7970 or GTX670 level performance. Even the GTX660TI which I am not a fan off,would be better and HD7870 cards can be had for less than a GTX560TI 2GB. You can even get GTX570 1.28GB cards for less.

Martini1991 · 22 Aug 2012 at 09:49

My min FPS on Dirt 3 with a GTX680 is 115, you can clock a 660Ti at 230 quid to about similar speeds, or a 7950 or whatnot, and that would fit in budget.
Regardless or not if you can't tell the difference (Except I probably could, 120HZ monitor) your system will suffer before one at the same price that has different parts, you will need to upgrade first.

EDIT : Also, a quad core 4.2GHZ being not far off a dual core 3.1GHZ with HT doesn't that only state how bad the FX's are?
Although I'm sure clocked to 4.8GHZ, the OP has no bottleneck on his 560Ti, but that GPU should never have been bought.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 22 Aug 2012 at 09:53

DiRT:Showdown runs much better on AMD cards than DiRT 3,so much so,that the reviewer on Hexus said that Nvidia tries to discourage people using it in reviews!!