GPU/CPU - Bang for your buck?

[demoneye]

I've been out of the gaming scene for about 10 years and I'm looking to spec a new PC...

Simple question - should I spend my money going for an i5 or i7 over and i3 or invest the £100 - £200 in a better GPU?

Off topic, sorry, but while I'm asking...

I'm aiming to load it with 32Gb of memory (3D rendering) - will most motherboards take that now or will it be an exception?

 

[razorpakk]

Knowing roughly the budget is very important, as well as what's the main purpose (since I would be inclined to tell you to wait for Skylake, but maybe you actually need six or eight cores). 32 Gb are not a problem.

 

[arc@css]

The extra performance of an i7 should help you when it comes to rendering, though I guess it depends on the amount / intensity of the tasks.

So, something like an i7 4790K alongside either a R9 390 / GTX970 should do you nicely.

As for memory, I think most will handle 32gb these days (I've just randomly selected two or three boards, and all of them were 32gb friendly).

 

[Boomstick777]

Z97 mobo from £50+

Intel Core i5 4460 from £140+

R9 380 from £145+

 

[demoneye]

I'm putting a maximum spend limit of about £800 for the entire PC.

Main uses will be gaming/render engine (3DSMax Mental Ray) - both I assume will love a high speed GPU and my intended 32Gb of memory.

Last decent GPU I bought was a GT8080 - so a little while ago.

Are there any issues having under powered CPUs with hign end GPU's? That was an issues when I last built a machine - will an i3 happily drive a GTX960 for example?

Would prefer to stick to Nvidia, as that's what I used man and boy...

 

[bloodkil]

The extra performance of an i7 should help you when it comes to rendering, though I guess it depends on the amount / intensity of the tasks.

So, something like an i7 4790K alongside either a R9 390 / GTX970 should do you nicely.

As for memory, I think most will handle 32gb these days (I've just randomly selected two or three boards, and all of them were 32gb friendly).

^ This

Can't go wrong with an i5 4690k to give you more to spend on a GPU.

 

[demoneye]

Double post from another thread - sorry...

Asus GeForce GTX 960 DirectCU2 OC Strix 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £79.99
2x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD316G1600HC11DC01) £147.98
ASRock H97M Pro4 Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £68.99
SuperFlower FX 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £49.99
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £44.99
Cougar MX200 Midi-Tower Gaming Case - Black £23.99
LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA15B £13.99

Total = £704.90

Any comments?

 

[r7slayer]

Double post from another thread - sorry...

Asus GeForce GTX 960 DirectCU2 OC Strix 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £79.99
2x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD316G1600HC11DC01) £147.98
ASRock H97M Pro4 Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £68.99
SuperFlower FX 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £49.99
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £44.99
Cougar MX200 Midi-Tower Gaming Case - Black £23.99
LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA15B £13.99

Total = £704.90

Any comments?

you can get windows 8.1 a lot cheaper from other sites. I know one but can't like competitor links but its like 20 quid from a certain cd key selling website.
That's savings right there.

I think that HDD will be a massive bottleneck as your only HDD as it only has a single platter for a starter and its only 5400RPM so not as fast as your traditional 7200RPM drives. So for some one who will be doing rendering and playing games this may be a problem for you!
And that 960 GPU isn't that great for that price you could get a 380 for same price when they are back in stock or 10 quid more for all others that are in stock. a 380 will smash a 960! And has 4gb of available memory not 2gb