Motherboard Support

will you be overclocking?

At his budget, i would highly recommend it. Also if you can stretch another 50 quid or so, it will go a really long way. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a quad core for gaming if that is the aim.

What will be the use of the rig?
What parts do you currently have?
 
Last edited:
I have everything but the CPU and motherboard. I have 2x4gb ddr3 for the motherboard.£150 is max i can spend. I don't mind b grade/second hand.
 
I wouldnt spec a dual core for gaming these days, no matter the budget.

Asus evo + 8320 will be around the 200 mark, may be a little over or a little under depending on when you get it.

If you plan on splashing out for a i5 or i7 haswell in the future, the i3 can last till then but you will be quite limited in performance on many cpu hungry games.

What is the PC for?
 
Mainly for gaming.
The thing is, any upgrade, no matter what, would be a HUUUGE boost and i mean HUUUUUGE. I am currently running Intel Pentium d 840. yeah p4. With 4gb ram, but motherboard is too crap so it can only run 3.25 gb. And i got a hd 4670.
With that spec, i currently run Borderlands 2 On highest settings possible but resolution @ 1280x1024. I also play Fifa 14 demo with it on highest settings. and to me the grapgics are quite good o_o.
So imagine with any sort of boost how it will be.
 
Your ram might be knocked down to 3.25 because your OS is 32bit

I was going to post a Ivy bridge i5 k build but it came to 250 and since your original budget was 150, it would be pretty ridiculous if we kept going down that route.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
Total : £209.98 (includes shipping : FREE).


Nope, i have x64. I posted a thread aroudn a week ago, someone found out for me from the manual that it can only take 3.25gb ram.

At the spec you posted, is that the best i can get?
The reason i went with the intel build was so i can upgrade the cpu in 6months'ish. The mobo was a z77 so it's kind of future proof(ish).
 
An overclocked 8320 and an overclocked 3570k perform on par depending on the game. Some games will show better performance on the 8320. I think it is safe to say that more titles are coming out to accommodate more cores but in terms of performance in gaming, i rate them about the same, perhaps a few fps' more on the i5 but that doesnt matter on your budget if you look at it like this:


You can spend 209 pounds now and get the 8320 and motherboard and not have to touch them for a few years. Maybe steamroller platform will come out on AM3+ but no one knows at the moment so i wouldn't count your chickens. 6 months down the line buy a 7950 or the (equivalent new card that is out next month) and BOOM you got a nice gaming rig there that will max stuff on 1080p

OR

You can spend 216 pounds on a rig which will cripple high CPU games until you can dish out another 185 quid for the i5 (which will prob cost more in 6 months). So 6 months down the line, you have spent just over 400 pounds on a cpu and motherboard when you could have got almost the same performance in CPU and a decent graphics card to go with it.


Go with the AM3+ platform for this budget, what you save here will give you far more FPS when you spend it on a graphics card. If you really want the i5, forget getting a brand new i3 now and wait a while before you upgrade again.

Not fanboying here, if you can stick to your current set up until you can buy the i5 straight off, do it. Just think its counter productive spending for an i3 which will be scrapped 6 months down the line, when you need a graphics card aswell.
 
Back
Top Bottom