Quick HELP - PC order

[WU-TANG]GZA · 5 Oct 2010 at 19:56

hi Guys,

Sorry for title but a friend of mine has just ordered a system and I think he could have chosen something better: incl VAt and delivery he spent £750 (with OcUK)

He went for Titan Xenomorph and changed HDD to 1TB Barracuda (not Sam F3 eeek) and also upgraded to MSI 470 1280mb

I think he should have gone for the Tian Cyborg AMD 955 which comes with the 470 and he can change the HDD on that and end up cheaper than the Xenomorph.

He really wants to buy prebuilt so please I know it would be cheaper still to spec his own but....

Could you guys say which would be better?

It's for gaming at 1920 x 1080 res and general PC usage: browsing, MS office etc

Thanks guys,

QUICK QUICK I need to speak to him asap

thingemajib · 5 Oct 2010 at 20:04

If he were building his own, then i would have said go the AMD route. But seeing as its mostly gaming, a 4.2GHz overclock, even on an i3 is not to be sniffed at. I think i can safely say it will be the better system on all but the most quad core optimized games. Even then it would still be pretty close

*awaits for Big.Wayne and his comparison charts to hopefully back me up*

95thrifles · 5 Oct 2010 at 20:04

The difference in HDD doesnt matter, the Seagates are very good too, and as to which system then yeah its basically whether he thinks the [email protected] is going to be better for his uses than the [email protected], this shows a comparison of them at stock, but dont forget the i3 is clocked higher, Id suggest for most things the 955 would be better but for gaming the i3 maybe (as most games currently still arent optimised for more than 2 cores) however any differences between the 2 would be quite small and not worth worrying over either way

[WU-TANG]GZA · 5 Oct 2010 at 20:09

95thrifles said:
The difference in HDD doesnt matter, the Seagates are very good too, and as to which system then yeah its basically whether he thinks the [email protected] is going to be better for his uses than the [email protected], this shows a comparison of them at stock, but dont forget the i3 is clocked higher, Id suggest for most things the 955 would be better but for gaming the i3 maybe (as most games currently still arent optimised for more than 2 cores) however any differences between the 2 would be quite small and not worth worrying over either way

Thanks for the replies - but for less money? The AMD option would come up like a little bit cheaper and the benchmarks I've looked at are similar to those results but dont forget those are at medium settings at a lower resolution, would the gap not increase when you up the spec? I just would have thought the AMD would be a better option over the i3. I know very few games take advantage of quad cores but his gfx will last for a fair while I shud think by that time the games will all use quad cores better I would imagine....

Thanks again for such quick replies

95thrifles · 5 Oct 2010 at 20:42

The gfx cards are the same no? Hes upgrading one to the 470 so both the same
at higher res the gap is less as more load is put on the gpu than the cpu, they use low settings so as to highlight any differences in the cpu's

kapows · 5 Oct 2010 at 20:43

what you should be looking at OP is....

does he care about the money?

i know i do, i know you do, but maybe he doesnt?

if hes happy to spend that kind of cash, i say leave him to it. people like that arent too bothered about opinions.

however if he thinks you have a good word about you and you could save him cash, then advise him accordingly.

both are good systems you mention and one comes out cheaper-ish so upto whether he is bothered by the cash.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 5 Oct 2010 at 21:35

I just wanted to be sure about the difference between the two CPUs essentially.

I would have thought the AMD would have been a clear winner but from the people that have responded - it doesn't seem to be the case.

Therefore if the difference is so minor - I will leave him to it. I had just helped him so much prior to him ordering that I wanted to be sure he had made the right choice.

He's gonna have a great system, just wanted to help my mate if I can.

Thanks all for your input.

kapows · 5 Oct 2010 at 21:41

most people are guaging info from many different perspectives - future upgrades and overclock being the most common

so again, it depends on how much he'll save, if he wants the cash saved and the kind of gamer he is.

no worries man pleasure to advise