Some advice on which way to go please

Spangles

Spangles

Spangles

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Polegate, East Sussex
Hello gents,

So, it is nearly upgrade time, should be a week and I will have the funds.

I see 2 options up ahead, which way to go?

I can either pop over to Intel and get myself a 4670K and an MSI Z87-G45 motherboard, or I can remain with AMD and go from my A10-5800K up to the 8350 and a motherboard of your choosing!

I will be getting a new PSU as well as my 450W is not powerful enough to team either with my R9 280X that I just purchased.

What way do you think I should go? I don't do any editing as such and mainly use it for gaming. I will be playing War Thunder (which runs fine anyway now so nothing to worry about there) but also looking at getting into Rome 2, if it gets fixed, ever! Skyrim with tons of mods too.

I know the i5 will perform better in single core performance, but does Rome utilise, or will it utilise, the cores on the 8350? I have had a look around on here and google, but google throws up so many posts from what seem uneducated fools, that I thought I best ask here.

I will be looking at a 650W PSU, probably the Superflower Golden Green 650W that is currently on at £73.99 but if there is a better choice please let me know, would like modular as my cable management is infantile at best.

To get the i5, PSU & Mobo, I am looking at £390.97, so would it be worth dropping to AMD and save some cash? What mobo would you recommend for the AMD?
 
something like this mate if you decide amd, the 8320 is the same chip as the 8350 and will easily overclock to 4.0ghz with an aftermarket cooler on
the superflower is not modular

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £107.99
1 x Seasonic G series 650w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £71.99
Total : £399.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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Thing is, if I am going to be spending that sort of money I may as wrll go with the Haswell setup......gaaaaaah! Darn you decisions!
 
AMD:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £107.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £73.99
Total : £271.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Stick with Intel, unless the money you'd save is hard needed elsewhere. 4670k:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £107.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £73.99
Total : £361.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Do you have a CPU cooler? The OEM chip doesn't come with one.

For the £30 over budget (ignore the shipping) you could get an i7, which would allay your fears over the i5's fewer cores.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £249.95
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £107.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £73.99
Total : £441.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).



If you won't be doing any overclocking at all ever you could get an i7/mobo/PSU for under £400.
 
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Well I want to spend around £350 so the last reccomendation is a bit too high really. What do you think of this? Not bad for the price and the motherboard is generally reviewed well from what I can find online.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £143.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £74.99
Total : £333.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Will the PSU be enough though to power the above, along with the MSI R9 280X, 2 HDD's, 1 SSD & 1 DVD-RW

I can imagine myself getting annoyed with the 8320, knowing that I could have had the 8350 which has a higher speed, I don't want that niggling feeling after I have purchased. I am more AMD swayed than Intel mainly due to a slight love of AMD from over the years.
 
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If I go for the Intel, I will be getting the MSI motherboard just to match up with the MSI card I just got. So that adds about £30 to the price which would be fine as it is more my choice for a touch of vanity inside the case more than anything else. Will that 550W PSU be capable of powering everything I have though? I know people can easily go overkill with PSU's, just my 280X requires 2 PCI-E power connectors, so it should be happy days?

Also, with the MSI boards, would there be much difference between the G43 & G45?

Thanks for all the help so far chaps :)
 
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Superflower 550w will be perfect for a single card, most cards need 2 PCI-E connectors so don't worry about that!

With the budget you have, it would be silly to not grab a Intel setup, you won't regret it!
 
I find myself swaying slightly more back to that now as I want the best performance I can get from my budget. It seems the G43 board is for a single card, the G45 can have more, that seems to be the main difference, so if I go for the G43, that only adds £10 to the price of your intel recommendation.

Probably go with this then

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
Total : £357.96 (includes shipping : FREE).




I know the PSU is not modular but maybe with some patience I can still make things look tidy :)
 
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Hey chaps, just another query regarding all of this stuff. I was thinking, would it be worth me picking up a Asus Xonar sound card to pop into the build as well? I would only need one of the lower ones as I have the Edifier speakers that we all love on this forum, so it is a 2.0 set up. Will the onboard sound be just as good? The Xonar DG 5.1 with headphone amp is only £20 so was thinking it could be worth it for that extra clarity and crispness?

Would it be worth the difference in saving up a bit more for the sound card and spending closer to £50? I do listien to a lot of music through my PC so it could be a 'sound' investment. LOL! ROFL! ..... niiiiice.
 
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