What cpu?

[ash59uk]

Hi
I am wanting to build a new pc that is a good all rounder for around £450. Its primary job is to edit and render video and photoshop. Though not an avid gamer I would like it to be able to play games that are currently on the market smoothly even if it means at a lower quality.

I am considering one of three AMD processors.

AMD Llano A8 3870K 3.0GHz

AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4100 Black Edition 3.60Ghz

AMD Bulldozer FX-6 Six Core 6100 Black Edition 3.30GHz

I am leaning towards the Llano.

AMD Llano A8 3870K 3.0GHz Quad Core Accelerated Processing Unit £103.02
Asus F1A75 Socket FM1 Motherboard £71.57
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB kit (4GBx2) DDR3 £38.17
XFX Radeon HD 6670 Graphics Card 1024MB £48.97
Seagate Barracuda 500GB Hard Drive sata 3 £58.00
Atrix HE 650W Black 80+ High Efficiency PSU £27.22
Pioneer 24x Int DVDRW Retail SATA £17.22
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1) £68.99
£433.15

The spec for the bulldozer option is the same as above but with a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 board.

I could save money on the motherboards by going for a micro atx instead of an atx but I already have a good mid tower I am going to use, I also think the ATX has more upgrade options being larger.

Is the Llano the best option for my needs? it can be o/c to 3.5Gb quite easily or so I have read.

What kind of extra performance will I get adding the extra graphics card and linking with the onboard graphics via ati crossfire?

Thank you in advance.

Ash

 

[RJC]

Hello and welcome to the forum

I would personally look at getting a better quality PSU like the Corsair PSU below:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-CS

 

[The Halk]

I agree with RJC, to help you understand the Corsair may be rated for lower watts, however it's likely to be able to supply the same or more watts than the 650W you're looking at on the 12V rail, which is where modern PCs demand the majority of their power from. Additionally it'll last longer and be more quiet. There's not much difference in price.

I'm really not sure on Llano so I don't want to give you bad advice.

 

[ash59uk]

I agree with RJC, to help you understand the Corsair may be rated for lower watts, however it's likely to be able to supply the same or more watts than the 650W you're looking at on the 12V rail, which is where modern PCs demand the majority of their power from. Additionally it'll last longer and be more quiet. There's not much difference in price.

I'm really not sure on Llano so I don't want to give you bad advice.

Hello and welcome to the forum

I would personally look at getting a better quality PSU like the Corsair PSU below:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-CS

Sadly with delivery it works out nearly £20 more expensive and my dealer only sells the cx 600 and above. Are there any other good brands available?

I had also considered trying intel for a change but you can only get a low end processor compared to mid to high end amd for the same money.

 

[jkkc313]

have you considered going down the intel route?

 

[The Halk]

There are, but there's a great deal of PSUs available so it's difficult to list everything in case your dealer has them...

Could you perhaps list what your dealer has at say 400-550W at the £35 to £45 price point and I think that might be easier to pick a winner from?

As far as the Intel route goes... Intels have broadly the same processing power as AMD. However for Llano AMD have more in the graphics than Intel do (that might even out with Ivy Bridge). AMDs also have more cores than Intels and that can be a problem, especially for games. While there's the same power in the engine, AMDs sometimes struggle to get it applied to games. For rendering and the like, if your software is multithreaded then the AMD may be a better option than the Intel. You'd need to go look at specific benchmarks for that. Normally I'd recommend against AMD but you did say rendering so I held my tongue on that. Additionally I just don't know about Crossfire with Llano and a discrete card...

If it helps you compare, here is a suggested Intel spec. The AMD spec would seem to be more powerful, at least on the surface.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £97.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x Asus HD 6670 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £53.99
1 x Gigabyte H61M-S2PV Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £46.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £34.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £435.50 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 

[ash59uk]

Thank you all for your comments but the project is postponed. I have just read about the upcoming release of AMD's trinity apu later this year.
It would appear that they are far superior to the current LLano apu's, hopefully they will be priced similarly to the current Llanos.