Gaming rig?

aleste

Member
Really didn't want to go higher than 900 pounds, but I discovered what appears to be an absoulute monster of a CPU??? :taz: it's eight cores at 4.0GHz (each?) which sounds like it will obliterate ANY of the intel CPUs? I don't really know much but to me for the price it sounds like an f-ing bargin!?! I'm really hoping the following setup will be a beast of a gaming rig, I don't particularly want to go down the Overclocking route... But I have a friend who can help if I so choose... So basically at the best part of £950 pounds (from my one grand savings) I am really cautious of not buying something that's really gonna kick-A gaming wise... Soo... Any cheaper alterations would be superb without compromising on performance too much..?



Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-8350 Eight Core CPU (4.00GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)

Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 (DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/Sli)

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity 1

price: £927.00

I was thinking that setup would be all I need.. (By the way I will be gaming on things like borderlands 2, GTA IV, portal 2 etc... And also adobe sort of things... HD video editing... Photography... Music (less important)

However I thought I would look a little more and I found this... AMD seems to be alot cheaper... To save some hassle I only change the GPU to a 3GB AMD RADEON HD 7950 and drop about £60 in price...



Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-8350 Eight Core CPU (4.00GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)

Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 (DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/Sli)

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7950 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity 1

Price:£855.00

Now I know that the GTX 670 is of course going to beat the hd 7950 but as long as the computer is good enough to do what I mentioned above I don't really mind if I'm loosing say "5 frames per second on ultra settings" as long as the game runs smoothly and effectively... I'm happy.. Espesically if I'm saving a wad... Anyhow... Thanks for your time and patience and of course... Advise... :punk: Alex.
 

keynes

Multiverse Poster
Hi,
For either set up I'd suggest going for a better case, you are not likely to get very good cooling from the case you selected. The i5-3570 without at stock clock speed will perform better than the FX-8350. For either set up you may need to upgrade your cpu cooler if you wish to overclock your cpu. The spec below has a caviar black as the main drive, a better case and should perform better than either spec you posted.
Case
InWIN MANA-136 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £928.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/_k4RUtXffA/
 

Karnor00

Bright Spark
Don't make the mistake of thinking "wow 8 cores, that must be fantastic". It's rather more complicated than that for reasons such as AMD cores sharing some resources, Intel cores using hyperthreading and whether software is written to get maximum (or indeed any) advantage from multiple cores.

In simple terms, as Keynes mentioned, the upshot is that the Intel i5 processor actually outperforms the FX-8350. Now for most games you wouldn't actually notice much difference (nor would you if you dropped down to a Bulldozer FX-4170 to be honest), but that's simply because most games are GPU limited rather than CPU limited.
 

aleste

Member
Okay I'm happy to change to an Intel CPU of course! I'd always intended building an Intel setup so I'm happy with that. What about the graphics cards? I'm just a bit sceptical of PCs at the moment as I was given a load of games for christmas and well... I cant play them :( Thanks, Alex!
 
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