Evaris wrote on 2014-01-13 23:13
okay, for my two cents.
First off, this generation, with the budget you are looking at, I highly, highly recommend getting an AMD R9 290 or 290x with an aftermarket cooler. You really should ignore anyone saying to get a 780 or 780ti, as either they have A: not looked at any of the reviews as of late, or B: are a Nvidia fanboy. With their latest cards, AMD has given better raw performance, better drivers, and better multi-GPU performance. While the stock cooling is terribad, going with pretty much any aftermarket solution from the AIB partners is going to give you no different acoustic performance than you'd see on a Nvidia card. Which leaves them with... PhysiX, for all of the 12 games that use it. But for that, you can pick up a $50 secondary card and use it as a PhysX accelerator alongside the AMD card. Also as a heads up, AMD is better in the long term as well if you don't plan to upgrade, since AMD cards support DX 12 (although we won't see it for a couple of years.), whereas Nvidia GPUs presently only support up to DX 11.1 (not 11.2, again, as AMD supports.)
Now onto a CPU. Generally speaking an i5 is a safe bet, but you could go AMD FX-8300 or FX-9000 series here too if you want. You'll do better in multitasking and plausibly applications down the road, but older titles, emulators, and some games like Dwarf Fortress just love single threaded Intel candy. So it really depends on what kind of workload you're looking for.
Next up on the RAM, I'd suggest sticking to dual channel 2x4GB sticks of DDR3-1600 CAS 9. Personally I like Crucial, but Patriot and Gskill are good too. (as are other brands, but those three are my favorite.)
For a motherboard, I would suggest getting an AsRock board, as they tend to have the most value and reliability for your dollar as of late.
On a Case, I'd recommend NZXT or Corsair as per your preferences. I would not however spend more than $100, 125 at most, at a $1500 budget.
Power supply - stick to a Seasonic or Superflower based PSU design, at least 80+ bronze though with your budget you're probably looking at 80+ gold. Rosewill's Capstone M series is a good bet of value, and I'd shoot for a 650w or 750w model.
For cooling, I suggest a Coolermaster TPC 612 tower cooler and GELID GC Extreme thermal compound. GC Extreme is on the top end of cooling capability for TIM, and it lasts for years without needing to be reapplied. The 612 offers cooling on par with a lot of closed loop coolers for a good chunk less at $50 on average.
For storage, I'd suggest a 1-2TB 7200rpm HDD and a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD.
If you'd like a more specific suggestion with the budget, I'd be happy to toss one together for you.
Compass wrote on 2014-01-15 04:21
Quote from Evaris;1187593:
Now onto a CPU. Generally speaking an i5 is a safe bet, but you could go AMD FX-8300 or FX-9000 series here too if you want. You'll do better in multitasking and plausibly applications down the road, but older titles, emulators, and some games like Dwarf Fortress just love single threaded Intel candy. So it really depends on what kind of workload you're looking for.
But the main purpose is gaming. As much as I want AMD to catch up to i5 4670k in gaming performance there isn't, not in the $200 to $230 price range at least.
Quote from Evaris;1187593:
Power supply - stick to a Seasonic or Superflower based PSU design, at least 80+ bronze though with your budget you're probably looking at 80+ gold. Rosewill's Capstone M series is a good bet of value, and I'd shoot for a 650w or 750w model.
Here are some other suggestions
Antec - NeoEco series (I own the 620c PSU <3~), High Current Gamers M series, True Power Classic series,
Corsair - HX650, [S]AX 760, AX 860[/S](you'll never need this much on single GPU setups even with overclocking)
PcPower & Coling - The entire Silencer series, Silencer MK 3/III 400w to 600w
XFX PSUs
Evaris wrote on 2014-01-15 05:34
Quote from Compass;1188119:
But the main purpose is gaming. As much as I want AMD to catch up to i5 4670k in gaming performance there isn't, not in the $200 to $230 price range at least.
Here are some other suggestions
Antec - NeoEco series (I own the 620c PSU <3~), High Current Gamers M series, True Power Classic series,
Corsair - HX650, [S]AX 760, AX 860[/S](you'll never need this much on single GPU setups even with overclocking)
PcPower & Coling - The entire Silencer series, Silencer MK 3/III 400w to 600w
XFX PSUs
1. And in games like Crysis 2/3 , battlefield 3/4, and other titles with well written game engines for multithreading, AMD 83xx series (overclocked) and 9000 series CPUS's are slightly faster than an i5. Which is said price range. It really depends on the gaming load.
2. All PCPOwer&cooling and XFX PSU's are Seasonic platforms. As are the Antec High Current series and Corsair AX series below 1000 watts. Just figured I'd point that out.
Compass wrote on 2014-01-15 06:09
Quote from Evaris;1188133:
1. And in games like Crysis 2/3 , battlefield 3/4, and other titles with well written game engines for multithreading, AMD 83xx series (overclocked) and 9000 series CPUS's are slightly faster than an i5. Which is said price range. It really depends on the gaming load.
Are there any reviews/benchmarks on the FX 9370? Google can't come up with anything ;_;
The only thing I can find are users reviews on newegg, which I don't want to rely on.
It's one of the CPUs I'm thinking of upgrading from a FX 6300 in the summer, but eh, don't want to experiment with $200.
Quote from Evaris;1188133:
2. All PCPOwer&cooling and XFX PSU's are Seasonic platforms. As are the Antec High Current series and Corsair AX series below 1000 watts. Just figured I'd point that out.
yeah, all of the PSUs I listed are SeaSonic "rebrands" according to
this site
Evaris wrote on 2014-01-15 06:50
Quote from Compass;1188146:
Are there any reviews/benchmarks on the FX 9370? Google can't come up with anything ;_;
The only thing I can find are users reviews on newegg, which I don't want to rely on.
It's one of the CPUs I'm thinking of upgrading from a FX 6300 in the summer, but eh, don't want to experiment with $200.
yeah, all of the PSUs I listed are SeaSonic "rebrands" according to this site
1. Yeah finding it is hard. You can run through forums for an overclocked 83xx series performance in comparison, or take off about 5% of the performance of an FX-9570 review to get a fairly accurate idea. But for well multithreaded games, you're pulling ~10% ahead of an i5.
2. Just don't forget about superflower models like the Kingwin Lazer gold / platinum series, the Rosewill capstones, and the like.