What do you guys think of this build?

[Soulsbane96]

Been saving up some money and I wanna build a new gaming PC, but seeing as I've never done this on my own (the picking parts bit), I thought I'd as you guys what you thought of it.

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-core

with a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO as a CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD3 ATX AM3+

RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 G.Skill Ripjaws memory

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s

GPU: ASUS Radeon HD7950-DC2-3GD5-V2 3GB GDDR5

PSU: Corsair Enthusiast TX650M 650W ATX21V Semi-Modular High Performance Power Supply

Case: Cooler Master HAF 922 ATX Mid Tower

 

PCPartPicker Build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Ohry

Same thing on NewEgg: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=28230067

 

Any tips or suggestions are welcome

[Werne]

Will you be overclocking that thing? If not, you can save some money one a few things.

 

As for the components, 8GB RAM is good, card is pretty good, case looks ugly to me but whatever, CPU is good, cooler is good. All in all, that's a pretty good gaming PC.

 

Only thing I'd suggest is swapping the 650W PSU for a 550W that should handle those components easily, unless you intend to go SLI/Crossfire in the future in which case you should keep the 650W one.

[kalikka]

As an optional CPU/mobo combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157378&Tpk=h87%20fatal1ty

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116906

And you got yourself a i7-4770 build that doesn't have a iGPU.

[nukafish]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1T3F3

8320 is the same exact chip as the 8350, just not clocked as high out of the box, you can easily OC the different or even go higher.
7970, it's stronger than the Asus 7950 and cheaper, though not as good looking.
Better PSU, 850 for crossfire if planned in the future, arguably you could go with 750 but this unit was decently priced compared to the Corsair CX750 and others, cheaper RAM, 1333 speed RAM will not remotely effect your gaming performance, if you want it to be higher you can easily OC the RAM yourself, it's also cheaper, Seagate 2TB > WD Black, WD Black is fading out now that you can buy a cheap small SSD and just run important programs off that with much higher speed, the Barracuda models from Seagate are exceptional anyway and much more affordable, the board you chose is great, some people prefer the UD5 due to better VRM but if you're not doing a big OC it wouldn't matter too much, the cooler you also chose is a very good cooler for the price so no need to change there, the case is preference so I don't need to bother changing that.

[nukafish]

Will you be overclocking that thing? If not, you can save some money one a few things.

 

As for the components, 8GB RAM is good, card is pretty good, case looks ugly to me but whatever, CPU is good, cooler is good. All in all, that's a pretty good gaming PC.

 

Only thing I'd suggest is swapping the 650W PSU for a 550W that should handle those components easily, unless you intend to go SLI/Crossfire in the future in which case you should keep the 650W one.

Getting that Xeon would offer no performance increase of a 4670(non-k), i7 vs i5 in gaming it changes nothing, and though ASRock has gotten better with their motherboards on the x87 line there are better choices from Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus.

Edited October 25, 2013 by nukafish

[phoneyLogic]

For overclocking I'd pick another cpu, like a 4th generation core i5-4670k or i7-4770k and a suiting LGA 1150 motherboard with a Z87 chipset.

 

The AMD chip currently is slower in games and has a higher power consumption.

Edited October 27, 2013 by tortured Tomato

[FMod]

For overclocking I'd pick another cpu, like a 4th generation core i5-4670k or i7-4770k and a suiting LGA 1150 motherboard with a Z87 chipset.

And use what for a video card - a 7750?

 

There's a huge price difference between FX-8350 and 4770K. One is a $200 part or $160 if you get a 8320, the other $340, plus a $30 premium on motherboards, coming out to ~$200 difference total.

 

Additionally, 4770K doesn't even overclock. It says unlocked on the box, but unless you're going to scalp the lid off, apply liquid metal, and put a waterblock over it - or accept freezes and throttles time to time as a fact of life - you aren't getting it anywhere noticeable.

 

At this specific point in time, at these specific prices, there is simply little reason to use Haswell CPU except in some cost-insensitive mATX build that can't use LGA2011. Even for one geared toward obsolete-engine games like Skyrim you'd want a 3570K, not a Haswell, due to much better overclocking.

[phoneyLogic]

 

For overclocking I'd pick another cpu, like a 4th generation core i5-4670k or i7-4770k and a suiting LGA 1150 motherboard with a Z87 chipset.

And use what for a video card - a 7750?

 

There's a huge price difference between FX-8350 and 4770K. One is a $200 part or $160 if you get a 8320, the other $340, plus a $30 premium on motherboards, coming out to ~$200 difference total.

 

Additionally, 4770K doesn't even overclock. It says unlocked on the box, but unless you're going to scalp the lid off, apply liquid metal, and put a waterblock over it - or accept freezes and throttles time to time as a fact of life - you aren't getting it anywhere noticeable.

 

At this specific point in time, at these specific prices, there is simply little reason to use Haswell CPU except in some cost-insensitive mATX build that can't use LGA2011. Even for one geared toward obsolete-engine games like Skyrim you'd want a 3570K, not a Haswell, due to much better overclocking.

 

 

E.g. the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer is quite good and rather reasonable. There also are loads of other nice boards for a good price, e.g. here.

 

As graphic card you may consider a Radeon 280x atm. Maybe you want to wait a bit until the prices may fall a bit more.

 

Yes, there might be a price difference between both chips, but the intel chips will consume way less power. The current AMD chip architecture is lacking floating point units, which are very important for gaming, so they really can't compete with the intel chips in regards of gaming performance.

 

 

Edit

If you don't mind the built in graphics chip, the older LGA1155 socket chip (i5-3570K) indeed is quite interesting. It only has a weaker gfx chip (HD Graphics 4000 instead of HD Graphics 4600), but in return a lower TDP. Well the built in gfx chip wont slow your system down while 3D gaming, since as soon you play a game, the dedicated gfx card is being used instead. The build in gfx chip only is used during low performance applications, while the dedicated gfx card is in idle mode.

 

I dont know much about the clocking ability of the 4770K though. Read something about but I have no own experience.

Edited October 27, 2013 by tortured Tomato

[FMod]

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-core

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD3 ATX AM3+

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s

GPU: ASUS Radeon HD7950-DC2-3GD5-V2 3GB GDDR5

PSU: Corsair Enthusiast TX650M 650W ATX21V Semi-Modular High Performance Power Supply

Any tips or suggestions are welcome

CPU: As said, 8320: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113285

 

Mobo: Plenty of people had bad experience with Gigabyte mobos. Mostly with Intel boards, but still. Try to shop around for other brands.

I think Extreme3 will do: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157281

 

HDD: WD Black isn't bad, it just isn't nearly worth the asking price. Get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149407

That's 45% less. Trust me, the tiny performance edge isn't worth $65, not in the day and age when both are eclipsed by SSD.

 

PSU: Don't listen to the calls for 850W, this PSU is fine, and I don't see Crossfire on this rig, ever. With R9 290X, any point to 7950 Crossfire is rendered moot.

 

 

These changes will save you, what is it, $40+$15+$65=$120, for probably ~2% performance reduction, a good deal.

You can just take the money and leave it at that, the build is fine, it should pull each and every XBone/PS4 game.

 

Alternately $120 can be spent on a SSD.

I think this is the best on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227915

Elsewhere, I'd go for this: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-q-series-128gb-internal-serial-ata-iii-solid-state-drive-for-laptops/8684057.p?id=1218887715286&skuId=8684057

They botched the name and it's not nearly the fastest, but it's not a Sandforce and $85 is just too good to pass up for a decent reliable SSD.

 

This leaves another $35. IDK. In your shoes I'd wait around for new GPU to hit the market and see what changes. 7950 is still modern, but no longer current.

[phoneyLogic]

Excuse me, but I wouldn't recomment to favour a Radeon R9 290x over a R9 280x atm. They are quite close together and you'll get an 280x for half the price.

 

A also clearly can't recommend an AMD chip for gaming pcs atm. With the Bulldozer architecture AMD is in the eye of the shitstorm for a reason, and this time, they kind of deserved it. It's that logical prozessor thing, sharing certain units, like the floating point units, which makes processing those slower.

Edited October 27, 2013 by tortured Tomato