TR Forums

Hey guys, someone's asking me for help on buying a few new parts. I was originally thinking about recommending a Core i5 (Option 1 below) but I realized a roughly equivalently priced AMD A8-7600 setup with an SSD thrown in could be a compelling option. Check out the specs:

Option 1:

CPU: Core i5-4460
Mobo: Asrock H97M
RAM : 2 x Kingston 4GB DDR3-1600
SSD : None

Option 2:

CPU : AMD A8-7600
Mobo: Asrock A88X-Extreme4+
RAM : 2 x Kingston 4GB DDR3-1866
SSD : Kingston 300V 240GB

Obviously, the Intel CPU cores are gonna blow the Steamroller cores out of the water but unless there will be lots of CPU heavy lifting to be done often, I doubt one would notice the difference between an i5 and an A8 in normal tasks such as web surfing and movies. Plus, an SSD will really make a difference. She's not really a gamer but she said she may wanna plug in a discrete video card someday if a game she wants to to play comes along. I'm inclined to go with Intel but AMD might have something here. And of course, the Intel has a better upgrade path.

SSD all the way. Best upgrade you can have.

That Kingston V300 is lousy. They changed the flash type after the reviews, and now it's a dog. I'd recommend the i5 to your friend, and if he can't afford an SSD as well, tell him to wait a couple weeks.

Adding an SSD later is way cheaper than fixing the mistake of building with AMD. Go Intel now, get the SSD as soon as reasonably possible after.

Go with the Intel processor. She can add an SSD easily at any time while deciding she wants to upgrade the CPU will often require a mobo change too.

Since an Intel i3 is realistically the competition for an AMD A8, I think you should go i3 and an SSD. My favorite low-budget SSD is the OCZ Arc 100 - 240GB that can be found pretty regularly on newegg for $80 after MIR.

Only reason to get an A8 is if you need to game in a case that is so tiny (mITX) there's physically no way to add in a dedicated GPU.

Otherwise get an Intel, and get an SSD.

I'd also take an i3 and an SSD over an i5 without an SSD, don't even need to hesitate because it's such a no-brainer decision.

Seems everyone is voting in favor of Intel. I am inclined to go Intel too, as I've said earlier, but I'm considering the AMD option for two reasons: (1) I just wanna give AMD a chance here, and (2) she said she's on a tight budget, so future upgrades may not even materialize.

Still, it's better to be prepared for those upgrades, in case she decides to go ahead with them. A graphics card and an SSD sure will kick that system into high gear.

DPete27 wrote:

Since an Intel i3 is realistically the competition for an AMD A8, I think you should go i3 and an SSD. My favorite low-budget SSD is the OCZ Arc 100 - 240GB that can be found pretty regularly on newegg for $80 after MIR.

That's a really great idea. The i3 should be faster all around than the A8, and still leave budget room for a $50-120GB or $90-240GB SSD.

Yeah, if budget is an issue you're probably going to be better served by an i3 with HD4600 graphics and a B85 motherboard. There's no reason to pony up for an H97 unless there's a specific feature the B85 boards don't have that she wants.

I've tried to give AMD a chance, most recently I've been playing with Kaveri but HD4600 is fine for everything except AAA games and if she's going to spend big bucks on AAA games she really doesn't want to be running them on an A8-7600. It's 20fps at minimum details, or a drop to 720p which looks pretty awful.

If she can afford to spend $60 on AAA games then she can probably pony up $80 (after MIR) for a Radeon R7 260 which is 3-5x faster than the integrated R7 in an A8-7600 and will run complex titles like BF4 at 1080p high detail settings whilst maintaining smooth 30+ framerates the whole time.

i3 and SSD.

Your friend is a friend. AMD is a collection of shareholders. Friends don't let friends buy desktop APUs.

I would go with $75 Intel CPU and still get the SSD.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Yeah, if budget is an issue you're probably going to be better served by an i3 with HD4600 graphics and a B85 motherboard.

This.

I'd even consider an H81. Even cheaper and she will not notice the difference. By the the time a CPU upgrade will be necessary, both Intel and AMD will be on different socket anyways.

Crucial BX100 250GB should be about the same price as the Kingston (on newegg at least).

ronch wrote:

She's not really a gamer but she said she may wanna plug in a discrete video card someday if a game she wants to to play comes along.

Here, Newegg has the A8-7600 at £58, Intel options in stock and just above/below that AMD are Pentium G3258 £45 or i3-4160 £77.
Scan, it's A8-7600 at £75, vs Celery G1850 £43 or i3-4170 £100.

The 240GB V300 is £73 at both places.

So, even if the budget's super tight and the i3 is out of range with a 250GB-class SSD, I'd take a Pentium over the A8 on anything but a "gaming is required, there's no budget, we won't be able to add discrete GPU later" build.

Or give her the options, explain that the AMD can game but the Intel wins for everything else, and let her choose?

If really low end/cheap will do, for media playback, email and browsing, there are some very nice small systems with Windows 8.1 included.
I have one of these as a media center (playback only) machine. With chrome installed and also kodi it plays anything I want to play.
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-installed ... B00TD8MTFY

Add a 2.4GHz wireless mouse/kb (or use bluetooth) and use one usb for external storage, or use a NAS via wifi or the 100Mbit lan.
I use this remote from my armchair:
http://www.amazon.com/MINIX-Wireless-Ke ... 0KGFC1XEND

Yes the 32MB flash is a bit limiting, as is the 2GB ram, but for price it is very functional.

Probably as said intel with ssd the best option.

Agree on the Intel, and as others have said, why the i5? If she is not doing anything more intensive than email, web, and Office, an i3 will be plenty. The SSD would give her more benefit than the extra CPU oomph for that type of work.

Plus, if her needs change later, upgrading the CPU to an i5 or i7 isn't out of the question.

ronch wrote:

Seems everyone is voting in favor of Intel. I am inclined to go Intel too, as I've said earlier, but I'm considering the AMD option for two reasons: (1) I just wanna give AMD a chance here, and (2) she said she's on a tight budget, so future upgrades may not even materialize.

Still, it's better to be prepared for those upgrades, in case she decides to go ahead with them. A graphics card and an SSD sure will kick that system into high gear.

How tight of budget??

HD 4850 for $20 plus shipping??

"I doubt one would notice the difference between an i5 and an A8 in normal tasks such as web surfing and movies. Plus, an SSD will really make a difference. She's not really a gamer but she said she may wanna plug in a discrete video card someday if a game she wants to to play comes along."

Hm, is it possible for you get an i3+SSD?

I honestly cannot think of a situation where an AMD processor would be preferential. They can't even compete on a bang for the buck basis anymore. As others mentioned, go with intel.

K-L-Waster wrote:

Agree on the Intel, and as others have said, why the i5? If she is not doing anything more intensive than email, web, and Office, an i3 will be plenty. The SSD would give her more benefit than the extra CPU oomph for that type of work.

Plus, if her needs change later, upgrading the CPU to an i5 or i7 isn't out of the question.

A Pentium Anniversary Edition may do the trick too and be even cheaper

A Pentium Anniversary Edition may do the trick too and be even cheaper

Yes it will be. This along with a GeForce 750 Ti or 760 would make a decent gaming system.

southrncomfortjm wrote:

K-L-Waster wrote:

Agree on the Intel, and as others have said, why the i5? If she is not doing anything more intensive than email, web, and Office, an i3 will be plenty. The SSD would give her more benefit than the extra CPU oomph for that type of work.

Plus, if her needs change later, upgrading the CPU to an i5 or i7 isn't out of the question.

A Pentium Anniversary Edition may do the trick too and be even cheaper

Since it supports OCing, it'll have longer usage before it's obsolete, assuming that she eventually gets an aftermarket cooler.

Although there is a fair amount of games that support four cores (without relying on one core excessively), and that's going to be much more common in a few years with DX12 being introduced.

For someone who is not an overclocking enthusiast, I would choose the Core i3.
$137 Intel Core i3-4330 hyper-threaded dual-core 3.5 GHz LGA1150 CPU w/ HSF
$92¼ Asus H97M-E/CSM micro-ATX LGA1150 motherboard
$53 2x4 GiB PC3-12800 Mushkin 996988S (DDR3-1600, CAS 9, 1.35 V)

UnfriendlyFire wrote:

southrncomfortjm wrote:

K-L-Waster wrote:

Agree on the Intel, and as others have said, why the i5? If she is not doing anything more intensive than email, web, and Office, an i3 will be plenty. The SSD would give her more benefit than the extra CPU oomph for that type of work.

Plus, if her needs change later, upgrading the CPU to an i5 or i7 isn't out of the question.

A Pentium Anniversary Edition may do the trick too and be even cheaper

Since it supports OCing, it'll have longer usage before it's obsolete, assuming that she eventually gets an aftermarket cooler.

Although there is a fair amount of games that support four cores (without relying on one core excessively), and that's going to be much more common in a few years with DX12 being introduced.

I have a Pentium Anniversary Edition paired with a 750 Ti, and it does make for an excellent low-budget gaming combination. I keep it clocked up to 4.2 GHz -- it can do faster, but the 32% overclock requires no voltage tweaks and still runs cool.

If more than 2 cores becomes a common requirement, an i5 or i7 will be a drop-in replacement down the road.

As a personal rule, I don't overclock rigs going to other people.

The Egg wrote:

As a personal rule, I don't overclock rigs going to other people.

Even without the overclock, the Pentium AA will work perfectly for any desktop task and some light-to-mid level gaming (assuming you pair it with a video card, of course). Really, the only thing that called for the overclock in my case is Dolphin, which I've found to be more dependent on fast single-thread performance than regular games.

I just looked

The Egg wrote:

That Kingston V300 is lousy. They changed the flash type after the reviews, and now it's a dog. I'd recommend the i5 to your friend, and if he can't afford an SSD as well, tell him to wait a couple weeks.

yeah, I got duped on one of those. no more Kingston anything for me, at least certainly not the first choice, or the second, if I can help it.

I just looked at some reviews for the a8-7600 and it pretty much is on par or underperforms the haswell i3-4130. if she doesn't play dota or lol or second life or something then the a8's main advantage disappears somewhat. so, yeah. i3 and ssd. do not buy the v300, though, as TheEgg said. buy a comparable sandisk. get a b85 motherboard as others have said, and put the cost towards the ssd. get a decent board, though. don't get trust msi's low end. gigabyte. or asus. maybe asrock. also, does she listen to music (she probably do)? if she does, you can buy a higher-end b85 board instead of the h97 board. you could get the nice b85 board from asrock that seems like it has a better audio situation with an alc 1150 and better hardware than your h97 pro4m. the only advantage to h97 over b85 I think is the extra sata slots, support for intel's firmware raid and intel's ssd caching thing (useless to you if you're installing the os on the ssd), support for haswell refresh (4130 is haswell 1. 4150 is haswell 2. make sure.), support for broadwell, support for m2 and sata express with the swappable sata pcie lanes. I don't think she'd be using any of that stuff? would she put in an m2. drive or use sata express?

edit: looks like the h97m from asrock as an alc 662 on it? don't get her that one. yeah nevermind. the h97 anniversary boards have the 662. the pro4ms have the 892 and apparently nice caps, too?

Here's a build I'm currently doing for an office-use computer: (just installed Windows last night actually)
CPU - i3-4370 $100 from Microcenter with mobo
Mobo - AsRock H97M Pro4 $80 from Microcenter
RAM - 2x4GB G.Skill Ares 1600MHz for $47 after coupon code on sale. Matches the mobo heatsinks perfectly!
SSD - OCZ Arc 100 - 240GB for $80 after MIR.
PSU - Corsair CS450M for $30 after MIR on sale. 80 Plus Gold efficiency & modular.
Case - Re-used from previous machine.

Total: $350 after rebates. $320 if you exclude the PSU. Looks like you're hitting a budget of $315 with both your original build options.