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Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 12:49 pm
by Bashiba
So helping a friend tonight order up new parts.
He needs New CPU, Motherboard, Ram, and GPU with a budget in mind of about $425.
Wants to go AMD on CPU and GPU, it will be mostly used for gaming, specifically he is a big guild wars 2 player. Will want a full sized motherboard with 4 Ram Slots so he can ad more later.

Here is the Combo I'm considering, but would love to hear any other opinions.
FX 4170 - $125
ASRock 970 PRO3 AM3+ Motherboard - With Patriot 8 gig (2x4) Ram Combo $107
PowerColor AX7850 2GBD5-DH Radeon HD 7850 2GB - $185
For a Grand total of $426

Also Considered a FX 6300 instead, just curious what everyone else thinks.
Thanks in Advance.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 12:57 pm
by anotherengineer
hmm

Well if it's going to be for gaming a 965 BE phII chip can be had for about $90, to shave a few dollars, and would probably perform better than both of the FX chips (for gaming)

I guess he has an OS, case, power supply, and hdd/sdd already?

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:08 pm
by clone
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Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:10 pm
by Bashiba
Correct, will be using all the old stuff for everything else which is all still fine.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:21 pm
by Bashiba
clone wrote:
I'll see what I can put together but $425 is going to be tight.... the focus will have to be on video card for that coin.

cpu you may want to go triple core, 4gb's of ram, mobo will be interesting..... might be able to do it, hopefully that's $425 + tax not tax included.


Needs at least 8gb's or Ram. He is convinced lack of ram is part of the problem with his current gaming rig. Do you not think the 2gb 7850 in the current build will be enough for GW2? I didn't find any benchmarks for that card for GW2, the 7870 looks really strong for it, but really stretches the budget.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:24 pm
by DPete27
That build looks pretty decent to me if he absolutely requires an AMD CPU. If you're going FX, the higher clock speed is important over the extra cores so the 4170 is a good choice. [Edit]: The FX-4300 for $110 this week is based on the newer Piledriver core architecture and should perform similarly to the 4170. (pay attention to where that Intel i3 sits on those graphs though)

I see you're not including MIR on the GPU. My Powercolor 6850 is a bit noisy sometimes. I think either of these for $185 after MIR would definitely be quieter. The Asus is probably the better of the two. 7850 2GB should be plenty for GW2. That game is most likely CPU-bound.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:34 pm
by MadManOriginal
I don't like doing this but...is there no convincing him to go Intel? An i3-3220+comparable mobo will cost the same (or maybe less! Intel mobos are well-priced nowadays for comparable features) and definitely be better for gaming. This review includes the FX-4170 and the i3-3225, the i3-3220 is the same CPU just with a weaker integrated GPU which won't matter here.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:43 pm
by Chrispy_
I know he's set on AMD/AMD but really the FX is not a good gaming architecture. It's not even really a quad-core, it's like a dual-core i3 with hyper-threading.

An Ivy i3-3220 has anywhere up to 75% better IPC than AMD's offerings at the moment; You'd need to overclock the FX to around 5GHz just to get similar performance to that i3, and the FX starts at 125W before you overclock - 5GHz is going to need some monstrous cooling (adding to the price).

How about this:
$130 for an i3-3220
$45 for 8GB of decent-brand, low-latency DDR3 1600 RAM
$45 for a basic, reputable S1155 board without silly extras

That leaves you $200 for a GPU, and there are plenty of good choices at that price.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:44 pm
by Meadows
Wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong.

Pick the FX-4300 instead of the FX-4170, it will produce far less heat (95 W versus 125 W, Piledriver versus Bulldozer, if you get my meaning) and the price should be comparable. Performance will not be affected (in fact, it might even be overclockable later on).
For MMORPG purposes, I also think you can pick an HD 7770 "GHz edition" instead. You'll be jolly good to go for 1080p, and will save tons of cash in doing so.

That is, if you must choose AMD.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:55 pm
by clone
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Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:57 pm
by Meadows
clone wrote:
to upgrade to 8gb's will cost less than $25

Read the OP. They already planned for 8 gigs. He said 4 RAM SLOTS, not GB.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:00 pm
by Chrispy_
Actually, taking advantage of the $10 promo-code on the i3 I listed above, and a $20 MIR on this means that he's looking at $480 total (free shipping on everything) for an i3 and a 660Ti.

Honestly, the free shipping makes this barely $40 more than your initial parts suggesion and the 660Ti will decimate a 7850. Not that the 7850 is a bad card by any means, I'm using one in my HTPC very happily indeed - but there's no denying that the 660Ti is in the big-boy league, whilst the 7850 is not.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:06 pm
by Meadows
Chrispy_ wrote:
Honestly, the free shipping makes this barely $40 more than your initial parts suggesion and the 660Ti will decimate a 7850.

Normally I'm an NVidia supporter myself, but come now, a 660Ti for an MMO? For the paltry resolutions most LCDs perform at today?

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:13 pm
by JohnC
GW2 is a pretty CPU-intensive game, especially in large WvW battles. I would spend more on a better Intel CPU instead of graphics card.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:17 pm
by clone
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Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:34 pm
by Bashiba
Love all the ideas coming in. I guess I should have added that he has a pretty high end Zalman Cooler currently on and AM2 CPU, I'm pretty sure that it will work fine on any of the current AMD options, helping cement the AMD choice and making Overclocking a possibility.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:35 pm
by DPete27
I would ask him the model of his cooler. Many CPU coolers have compatability with both Intel and AMD sockets.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:48 pm
by rogue426
ugh, I would seriously talk your friend into considering an I3 Intel build if he is going to game. For all the reasons Chrispy_ has stated , it's just a better performing platform than AMD now. Choosing an AMD build because of a Zalman cooler is sort of silly IMO, if only for the fact he could use the stock Intel fan until he had an extra $35 for a Cooler Master 212 EVO down the road.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:53 pm
by just brew it!
Chrispy_ wrote:
I know he's set on AMD/AMD but really the FX is not a good gaming architecture. It's not even really a quad-core, it's like a dual-core i3 with hyper-threading.

That's a bit harsh; the only time it will approach being "like a dual core with hyperthreading" is in a worst-case scenario where the workload is completely dominated by floating point calculations.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:54 pm
by Meadows
just brew it! wrote:
a worst-case scenario where the workload is completely dominated by floating point calculations.

Which is not something a game will do too much of.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:02 pm
by Bashiba
rogue426 wrote:
ugh, I would seriously talk your friend into considering an I3 Intel build if he is going to game. For all the reasons Chrispy_ has stated , it's just a better performing platform than AMD now. Choosing an AMD build because of a Zalman cooler is sort of silly IMO, if only for the fact he could use the stock Intel fan until he had an extra $35 for a Cooler Master 212 EVO down the road.


Its more than the Zalman, it has to do with having a long history of better luck with AMD parts vs Intel parts, I understand things have changed and Intel is making better stuff right now, but its like trying to switch a ford guy to a chevy guy. Plus the fact that I have some floundering AMD Stocks in my portfolio, so I'm not going to work to hard to talk him out of it, lol.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:08 pm
by Bashiba
If the CPU is more important in this type of game, wouldn't it make sense to go with the FX 6300 over the FX 4300, I'm assuming they are the same only 6 cores instead of 4, and its only $10 more.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:15 pm
by Meadows
Bashiba wrote:
If the CPU is more important in this type of game, wouldn't it make sense to go with the FX 6300 over the FX 4300, I'm assuming they are the same only 6 cores instead of 4, and its only $10 more.

No, because it's almost 10% slower per core. It's clocked lower and you have to overclock it to get the same single-thread performance, of which videogames generally want much of. If you're willing to take that risk and thermal disadvantage, then yes, it's the better choice.
(Also, steer clear away from the FX-6200.)

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:26 pm
by JohnC
Here's a little chart of CPU performance for GW2. It's a little bit outdated in terms of CPU models (it was made last year), but should still be useful. In large WvW battles expect fps to be about half of those results. The "ГГц" letters stand for "GHz".

Image

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:31 pm
by Bashiba
So for the sake of Discussion, say I could swing him to the Intel side.

Would a more CPU heavy build with say a i5-3470 and a cheaper GPU like the 7770 be a better build for this type of game, rather than the amd quad core with a 2gb 7850?

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:46 pm
by Meadows
Bashiba wrote:
So for the sake of Discussion, say I could swing him to the Intel side.

Would a more CPU heavy build with say a i5-3470 and a cheaper GPU like the 7770 be a better build for this type of game, rather than the amd quad core with a 2gb 7850?

Hard to say. The above graphs used a clearly CPU-bound system with a GTX 690, but if you put an HD 7770 in its place, the CPU differences can be greatly reduced while not making the game any less playable.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:00 pm
by DPete27
If you live in the US near a Microcenter you could get the best of both worlds by taking advantage of their CPU + mobo combos.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:32 pm
by MadManOriginal
Bashiba wrote:
So for the sake of Discussion, say I could swing him to the Intel side.

Would a more CPU heavy build with say a i5-3470 and a cheaper GPU like the 7770 be a better build for this type of game, rather than the amd quad core with a 2gb 7850?


That test is also done at low res to highlight CPU differences. With increased res the differences would be smaller too.

Bashiba wrote:
So for the sake of Discussion, say I could swing him to the Intel side.

Would a more CPU heavy build with say a i5-3470 and a cheaper GPU like the 7770 be a better build for this type of game, rather than the amd quad core with a 2gb 7850?


I'm going to say...no, based on cost:benefit, although I can't point to any specific numbers to back up the exact question. Something kinda-sorta like the question can be found in the TR FX-8350 review: in the conclusion, 99th percentile FPS for the i3 is around 45, for the i5 around 55. That's less than a 25% difference for more than a 50% price difference. However, I'm not sure how CPU-bound those games. I think though that by the time GW is CPU-bound by the i5 3470, it would have already been GPU-bound by the HD7770 - the extra CPU speed would be wasted. With a more powerful GPU, you can always increase graphics settings when CPU bound to at least make things prettier.

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:43 pm
by JohnC
MadManOriginal wrote:
With a more powerful GPU, you can always increase graphics settings when CPU bound to at least make things prettier.

...and decrease your performance even further by doing that :P I have GTX680-based card (non-overclocked), and while I don't play GW2 anymore I still remember that I couldn't play in large fights with all settings maxed out, so I had some of them lowered, which made no noticeable impact on visual quality while allowing me to have more fun in WvW areas :wink:
Powerful GPU is only good for one thing in GW2: exploring/visiting the vista points for first time :P

Re: Budget AMD Build thoughts

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:56 pm
by Bashiba
DPete27 wrote:
If you live in the US near a Microcenter you could get the best of both worlds by taking advantage of their CPU + mobo combos.

Thanks for the Microcenter tip, its a little far from me, a little over a 2 hour drive to the Western Chicago location, but might be worth the trip looking at some of those Combo Prices.