My brother's wife gaming pc

[zaft1g337]

Ok, so my brother has been married for almost a year now. He is a medium gamer that means he plays around 3-5 hours a day max. So his wife gets bored and whats to start playing with him too. Thus i've been given the task to build a new budget pc for a first time gamer. She will be playing bf3 and d3, since thats what my brother is playing atm. Both of them are students atm, which means they're restricted on cash.

Goal: Be able to play bf3 on high settings at either 1680 x 1050 or 1920 x 1080 on a 22" tv with an avg fps of 50-60

Generally i'm thinking of sticking to amd since they give you the performance/price. What she will be getting from me for free from is a cabinet(might get a new one), hdd, psu, mouse and keyboard. Everything else she will need to buy for herself (i mean me)

I've been reading on amd's new a10 apus. They have mostly got good critics on many reviews, but on the forums, they've got some mixed feelings. I was thinking of having a dual gpu maybe with a 6670 since it is recommended or a 7770 (7850 if enough money). But then again is it possible to gain the extra performance of the apu if combined with lets say a 7770?

Now, time for my suggested list

CPU: AMD A10-5800K
GPU: AMD 6670/7770/7850
MB: ASUS F2A85-M LE
RAM: 16 GB 2133MHz Patriot Extreme Performance Viper 3 DDR3
Cabinet: Carbide 300R/NZXT Source 220 (basically, cheapest one with best dust filter)

What i want is to meet the goal with the cheapest rig possible

Thank guys. Off to sleep now :lol:

 

[Feronix]

Cut down to 8GB of RAM and you'll be able to go for that 7850 without a problem...

 

[alienware]

Yeah you're going to need 2gb vram for BF3 if you're on AMD so the 7850 is about what you need. Nothing below it will produce anywhere near what you're looking for.

 

[s3ns3]

The a10 can only be paired with the 6670. if you want a dedicated video card you don`t need apu`s.the athlon II X4 750K is the same cpu that is in the a10-5800k but without the gpu and its weak.either go for an i3+hd 7850 or fx 6300+hd 7850(much better performance than a10+6670) .or if he can aford it the i5 3330p.and 8gb @1600 mhz ram is enough.but for that goal at 1080p on multiplayer...you need better card

 

[seumasbeathan]

The a10 can only be paired with the 6670. if you want a dedicated video card you don`t need apu`s.the athlon II X4 750K is the same cpu that is in the a10-5800k but without the gpu and its weak.either go for an i3+hd 7850 or fx 6300+hd 7850(much better performance than a10+6670) .or if he can aford it the i5 3330p.and 8gb @1600 mhz ram is enough.but for that goal at 1080p on multiplayer...you need better card

Thats rubbish :L You cn pair the A10 with what ever gpu you want, my advice would be to drop down to 8GB 1600mhz ram and then try and get a 7870 Tahiti LE, I know its more but its well worth it

 

[Josh Weston]

Swap A10 for an i3 3220, cheap B75 motherboard, drop down to 8GB 1600MHz, spend remaining money on best single graphics card possible.

 

[s3ns3]

Thats rubbish :L You cn pair the A10 with what ever gpu you want, my advice would be to drop down to 8GB 1600mhz ram and then try and get a 7870 Tahiti LE, I know its more but its well worth it

i ment CF between the integrated gpu and 6670 lol.
and its a bottleneck with a card like that.thats why go for i3 or fx 6300

 

[garih]

as a new gamer, is 50-60 fps really needed? 40-50 is very playable, and the system i built for my gf with an i3 3220 and 5770 plays 1080p just fine, on here we are enthusiasts, and go for as much as poss. but an i3 and a 7770 will do pretty much any game you want to play. flame me if im wrong, but thats my opinion

 

[SeekaX]

as a new gamer, is 50-60 fps really needed? 40-50 is very playable, and the system i built for my gf with an i3 3220 and 5770 plays 1080p just fine, on here we are enthusiasts, and go for as much as poss. but an i3 and a 7770 will do pretty much any game you want to play. flame me if im wrong, but thats my opinion

anything below 60 fps = unplayable imo. especially in multiplayer.

 

[zaft1g337]

I've got a lot of unexpected replies to be honest, which is not bad. I see that many have suggested to drop to a lower ram, but the thing is that ram isn't expensive here where i live. So that isn't a big problem.

Swap A10 for an i3 3220, cheap B75 motherboard, drop down to 8GB 1600MHz, spend remaining money on best single graphics card possible.

Also i've read that the a10-5800k > i3 3220 both in price and performance. check the link to review below. And since most of you guys suggested i3 over a10, this makes me pause and wonder a little :headscratch: I still don't understand how 2 cores @ 3.3ghz is better than 4 cores @ 3.6ghz... Sure the technologies can a big help, but to the extant that it can equals a 6 cores 3.6ghz amd cpu?
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/processors/1296580/intel-core-i3-3220

Also, i'm thinking about the future. I know that when i buy this pc, she won't be upgrading until at least 5 years or so Therefore i'm thinking that 2 cores might be to little for future games if she wants to play at a medium-high settings.

I'll be doing so more thinking before i post the new rig. In the mean time i hope i get more advices

 

[Josh Weston]

All about the architecture, dude. Ivy i3s have a far better architecture than the CPU in an A10-5800k. The i3s have been proven to be better at gaming than the AMD chip, and for the most part it also keeps up with other stuff. I'd only ever recommend the A10 for a media PC with no graphics card.

 

[Kopesetic]

I think we could get a better idea of what to advise if you stated a price range for your budget. We would have a better idea of what you (or they, idk) can afford and would therefore be able to better advise you on which way to go.

 

[alienware]

All about the architecture, dude. Ivy i3s have a far better architecture than the CPU in an A10-5800k. The i3s have been proven to be better at gaming than the AMD chip, and for the most part it also keeps up with other stuff. I'd only ever recommend the A10 for a media PC with no graphics card.

Absolutely. Intel's CPU core architecture has been kicking the pants out of AMD's for years now. The only bad thing is *still* their onboard VGA which still leaves a lot to be desired.

Last summer I had to rely on a very cheap CPU when my PC sprung a leak. For a laugh I figured I would pair it up with a high end GPU and then run some comparisons with an I7 950. Let's just say for a £30 CPU I was completely shocked..

For any one interested you can find that review here. Please note - it may contain nuts and naughty language. Maybe soon I'll go through it and remove all the naughty words, but feel free to skim over the results. Note that the 3Dmark 11 scores were revised but yeah, you can see here just what a £30 CPU can do

http://www.fruitforums.com/vb/showthread.php?34744-Celeron-G530-Review&highlight=celeron+review

 

[SeekaX]

Absolutely. Intel's CPU core architecture has been kicking the pants out of AMD's for years now. The only bad thing is *still* their onboard VGA which still leaves a lot to be desired.

Last summer I had to rely on a very cheap CPU when my PC sprung a leak. For a laugh I figured I would pair it up with a high end GPU and then run some comparisons with an I7 950. Let's just say for a £30 CPU I was completely shocked..

For any one interested you can find that review here. Please note - it may contain nuts and naughty language. Maybe soon I'll go through it and remove all the naughty words, but feel free to skim over the results. Note that the 3Dmark 11 scores were revised but yeah, you can see here just what a £30 CPU can do

http://www.fruitforums.com/vb/showthread.php?34744-Celeron-G530-Review&highlight=celeron+review

the only thing the onboard VGA leaves to be desired is to disappear. that stupid thing does nothing but increase the heat and blocks room for more cores etc.. i mean who the heck buys an i7 and then no gpu and doesn't desire more cores to work with.

 

[alienware]

the only thing the onboard VGA leaves to be desired it to disappear. that stupid thing does nothing but increase the heat and blocks room for more cores etc.. i mean who the heck buys an i7 and then no gpu and doesn't desire more cores to work with.

Yup, which was a big part of my decision to go with a Xeon over an I5 tbh.

However, you would be truly shocked if you realised just how many people actually use the onboard tbh. I mean sure, enthusiasts won't touch it with a barge pole but we don't make up the majority of consumers.

It's just a way for companies like Advent (PC world garbage) to lure people in with a cheap PC that has a high end CPU but nothing else.

 

[SeekaX]

For any one interested you can find that review here. Please note - it may contain nuts and naughty language. Maybe soon I'll go through it and remove all the naughty words, but feel free to skim over the results. Note that the 3Dmark 11 scores were revised but yeah, you can see here just what a £30 CPU can do

http://www.fruitforums.com/vb/showthread.php?34744-Celeron-G530-Review&highlight=celeron+review

lmao

 

[alienware]

lmao

Do you get the Carry On movies in Germany?

Love em

Ed. My username came from one of my mates who isn't quite so enthusiastic about Alienwares hahaha

 

[Josh Weston]

the only thing the onboard VGA leaves to be desired is to disappear. that stupid thing does nothing but increase the heat and blocks room for more cores etc.. i mean who the heck buys an i7 and then no gpu and doesn't desire more cores to work with.

I used my iGPU for months before I could afford a dedicated card. Admittedly, it's a fair bit better than the HD2500 in the i3, but I was surprised at how it could play games. Now, the games weren't Crysis, but it played Borderlands with no real issues, for as long as I turned the settings down.

I figure it's nice to have a backup for if your GPU goes up in smoke and you don't have a spare one to hand.

Still, I believe Broadwell's going to be the big leap in terms of Intel's iGPU, so I guess we'll all have to review the situation in 18 months or so

 

[alienware]

My fiancee has a laptop with some sort of mobile I5 in and she can play quite a few games with it tbh.

She used to use it when we played Left 4 Dead 2 and it was more than capable at low settings. For the most part she plays Stronghold Kingdoms but I remember when she was obsessed with Killing Floor and it had no problems churning that out.

It has come up short a couple of times when she bought games so we loaded her Steam account onto my desktop and she plays the more hefty stuff on there.

But yeah, they are quite capable if you really need them to be. Not anywhere near as good as AMD's but in more CPU intensive stuff they do hold their own.

 

[SeekaX]

Do you get the Carry On movies in Germany?

Love em

Ed. My username came from one of my mates who isn't quite so enthusiastic about Alienwares hahaha

i doubt it.
i think you won't find a whole lot of alienware fans in the enthusiast sector, they just are the "gaming" pc company for the simple minded with too much money in their pockets. i'm not even a big fan of their cases, but i can understand your decision to use one.