What do you think?

[SuperFly]

Hey guys, how are you all?

I like to consider all options and get as much advise as I can before spending such amounts of money, and I'd appreciate it a lot if you would go over what I've chosen. I'm going to go with an AMD build because I feel I can get a better PC for roughly the £600 I'm wanting to spend.

I play the occasional FPS and if I'm feeling really ill perhaps RuneScape once every other week. I'm mainly a movie kind of guy and although I have a Netflix and NowTV subscription, I download the majority of the movies I watch. (No Internet Police here is there? ) And I'd preferably like to be able to watch in 1080p without having to wait half a century for buffering times. I must add that I have 30Mb Unlimited VirginMedia Fiber Optic Broadband, so the Internet's definitely there, I just need a PC that can accompany that, if that makes sense.

I'd also like to mention that I will be overclocking, not much, and although I don't know how I'm sure I can find out. And lastly, can I ask what, and how I can do whatever Raid is?

But here's what I've chosen.

CPU: AMD A10 5800K / AMD (Piledriver) FX-4300.
AMC: CM Hyper 212 Evo.
Mobo: MSI Z77A-G41
RAM: 8GB's of 1600MHz DDR3 Corsair Memory Vengeance.
GPU: Asus Radeon HD 7770 - 1GB
PSU: Corsair CXM 500W
HDD: Seagate Performance 1 TB
SSD: Intel 330 120GB
Case: Corsair 200r
Optical(s): LG DVD R+W / Edimax 300Mbps PCI-e / Corsair M65 Mouse / Keyboard undecided.

Thanks guys, sorry for the long post.

 

[Swinkid]

Honestly, I wouldn't have the SSD. Yes their are noticeable differences however I have a cheap 120GB corsair SSD and I find that it just isn't enough space for all the applications I use. I suggest, if possible, getting a slightly larger one.

Everything looks fine, Your making me feel my GPU is getting old (can't afford a new one, I currently have a 6870), Here are the benchmarks for your card -
http://bit.ly/XqRk20

Pretty respectable for the price.


Terms of overclocking - No point honestly, I'd stick to stock speeds. Not sure if your mobo or CPU supports overclocking.

Watching films and such isn't an issue, But the buffering may have been down to virgins download throttling policy (I'm with virgin, this policy is a piss take, I just go round my friends who has 120MB and just finish off my download if I have something large) I can assure you with this hardware, It wouldn't be the hardwares problem in reguards to buffering.

Raid is a way of grouping hard drives in an array so that you can either boost preformance with a drop to reliability (RAID 0) or mirroring one harddrive to another so that if one fails you have a backup.. More info here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Overall, don't bother with a FX if your getting a dedicated GPU, Drop the FX and SSD and get an i3 with a better GPU. Switchout the mobo for a supported B37 board.. As for overclocking.. Don't bother, but if you do get a better cooler.

 

[s3ns3]

i think that its a good thing that you posted couse that motherboard is for intel cpus.also forget about the A10 5800K if you buy a dedicated GPU.get a B75 board + an i3 3220 because runs cooler and its better than the fx 4300.if you have a hobby for OC then get a decent cooler and the fx 4300 or the fx 6300(beats i3 in everything) and a decent AM3+ board.drop the ssd for now get better gpu

 

[SuperFly]

Thanks for commenting guys .

I did debate about a SSD, however I don't really have much patience, so imo I'd appreciate having one. And tell me about it.. Space does fill up quick, especially since I keep most of the movies I watch, but that's why I picked the Seagate 1TB HDD. And thanks for that link, I don't think I'll need a better GPU for the games I play but, reading that link the 7770 does sound a little eh.. Iffy.

To the other person, Thanks for letting me know! If I bought those parts and realized the CPU didn't fit on the Motherboard I would of been quite irritated to say the least >_>. I don't know really, I'm an Intel/NVIDIA Fan boy, and I was originally going to go with an i3 3220/650 Ti, but I have to be realistic with the budget I have. I thought I'd go with an AMD build because they seem to offer better products for the lower budget builds.

My knowledge doesn't really extend that far, but I didn't really know if AMD's multi-core CPU's were better than Intel's dual-core/hyperthreaded CPU's.

So what do you guys think about Intel i3 3225/XFX 7850, are those two overclockable?

 

[Swinkid]

Even with the 1tb hdd, the ssd will fill up. There's a lot of program's that I need and use that do not allow me to change their install directory and default to C:\Program Files such as chrome for example. Sure it's a small program but it adds up.

Btw - I am not going to say my opinion on AMD processors, all I'm going to say is that intel i3 have physical cores, they are not hyper threaded until you get up to the i7s

Not sure if i3 is overclockable, give me a moment to google and ill edit my post, I'm on my iPhone you see but that looks like a better option

Edit: i3s can technically over clock however shouldn't since there isn't much of a budge since they are not unlocked and you will start corrupting data.

 

[alpenwasser]

So what do you guys think about Intel i3 3225/XFX 7850, are those two overclockable?

Don't know about the 7850 but the 3225 isn't really overclockable. You can overclock the base clock maybe by 3 to 5 Mhz, but as mentioned above this can quickly lead to instability, data corruption and is not really recommended.

Personally I'd recommend a low-end intel non-overclockable Intel system over an overclockable low-end AMD system at the moment.

Overclocking just carries so much additional cost with it: Better cooling, more expensive motherboard, more expensive CPU, better RAM, it all adds up quickly. And if you don't overclock by much, the additional hassle just is not worth it imho (your priorities and preferences might differ, this is just my opinion for my own projects).

And besides that, current Intel CPUs use a lot less power than their AMD counterparts (55 W for i3 3225 and 3240 nominally vs 95 W for the 4300).

I haven't really found many i3 reviews out there, but this is one. The 4300 is also in there, so that should make your decision if not easier then at least more well-informed .

If you don't overclock, you don't need a Z77 motherboard. I would recommend something with a B75 chipset, but you'll have to decide for yourself what features you need and don't need.
This wikipedia article has a summary for the respective feature sets.

Having said all that, as you can see from the review I linked, the core count on the AMD CPUs does come in handy in a few applications. I'm not quite sure how much movie playing/downloading/streaming software profits from that though, which is how it will mostly be used according to your first post.

Regarding the SSD: 120 Gigs is perfectly fine for some, way too small for others. Assess your needs and then decide based on that. The 330 drive itself is not a bad choice, I have two of those myself and can heartily recommend them.

I am not at all up to speed on the current AMD graphics cards other than the 7970, so I don't consider myself qualified to give advice on that one.