[LeoDDestroyer]

This will be my first attempt at building a pc. Have only had a laptop for the past two years, which was my first pc, but it has really showed me that there is so much I can't do.

Here what I have line up so far.

Rosewill Challenger Black ATX mid tower case

amd fx-6100 3.3Ghz

Asus M5A99X Evo

Sapphire Radeon hd 6770

Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 V2

Cooler Master hyper 212 Evo cooler

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2*4GB)

My plan is to have it finish mid jan. so any input or advice would be helpful.

[LiveBrianD]

You didn't mention the specs of the ram, but otherwise it's good, except for one thing: Bulldozer CPUs are crap. I suppose the older Phenom ones might be ok for some things, but for a moderately powerful machine aren't a good choice. I'd consider a Llano CPU for low-end systems (the graphics are quite good by integrated standards), and that's it. Otherwise, get an Intel Sandy Bridge CPU.

That CPU is $160, and the motherboard is $150. Instead, let's spend that $310 like this:
Intel i5 2500K: $220
ASUS P8H67-V: $105

Yeah, a bit more expensive, but the performance should be quite a bit better.

Oh, and in case you need an OS, get Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

[LeoDDestroyer]

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 08:11 PM, said:

You didn't mention the specs of the ram, but otherwise it's good, except for one thing: Bulldozer CPUs are crap. I suppose the older Phenom ones might be ok for some things, but for a moderately powerful machine aren't a good choice. I'd consider a Llano CPU for low-end systems (the graphics are quite good by integrated standards), and that's it. Otherwise, get an Intel Sandy Bridge CPU.

That CPU is $160, and the motherboard is $150. Instead, let's spend that $310 like this:
Intel i5 2500K: $220
ASUS P8H67-V: $105

Yeah, a bit more expensive, but the performance should be quite a bit better.

Oh, and in case you need an OS, get Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Here are the ram specs CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866

My current laptop is Amd base so I am leaning in that direction. I'm currently able to play starcraft 2 on low to mid settings and do light video editing.
Have you used that processor(fx)? I have seen on some other sites(b/c I'm looking everywhere for info) that people that have exactly brought find them to be pretty good.

I was also looking at i5 2500k 3.3GHz along with phenom II x 6 3.2Ghz black edition.



I was

[LiveBrianD]

The thing is, even the top bulldozer CPU, the FX-8150, is only COMPARABLE to the i5 2500K in SOME situations, particularly highly multithreaded ones (which generally isn't realistic, unless you're rendering video). The 2500K is known to be a good bang for the buck, and aside from the 2600K, 2700K, and LGA2011 CPUs, it's the best one out there. Yes, better than all of AMD's offerings in terms of performance. I don't really see why having an AMD machine right now has anything doing with this - for instance, my laptop has an AMD CPU (AMD E350, one of the apus), but then again that's a netbook and the E350 is good for that class of CPU. Also, amd cpus are known to have some issues with games, from what I've heard.

If needed, to save money, go with a 1600MHz ram set instead, which should still be enough. Heck, 4GB ram is enough, though ram prices being dirt cheap right now, you may as well get more (you won't regret it). Gskill ram tends to be cheaper, and is still pretty good (I put some in a friend's PC a while ago, and my laptop has a gskill stick as well as the stock ram stick).

[waldojim]

The FX 8150 is being sold as an 8 core CPU. This is NOT what you are getting. It is a quad core, with 8 Integer processors. The only multi-threading performance increases you are going to see are ones that are Integer math based.

The problem is that the 8150 is all over the place in performance. In very specific highly parralel integer math, it can keep up with the i7 2600k. In heavily multithreaded floating point operations, it is slower than the chip it means to replace (Namely the Phenom 2 X4). This is because the chip is trying to decode 8 instructions at once, share the cache, and use the whopping 4 FP cores that exist. Through a typical workload, Windows is alos not designed to core park correctly on that CPU - and likely won't be until Windows 8 ships. Instead it will load up cores 1+2, THEN 3+4, THEN 5+6, and so on. Whereas, the CPU needs to be loaded up as 1+3+5+7 THEN 2+4+6+8. This has to do with the way the chip is designed.

For the moment, I strongly recommend people avoid that CPU. If you are looking for a mid-tier performance CPU, the i5 2400, and 2500K are both excellent choices offering consistent performance. The Phenom II X4, and X6 are only recommended if the budget is extremely tight, and the $20 you can save with the motherboard will be enough to make the budget.

[LeoDDestroyer]

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 09:18 PM, said:

The thing is, even the top bulldozer CPU, the FX-8150, is only COMPARABLE to the i5 2500K in SOME situations, particularly highly multithreaded ones (which generally isn't realistic, unless you're rendering video). The 2500K is known to be a good bang for the buck, and aside from the 2600K, 2700K, and LGA2011 CPUs, it's the best one out there. Yes, better than all of AMD's offerings in terms of performance. I don't really see why having an AMD machine right now has anything doing with this - for instance, my laptop has an AMD CPU (AMD E350, one of the apus), but then again that's a netbook and the E350 is good for that class of CPU. Also, amd cpus are known to have some issues with games, from what I've heard.

If needed, to save money, go with a 1600MHz ram set instead, which should still be enough. Heck, 4GB ram is enough, though ram prices being dirt cheap right now, you may as well get more (you won't regret it). Gskill ram tends to be cheaper, and is still pretty good (I put some in a friend's PC a while ago, and my laptop has a gskill stick as well as the stock ram stick).

B/c amd is the only thing I have used which I have had no problems with. I'm also I know the tech. isn't there yet with bulldozer(or may never be). I look at it like the ps3 with the cell processor(future gains). What about hdd over ssd? I plan on doing some hd video editing, music producing, and some art work.

[LeoDDestroyer]

waldojim, on 09 December 2011 - 09:46 PM, said:

The FX 8150 is being sold as an 8 core CPU. This is NOT what you are getting. It is a quad core, with 8 Integer processors. The only multi-threading performance increases you are going to see are ones that are Integer math based.

The problem is that the 8150 is all over the place in performance. In very specific highly parralel integer math, it can keep up with the i7 2600k. In heavily multithreaded floating point operations, it is slower than the chip it means to replace (Namely the Phenom 2 X4). This is because the chip is trying to decode 8 instructions at once, share the cache, and use the whopping 4 FP cores that exist. Through a typical workload, Windows is alos not designed to core park correctly on that CPU - and likely won't be until Windows 8 ships. Instead it will load up cores 1+2, THEN 3+4, THEN 5+6, and so on. Whereas, the CPU needs to be loaded up as 1+3+5+7 THEN 2+4+6+8. This has to do with the way the chip is designed.

For the moment, I strongly recommend people avoid that CPU. If you are looking for a mid-tier performance CPU, the i5 2400, and 2500K are both excellent choices offering consistent performance. The Phenom II X4, and X6 are only recommended if the budget is extremely tight, and the $20 you can save with the motherboard will be enough to make the budget.

I had read this myself. I also read for a users who has used the fx-4100 and 8150 that you get trade off. With the 4100 it preformed well above expectation in gaming but was lacking in multithreading. While it was more of the opposite for the 8150 so I figure the 6100 would be the sweet with good overclocking still available if needed. Maybe I should do two builds.

[LiveBrianD]

Keep in mind that Intel stuff is also pretty reliable, and I haven't had issues with that. Things like the motherboard are, in general, more likely to give issues than the cpu. (btw asus is a great brand)

For now, I see no real need to get an SSD. Sure, it significantly reduces the amount of time it takes for windows and programs to load, but it won't really help you render video faster (that's very CPU and maybe GPU dependent), and it won't help games (the gpu and cpu matter there). If you have some extra money to blow, get one. Otherwise, get a WD Caviar Black or a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB. I have a 2 year old WD Caviar Black 640GB and it's fast enough as far as I'm concerned, and I have no plans to get an SSD.

[coastie65]

Hi Leo and welcome to the forums. Looks pretty good. You didn't say what your budget was. The Intel Core i5 2500k is a good choice of processor, but for tight budgets, the AMD will be fine for the most part. ASUS does make very good motherboards ( I am running the ASUS P8Z68-VPro in this build w/ i7 2600k ). Yeah, the new Bulldozer stil has some shortcomings unfortunately and performance wise falls a bit short of the Intel Sandy Bridge, but as I said, are fine for a budget build. You didn't mention a Hdd, but those things are becoming a premium these days due to the shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand. That would have to be factored in to any budget as well. As for memory, I started with 4 Gb then went to 8 Gb. Either way it is fine. My other desktop is Tri Channel and I am running 6 Gb in there.

[LeoDDestroyer]

coastie65, on 10 December 2011 - 06:04 AM, said:

Hi Leo and welcome to the forums. Looks pretty good. You didn't say what your budget was. The Intel Core i5 2500k is a good choice of processor, but for tight budgets, the AMD will be fine for the most part. ASUS does make very good motherboards ( I am running the ASUS P8Z68-VPro in this build w/ i7 2600k ). Yeah, the new Bulldozer stil has some shortcomings unfortunately and performance wise falls a bit short of the Intel Sandy Bridge, but as I said, are fine for a budget build. You didn't mention a Hdd, but those things are becoming a premium these days due to the shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand. That would have to be factored in to any budget as well. As for memory, I started with 4 Gb then went to 8 Gb. Either way it is fine. My other desktop is Tri Channel and I am running 6 Gb in there.

Yeah the hdd are catching me by surprise. I just recently found out about the flood so I'm not sure on what to choose price wise. I read that some other users were using ssd for booting and a regular one for programs and apps.

I do think I should drop down to 4Gb of ram. Not much of a budget as I will buy everything in pieces but I don't want to go over 200 for any one thing. That being said I looking to spend about 1000 or a little over that.

What about windows 7? Would home be enough or should I think about the one above it?

[coastie65]

LeoDDestroyer, on 10 December 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

coastie65, on 10 December 2011 - 06:04 AM, said:

Hi Leo and welcome to the forums. Looks pretty good. You didn't say what your budget was. The Intel Core i5 2500k is a good choice of processor, but for tight budgets, the AMD will be fine for the most part. ASUS does make very good motherboards ( I am running the ASUS P8Z68-VPro in this build w/ i7 2600k ). Yeah, the new Bulldozer stil has some shortcomings unfortunately and performance wise falls a bit short of the Intel Sandy Bridge, but as I said, are fine for a budget build. You didn't mention a Hdd, but those things are becoming a premium these days due to the shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand. That would have to be factored in to any budget as well. As for memory, I started with 4 Gb then went to 8 Gb. Either way it is fine. My other desktop is Tri Channel and I am running 6 Gb in there.

Yeah the hdd are catching me by surprise. I just recently found out about the flood so I'm not sure on what to choose price wise. I read that some other users were using ssd for booting and a regular one for programs and apps.

I do think I should drop down to 4Gb of ram. Not much of a budget as I will buy everything in pieces but I don't want to go over 200 for any one thing. That being said I looking to spend about 1000 or a little over that.

What about windows 7? Would home be enough or should I think about the one above it?

Home Premium will be fine. That is what I am using and it suits my needs. You should be able to pretty well on say $1100. If you aren't in a hurry, you will be able to catch some good sales. Keep an eye on this thread, as I'll alert to any I see.

[LiveBrianD]

An SSD is probably still more expensive than a spinning HD. However, you could get a cheap, 5900RPM HD for data, and a 60GB or so ssd for the OS. 4GB RAM is enough. Windows 7 Home Premium is fine unless you want more than 16GB RAM. In general, you will be much happier with a intel 2500K, and the motherboard+CPU combination I showed you really isn't that much more than yours. If the budget is 1K, you can definitely fit one in.

[waldojim]

an 8GB kit from GSkill will run about $10 more than a typical 4GB kit, and truthfully, seems to be the sweet spot in ram right now. For the $40 asking price, I say go for it. It doesn't hurt to have that extra ram.

For a $1,000 machine, you are entering that area where the Intel may be a considerably better value. The Bulldozer platform is really not much of a value unless you are on a very, very limited budget. Even then, I question the value of bulldozer over their much more consistent Phenom II line.

As for hard drives, you can still find a few Hitachi drives fairly cheap, and if you look around, you may still be able to pick up a Samsung 1TB for about $150. Samsung drives are great drives, and I highly recomend them.

[coastie65]

To add to what wj has said, this seems to be holding its own and is still a fairly decent value: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822152185

This post has been edited by coastie65: 10 December 2011 - 12:25 PM

[BLuRR]

Hello Leo! I want to say that I came to this forum for help building a computer, and everyone is very knowledgable and knows their stuff, so any advice they give is really good advice! Helped me get this sucker going I am talking to you from.

I would say try to stick with a 2500k if you can, and get a lesser mobo. I was looking at MSI motherboards with UEFI at about 114$ on NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130618

I was going to get an AMD processor, and I am overly satisfied with my 2500k, and it's still on stock cooling. Nothing wrong with AMD just that I am glad I chose what I did.

SSDs are a little overkill IMHO, especially in todays economy. I also had a laptop (since 2006) and the performance difference is epic compared to what I had (first or 2nd generation core 2 duo, 5400 rpm Samsung drive) A good hard drive with 6.0 GB/s (3 will also be fine) and 7200+ rpm 16+mb cache should more than fill your needs.

Also, let me add about your RAM that if you are doing video/sound/graphic design work, then you will probably need more RAM. Intel destroys AMD in that reguard. I do not have a source, but I was looking at benchmarks and AMD is way behind Intel for the Adobe programs, such as Photoshop.

If you keep looking for sales, a lot of RAM does go on sale. I got this ram and it is amazing, pretty good for the price as well: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231314

Here is another decent set of RAM for a solid price: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231428

As the money aspect, I would say about 900$ should be a really good goal for a build (without shipping)
If you take your time and look around/find sales and maybe even shop at multiple stores/websites you can EASILY squeeze under 1000$. That is a lot of money, you may find on your way to getting the parts that your budget changes. So I would try to shoot under budget. (Not including monitor/peripherals)

I hope I can be half as helpful as these guys were!

This post has been edited by BLuRR: 10 December 2011 - 01:52 PM

[waldojim]

I am almost tempted to pick up a couple of those myself...

[waldojim]

BLuRR, on 10 December 2011 - 01:43 PM, said:

If you keep looking for sales, a lot of RAM does go on sale. I got this ram and it is amazing, pretty good for the price as well: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231314

Here is another decent set of RAM for a solid price: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231428

I hope I can be half as helpful as these guys were!

Wow - those suckers are going cheaper than I thought they were...

[coastie65]

waldojim, on 10 December 2011 - 01:45 PM, said:

BLuRR, on 10 December 2011 - 01:43 PM, said:

If you keep looking for sales, a lot of RAM does go on sale. I got this ram and it is amazing, pretty good for the price as well: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231314

Here is another decent set of RAM for a solid price: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231428

I hope I can be half as helpful as these guys were!

Wow - those suckers are going cheaper than I thought they were...

Great googa mooga, I'll say.

[LeoDDestroyer]

There is not much of a price difference between the two other then the cpu in my build. Since I told my family that I was going to build a new pc last month they got me the fx-6100 for my birthday. You'll all would say sell it I guess but I'm finding it hard to part with b/c it was a gift.

I switched the power supply to this RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-730SS 730W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Modular LED Power Supply

And the ram to this G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Is there anything specifically that I should be looking in a power supply.

[coastie65]

LeoDDestroyer, on 10 December 2011 - 03:35 PM, said:

There is not much of a price difference between the two other then the cpu in my build. Since I told my family that I was going to build a new pc last month they got me the fx-6100 for my birthday. You'll all would say sell it I guess but I'm finding it hard to part with b/c it was a gift.

I switched the power supply to this RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-730SS 730W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Modular LED Power Supply

And the ram to this G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Is there anything specifically that I should be looking in a power supply.

If you already have the processor, that's fine. Go with it and it will save you some. I know you may like that pretty blue LED and all, but you may want to read this: http://www.newegg.co...words%29&Page=1 This is the reason you don't want to cheap out on a PSU.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 10 December 2011 - 04:00 PM