Tek daydreams about building a new PC (again)

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
So I'm thinking of building a new PC to play Guild Wars 2 and Natural Selection 2 (and keeping my current desktop PC for a media center/gamepad games machine).

I'll be checking the Black Friday ads ahead of time, but was leaning toward AMD for the processor because of budget concerns. (I only have so much gift money saved up from last year.)

Here's what I'm thinking:

AMD FX-8320 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor - $180

GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard (Free 2x4GB memory with purchase, limited offer) - $98 with shipping

That would settle the matters of processor, mainboard, and RAM, but I'd still have to pick out a video card.

What do you all think?

EDIT: Maybe this for the video card? XFX Core Edition FX-785A-ZNFC Radeon HD 7850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card $150 after rebate

EDIT#2: That would bring the total to $428, which is not unreasonable...
 
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For what it's worth, you should spend more on your motherboard and ram than that if you are spending that much on a processor and video card. Just putting that out there.
 
not sure I understand the upgrading of motherboard.... I've always purchased $40 mobos and never had problems compared to my friend who pays $200~ minimum for his boards and has trouble with the sata controllers and chipsets.
 
I recommend getting a good motherboard above all too but more money does not always equate to a better product. I bought an EVGA 780i under that assumption (and thinking I might upgrade with duel video cards). I believe it's been the source of many of my computer problems. For half the price I could have bought a Gigabyte. Supposedly the capacitors on the 780i are inferior to the Gigabyte's solid-state capacitors which are less explodey I think.

I also bought everything on the manufacturer's recommended parts list to prevent problems. Yet with out of the box drivers it would not even boot up properly. Still having to update drivers when you have an Evga video card, with Evga motherboard, with everything on it being on the recommended list is so much fail. I've not swearing off Evga but my motherboard is an overpriced piece of garbage IMO. Oh yes I've also had to replace my video card 3 times. At least Evga honored the lifetime warranty and even bumped me up to a newer card. That is why I'd still buy from them, at least if the product had a lifetime warranty, not all of their products do. Still if it had never died it would have been even better XD.
 
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Gigabyte products are FTW, always.

You could easily drop down to the AMD FX 4170 and save yourself quite a bit of money ($120 vs. $180) and later upgrade to another FX processor should the need hit you. My FX 4170 runs quickly and efficiently (and I play GW2 with no problems, though processor doesn't help much with that).

I'd stick with the Gigabyte products - they don't fail. Ever.
 
Come on now y'all, let's not use the words always or never, there is going to be sometime where Gigabyte fails, low end MBs work (or don't) and the same for high end. There are mid range MBs that are great. To be honest, I've never bought a $98 MB, only $60-$70 ones, and a $200 (the one I have now), so it might be alright. . I also have this thing where I have to spend at least as much on the MB s I do on the GPU card (I know that you can spend way more on a GPU card than the most expensive MB, just a personal thing and I would never pay for a super high end one like that unless I spent a lot on everything else too).

I do like the specs (usb 3.0, efi bios somewhat, sata 6 (III), ps/2) on the MB you have linked and it looks good enough for what you want, I'd say go for it. I'm also partial to Nvidia for GPU cards, but that has been because of Linux and Ati cards not working the best with it. I've also heard that it has gotten better with the newer AMD/ATI cards and I might try one the next time I purchase one. Also, I'm guessing you already have a non-stock cooler for whatever you get?
 
Well, the price already went up on the mainboard, but the "free" RAM is still available with purchase. I'm fine with spending a little more money so I don't have to upgrade in the near future (I really want these upgrades to last me 3-5 years), but as much as I'd like to have a computer with an i7, I can't justify the expense right now (unless, of course, there's some amazing sale on i7 CPUs on Black Friday).

I'm starting to think maybe I should just buy my 2+ TB SATA hard drive and Blu-ray burner as planned and make do for a while longer. :( It's just hard resisting the pull of shiny new tech since it's been years (possibly a decade or more) since I've had what could reasonably be labeled cutting edge hardware (specifically, CPU or video card).
 
I would never buy anything intel. It's not worth the price. They're way overpriced. It's just not worth it... ever. Same goes with nvidia.
 
I have no particular loyalty to either Intel or AMD, so whichever supplies the best bang for the buck is what I'll buy (if I buy a processor at all).
 
I don't buy intel/nivida due to less bang for the buck. They've got higher end, but the price difference isn't worth it. :)
 
Don't do it. It's an OK card. It is showing it's age. I have had mine for about 2 years and I can no longer play all games at max with it. I can't play Skyrim at all because I want the graphics to a certain level and the card chugs too much. I would not buy it if it were me. The lowest card I would consider is a 660ti if you want something that will actually last. I think a 7850 is a way better choice.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814125419
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814161405
 
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ewoksrule said:
Don't do it. It's an OK card. It is showing it's age. I have had mine for about 2 years and I can no longer play all games at max with it. I can't play Skyrim at all because I want the graphics to a certain level and the card chugs too much. I would not buy it if it were me. The lowest card I would consider is a 660ti if you want something that will actually last. I think a 7850 is a way better choice.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814125419
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814161405
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The reviews for the Gigabyte card look a little rough and the HIS card is out of stock. :(

Maybe I should just wait until Bowser sends me his Core2Duo 3.0GHz processor and I see what difference that makes.

It's really hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars when I can play everything except Guild Wars 2 and Natural Selection 2 on high at 1080p with no trouble. (Then again, GW2 and NS2 will be the two games I'll be playing most often for a while unless plans change.)

EDIT: I'm also wondering if I should skip buying a video card altogether until DirectX 11.1 launches and I can confirm which cards will support it.

EDIT#2: Also, the Radeon 7850 card with the highest rating on Newegg is $200 after a $20 rebate. That's starting to creep into price ranges that I had hoped to avoid.

EDIT#3: I just noticed your link pointed to a comparison that included the GeForce GTX 550 Ti; I was considering purchasing a GeForce 560 Ti. Here's a comparison of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and the Radeon 7850.
 
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Tek7 said:
The reviews for the Gigabyte card look a little rough and the HIS card is out of stock. :(

Maybe I should just wait until Bowser sends me his Core2Duo 3.0GHz processor and I see what difference that makes.

It's really hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars when I can play everything except Guild Wars 2 and Natural Selection 2 on high at 1080p with no trouble. (Then again, GW2 and NS2 will be the two games I'll be playing most often for a while unless plans change.)

EDIT: I'm also wondering if I should skip buying a video card altogether until DirectX 11.1 launches and I can confirm which cards will support it.

EDIT#2: Also, the Radeon 7850 card with the highest rating on Newegg is $200 after a $20 rebate. That's starting to creep into price ranges that I had hoped to avoid.
Click to expand...


Put a stock notifier on that $139 card, that is a steal. Plus its a Christian company! more win.
 
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