Seeking Advice "gaming" build

[BobAwesome]

Last year I built my first computer, a 3570K/GTX670 rig. Now my aunt has asked if I could build my 13y/o cousin a computer that he can play Minecraft, Starcraft 2 and World of Tanks on. I asked her how much she would like to spend and she said he has $1000 bucks in his toy's and games fund so we figured $500-$600 would be a good budget for a fairly decent machine. I'm not sure if he needs an OS, but for now I'll assume he doesn't.

As I began my investigation into the market I saw a lot of i3 3220's vs AMD FX-6300's for recommended chips. Since the i3-3220 is only a dual core, I'm ruling that out, since dualcore is at it's end. The cheapest quadcore Intel has is the i5-3350P at $180... meh :|

I figured I'd look into AMD as their chips have started getting better again. I see the FX-6300 mentioned in a lot of budget builds, is it that good?Or should I get one of their APU chips? So FX-6300 or FX-8320 vs. A8-5600k/A10-5800k/A10-5800k. At the moment I'm Leaning towards the FX-6300 or FX-8320.

I have no previous knowledge of AMD mobo's so I'm totally in the dark here. Any suggestions? I see the MSI 970A-G46 mentioned a lot. Maybe an ASrock Extreme board? 970 Extreme3 or Extreme4 or a 990FX Exreme4? I know the Intel ASrock z77 Extreme4 was practically legendary last year.


For the GPU I'm looking at either the ASUS HD7790 or a ASUS GTX 650ti Boost. I'm leaning heavily towards the GTX 650ti Boost.

For the rest of the stuff, I figured 8gb of ram is more than he'll ever need, but since it's not much more than 4gb, why not? I'll probably sit down with him and have him pick out a case he thinks looks cool though with lighted fans and stuff.

[procne]

If you build a pc for gaming then number of cores is secondary factor.
Single thread performance matters more for games. This way those dual core CPUs are better than FX-6300.

Also, take a look here:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-Sample-Builds
I think 570 build would be a good start.

Swap GPU for cheaper 650ti. Games you mentioned rely more on CPU than GPU I believe.

I think your cousin WILL need OS after all. I doubt he has a free Windows license which he can use.
Will he need a monitor / peripherals?

[chazus]

I'm not sure if he needs an OS, but for now I'll assume he doesn't.

There's no reason to assume he doesn't. He most likely does.

Since the i3-3220 is only a dual core, I'm ruling that out, since dualcore is at it's end.

Huh? It's really not. That, and the i3-3220 is 2 core 4 thread, so it's fine. It's better than any stock AMD. Nothing is using more than 2 threads anyway, except BF3, and gains are only marginal at the high end.

I figured I'd look into AMD as their chips have started getting better again.

They have not. If anything, AMD has been embarrassing itself further as of late, with silly PR moves.

I'm leaning heavily towards the GTX 650ti Boost.

Minecraft doesn't care about the GPU much. Any GPU that isn't integrated works fine. Starcraft 2 LOVES nvidia. All nvidia cards beat all ATI cards for SC2. WoT... I'm not sure, but the nvidia is a better bet due to SC2 anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

Something like this ought to serve him well.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($54.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Pareema 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB Video Card ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec 450W ATX12V Power Supply ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $584.63

[yurano]

Intel is a better choice for SC2.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ce,3427-8.html

For the rest of the stuff, I figured 8gb of ram is more than he'll ever need, but since it's not much more than 4gb, why not? I'll probably sit down with him and have him pick out a case he thinks looks cool though with lighted fans and stuff.

SC2 is anywhere from 1.5 to 2GB of memory. Windows 7/8 is ~ 1.3 GB.

4GB isn't really enough anymore.

[BobAwesome]

Yes, those builds would be fine for the games he's currently seeking to play. I put gaming in quotations because but this will most likely be his PC for the rest of his teenage years and he'll be using it for other stuff as well. I know he's into recording his brothers messing around on their dad's drum set, so being able to do some movie/music editing is something else he's into.

While games don't use multiple cores at the moment, they're going to start using them. Dual Cores are on their way out. Even though the initial reason he's getting this computer is to play SC2, he's going to want to play other games and newer games and I'd like him to be able to play them at some reasonable settings.

Now I'm grateful for the advice, but I will ask, if you're going to bother giving it, please give some valid explanations for stuff. Saying "AMD has been embarrassing itself further as of late, with silly PR moves." is opinion and fanboy-ish. I like Intel and if I could, I'd get him an Intel, but I want him to have at least a quad-core and those seem out of his price range Just noticed Microcenter has the i5-4570 for a good price. If this was last year, I'd agree that AMD's Bulldozer chips were pretty weak, but after reading plenty of reviews, their Piledriver chips are way better. I'm sure as he gets more into computers he'll get curious about overclocking, so that's another reason why I'm considering the AMD chip over the Intel. It looks like the i5-4570 has some kind of OC-ish thingy-ma-jig but... idklol. Even if he won't need to OC, it'd still be something cool for him to learn about.

If I was going to get a cheaper a cheaper card, I'd get the 7790, even with the problems with AA, which I doubt the little guy will use or even know the difference. If World of Tanks acts anything like Planetside 2 does with AMD vs nVidia GPU's than, they favor nVidia even more! Given that train of thought, I'm actually going to go with the MSI GTX650ti OC/BE Boost card that is faster, quieter, run's cooler and cheaper than the ASUS GTX650TIB-DC2OC.

So I guess the advice I'm asking for is:

FX-8320 vs i5-4570

And

if AMD chip, which kind of mobo 970 or 990fx. ASrock, MSI or something else?

- - - Updated - - -

Here's what I've proposed to his mom

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($144.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 EXTREME4 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($58.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($148.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($51.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $691.63

It's actually about 50 dollars cheaper since it's not showing the Microcenter combo. I also gave here the option of going with the MSI mobo which is $20 cheaper or going with the fx-6300 for $30~$40 cheaper with either the ASRock or MSI($20 cheaper)

I'll possibly go with a Cooler Master GX 450 or Corsair CX500M, I know PCP&Cooling used to be good until they were bought out, but I need to do more researching.

[potis]

If you have the option to go for Intel, you go for Intel, end of story.

Just because "In the future they might use" doesnt stand anymore, we said the same things in 2007-8 with the first Q series from Intel, and games are still running apart from the few specialized ones at barely 2 cores, AMD's 8 cores are beyond useless since Intel focused on high performance per core than just flashy 8 cores.

Not to mention Blizzard games, aka SC2 as he is going to play is heavily favored by Intel as Blizzard has always been.

A 4570 is barely slower than a 4670K, obviously the fact that you cant OC changes a lot, but from stock performance point of view the difference is tiny there is no reason to go for an AMD.

Also, there is no case on your system, so i assume you have one? Apart from that you already said you will change the PSU yourself, dont get above 500W, even the Corsair CX430M 80 plus bronze is more than enough for a build like that and its like 20$ on newegg i think?

[BobAwesome]

If you have the option to go for Intel, you go for Intel, end of story.

Just because "In the future they might use" doesnt stand anymore, we said the same things in 2007-8 with the first Q series from Intel, and games are still running apart from the few specialized ones at barely 2 cores, AMD's 8 cores are beyond useless since Intel focused on high performance per core than just flashy 8 cores.

Not to mention Blizzard games, aka SC2 as he is going to play is heavily favored by Intel as Blizzard has always been.

A 4570 is barely slower than a 4670K, obviously the fact that you cant OC changes a lot, but from stock performance point of view the difference is tiny there is no reason to go for an AMD.

Also, there is no case on your system, so i assume you have one? Apart from that you already said you will change the PSU yourself, dont get above 500W, even the Corsair CX430M 80 plus bronze is more than enough for a build like that and its like 20$ on newegg i think?

I know what capacity I need for the PSU, and yes, using things in the future does stand. Just because games now days don't use multiple cores doesn't mean future released games won't. OC'ing does change a lot, but it still doesn't change the fact that the comparable Intel's cost more for less. I already stated I'll be sitting down with him to pick out a case. Thanks though.

[slasher0161]

Intel chips blow amd chips out of the water unless we are talking integrated graphics solutions, end discussion. I own both intel and amd, I have overclocked both intel and amd, I have gamed on both. Its just that simple and guess what when games utilize more cores intel will drop in more, they have proven they can do it however amd isn't even in the same league as them outside of select situations at the moment so they have had 0 reason to do so. Please for the love of god do not put an amd chip in there you will kick yourself later (not to mention as intel has huge market share the boards for amd chips are piss poor quality relative).

[BobAwesome]

Intel chips blow amd chips out of the water unless we are talking integrated graphics solutions, end discussion. I own both intel and amd, I have overclocked both intel and amd, I have gamed on both. Its just that simple and guess what when games utilize more cores intel will drop in more, they have proven they can do it however amd isn't even in the same league as them outside of select situations at the moment so they have had 0 reason to do so. Please for the love of god do not put an amd chip in there you will kick yourself later (not to mention as intel has huge market share the boards for amd chips are piss poor quality relative).

First of all, your very own mobo has an AMD version so... uh. yeah.

Second. Intel chips do not blow AMD chips out of the water. There's no ending the discussion. That kind of stuff isn't helpful or constructive at all. Please, if you're going to make such wild claims, support them. Are Intel chips nice? Yes. Are they better? Maybe. But a quad-core chip from Intel costs much more than a quad-core from AMD. An unlocked quad-core Intel chip is out of the price range, and a capped quad-core from them is just blah. I hate to use the term, but damn, stop with the blind fanboy stuff. I own an Intel, I know how good it is. People don't need to have constant "blarg Intel r best, AMD r poo, blargh!" when ever they're looking at options.

[slasher0161]

My main rig specs are in my sig, I have got an old athlon x2 sitting in my room, I have a 6800k in my htpc which I am currently posting off, I have also used my mates rig which runs an 8350... So please tell me again how my post is blind fan boy ism? Simply put an i3 will outperform any amd option up to an 8320 or at worst equal to while performing vastly better in anjy blizzard title or mmo, due to the higher IPC. Intel chips have a higher thermal limit (105c opposed to amd which is about 70c-80c), intel based motherboards are better. The board in this htpc is an Asus F2A85-M, the vrm solution on it is shit the voltage fluctuations while overclocking this 6800k lead me to having to settle on a 4.2ghz clock because I was hitting thermal limits with voltage fluctuations. Just because 2 boards carry the same name doesn't make them equal. So what else would you like? I'll elaborate on the situations further when i'm not on my htpc because reading text on a 55" plasma from ~3m away isn't very comfortable especially after just working 12 hours straight.


-----------------edit---------------------

Now that i'm at a more comfortable setup here is the reasons to buy amd.

Option 1) you don't intend to play blizzard titles much or any mmo as the genre is not interesting to you, you do find you like to play a fairly broad spectrum of single player or gpu dependant games, your budget however constrains you to either a better gpu or 8320/8350 + high end gpu or i5 xxxxk + mid range gpu
Solution: AMD

Option 2) you will be using an integrated graphics solution for quite a while as this is a first rig and you just want to get your feet wet (or its a htpc with minor gaming capabilities) however you might look at doing some upgrades down the line...
Solution AMD APU (A8 or A10 + high speed ram)

Option 3) You like gaming, mmo's aren't your favourite genre and you like to live stream, you budget however constrains you from an i7 without gimping other parts of the rig...
Solution: FX-8350

All other situations. Intel.

[BobAwesome]

My main rig specs are in my sig, I have got an old athlon x2 sitting in my room, I have a 6800k in my htpc which I am currently posting off, I have also used my mates rig which runs an 8350... So please tell me again how my post is blind fan boy ism? Simply put an i3 will outperform any amd option up to an 8320 or at worst equal to while performing vastly better in anjy blizzard title or mmo, due to the higher IPC. Intel chips have a higher thermal limit (105c opposed to amd which is about 70c-80c), intel based motherboards are better. The board in this htpc is an Asus F2A85-M, the vrm solution on it is shit the voltage fluctuations while overclocking this 6800k lead me to having to settle on a 4.2ghz clock because I was hitting thermal limits with voltage fluctuations. Just because 2 boards carry the same name doesn't make them equal. So what else would you like? I'll elaborate on the situations further when i'm not on my htpc because reading text on a 55" plasma from ~3m away isn't very comfortable especially after just working 12 hours straight.

I wish you'd stop posting. You clearly haven't read the thread.

[procne]

Ansible, you asked a question: FX-8320 vs i5-4570
The answer to it is i5-4570 for gaming.

I understand you may want to choose FX-8320 because it's cheaper, and intel CPUs in the 150$ price range may not be that competitive.

As for games using multiple cores... it's really hard to write a game doing that. Not everything can be multithreaded. Multithreaded code is harder to debug and more error-prone. Don't expect this to change much.

[slasher0161]

You ask me to stop posting because i'm contradicting what you want to hear? If you don't want to hear things that might contradict what you want don't ask on a public realm.

[Deleted]

For the 8320 vs 4570

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-18.html
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-19.html

The 4570 should be just below the 4670k, because of its lowered clockspeed.

Here is a review of the 8350. The 8320 should be a bit lower than that one.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...rrives-17.html

And one for the 6300

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-12.html
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-17.html

If you OC a 6300, it will most likely run on par with an i3 2330. Do take in account you will need a better mobo with a better power design (8+2 for heavy overclocking, 4+1 should be enough for light overclocking.) And you will need a better heatsink.

You could go for something like this for a 6300 build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions CC-TranQ-01-A 58.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($31.25 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($62.13 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($148.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $713.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-03 04:43 EDT-0400)

But the I3 build posted earlier will serve your cousing also well. But I can see your argument about 4 cores etc. But do keep in mind the i3 has hyper treading. But the 4570 would be the best option out of those 4 (6300, 8320, 2330, 4570).

[BobAwesome]

You ask me to stop posting because i'm contradicting what you want to hear? If you don't want to hear things that might contradict what you want don't ask on a public realm.

no, I'm sorry, what I said came off ruder than I intended. At the moment, he plays halo and call of duty on Xbox, but wants to play SC2. When I asked him what other games he was interested in he mentioned Minecraft and World of Tanks. He hasn't shown interest in MMORPGs. He's already asked about OC'ing, not sure where he's learning about these terms, so I figure having the ability to OC, even just a little will be a good learning experience for him.

Again, he doesn't need to play WoW, Rift or any other Big Ol' MMO on ultra settings.

I just personally want his first rig to last him until he's old enough that he can afford to make his own. Which to me, the fx-6320 and gtx650ti boost looks like it can do.

[slasher0161]

Fair enough point then, just make sure to caution him about the lower thermal limit of AMD chips and hunt around for a board with a good VRM solution because I was highly disappointed with the vrm's on that asus board in my htpc (talking .1V fluctuation between what is set in bios and what it was delivering). Also apology accepted and appreciated.

[BobAwesome]

Ah, well, we're not going with a mATX board and he's only 13 so he shouldn't be messing around with OCing by himself. If I get the sense that he's not responsible enough to not try it on his own I just won't end up showing him or even bother to OC. I've looked into the 8+2 power phase stuff and a good VRM cooling and the 990FX ASRock Extreme4 looks like it should do.

[slasher0161]

Just from experience with my extreme 4 on the intel side, if you get boot error code 99 just send the board back it seems to be the main issue with the board is some come with a bunk pci-e x16 slot that likes to have tantrums. It usually works if you restart it but its a pain in the neck (not sure if it is the same on the AMD side but that is my only gripe about the extreme 4 intel side).