this is a gift for my son 500$ pc

[ryushura]

hello my son brithday is comeing up and i have heared him talking to hes friends how he wish he had a better computer becasue he wants to play some computer games and to do some school work on like video editing. he likeing going on twitch so i think he wants to trying streaming on there also i want it to know do this look like a good build for him has a brithday gift i really want to build a computer for him so he can do all the stuff he wants to do.

[chazus]

Can you provide a link/description of the system?

Also, what does he currently have?

If you could fill out the info from the sticky that would make things a LOT easier. Are you planning to build the system?

• Budget
• Resolution
• Games / Settings Desired
• Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc)
• Country
• Parts that can be reused
• Do you need an OS?
• Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)?

[ryushura]

oh im sry i was thinking i linked it all ready http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ksZTxr is the build im looking at doing for him budget 500$ i dont know about the resolution or the games. he will be doing school work and playing some games ,usa i have a copy of windows 8.1,monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers. i know he has a desktop that he use hes capture card off of right now this is hes computer Acer Aspire AXC-603-UR10 Desktop Intel Pentium J2900 2.41 GHz Processor (2 MB cache)
4 GB DDR3 RAM
1 TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
Intel HD Graphics
Windows 8.1

[Silent One]

Looks like a pretty great pc for 500$ I would recommend getting a ssd for the boot drive, but otherwise that build is great.

[narzinor]

If he already has a 1TB HDD, then I suggest he gets an SSD. These are some revisions I made to the system, mostly just changed the CPU to a newer architecture and adjusted the motherboard accordingly and replaced the HDD with an SSD boot drive.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-4350 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($64.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.60 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($189.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($22.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $495.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-07 21:02 EDT-0400

[chazus]

I changed some parts around. I'd really suggest avoiding AMD if he plays/streams WoW at all. Changed to an SSD and slightly cheaper ram, and a better/cheaper GPU. Notably, the GPU is only on sale for about a week, so if you want to get that, get it quite soon.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($108.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($36.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($43.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($90.24 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($22.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $483.18
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-07 21:15 EDT-0400

[ryushura]

ok so the intel core i3-4160 duel core is better then the amd quad core for gameing and streaming what is so bad about the amd one

[Gorgodeus]

ok so the intel core i3-4160 duel core is better then the amd quad core for gameing and streaming what is so bad about the amd one

The AMD listed would be better for gaming and streaming, due to being a quad core vs a dual core. Doing both would put a lot of stress on a dual core processor.

[ComputerNerd]

The AMD listed would be better for gaming and streaming, due to being a quad core vs a dual core. Doing both would put a lot of stress on a dual core processor.

Streaming CAN take advantage of the cores, but for gaming most games benefit more from single-core performance rather than more of them.
That is where intel wins out over AMD.
The gaming performance should in most cases be better with intel than AMD.
Multi-threading/Multiple core support has to be something the application is written to take advantage of.
Many games, particularly MMO's aren't.

[ryushura]

ok so it dont really matter which one i pick they both will work just has good for my son computer and what it is he wants to do right

[chazus]

The AMD listed would be better for gaming and streaming, due to being a quad core vs a dual core. Doing both would put a lot of stress on a dual core processor.

Yes and no.

You can only stream as fast as your system is going in the first place.

Example:

If your system performs at 20fps, no matter how many cores you have, you can only stream 20fps.
If your system performs at 40fps, whether or not it can stream at 40fps is to be determined, however it won't be capped at 20, and may get at least 30-35.

You want your CPU power to be the highest common denominator, and Streaming Capability to be the lowest.

But regardless of streaming, the i3 will simply perform better in most games. If I had a choice between "Play better" or "Stream better".... I'd take play better. They're my games that I'm playing.

- - - Updated - - -

ok so it dont really matter which one i pick they both will work just has good for my son computer and what it is he wants to do right

It wont make a HUGE difference... However the i3 setup will pretty much perform better all around.

Not only that, but he could throw a 4690K in there later, too.

[Gorgodeus]

But regardless of streaming, the i3 will simply perform better in most games. If I had a choice between "Play better" or "Stream better".... I'd take play better. They're my games that I'm playing.

- - - Updated - - -


It wont make a HUGE difference... However the i3 setup will pretty much perform better all around.

Not only that, but he could throw a 4690K in there later, too.

Take it from an experienced streamer. The AMD one will perform much better than the i3 when doing both, which the OP said his son wants to do. The i3 will bog down, and he would have to both lower his in-game settings and his streaming settings. It will bog down even more, if he tries to record the stream at the same time, as well. He would be able to have both settings higher on the quad core. If all he doing was gaming, then yeah the i3 might be the better choice.

He also mentioned video editing, which means recording is involved, and more cores is better for such things.

[chazus]

Eh. Im inclined to disagree from experience. There just isn't much difference from AMD's 2 FPU 4 Integer versus Intel's 2 Core 4 Thread. Streaming and whatnot is a Floating Point heavy process, as far as I'm aware, so the 'Four Core' (which it isnt) doesn't really help.

I'm not sure if you're speaking from the perspective of an 'experienced streamer' or someone who has actually tested this hardware out.

And again, streaming aside (because nobody streams 24/7), the actual gaming performance will be lower all around.

[Gorgodeus]

Eh. Im inclined to disagree from experience. There just isn't much difference from AMD's 2 FPU 4 Integer versus Intel's 2 Core 4 Thread. Streaming and whatnot is a Floating Point heavy process, as far as I'm aware, so the 'Four Core' (which it isnt) doesn't really help.

I'm not sure if you're speaking from the perspective of an 'experienced streamer' or someone who has actually tested this hardware out.

And again, streaming aside (because nobody streams 24/7), the actual gaming performance will be lower all around.

I just and went and pulled the direct comparison benchmarks for both, and it does appear that the i3 is very slightly ahead on multithreaded applications, but far ahead on single threaded ones, which is usually the case when comparing AMD vs Intel.

However, the 4350 performs better when running simultaneous operations just as I suspected.

I guess it comes down to how often he wants to stream/record while gaming, as opposed to only gaming.

[Silent One]

Well if your going Intel I'd recommend Pentium G3258 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 53W BX80646G3258 and putting an overclock on it vs the i3.

[Remilia]

I'd rather go with the i3 than the G3258 if your son is going to stream.

Recording wise, you can get the R9 280 and use the hardware encoder. You can use any application to record that supports AMD VCE like DXTory, OBS, or just use their gaming evolved application. Using DXTory does give more control over what your son can do.

[Aori]

Curious why you keep making threads.

Anyways you need to pick your priorities at a $500 budget. Honestly at that budget I don't see the point in an i3 over a G3258 in a desktop. You can get the G3258 to 3.6ghz up to 4ghz with no issues on stock air.

the G3258 is paired with some good bundles to help cut costs, you said you weren't in a hurry in your last thread. So with a budget this small waiting for deals is ideal.

[chazus]

That's not really the case. - maths

Thats.. actually kinda cool. I need to take some time to look through all that stuff.

I wish I had the money to just outright buy these parts and test them. What are the chances MMOC would be willing to do a GoFundMe to allocate $1000 so I can do game and stream testing for all these different builds? >.>

[Deleted]

No offence or anything but you have 10 threads within a few months asking the same thing and you get more or less the same answer everytime. It will either be G3258 overclocked or an i3. Also as said before you don't really have the budget for video editing and heavy applications.