Efficiency, affordability, and all that makes a budget build

[Driver.James]

I LOVE budget builds. I love the challenge of getting the highest FPS-to-dollar ratio at a given price point.

Having said this... I've been out of the game for a while now (about 8yrs). My last build was on Intel's 775 socket, and followed development through 1155.

My biggest question is efficiency...

With rare exception, I always dropped the extra $20-30 for an ASUS mobo. They consistently got more FPS and consumed less power on the same clock speeds... without the price point of an Intel board.

Intel has always lead the way on efficiency... but their overclock capable boards cost way more than the ASUS equivalent.

I've heard some other manufacturers (primarily MSI and ASRock) have made some decent improvements over the years... especially with the rising popularity of micro ATX and mini ITX builds.

What's your opinions and experiences? I've always been an Intel guy... so if AMD has made any decent advancements, please let me know. The only reason I never used them was inconsistent performance and poor efficiency.

 

[maxfly]

amds ryzen cpus are about as good as it gets when comparing efficiency and performance. matter of fact they are about to release a couple 65w high performance procs. not to mention they are prepping another line of ryzen cpus 4q this year or early next year. amd has come back in a big way. this article will give you a taste of what amd has to offer.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13343/amd-announces-four-new-ryzen-cpus-2700e-2600e-2500x-and-2300x
intel has a solid line up as well but ill leave the research for you.
its time to get your google fu fired up my man. there have been huge leaps forward since you were in the game! msi, gigabyte, asrock, evga and asus are all making top notch mbs nowadays. there are more choices now than there ever have been.
and intel hasnt been a player in desktop mbs for a very long time.

 

[Scu84St3v3420]

I LOVE budget builds. I love the challenge of getting the highest FPS-to-dollar ratio at a given price point.

Having said this... I've been out of the game for a while now (about 8yrs). My last build was on Intel's 775 socket, and followed development through 1155.

My biggest question is efficiency...

With rare exception, I always dropped the extra $20-30 for an ASUS mobo. They consistently got more FPS and consumed less power on the same clock speeds... without the price point of an Intel board.

Intel has always lead the way on efficiency... but their overclock capable boards cost way more than the ASUS equivalent.

I've heard some other manufacturers (primarily MSI and ASRock) have made some decent improvements over the years... especially with the rising popularity of micro ATX and mini ITX builds.

What's your opinions and experiences? I've always been an Intel guy... so if AMD has made any decent advancements, please let me know. The only reason I never used them was inconsistent performance and poor efficiency.

AMD is far better in the budget department for sure and offers competitive performance with the current 2000s series Ryzen 5 and 7 chips. Also the AM4 socket is here to stay for at least 1.5 more years, meaning you will have the ability to upgrade in the future without replacing your motherboard. As Max stated many brands are pumping out top notch boards and again the AMD line budget with performance is unbeatable. If gaming @ above 1080p these chips are on par with the current Intel "standard" the i7 8700K Coffee Lake chip in FPS and is a far superior for activities such as streaming on twitch and other multi-threaded tasks.