First Gaming Rig Build

[GatorChamp]

look at a 6300 or a 6350 instead of the 8350, higher clocks with less heat, less to invest in cooling, most games can't use more than 4 cores.
games now are more about the memory and gpu.
I perfer a better single card over sli or crossfire.

Well...right now you are correct. But Battlefield 4 now recommends 6 cores. Personally, I would get the 8350. I was going back and forth for a solid month on either the 6350 or the 8350 and I'm glad I went with the latter.

I think with this generation of consoles we are going to see AMD able to take advantage of 6 and 8 cores. The Ps4 and Xbox are 8 core systems. I have nothing against the 6xxx but if you can afford the 8xxx and the cooler do it. Future proof the thing and OC the crap out of it.

It's going to be really interesting to see how games run over the next 4-5 years on AMD systems vs Intel systems being AMD control the consoles. Intel in ways has dominated and sometimes crushed AMD (look at blizzard titles). But I think that may start to change. It will be interesting to see.

 

[Physiqz]

Yeah I was thinking about going with a gigabyte board for 50$ less, 8gb instead of 16gb, even though I will be doing animation, but 8gb should be good until I get into advanced animation.

Also going with an 850W thermaltek psu for 129.

So I could go with a gigabyte board for 150ish, and downgrade to a 8320, and with the savings get a radeon r9 290

or

I could cut out the SDD, keep the crossair v board and 8350, and get the radeon r9 290 and just get the sdd at a later time...

thoughts?

oh almost forgot, I will be going with a 3 screen setup. When deals on higher resolutions happen I will upgrade, but I already have a 3 screen setup right now

 

[manu2b]

Yeah, I still think that was a PSU failure, and not because of a lack of wattage... but that is neither here nor there.

My results were pushing the cards and the CPU to the limit. ANd while an AMD octo/hex will use more power, I still feel a 800W unit is enough allowing for ample headroom.

WHAT?!? Don't you like Ze German products?!?

Maybe, maybe, but still, 800W, 2x300+ for the GPUs and 200w for the CPU is kind of borderline, don't you agree? (Yes, you do!)

 

[EarthDog]

I love ze duetsche products!

About the only way those cards would reach 300W actual use is with Furmark or voltage mods. Otherwise, even overclocking, they are barely breaking 225-250W. In my review of 2 7970's I hit 535W at the wall with a 4Ghz 3770K and moderately overclocked 7970's.

 

[manu2b]

^Talking about 1.3v on the core and 1.65v on the memory for 1230/1800.

Drawing 340W at the wall (-7/8%), that makes 310W+.

We measured it with one, two and then three cards. Interesting point though is that power draw decreases when temps get lower.

With a Phenom II @stock, power draw with 3 cards@1200/1750 was 1180W at the wall. With a 1050W Gold PSU.



We spent a full day (and night) making measurements..

 

[EarthDog]

So that system with one card overclocked to the moon draws ~310W. If I understand right, you are saying that the entire PC (CPU/board/ram/hdd/fans) only draws about 10W if that card alone is 300W...

For my 750W value I was around 1.35v and 1.65v on the memory.

 

[manu2b]

^Nope, 340W at the wall is for the card alone.

Total sytem with 3 cards: 1180w. With 2 cards 840W, with one card 500w.

So, it's 340W (at the wall) for one card.

Edit: CPU is a PhenomII 95W@Stock. So CPU+MoBo+HDD hardly draw more than 120/130W.

 

[caddi daddi]

get the 8350 at least if you go 8 core, but get a BIG, THICK rad, my swiftys are too thin for you.
look at the specs on the phobya g changer, THICK!!!
an 8320 is an 8350 that could not make the grade it is truly a lessr processor.
my 8 core rig runs fine on a good 860 watt psu with a single 7850 video card, the 1050 watt I had in it rated about what you were looking at, it did the job but it was ugly and held the clock back.

future proof? what's that? am3+ is basicly dead after steamroller, (if we actually see it), we expect we will be going fm-2 socket here in amdland.