Need some thoughts on new builds

[woodenman80]

Well ive not posted anything in a long long time.

But now iam after some advice

What started this whole slide of events is the fact that i picked up an 7950 really cheap to upgrade my 6850. Im currently running a e8400 wolfdale @ 3.6ghz on a MATX board with 4GB of ram but i noticed that although my 3dmark doubled its score my actual game play did not improve noticeably especially in ARMA 2 so im assuming CPU bottleneck.

Now ideally I want to keep my current case (antec sonata (MATX) and i already have a decent if old 650 watt enermax psu (although if i go haswell it needs changing )

I also dont want to spend a huge amount of money (leaking roof and winters coming) and probably will Oc whatever I get. (At present not stressing my chip as its on stock cooler :O lazy i know)

I don't care whether its intel or amd as long as its got some grunt .

My 2 ideas of builds dont spare my feelings. I can take criticism.

Firstly no FM2 ? im assuming by looking through benchmarks that there isnt enough grunt although i could hang on for an FM2+ board if anyone remotely thinks that the newer kav will crossfire with a 7950 (I doubt it) although it might have the longest support roadmap. Also would allow crossfire and MATX boards have to pci express.

Second build AM3+

-AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz £150
-Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard (£52.99) supposedly supports up to 140w cpu but im jubious on the powersetup i can imagine throttling ( this board looks old tech tbh but I only have 1 SATA 6gb drive )

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LMUSB3/

-Patriot Venom Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £65 ( i could add more ram and 2400 is a waste but its on special)

But its £268 inc VAT.


Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £173
Asus Z87 GRYPHON Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £119
Corsair Builder Series CX 750W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74
Patriot Venom Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £65

After VAT comes to £433.96


Ideas thoughts and practical experiance. The AMD option seems allot of power for the money and i could increase to 16gb of ram although im worried the power on that board would be an issue for throttling. For cooling both setups I have got a closed loop corsair H80 lying around somewhere which i can use. I could cool the mossies and chokes with a custom heatsink on the board as well.

 

[ninjacore]

First, I would replace that enermax PSU with something of a higher caliber. Don't want to kill your new toys with an old power supply. You were on the right track with the PSU in your Intel build, though you could likely get away with a CX600.

Since you're replacing motherboard and CPU, I would say go with the Intel option unless you're really keen on saving ~50, in which case, I would definitely look for a nicer board to pair with the 8350.

I wouldn't even consider 16GB of RAM. No point at all in spending the extra money on it.

 

[woodenman80]

I pretty sure my PSU is good it just lacks modern plugs like SATA and the new 6 pin GFX it was allot of money in the day and still runs cool quiet and all the rails work well. But if i go haswell it will have to be changed.

Has anyone used the 8350 on that Asus 760 board ? and if so did it run ok.? what worries me is I go haswell games next year ask for ideally 8 cores and intel shaft me into buying a new socket/ram and chip for a greater than quad core? or do you think 1150 will support or be given higher core count procs?

 

[Theocnoob]

Second build AM3+

-AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz £150
-Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard (£52.99) supposedly supports up to 140w cpu but im jubious on the powersetup i can imagine throttling ( this board looks old tech tbh but I only have 1 SATA 6gb drive )

Spend a bare minimum of $130-150 on your AM3+ board if you want to support an FX8350 properly. Crappier boards will throttle it and not allow it to run at its full potential.

On the other hand, you could get a 4670K and a cheaper Z87 board and be much better off. For $130 you can get an Asus Z87 A and overclock the cpu pretty high on it. Much better choice.

Unless you're doing heavily multithreaded work, the four powerful cores will trump the 8 less powerful cores. Get the i5. Who told you games are going to start needing more than four cores? I highly doubt it.

Also, if you don't plan to overclock, get the 4670 (no K) and a $80 socket 1150 board.

 

[ninjacore]

Spend a bare minimum of $130-150 on your AM3+ board if you want to support an FX8350 properly. Crappier boards will throttle it and not allow it to run at its full potential.

On the other hand, you could get a 4670K and a cheaper Z87 board and be much better off. For $130 you can get an Asus Z87 A and overclock the cpu pretty high on it. Much better choice.

Unless you're doing heavily multithreaded work, the four powerful cores will trump the 8 less powerful cores. Get the i5. Who told you games are going to start needing more than four cores? I highly doubt it.

Also, if you don't plan to overclock, get the 4670 (no K) and a $80 socket 1150 board.

ALL the +1s

 

[woodenman80]

Unless you're doing heavily multithreaded work, the four powerful cores will trump the 8 less powerful cores. Get the i5. Who told you games are going to start needing more than four cores? I highly doubt it.

I read it somewhere that with the AMD gpu/cpus being used in the new Xbox and i think the New PS4 (could be wrong on that one) that new games would be written to utilise an 8 core system. And i probably read it somewhere on a forum or eeegadds tomshardware.



Thanks for your insight guys appreciate it! And i will overclock is that gryphon an ok board? as its an extra 30-40 for a ROG matx

 

[ninjacore]

It's all speculation at this point. I read the same, though. I'd say we have 3-5 years before studios start making use of that many cores.

 

[woodenman80]

And in that case i would of upgraded to the latest rig i would think