- Joined
- Dec 10, 2013
- Location
- In Space, Yo
Hey guys, Long time no see...
Anyways, long story short, I want to make my girlfriend a gaming computer for our anniversary. This is great because it'll allow us to grow closer, yada yada. I need some advice as to what to build for her. I've been chugging along this AMD train for quite a while now and I love it to bits, but I'm tempted to go to the Intel side for a while to see how that tastes.
BUT: I have budget constraints.
I just bought another R9 290 for my current rig, and I've also bought some stuff to mod it with, so my allocated budget is around 300$ right now. After the holiday season, I will definitely have more money. But there are things on sale right now that are great deals in my opinion.
Let me tell you what I already have in spare parts:
1 TB HDD
7870 GHz Edition from Sapphire / 560 ti from Sparkle
Some old 600 Watt PSUs from 2009 (recycled from Core 2 duo machines) and a non modular 1000w psu (from my older AMD rig)
Two damaged Antec 900 (Front USBs dont work) that will not work with...
Thermaltake Extreme Water 2.0 dual rad AIO
I'm missing:
RAM
CPU
MOBO
Dual rad supporting Case
SO why am I posting here? Well CPU dictates everything, once I figure out which CPU would be best for her then I'm pretty sure I can figure out the rest.
What I'm looking at right now:
i5 4690k or i5 4440
AMD 8320 or 6300
Some things to keep in mind:
-She likes performance, but every dollar spent towards personalizing and or making the machine look cool is definitely worth more brownie points (cool looking case, nice lights, etc.)
-That being said, my total spent on this machine needs to be less than $700. I'm a college student with a decent paycheck, but by no means am I going to give her the better machine (I will not give her an i7).
-I don't have windows yet. She also doesn't have a monitor.
-At some point, there may be rendering done on the machine. It might be upgraded by that point, but I would like to plan for that.
-Overclocking isn't necessarily a big deal, but if I buy the K series processor, hell I will overclock it
-Power saving and heat output are not big deals
What is my real question:
With what I've said up to now, what CPU should I go for? The Benchmarks show both of Intel's offerings as being better performers, but the average cost of AMD is lower and the performance trade off in gaming isn't that huge, especially with the 7870 GHz card.
I've posted this in the Intel subforum but honestly it should be in both. I just know there are more people specifically watching this subforum. Apologies for posting incorrectly.
Anyways, long story short, I want to make my girlfriend a gaming computer for our anniversary. This is great because it'll allow us to grow closer, yada yada. I need some advice as to what to build for her. I've been chugging along this AMD train for quite a while now and I love it to bits, but I'm tempted to go to the Intel side for a while to see how that tastes.
BUT: I have budget constraints.
I just bought another R9 290 for my current rig, and I've also bought some stuff to mod it with, so my allocated budget is around 300$ right now. After the holiday season, I will definitely have more money. But there are things on sale right now that are great deals in my opinion.
Let me tell you what I already have in spare parts:
1 TB HDD
7870 GHz Edition from Sapphire / 560 ti from Sparkle
Some old 600 Watt PSUs from 2009 (recycled from Core 2 duo machines) and a non modular 1000w psu (from my older AMD rig)
Two damaged Antec 900 (Front USBs dont work) that will not work with...
Thermaltake Extreme Water 2.0 dual rad AIO
I'm missing:
RAM
CPU
MOBO
Dual rad supporting Case
SO why am I posting here? Well CPU dictates everything, once I figure out which CPU would be best for her then I'm pretty sure I can figure out the rest.
What I'm looking at right now:
i5 4690k or i5 4440
AMD 8320 or 6300
Some things to keep in mind:
-She likes performance, but every dollar spent towards personalizing and or making the machine look cool is definitely worth more brownie points (cool looking case, nice lights, etc.)
-That being said, my total spent on this machine needs to be less than $700. I'm a college student with a decent paycheck, but by no means am I going to give her the better machine (I will not give her an i7).
-I don't have windows yet. She also doesn't have a monitor.
-At some point, there may be rendering done on the machine. It might be upgraded by that point, but I would like to plan for that.
-Overclocking isn't necessarily a big deal, but if I buy the K series processor, hell I will overclock it
-Power saving and heat output are not big deals
What is my real question:
With what I've said up to now, what CPU should I go for? The Benchmarks show both of Intel's offerings as being better performers, but the average cost of AMD is lower and the performance trade off in gaming isn't that huge, especially with the 7870 GHz card.
I've posted this in the Intel subforum but honestly it should be in both. I just know there are more people specifically watching this subforum. Apologies for posting incorrectly.
