Function Before Form Always
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For builds from $500 and up I would recommend this in regards to pure gaming PCs(yox SSDs) AMD sadly doesn't stand much of a chance here and above this price point.
~$530 i3 + 380/960(4GB) $30 could be saved with a 380 2GB
(maybe save up and get the i5 at this point)
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CzJp7P
~$600 i5 + 380/960(4GB)
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/R7tL8d
Around
$800 i5 + 390/970 OR Xeon 1231v3 + 380/960 if you do some productivity
work as well, no builds provided as this can start to get specific with
use cases
I will make a small note that I wouldn't necessarily recommend you buy a K
series part as that also would necessitate a higher end Z chipset board
when really unless you have a 144hz display the added CPU performance
doesn't matter much for gaming.
And before you mention the G3258, yes at times it can be faster once under a
heavy overclock compared to an 860K, however it's only a dual core with
no hyperthreading, certain games like GTAV and Far Cry 4 for now,
simply don't run well on pure dual core CPUs, and that will probably end
up truer in the future.
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Table of Contents:
AM1
Facebook/Email machine | ~$200 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TrdGpg
Very Entry level 720p Gaming PC | ~$280 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZhW7t6
FM2+
1080p Entry level 860K + 380 2GB($30 more for 4GB) | ~$440 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jfHp7P
no GPU Ultra ITX PC | ~$450 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NYgZVn
AM3+
The Donkey | ~$330 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7PJBXL
Productivity and Gaming PC | ~$600 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QKh2vK
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I'm writing this to lend some suggestions to where current AMD CPUs make
sense to purchase, as it's getting increasingly difficult to recommend
them due to lower prices from intel's offerings, and many people seem to
just brush AMD aside when looking at CPUs despite them really being a
pretty good value right now. Although it is mostly true that AMD can't
compete in the high end right now. This guide will be budget focused at
the $600 and under club.
PRICES AND AVALIBILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
Just look for similar parts as to what was posted here, the builds
should be good for a while, and always check for less expensive versions
of hardware as prices change all the time.
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No OS will be included as it's assumed that you already have one ready
to go that you may or may not have picked up from a back alley or
discount key selling website(I'd really just go to the back alley in
that case). Or maybe you're going to run GNU/Linux.
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As far as displays go I'd suggest finding the lowest cost relative to
reviews 1080p IPS display you can, currently $109 for this ViewSonic
display it'll work well
https://pcpartpicker...monitor-va2249s
Should you need to save money on your display as much as possible,
look around craigslist for old CRTs, preferably 1600x1200 75Hz models,
if working properly they still provide great color reproduction and
viewing angles compared to TN displays and have virtually no latency,
just be sure you have a strong desk to put one on.
I'd only recommend you find used TN displays as a last resort, TN displays will make your eyes melt man.
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As for peripherals I would either recommend getting a cheap chinese
gaming mouse such as the Red Dragon M601 which I've been using for a few
months, and picking up a keyboard used at a flea market or at a thift
store, maybe you'll be lucky enough to find a model M in this day and
age.
http://www.amazon.co...ds=Gaming Mouse
Or getting the coolermaster devastator bundle which is $30 for a solid keyboard which I'm using now
BUT BEWARE, the mouse has an optical sensor which will track from
very high up due to the opening around it, it makes it really hard to
play games out of the box like first person shooters, however if you use
a piece of tape to slightly obscure the sensor to lower the lift off
distance to an acceptable amount. It may affect tracking in one way or
another if too much is covered
http://www.overclock...th-optical-mice
http://www.amazon.co...vastator bundle
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and finally general tid bits, don't worry so much about an after
market heatsink, a hyper 212 EVO is cheap yes, so if you have the money
pick one up with most of the builds $300 and up. Otherwise just hold
off, stock coolers can sometimes be on the noisy side but they'll
function fine.
If you want some added cooling on the cheap, I'd suggest you pick up a
120mm fan 4 pack, preferably looking for one that has fans with 3 pin
to molex adapters like these
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835200072
We're going to start at the low end for these builds.
AM1&FM2+
Facebook/Email machine | ~$200 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TrdGpg
For the PC that basically only needs to turn on, The motherboard is
lacking USB 3.0 front headers, but the Asrock board at the same price
didn't have as many good reviews.
AMD kind of has this market in the bag with their low power/cost AM1
CPUs, these chips may not be fast, but they are upgradable should AMD
ever release anything new for the AM1 platform, though that's doubtful.
I had a secondary PC running the 3850 for a while and it could to my
surprise it could handle a source 1 game like portal as well as
minecraft for the 6 year old that kept begging to let him use the PC for
it.
And I really would not recommend you buy one of those cases that come
with a power supply, they usually aren't the highest quality, aren't
80+ certified, and could potentially become quiet literal fire hazards.
AM1 can also potentially be used for a NAS build with ECC memory, more on that at the bottom
Very Entry level 720p Gaming PC | ~$280 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZhW7t6
I
have a certain affinity for APUs as they was in the first system I
built for myself some few years ago with an A6 5400K, they're pretty
solid chips for the money, and with a slight OC that chip could even do
some PS2 emulation, but mostly it ran games well on my 900p display(I
made the mistake of not researching displays).
But moving on from nostalgia the APUs continue their dominance in the
low end gaming market able to do around 45/60fps@720p, lowest settings
mind you, in the average newer/older AAA game respectively, though it
fairs much better for multiplayer games like Dota 2/CS:GO where high
frame rate is key.
Now I've included that set of RAM due to it being rated for 2400mhz
operation, memory scaling is fairly important when building a system
with an APU as the iGPU has to use system memory for itself, so the
faster the better, overall though unless 2400mhz RAM is pretty close in
price(within $5/$10) to 2133mhz/1866mhz get those.
And you could in theory really cut corners and get like a 750ti/360
that will beat it in gaming, but overall it's pretty solid without
cutting too many corners, and with the 500W PSU you can throw in a mid
range GPU down the line after saving up, this mostly lets you game while
you save for the mid range GPU rather then waiting for a spare $150
1080p Entry level 860K + 380 2GB($30 more for 4GB) | ~$440 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jfHp7P
Boring old standard 380 build at that budget, an 860k won't hold you back in all but the most CPU intensive titles
Though I suggest you maybe save up a bit more and spring for a haswell i3 given how low their prices are at times.
no GPU Ultra ITX PC | ~$450 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NYgZVn
More of a fun build really with an A10 7800 running at 65W in a case
that's VESA mountable, I know I said cases that come with PSUs are
generally crap, but in this case, pun not intended, there's really no
other option aside from like a Mini-box External PSU, if you were really
worried about stressing it you could run the APU at 45W with minimal
performance loss. But hey where else are you going to get a DIY gaming
PC you could almost fit in your pocket. If I had a spare 500 bucks this
is what I would replace my current set up with, maybe Zen APUs with HBM
on die will truly replace dedicated GPUs for small form factor builds.
Various Benchmarks/info for the above systems
Memory scaling test with the A10 7850k
http://www.pcper.com...hics-Benchmarks
A8 7650K | CS:GO/Dota 2/SC2 benchmarks Tested With 1866Mhz RAM
http://www.technolog...u-that-could/4/
A8 7650K | Various AAA titles Tested with 2133Mhz RAM
http://www.anandtech...g-methodology/7
A8 7650K(860K substitute) vs i5 with a 290x, it actually ties it in a few of places
http://www.technolog...u-that-could/5/
750K vs i5, fps would be a bit higher
And a fun article running the A10 7850K Overclocked with 2400mhz RAM,
it can almost catch up to the current $100 GPUs of the 360/750ti,
though this is an unrealistic set up due to the high motherboard cost
for stable overclocking
http://www.eteknix.c...ns-potential/6/
AM3+
Oh AM3+ don't ever leave us, even if you require higher end motherboards
just to function well with your 8 core CPUs and don't have native video
output. Really that's the main thing holding this platform back as of
now, the power delivery needed for stable operation means you're going
to want a higher end and thus more expensive board, but with recent
chips that have a lower TDP, and with one motherboard in particular AM3+
may yet have some use.
The Donkey | ~$330 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7PJBXL
This build based around an 8320E and Asrock 970M motherboard(probably
the best cheap AM3+ board) is going to just be an all around solid
workhorse PC if you just want a secondary PC to off load rendering to,
or you want to run a lot of virtual machines for whatever reason,
perhaps you want to build a compute cluster on the cheap, this build is
for you. Another shortcoming of AM3+ is the lack of an iGPU or video out
on most motherboards, so a low end dedicated card is required to get a
video output.
Productivity and Gaming PC | ~$600 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QKh2vK
Based around an 8320E again but with a slightly higher end ASUS M5A99X
board that can handle some overclocking, this build is focused more for
the guy doing a little more than just gaming, maybe you do a little
video editing on the side or some streaming. The 8 cores you get here
may yet give you a better experience, though you do get an upgrade path
of sorts with the i5.
Yes an i5 build at the same price is going to beat out this CPU in
games, but really like with the 860K it's only CPU heavy games that
you'll notice the difference with a 60hz display in games like total
war, CoH, or ARMA multiplayer. Otherwise an FX 8 core more so with an OC
is going to be very capable for gaming.
Overclocking Guide
http://www.overclock...sus-motherboard
8320E Gaming Benchmarks
http://www.anandtech...r-95w-vishera/5
Various Benchmarks, these chips like to overclock it seems
http://www.guru3d.co...-review,19.html
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I've included AMD's GPUs in the builds mostly because they tend to be
a bit faster overall in the benchmarks I've seen for their mid range
cards(the 980ti still owns the high end), though with a bit higher power
consumption. In addition since Mantle is being used in Direct X12 and
the upcoming Vulkan APIs it stands to reason that AMD's GPUs will have
better support as opposed to Nvidia's Maxwell architecture which has
landed itself in a bit of a kerfuffle concerning their DX12 support for
asynchronous compute though Nvidia seems to have remedied this in
drivers since early DX12 benchmarks where they sometimes saw a loss in
performance, only time will tell how much it will really matter.
A-sync info
http://www.extremete...-we-know-so-far
http://www.extremete...hronous-compute
http://wccftech.com/...dx12-benchmark/
Another point of note for GPU recommendations is an adaptive sync
display, free-sync Vs G-sync, where both effectively do the same job,
though G-sync comes at a premium usually in the vain of 100 dollars or
so at the low end, although G-sync does have a few features free-sync is
yet to have and current G-sync high end displays are unmatched for now
in the battle of technologies, however in terms of performance per
dollar, Free-sync is the better choice.
In regards to ECC support for AM1:
With the ASUS AM1M-A apparently adding Unbuffered ECC support the AM1
platform might just make a great low power NAS, though sata slots are
limited to 2 without an add in card. Now ECC memory isn't a requirement
for a NAS exactly, but it's highly recommended depending on how much you
care about your data.
Some AM3+ boards also provide ECC aparently.
http://hardforum.com...d.php?t=1821403