Any advice for a gaming/rendering rig?

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1

I'm trying to get a decent specced PC for gaming, video editing, photo editing and schoolwork.

Keep in mind: not all of your suggestions might be available in my country (Lithuania).

 

$150 CPU - AMD CPU Desktop Phenom II X4 965 (3.40GHz,8MB,140W,AM3) Box, Black Edition

$153 Mother Board - Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3, 990FX, DualDDR3-1866, 6xSATA3, RAID, IEEE, ATX

$106 Memory - 2x Crucial 4GB DDR3 Ballistix Smart Tracer DIMM 240pin (with LEDs) , DDR3-1866, PC3-14900, 1.5V, Unbuffered NON-ECC, 512Meg x 64, CL-9-9-9-27

$100 Storage - HDD Seagate Constellation CS 3.5'' 1TB SATA3 7200RPM 64MB

$271 Graphics Card - Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870, 2GB DDR5 (256 Bit), HDMI, DVI, miniDP, BOX

$52   Case - THERMALTAKE V3 BLACX EDITION MID TOWER

$89   Power Supply - PSU Aerocool Templarius Imperator 650W, 80 Plus Bronze, White LED lighting

$22   Optical Drive - ASUS Drive DVD -/+RW, E-Green 24x (Black Panel), SATA, BULK

 

$943 in total.

Based it off the $700 tek syndicate build.

Would love to get your input here!

2

As a side note

I'm coming from a laptop with the following specs:

Processor - Intel Core i7 2670QM @ 2.20GHz

RAM - 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 664MHz (9-9-9-24)

Video Card - 1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M

HDD - 699GB Western Digital WDC WD7500BPKT-75PK4T0

Motherboard - Dell Inc. 0VP036 (CPU)


3

Perhaps an FX-6300 would be a better option if you're rendering. It has 6 cores and a faster clock speed than Phenom. I'm not sure of the pricing in your country but they're very similarly priced from what I can see. It'd be worth checking out.

4

That depends on what you are useing 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/102?vs=699

THE FX8320/8350/ CORE i5 will be a lot better for what you what to use it for.

 

5

As long as you have thouse LEDs on your RAM, you should be good to go! 

6

so your budget is 950 and what kind of editing do you do, and what do you mainly want it for rendering or gaming, is gaming on the side or is editing, or is it equal? what resolution is your monitor, if you're using 1366x768, you need a new one

Edit:  Ah crap, I'm only good at newegg, my budget magic doesn't work in other countries, sorry, but I can still tell you what to get based on what you use it for

7

I have an external monitor connected to my laptop, which will be my main screen for this new rig. It's a Dell U2412M 1920x1200. I don't know about the RAM, because the one specified in the $700 build wasn't available in the store I was looking in. It would be nice, if the rig could handle gaming really well, because that's how I know my money's well spent.

If someone's willing to go through the trouble, you may go through http://www.skytech.lt/ and convert the prices from LTL to USD.

Btw, does anyone know what's the difference between a 125W and a 140W processor (the one I specified has these 2 variants)

8

I would consider going on a shopping vacation... looking for cheap flights to places with better prices. or even driving to other places in europe. or a train? you could spend the same money and get a MUCH better system. Arrange to have it mailed to someplace like france and shop at french websites. Then just take a train. Make a weekend trip out of going to pick up the goods and come back. You could fly to London for $95 at certian times of the year. Train someplace might be cheaper during the off season.

** 125 watt verses 140 watt is power consumption. The lower the better.

Check PCpartpicker.com for prices in different countries and see if travelling or shipping is worth it... from what you posted it definately is someplace.

9

Thanks for the suggestion, but travelling isn't an option for me, unfortunately. Doesn't a 140W graphics card give better performance? It costs roughly $30 more than a 125W one.

The only reason I posted this is to get people to pick better parts for me, because I haven't built a PC until now. Should I get AMD CPU Desktop Phenom II X4 965 or an Intel i5? And is the RAM/Power Supply that I've picked any good?

10

ah, this changes things a lot. Here is something you should be looking for:

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/1uPbu

or

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/1uPe0 (different graphics)

I put this together for someone else yesterday. The country I selected is deutchland because it was the closest to you. If you cant find these parts for these prices Here are some alternatives

Best is first, then goes to worse (cheaper).. (they are all good though)

GPU: GTX 770, AMD 7970 GH ed, GTX 760, AMD 7950, AMD 7870, GTX 660

CPU: I would get the AMD fx 8350. It has 8 cores and overclocks well. The i5-3570k or i5-4670k are both very good and have better individual cores, but only 4. The phenom II x4 965 is an older CPU than all of these and is quite a bit slower, but its not bad, but with your budget I would look for the 8350.

Use the website I used to check for prices. Perhaps you can order everything from a single website and pay the shipping cost in one go.

11

I'll try to make a v2 of my build, based on some of your suggestions.

Quick question: do AMD cards have compatibility issues with some games? Most people go with intel, because most games are made for intel CPUs.

12

Tried out the part picker and made this: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/1uXuK

Anything I should change or look into?

13

There are intel CPUs, AMD CPU's and there are nvidia graphics cards and AMD graphics cards. You shouldnt have any problems with any combination. Intel has superior individual cores, but not all intel CPU's are better than all AMD CPU's.

It's all about the performance. The 8350 has 8 cores and can process programs that use more than 4 cores better than the intell i5 processors. There wont be any compatability issues.

14

People say that games are more optimized for intel CPUs, but I don't think that's completely true. Is there anything else I could change in the build I have in pcpartpicker? I've posted the specs on reddit and some person suggested that I should get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. Any idea on how it performs? 

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1kvub5/build_help_need_advice_on_an_entrylevel/

As a side note: feralshad0w, do you have a skype or any other type of IM program? It would be much nicer to chat through there.

 

15

I would strongly suggest getting atleast a 7950 graphics card or the GTX 760. They blow the 7870 out of the water for not much more. Game performance is mostly tied to the GPU and it makes more sense to spend more money on the GPU rather than the CPU. I see more money in your budget and I would put that toward your graphics.

On PCpartpicker there is a zotac 760 for 230 euro which is a steal, and MUCH better than the 7870 and is better than a 7950, but not by a huge amount.

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/zotac-video-card-zt7040110p

I also found this. It is not as good as the 760, but its a great deal and MUCH better than the 7870

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-fx795atdfc

If you have the money and want to get something really good that will last a long while, then I would also recommend  this:

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn760oc4gd

It has more video memory for futureproofing your system. This way you can load up on HD textures in games and etc.

As far as a CPU cooler I do recommend the hyper 212 evo, but only if you can find it for less than 30 euro. It is a cheaper heatsink that is very effective, but you shouldnt need to spend too much on it. I found this which is also a good cooler for 30 Euro on pcpartpicker.

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/zalman-cpu-cooler-cnps10xperforma

An aftermarket cooler will let you overclock your CPU so you can get free performance out of it.. well virtually free.

Lastly, I don't post my contact details like skype into forums, but you can message me through the teksyndicate website and I can make something work from there :)

16

Thanks yet again. I've retweaked the spec list and added the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760. It has an "OC" tag on it in my store, does it mean that it's overclocked? The estimated cost of this build is roughly 850 euros right now, which is what I'm aiming for.

17

That sounds pretty good man. Repost it here for a final look.

Also, I emailed you back :)