My friend wants to build a computer and I'm helping him do it. His budget is $900 USD but is flexible a little.
He wants the AMD FX 8350 and he needs a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
The monitor situation is a little weird because he doesn't have very good eyesight and 23" is too small for 1080p even IMO and I have perfect eyesight. But since bigger monitors are just too expensive he will probably just downscale the resolution to 720p.
He doesn't need a case because I will be giving him mine once I get my new Define R4. He also already knows what mouse he's getting and it's only $8 so don't worry about finding one.
Here is what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TbKtNG
The build is mainly for gaming and some light audio production (fl studio) as well as general use and coding/programming. We're looking for some possible price reduction but no non-trivial performance reduction please.
Thanks in advance, ~Tas
And as a P.S, his aunt is a major Apple fanboy and when he tried explaining to her that he can get the same hardware as an Imac for much cheaper she got mad and said she simply doesn't believe he can build a computer better than her $1500 iMac. It's got a 3.4 or 3.5 GHz Intel i5 and only a 5400RPM HDD, So another main goal is to blow his aunts superiority complex out of the park with this build! Thanks!
I think the build you put together is damd nice ... but ...
I really want his Auntie to eat a little crow ... so suggest $24 in performance upgrades --- Faster lower latency 1866 CL8 ram --- Corsair RM 650w gold full Mod --- Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE GPU
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Y64Lbv
I highly recommend the1866Mhz ram for the FX-8350 it is the sweet spot. ...
Reasons to consider the R9 290 over the GTX 770
Significantly more memory 4,096 MB vs 2,048 MB 2x more memory
Higher memory bandwidth 320 GB/s vs 224 GB/s Around 45% higher memory bandwidth
Significantly higher pixel rate 60.6 GPixel/s vs 33.5 GPixel/s More than 80% higher pixel rate
Better floating-point performance 4,800 GFLOPS vs 3,213 GFLOPS Around 50% better floating-point performance
Better 3DMark 11 graphics score 14,570 vs 11,310 Around 30% better 3DMark 11 graphics score
Significantly more energy-efficient idle power consumption 87W vs 109W More than 20% more energy-efficient idle power consumption
Significantly more render output processors 64 vs 32 Twice as many render output processors
Slightly better 3DMark06 score 32,300 vs 29,690 Around 10% better 3DMark06 score
More shading units 2,560 vs 1,536 1024 more shading units
Significantly wider memory bus 512 bit vs 256 bit 2x wider memory bus
Slightly higher texture rate 152 GTexel/s vs 134 GTexel/s Around 15% higher texture rate
More texture mapping units 160 vs 128 32 more texture mapping units
Higher BioShock infinite framerate 91.5 fps vs 83.4 fps Around 10% higher BioShock infinite framerate
Wow! I'm very impressed actually... They were planning on buying most of the stuff near christmas but if they decide to get some savings on black friday or cyber monday then I think we could make this work: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BrRm7P
Is there anything else you would recommend, like a different SSD?
Kind of crappy power supply. Lots of voltage droop and ripple. I assume he's not going to be adding another one in, since you only put in 650w. Also, you don't really need the 990fx chipset if you're only running one card. I put in a MSI 970 Gaming as it can handle a FX-8350 just fine.
Switched out the monitor for a IPS one which has great colors.
Switched out the RAM to one that's actually in stock.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7qPpVn
I tried to stay under $900. If he can, chuck in an 120GB SSD like the HyperX Fury for some snappy performance to kill that iMac.
R9 290 + Seasonic S12II 620w, still under $900 (not counting MIR). As stated before, see if he can fit an SSD in there. I didn't like the gigabyte one as there were too many bad reviews on both newegg and amazon.
Oops, actually the R9 290 is too long for the case he has. The longest cards it can fit is 10.5Inches... But thats okay in the long run because he isn't as much of a hardware whore as I am and he probably wouldn't really have noticed the performance increase in the games he does play anyways.
Thanks for the GPU recommendation, it actually fits. As for the monitor I changed it back because it's not worth sacrificing size for IPS to him. He has bad enough eyesight as it is so he doesn't want a smaller monitor complicating things further. As for the power supply, the case has bad enough airflow as it is and very bad opportunity for cable management, so can you help us find something modular, we really don't want non-modular, so at least semi please.
I got a 23" IPS display for about $10 more than my other dell monitor I previously had.
Rosewill Hives are decent performers, and semi modular. Personally, I've just been too cheap to shell out extra money for modularity. My own build is an M-ITX rig with a non modular power supply in it.
He has bad enough eyesight as it is so he doesn't want a smaller monitor complicating things further.
That's why I have a 27" as my primary monitor ... and it is still a problem ... i'd wager my eyesight is much worse ... it is just my neurosis that makes me competitive .... and I could really use new glasses lol