Right, so after discovering just how much of a steaming pile my current desktop is (I had completely forgotten most of the parts (mobo, ram, etc)), I looked only to see just how terrible it really is. To upgrade it to what I'd consider a decent state would cost way more than I'm willing to put into it.
Seeing as how I can't afford my ideal PC right now, I put this list together:
I'm curious if anyone has any input, alternative GPU recommendations, etc. The price is pretty much where I'd like it to fall ($900-1100), so, suggestions are good.
I'm crossing my fingers I can get this stuff, or equivalent for cheap during the Boxing Day sales.
what would be your "ideal pc" out of curiosity cause i will say the 650ti is doable but kinda outdated and with u getting a fx 8350 (i have it and love it) you could save $100 on it and get a fx 6300 which will do about the same and you can through the $100 into the gpu and get a gtx 760
I personally think this is a fairly balanced system. I think you have pretty decent price/performance going here. I would recommend finding space in your budget for an SSD, which you would install your operating system and essentials on. For the money, it is the single best upgrade you can possibly make. I'd recommend a decent 120 or 128GB drive by any of the major players in the SSD market like Crucial, Samsung, Sandisk, Corsair even Kingston. All of these companies make fine SSDs at decent prices. I personally would go for a Samsung 840 EVO which is ~$100 but that is just me. Once you try an SSD, you will never go back to using anything else as a boot drive.
I really do want to try to go for an ATI GPU, as I would like Mantle support for Star Citizen (woo, space!). As well, later on, if I want to upgrade the system, an additional 2 RAM sticks, and another GPU of the same would do well... Hopefully, by the time that comes around, I have enough income to do better than that.
i feel like the sshd is either people dont know about or ignore it but its a love child of ssd and hdd. i have one and its fantastic my os boots in about 12-13 secs and they only run maybe 20-30 more then their hdd counterpart
You won't need 16 GB. Drop it down to 8 GB, invest in a better GPU like a GTX 760.
Also, I disagree with the guy on the 6300. Go for the FX-8320 instead, it's nearly the same as the 8350 except binned to a lower 3.5 GHz (doesn't mean it won't overclock well, though). It's about $40 cheaper than the 8350 in US dollars. Not sure how much in your funny money. :P
(Though, if you want to save more, the 6300 isn't bad)
This. Go for an SSHD if you can, it's about $20 more expensive but it performs to near SSD standards without the bigger price and lower storage capabilities.
I THINK I've got it to a nice point. Later on, I can add a second matched pair of RAM to bring it up to 16GB (which, really, by the time I need more, I hope I'll have the income to justify buying a dream PC at last...), and the motherboard does support Crossfire (But NOT SLI, which is one of the reasons I chose AMD), and another one of those GPUs would give some good performance.
Go for a good 270x GPU; it's like the 7870 GHz except with a slightly higher clock and has better memory bandwidth. That memory bandwidth bump helps the Pitcairn chipset a lot.
If you're willing to go above $900, the GTX 770 isn't a bad choice. I would recommend the 280X because you're an AMD guy except that it's mostly out of stock besides the price gougers online pricing it almost $100 above the retail price. Yeesh.
Yeah, latest and greatest isn't what I need in this build. I need something that will allow me to play modern games at more than absolute minimum settings. The R9 270x is pretty much as high as I can possibly justify going for this build.
If I had the cash... Yeah, I've got some parts lists picked out that would be quite kickass. Donations to the "Buy MicroHex a Good PC" fund always accepted =p
As for the SSHD, I'll take a look, but selection in Canadian online retailers can tend to be lacking.
You're definitely right on the Hybrid drive front... Not like I use SSD right now. My main desktop is a standard 7200RPM 3.5" 1TB HDD, so any performance improvements are good.
Make sure you're in the Canadian version of the site, and tack on 13% on everything thanks to the HST... Because this build ends up right around the $1000 mark after taxes and shipping