Hey guys, I'm completely new at building and thought I'd give it a try. I recently bought a FX-8320 based on a co-workers suggestion. I'm trying to figure out what components to use. A friend told me about pcpartpicker and this is what I came up with: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wCgVD3
I've been looking at different forums all over the net trying to figure out what's best for a mobo, cooling, cases, etc. and I'm pretty overwhelmed here. I'm just an old fart (40+) that's trying to learn what's what. All the reviews I've read makes me think that there are no good mobo's out there. Can you guys help?
My goal is to have a pc that will last me about 8+ yrs. I don't plan on oc'ing. Fact is, I just been learning about pc's recently. My current pc is WAY old, 9yrs! It's a XP 3100+, 2G ram, G-Force 6200oc vid. Yeah, I know.
I want to eventually learn how to do editing, that's why I went with the 8320. Trying to keep the budget under $1500 USD, lower the better. So, can ya help? Everyone here seem to treat people like me pretty well compared to the other places I've been to; that's why I'm posting here.
Overclocking is actually very simple. A multiplier change will give you a boost in performance, and the Hyper 212 should cool that CPU nicely. If you want this computer to last 8+ years, you're probably going to be overclocking a little bit(really depends what performance you expect from the computer in 8 years)
This is still under your budget, but should work pretty well.
I may suggest a different power supply maybe an RM series and ditch the optical drive. You don't need one now and I highly doubt you'll need one in 8 years tie.
Just to get this started. Your budget will allow you some very nice things. The motherboard is push buttom oc'ing combine with that cpu cooler = nothing to sweat about. You have enough room in your budget to actually get a 290x ( which i recommend) If you want to tweak in down to the lowest possible price say Yo. Personally i would pay the premium parts price now if your looking at longevity.
I purposely left out the mb because I couldn't find one that less than 60% negative reviews.
As for your build: Why the change in ram and ssd? I don't know much about A-Data. As for the ssd, we use those at work and they screw up every few months. I should preface that they're the 64G versions.
Isn't Rosewill considered poor when it comes to PSU's? Like I've said, been reading so much that I don't know which companies can be trusted.
Thanks for the help Freaksmacker. That's a pretty big cooler! I've read that Noctura is pretty much king of air coolers. I just went with pricing and smaller size considering the weight.
I didn't know if a vid card like that one would be overkill or not. Considering that they're mainly for gaming/mining, I didn't think I would really use one w/that much power. Something else for me to consider.
I wondered about the Sabertooth myself. Like I said before, I keep seeing so many bad reviews about doa's, sata connectors breaking off, southbridge heatsinks not secure, etc. that I thought it asus was bad.
On the video card. It is always better to buy the best video card you can fit in your budget without making the system unbalanced. The R9 290 is the price to performance king at that price point. Buy it and never look back. For a gaming card there is basically nothing better price to performance on the market. It also kicks major ass at mining. Much better than a 270, 280(x) or Nvidia price equivalent.
The sabertooth is a hell of a motherboard. I envy it truly being stuck with my crummy Gigabyte which I hate with a passion. Sata connectors breaking is probably due to an idiot owner. I've never heard of anything like that on any motherboard, including the sabertooth, NEVER. Doa's happen to every board. You may see more on the sabertooth because they shipped a lot of units. is the chance of a doa is 1/100 and you ship a couple hundred thousand units then some of them are bound to be bad. The south bridge is something heat sink problem is something I've not heard of. Maybe it was a bad unit or is a sabertooth problem. I'll do some research on that...
From a couple Google searches I found nothing about south bridge heatsink problems. Who ever reported that probably just got unlucky with their unit. If the problem was an issue across a good majority of sabertooth's then it would definitely be much easier to find on Google. If your reading Amazon reviews or something then don't worry, people rarely comment on Amazon unless the product had a problem. You don't get reviews of people raving about the product, only when they get a faulty unit or a bad product in general.
As for the SSD, the Crucial M500 is a pretty solid budget SSD. I have seen the PNY XLR8 around, but I wasn't sure about it's performance. They're the same price as well.
Adata is a pretty large company. It just doesn't advertise to the consumer as much as other companies might. They are a VERY large provider of flash chips that go into SSDs. Companies like Kingston use flash from Adata.
There are a couple line of Rosewill Power Supplies that are pretty good in quality. Rosewill's Hive is one of them. If you really want to be sure, I've found XFX/Seasonic to be exceptional. XFX power supplies are of a Seasonic design(basically Seasonic OEM), and have worked great for both me and many other people.
I have a Sabertooth and it has be solid. Holding a 4.8Ghz OC like a champ for over a year now with no issues.
like Caveman said,RMAs happen with every board but Asus stuff is usually top quality. It is also true that you'll often here more people complain about a problem then you will people who talk about how good the board has been. You only usually hear about something when it fails so it skews it a bit.
Considering your going for longevity, Think in eight years from now that gpu is going to be limping slow. So ya it may seen like something thats overkill but its not . You can never have enough power, lol . Crank it up, man!
With Valve pushing linux so hard and with all the NSA revelations (which aren't yet over by any stretch of the imagination) it is not unreasonable to think that people will move to linux in the next 8 years.
With that in mind, don't buy ASUS motherboards. ASUS clearly stated that they don't support linux. They don't even bother fixing bugs in their bios because it only affects linux users.
Still keeping the above in mind, don't buy NVIDIA. They don't support and outright lie to the linux community. Plus, their GPUs are too expensive compared to AMD.
Well Caveman, I was referring to the complaints I've read on mobos in general, not the Sabertooh per say. I've looked at reviews at places like TigerDirect, NewEgg, Amazon, and other retailers. I've seen several people applaud boards, but it just seems that the long term reviews (owning 3+ mths) are fairly bad.
Anyway, I don't plan on mining and I don't have too much free time to get into intense gaming. But, who knows?
Well Ksajal, with NSA aside, I was considering putting Linux on my current pc once I got the new one established. I know NOTHING about Linux, but a couple of co-workers use it and say that my single core will still be fine w/ Linux for several more years. It'll be something for me to play with from time to time.
I was going to go with AMD anyway considering it would work best with the system... putting like with like an all.
That may be true. Then again, they might have an all new GPU interface by then. Never can tell.
BTW, wouldn't that card put a strain on a 750W PSU? And what about crossfire? I'm confused about that. Is that only for the use of multiple monitors or is/can it be for a single? Just thinking that, if it can be used for 1 monitor, then buying two 260X's or whatever would be cheaper?
Thanks for the clarification STN. I've read a lot about Seasonic being the best. Just didn't know who all used their components. From what I can understand, I was trying to find ram that has a CL 10 or less at 1866+ and since G.Skill is used a lot on builds on pcpartpicker, that's why I went with it. I've read that anything over 1866 would be useless for my purposes and a waste of money. Was wondering if maybe going with 1600 would be okay?
Also, is it true that motherboards will only work with specific ram that the mfg list? And if so, does it limit all of the cl and such?
No that card would not strain that PSU. That system will only pull max 500 watts and most of the time nowhere near that. You'll be fine. Just make sure it has enough amps on the 12V rail. I don't really like EVAG PSUs tbh. I'd rather have the Corsair RM650.
You can use Crossfire on one monitor yes and two 260Xs would be cheaper but it would be slower and then all of the inherent problems that come with Crossfire would show up too. Get one single more expensive GPU.
List of 990FX boards that i would personaly recomend
Asus croshair V Formula Z 8+2 powerphase digi vrm,
Asrock 990FX Extreme 9 12+2 powerphase digi vrm.
Asus 990FX Sabertooth R2.0 8+2 powerphase digi vrm
Asus M5A99FX pro R2.0 6+2 powerphase digi vrm
Sabertooth is an awesome choice very solid semi highend board.
However if you just want the best overclocking board, then don´t botter, and just grab the Asus crosshair V Formula Z. its just the best board you could grab. it has an intel lan, and shielded audio. Also it has the best overclocking bios. This all makes the crosshair just a step higher then the rest.
But the sabertooth is a very sollid overclocker as well, only the use of a realtek lan chip, is a kind of a dissapointment for me personaly. But still the sabertooth is a good choice. Also the Asrock extreme 9 which does use an intel lan chip.
In the end it all depends on how much you wanne spend on the mobo part. for a FX8320 FX8350, In my opinnion, the boards listed are just the best choices. So just grab what ever you like.