AMD vs Intel - or - How I got my first build (+little what's what on PC parts)

[kg4icg]

Have a $2,000 build budget coming up in a couple of weeks, doing a new Intel build, will have to wait until 1st week of July for the Haswell cpu.

Intel Pentium Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Boxed Processor - PREORDER PRESALE-301275 - Micro Center

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H Socket LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard 608745 - Micro Center

Dell P2815Q 28" LED Ultra HD Monitor FPK7C - Micro Center

​cpu and monitor are definite purchase. Just haven't made up mind on motherboard, psu. Ram, ssd's case and video cards are already decided. I guess you can say I'm lucky to live near a Microcenter here in the states with Newegg being a back up for me.

 

[QwarkDreams]

It will be still valid the only thing will happen is you wont get free developer account promo code and tools in short your account wont be consider as a student so you wont receive free stuff from them

Damnit! If I knew about this when I built my PC earlier this year I could've saved another 80€ -_-

And I was wondering why the software shop of the Technical University in my town doesn't offer OSs for students anymore.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Just haven't made up mind on motherboard, psu.

I would recommend a Seasonic or a model from a brand that uses/rebrands Seasonic PSUs (Antec, Corsair use some Seasonic PSUs and all XFX are basically Seasonic), . They are a highly regarded manufacturer of PSUs. If you want to check if the model you choose is manufactured by Seasonic you can take a look at this list PSU Makers: 0-9 And A-B - Who's Who In Power Supplies, 2013: Brands Vs. Manufacturers

From what I've heard/read the manufacturer of RAM doesn't really matter (Corsair, Kingston, Team Group, G.Skill, Crucial, Patriot, etc. are all fine). Most people seem to pick by MHz, CL, price and looks. (don't forget to check if they are single, dual or even quad rank).

 

[Akash Patel]

Have a $2,000 build budget coming up in a couple of weeks, doing a new Intel build, will have to wait until 1st week of July for the Haswell cpu.

Intel Pentium Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Boxed Processor - PREORDER PRESALE-301275 - Micro Center

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H Socket LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard 608745 - Micro Center

Dell P2815Q 28" LED Ultra HD Monitor FPK7C - Micro Center

​cpu and monitor are definite purchase. Just haven't made up mind on motherboard, psu. Ram, ssd's case and video cards are already decided. I guess you can say I'm lucky to live near a Microcenter here in the states with Newegg being a back up for me.

Go for z97 chipset motherboard buddy they are broadwell compatible too.
MSi z97 gaming series are awesome.

 

[kg4icg]

I would recommend a Seasonic or a model from a brand that uses/rebrands Seasonic PSUs (Antec, Corsair use some Seasonic PSUs and all XFX are basically Seasonic), . They are a highly regarded manufacturer of PSUs. If you want to check if the model you choose is manufactured by Seasonic you can take a look at this list PSU Makers: 0-9 And A-B - Who's Who In Power Supplies, 2013: Brands Vs. Manufacturers

From what I've heard/read the manufacturer of RAM doesn't really matter (Corsair, Kingston, Team Group, G.Skill, Crucial, Patriot, etc. are all fine). Most people seem to pick by MHz, CL, price and looks. (don't forget to check if they are single, dual or even quad rank).

Thanks, I'm not new at this, Last system I built in which I'm using right now is a I7-3770K on Gigabyte GA_Z77X-UP5TH motherboard with a Zotac 670GTX and 16gb 2x8gb modules Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 with a Corsair PSU inside a Corsair Carbide 400R and the cpu is cooled with a Corsair H100i with 120gb SSD and a 1tb hdd, next build will be all ssds.

 

[kg4icg]

I meant to show this board Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard 244343 - Micro Center
But I'm leaning more for this board GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD7 TH LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com which means I have to go thru Newegg which is no big deal. Then again I could go the X79 route with Hexacore cpu and quad channel memory.http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...4294964566&NTX=&NTT=&NTK=all&sortby=pricehigh , it is not like I don't have a good cpu selection and pick up a bundle http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-processor-bundles.aspx

 

[QwarkDreams]

next build will be all ssds.

Aren't you worried about the limited write-cycles?

 

[kg4icg]

Aren't you worried about the limited write-cycles?

The newer SSD's have a longer life span. Most of my important stuff is always backed up with 48gb of Onedrive space and I have other means of backup storage including a raid 5 nas with 4 1tb hdd's.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Is the PC a need right now? I think at this point, I'd just wait for Broadwell and its DDR4 RAM, see how it's priced.

 

[Akash Patel]

Is the PC a need right now? I think at this point, I'd just wait for Broadwell and its DDR4 RAM, see how it's priced.

It will come probably in 2015 so if someone want now they cant wait for 6 months.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Considering the likely gains in power consumption and performance, it's worth the wait. Like I said, it was a question about need vs. want. He sounded more like someone wanting to upgrade, not someone who had parts fail, thus necessitating a near-future upgrade.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Is the PC a need right now? I think at this point, I'd just wait for Broadwell and its DDR4 RAM, see how it's priced.

With 97-boards just released to support 4th and 5th gen Intel CPUs and still using DDR3, I'm not sure if adopting DDR4 at this early stage is woth the money. It's not even been released yet and DDR3 is most likely to be supported for quite while (if manufacturers aren't pushing it very hard). That reminds me of higher res monitors or in general every new first gen product: there are most likely to be issues and/or overpricing and lack of support.

On the other hand I'm not quite sure about what I just wrote. With technology evolving this fast...there's no sure thing. Nevertheless - PERSONALLY - I would wait for DDR4 to become standard, not just an "upgrade".

Please don't read this as granted, just a guess and feel of my guts.

But yes, it's a complicated time if you want to upgrade with all this new upgrades in technology (DDR4, m.2-SATA, SATA Express,...).

 

[Keith Wallace]

Well, it's not necessarily to say ou definitely go the route I suggest. It's more to see:

1. How much DDR4 > DDR3 improves performance
2. How much DDR4 costs, compared to DDR3.

If DDR4 is something like $100 more for 16 GB, it's obviously not a big deal to get it. However, if it's something like $100 more to go Broadwell+DDR4 over Haswell-E+DDR3, and you get a 30% (or more) performance increase, I'd consider waiting, especially since that investment in DDR4 would likely be reusable for the next build (DDR3 probably wouldn't).

 

[Akash Patel]

Hey guys what's the difference between 2gb sapphire Radeon R9 270x and 4gb sapphire Radeon R9 270x except vram cause my brother is upgrading his graphic card from HD7850 and 4gb version cost $270(₹16250) and 2gb cost $290(17890) here at local shops

 

[Keith Wallace]

It's possible that one model might be clocked a little higher than the other. There are just some things/games that would make use of the extra VRAM, though not many. If he just wants a mid-range gaming card, the 2-GB card is just fine.

However, there's not much of a difference between the 7850 and the 270X. The 270 is a rebranded 7850, while the 270X is a rebranded 7870. There's not much to gain with that upgrade, most likely.

 

[Akash Patel]

It's possible that one model might be clocked a little higher than the other. There are just some things/games that would make use of the extra VRAM, though not many. If he just wants a mid-range gaming card, the 2-GB card is just fine.

However, there's not much of a difference between the 7850 and the 270X. The 270 is a rebranded 7850, while the 270X is a rebranded 7870. There's not much to gain with that upgrade, most likely.

Both are factory oc version. So should he get r9 280x it cost $310?

 

[Keith Wallace]

AnandTech Portal | The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series

There's a review of the 280X, and some of the benchmarks should have 270X comparisons. I can't say what he should get without knowing what he wants to do (games, resolution, number of monitors, FPS, budget, etc.). However, I can say that $250 or whatever to barely jump up from what is basically a 270 vs. 270X comparison's a rather wasteful way to spend. I'm personally still rolling with a 5850 myself. If he's not playing new, high-end games on a 1080p (or higher), his card should do just fine, to be honest.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Just ordered the parts for my grandmas new PC....hopefully they arrive soon....can't stand that nagging any longer "When will it arrive? When will I be able to play my games again?" -_-^^
Managed to keep the price unter 350€ (with Windows 8.1!).
The build will include the following parts:

AMD A6-5400K Black Edition
MSI A75M-P45 FM2+
Kingston HyperX Fury DDR3-1866 1x4GB
Corsair VS300
Sharkoon VS3-S
WD Caviar Blue 1TB
Windows 8.1 64bit

 

[Akash Patel]

AnandTech Portal | The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series

There's a review of the 280X, and some of the benchmarks should have 270X comparisons. I can't say what he should get without knowing what he wants to do (games, resolution, number of monitors, FPS, budget, etc.). However, I can say that $250 or whatever to barely jump up from what is basically a 270 vs. 270X comparison's a rather wasteful way to spend. I'm personally still rolling with a 5850 myself. If he's not playing new, high-end games on a 1080p (or higher), his card should do just fine, to be honest.

He is having 2 monitors,Mostly all games on 1080p(all the upcoming game).
So I guess I will tell him to don't upgrade his gpu thanks for the info mate

 

[Keith Wallace]

Got my SSD in a few days ago. It's a Kingston V300, 120 GB in size. I wasn't looking to buy, but the seller on Amazon (HPP Electronics) had it accidentally marked down from $80 to $25, so I jumped on it. Now, I have to deal with backing up my media/files, then installing the SSD, then putting the OS on it, then re-connecting the HDD, then formatting the HDD to get the Windows stuff off. Ugh, too lazy.

Part of the reason is I don't have a disc drive, so I have to go pull my cousin's out and borrow it to do the install, and I'm not in the mood.