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$400 budget for CPU and MB!!
- Thread starter jervonics
- Start date
dalekphalm
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2012
- Messages
- 195
A little more information is required for us to give you a proper recommendation.
What are you using it for?
If gaming, just get an i5-3570K + z77 motherboard (Which one depends on your particular preference). I'd also only look at ASUS, MSI, or Gigabyte (They are the 3 consumer OEM's that manufacture their own boards - The rest use 3rd parties).
Look at the different z77 boards and determine what features you like, how many USB ports, wifi included or not, number of SATA ports, form factor (ITX, mATX, ATX), whether you'll be doing Overclocking, etc. You can easily spend $150-200 on a motherboard if you WANT, but you can still get a pretty good z77 board for under $150 if you don't need the bells and whistles of the more expensive models.
If you need to do a bit more processing intensive work, I'd suggest going with an i7-3770K + z77 board (Will need to choose a slightly less expensive model to fit the $400 budget).
Other options: AMD FX-8350 + AM3+ board. In some applications (read: multi-threaded), this is faster then the i5, in gaming, it's equivalent or slightly slower (depends on the specific game). The benefit of the AMD camp is boards are generally cheaper, and the CPU is $20-50 cheaper then an i5.
What are you using it for?
If gaming, just get an i5-3570K + z77 motherboard (Which one depends on your particular preference). I'd also only look at ASUS, MSI, or Gigabyte (They are the 3 consumer OEM's that manufacture their own boards - The rest use 3rd parties).
Look at the different z77 boards and determine what features you like, how many USB ports, wifi included or not, number of SATA ports, form factor (ITX, mATX, ATX), whether you'll be doing Overclocking, etc. You can easily spend $150-200 on a motherboard if you WANT, but you can still get a pretty good z77 board for under $150 if you don't need the bells and whistles of the more expensive models.
If you need to do a bit more processing intensive work, I'd suggest going with an i7-3770K + z77 board (Will need to choose a slightly less expensive model to fit the $400 budget).
Other options: AMD FX-8350 + AM3+ board. In some applications (read: multi-threaded), this is faster then the i5, in gaming, it's equivalent or slightly slower (depends on the specific game). The benefit of the AMD camp is boards are generally cheaper, and the CPU is $20-50 cheaper then an i5.
Dangman
Ninja Editor SuperMod
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2005
- Messages
- 46,056
Again, we need you to answer those stickied questions ( the sticky titled "ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS FIRST!") so that we can make more accurate recommendations for you.
dalekphalm
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2012
- Messages
- 195
As Danny mentioned, you should fill out the Sticky Questions so we can fully give you a proper answer, but if you are happy with AMD, then an FX-8350 + 990FX motherboard will give you excellent gaming results, and will cost under $400. You could go with a high end motherboard, like an ASUS RoG board, which would put you at or over $400 total, but would have excellent overclocking potential, and would have all the bells and whistles.
An Intel i5-3770k + z77 motherboard will definitely cost more for an equivalent board, but will be faster (not by much honestly - 5-10% in most games). You could save anywhere between $20-100 by going with AMD. Either is a valid choice.