Talk me out of building a budget AMD gaming rig?

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y0bailey

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Mar 31, 2003
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OK...I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means, but my last few PC's I've built up for friends have been AMD machines. Just hard to beat the price per performance for a budget rig. But this has been about 3 years, and I need to decide what to do again.

I am basically going to build my buddy my exact rig, and need to keep things under $800. He has NOTHING to borrow (no hard drives to steal, etc).

AMD FX 8320
8gb DDR3
Mid ranged 970 mobo
SSD Boot drive.
GTX 960 4gb.


Is it stupid to not go Intel? This is going to be a light gaming rig, and again needs to be under $800. Just seems hard to beat this build in that price range for what games he will be able to play with decent settings at 1080p.

I need to take a refresher course on Intel,
 
What games is he going to be playing?

What cooler is going to be used and is any overclocking going to be done?
 
I have a Noctua Nh14 or whatever it is called I will throw on there (just rotting away in a box) and some mild default voltage overclocking will happen. Probably shooting for 4.2 ghz.

He will be playing CS:GO, BF4 (or battlefront if it isn't a festering turd), Rocket League. That is what we are playing these days.
 
I don't see why not. I built one for my little boy using an Asus 970 board, Phenom II x6 1090 with a slight overclock and a GTX670. He's gaming at 1080 with no problem. Hell my rig ain't exactly cutting edge and I'm having no problem running everything at max settings.
 
does he have to have new or would he consider used? I am going to be parting out the rig in my sig. its running Xfire 7870's now though. PM me if interested. the phenom 2 is a C3 stepping so I know it can clock higher with better cooling.
 
Shameless Liar said:
I don't understand this.

Who builds a whole PC for a specific game, or a few? It's better to assume they want to play some current games and perhaps a few in the future.
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Because there is a large difference between playing Hearthstone and Crysis 3
 
What games? usually means whether single thread or multi thread performance is more important. Single thread Intel is more capable, an I3 may be suitable, and is upgradeable.
AMD mostly does well enough, with some games working very well.
I run Intel so I do not know. My impression some multiplayer games scale well with AMD, simpler coding favor Intel.
OTOH $800 ill not go very far. Are you counting monitor, mouse, keyboard, and operating system?
Monitors 24" about $120+, keyboard/mouse $30-60, case $30-50, DVD drive $20.
RAM ~$40 DDR3, SSDs seem reasonable on sale.$80-160+
GTX 960 4GB $210 after $20 rebate newegg.
Deduct must haves above from $800 and you have CPU/motherboard budget.
 
if you're only aiming at a 4.2ghz overclock, i would go even cheaper and get the fx 8300 instead. its an e-series cpu and will take even less voltage to achieve 4.2ghz than the non e fx 8350.
 
Depenging on the pricing in your area, a skylake or haswell i3 might be better for you. (price/perf) wise.
You can go for like a $39 mobo (with haswell) and you won't need to think about any cooling either.
the new 6TH GEN i3s are nicely clocked with a nice IPC boost and i would be surprised if a fx chip at 5.0 ghz would come close to them in gaming.
The haswell i3 and fx octacores are almost same in gaming (fps) so you can make the choice depending on the pricing.
I say keep in mind you can get a 39$ motherboard with a 100$ i3 and never ever bottleneck that 960.
 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EXbHJU3UOk

In this video the 8350 beats out the i3 in most cases, but it is not a crushing win. If you think he would ever want to upgrade the i3 puts him on a much more upgradeable motherboard. The am3+ motherboards sadly are costing more these days, even the 970 ones. This negates the value aspect of it vs the lower intel chips. Since you have to get Ram as well you might want to hold out for the Skylake i3 6320 to come out, which will cost you 30 dollars more than the Haswell version. The Skylake motherboards support DDR4. Keeping the cost down the i3 6100 will be $117. These are only dual core cpu's but will have 4 threads. Upgrading to the i5 in the future will double that.

I can't argue with the GTX 960.
 
I am a huge AMD fan, but i havent built amd anything in a long time. Price to performance/power is just not where it use to be. Intel prices have come way down too. You can get a six core intel Xeon for $50 that when overclocked probably beats the 8320 at about everything. I paid $70 for mine couple years ago and a $130 for an X58 sabertooth board

My advice is order a lenovo TS-140, throw a hard drive and video card in it and call it a day.

These have been popping up for $284-329 all the time lately.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...sourceId=1457895&sourceName=forums&rmvSB=true
 
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If you have a Microcenter around they have the 8320e and 40 off a mobo so effectively a combo for 120$ ish AR... way better build than a ic 4170 and a basic board if you ask me. With that in mind you can also get a 4690k for $199 or even skylake 6600k for $279.

Tough call really, unless you want an itx sized build then you are pretty much stuck with intel or a kaverei APU. Maybe this magical Zen architecture is not total vaporware and AMD can solidify their minimal market share, but until then....
 
That's pretty sad, and the Core i3 you can get today from Microcenter in store is clocked at 3.7, which would close the gap slightly.

I never recommend the AMD 8 core overclock because the chips use gobs of power. Even the e version will likely use 200-250w at 4.7 GHz, and that's to compete with a lowly 55w Core i3:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8864/amd-fx-8320e-cpu-review-the-other-95w-vishera/2

2gdrzxI.png


Base system used 150w with a 95w TDP CPU. Overclocking to 4.7 GHz raised power consumption by 144w :eek:

For people who have to air condition their houses, the extra power impact is a real concern (you pay TWICE, once to power the chip, and again to remove the heat it generated).


Another thing people never take into account in the value equation is the cost of the cooler. You can't really expect to overclock the 8350e on the stock cooler, and the Evo 212 is 30 bucks. And I'm not sure it has the heat removal capacity for 4.7 GHz, so more eexotic cooling may be necessary. But the Core i3 can get along just fine with the stock cooler.

In that review I linked, they used this mammoth. At $90, it's almost as expensive as the processor!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0446076&PID=6159452&SID=iep01grwse01045j00053

If you need more exotic cooling ($50-60), then we're rapidly approaching the price of a Core i5.
 
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I cannot and I think that setup would be fine. An MSI 970 Gaming motherboard would do great. I would never use a $39 motherboard because you get what you pay for. (The exception would be a board that supports the AMD 5350.) No matter the arguments, a dual core processor is not worth recommending for a new build, ever. It is 2015, not 2005.

Otherwise, a locked core i5 should be fine and cost just a little more. If you go with 8GB of ram, that would help keep the cost under $800. Oh, but the FX 8320E would be better.
 
I would never use an i3 over my cpu. Do you stress your cpu to max max 24/7 like these test? Power does not concern me.
Edit and btw my APC backup power shows differant .Im at 120- 125 watts as I type with speakers and 34 inch LG monitor hooked up With PC in sig.
 
I just built {a few months ago} a new AMD rig, used an 8320E and gigabyte 970 ud3p board. currently overclocked to 4.2ghz. runs everything fine, although i did pair it with a strix 970. I do alot of vid encodes so the 8 core really shreds thru them. I did however get the 8320E on sale for 99.99 and the mobo was on sale for 75.00 plus i got the combo discount of 40$ off. For $135 it was a no brainer! However I did use a seidon 120v AIO which held temps at around 57c when testing with prime95 and that was running 4.4ghz. But the pump died so I switched to an evo 212, at [email protected] max temps in P95 reach 54-55c. So anything above that speed/volts your gonna need a larger AIO to cool it which negates the price/performance benefit! Could save a few bucks and get the 6 core which would overclock just as well. Upgraded from a x6 1055t overclocked to 3.5ghz and noticed a big improvement overall.
 
If this is a pure gaming rig, go with an I3 with hyperthreading.

if you gonna be doing another things such as video encoding, twitch streaming, productivity work, then going with a FX 8 core isn't such a bad choice.

In all honesty I would probably look for a used ivy bridge i5 or i7.
 
you will pay ~$139 for the cpu+mobo on an i3, its hard to beat that price for pure gaming, and the fx overclocked will not perform better than the i3 in 9/10 games.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=1197
Although the 8 core is more powerful in other respects, gaming won't utilize that power. What gaming will utilize is the vastly superior single thread performance of the i3.
It will be a bad purchase decision if you get the 8 core unless you can get it for the same or cheaper price, but it will be slower than the i3 at stock speeds in fps terms.
 
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a3venom said:
you will pay ~$139 for the cpu+mobo on an i3, its hard to beat that price for pure gaming, and the fx overclocked will not perform better than the i3 in 9/10 games.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=1197
Although the 8 core is more powerful in other respects, gaming won't utilize that power. What gaming will utilize is the vastly superior single thread performance of the i3.
It will be a bad purchase decision if you get the 8 core unless you can get it for the same or cheaper price, but it will be slower than the i3 at stock speeds in fps terms.
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I think it would be a bad decision to get any dual core nowadays. He can get an locked i5 for not much more and have 4 real cores. If he wants to stick with AMD, which I have no issue with, then an FX 8320E would do fine. It is now the year 2015, dual cores need to die already.
 
ManofGod said:
I think it would be a bad decision to get any dual core nowadays. He can get an locked i5 for not much more and have 4 real cores. If he wants to stick with AMD, which I have no issue with, then an FX 8320E would do fine. It is now the year 2015, dual cores need to die already.
Click to expand...

Opinions < Facts. why would you recommend something more xpensive that performs worse lmao
 
Why would anybody even consider a DEAD-END platform of AMD over Intel's offering now....????

Get him an i3 now, which will give him the SAME gaming performance as 8320 or 8350 in 99% of games out there. A year from now, he'll have some money saved up, and can spring for an i5 or even i7 which will give him even more boost... All that at half the power usage and heat output of AMD's current (and OLD) offerings....

/thread
 
Yup, people need to stop recommending one thing over the other simply because they hate/love something/or the other thing.
Be Objective and help out the guy.
 
a3venom said:
you will pay ~$139 for the cpu+mobo on an i3, its hard to beat that price for pure gaming, and the fx overclocked will not perform better than the i3 in 9/10 games.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=1197
Although the 8 core is more powerful in other respects, gaming won't utilize that power. What gaming will utilize is the vastly superior single thread performance of the i3.
It will be a bad purchase decision if you get the 8 core unless you can get it for the same or cheaper price, but it will be slower than the i3 at stock speeds in fps terms.
Click to expand...

an I3+MB bundle is going to be more like $175 - $210

I would agree an I3 is enough for gaming and a better choice than AMD, but I3s are shit in windows apps, they respond very slowly, but yeah if you are looking for a budget gamer only rig I3 is your best bet.
 
a3venom said:
Opinions < Facts. why would you recommend something more xpensive that performs worse lmao
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Fact is, dual core are a lot slower in overall usage. Why not just go single core than and go all the way. :rolleyes:

Edit: Oh, and your opinion does not make my FX 8 Core rigs slow. :p Why anyone would go with a dual core when you can get a locked Intel i5 quad core for just a little more is beyond me. Dual core processors are only good for basic office tasks because, in the newest games, they are not all that fast, if they play at all.
 
ManofGod said:
Fact is, dual core are a lot slower in overall usage. Why not just go single core than and go all the way. :rolleyes:

Edit: Oh, and your opinion does not make my FX 8 Core rigs slow. :p Why anyone would go with a dual core when you can get a locked Intel i5 quad core for just a little more is beyond me. Dual core processors are only good for basic office tasks because, in the newest games, they are not all that fast, if they play at all.
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Well it is just clear that you don't know what you're saying, but you have a strong feeling towards what you're saying.
I think the 53 year old lady sitting next to me in the office has the same logic while comparing computers lol.
 
a3venom said:
Well it is just clear that you don't know what you're saying, but you have a strong feeling towards what you're saying.
I think the 53 year old lady sitting next to me in the office has the same logic while comparing computers lol.
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I do not know about the person next to you but, I am an I.T. professional. Been doing it for a very long time and it is cool that you like your dual core processor but, that does not make it a good purchase going forward.
 
ManofGod said:
I do not know about the person next to you but, I am an I.T. professional. Been doing it for a very long time and it is cool that you like your dual core processor but, that does not make it a good purchase going forward.
Click to expand...

Let the OP Decide, and bombard him with facts, not opinions.
 
ManofGod said:
Fact is, dual core are a lot slower in overall usage. Why not just go single core than and go all the way. :rolleyes:

Edit: Oh, and your opinion does not make my FX 8 Core rigs slow. :p Why anyone would go with a dual core when you can get a locked Intel i5 quad core for just a little more is beyond me. Dual core processors are only good for basic office tasks because, in the newest games, they are not all that fast, if they play at all.
Click to expand...

yes, and the OP don't want an overall machine. he want a gaming Rig. and IDK why are you so attached to your AMD FX chip but that doesn't delete the fact that any good i3 will do the same job or better in a lot of cases than a FX chip, you know that you need a really high clocked 4.8ghz+ FX to be on par with a tiny i3 out of the box, however I agree with i3 vs i5, I just would check the prices and pick an i5 always as possible. I don't think that jump in price can make any high difference in the overall budget.
 
assuming we use newegg, an Intel Core i3-4370 (3.8GHz is $146

An Intel Core i5-4460 (3.2GHz) is $189 You can argue cores vs speed if you want, if you were talking 4cores VS 6 I would pick speed, but 2 cores vs 4 I will pick the cores when your talking .6Ghz, SOme games will use 4 cores and general use will be much faster if you need it

Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon $239 and now you can push it to 4+Ghz
of course now you just hit 6600K territory its $249, but now you are not talking budget build anymore

In the end you may even find a combo deal that really saves you money.
 
We are arguing at a budget price point here, stop talking about spending little extra and getting i5.
We can spend a little more extra over the i5 and get 2 Buggatis, definitely outperforms anything
 
ManofGod said:
I think it would be a bad decision to get any dual core nowadays. He can get an locked i5 for not much more and have 4 real cores. If he wants to stick with AMD, which I have no issue with, then an FX 8320E would do fine. It is now the year 2015, dual cores need to die already.
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Why in 2015 would you recommend an FX chip? You could get an 8320 for $139 and someday when you want more power you can spend twice that for an FX 9590. Sounds great for a 5ghz chip until you look up benchmarks and realize you have increased gaming performance about 5% and are still being beat by some i3.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8316/...the-fx9590-and-asrock-990fx-extreme9-review/8

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...66-amd-fx-9590-review-piledriver-5ghz-13.html
 
i3 as others have said, more cores does not = more powaaaaa unless using very very specific applications that can truly utilize more cores, which most games can not.
 
Any gamer buying a NEW system with the knowledge that Windows 10 + DX12 scales off more cores is making a dumb mistake. I agree completely with the crowd that says Intel cores are faster. Just make sure that whatever you get it is a true quad core. Anything less is stupid and a complete waste of money.

It would be better to sell lemonade on the side of the road for another month and get at least a quad core than settle for a lowly dual core. Some games require more than a dual core. Dual cores are for multitasking spreadsheets at an office. If stuck on dual core budgets, then just buy an old Dell office system and slap a video card into that.
 
y0bailey said:
OK...I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means, but my last few PC's I've built up for friends have been AMD machines. Just hard to beat the price per performance for a budget rig. But this has been about 3 years, and I need to decide what to do again.

I am basically going to build my buddy my exact rig, and need to keep things under $800. He has NOTHING to borrow (no hard drives to steal, etc).

AMD FX 8320
8gb DDR3
Mid ranged 970 mobo
SSD Boot drive.
GTX 960 4gb.


Is it stupid to not go Intel? This is going to be a light gaming rig, and again needs to be under $800. Just seems hard to beat this build in that price range for what games he will be able to play with decent settings at 1080p.

I need to take a refresher course on Intel,
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Okay, just so I understand. You're building TWO rigs. And you need to keep the TOTAL price under $800. Not $800 each.

Correct?
 
cageymaru said:
Any gamer buying a NEW system with the knowledge that Windows 10 + DX12 scales off more cores is making a dumb mistake. I agree completely with the crowd that says Intel cores are faster. Just make sure that whatever you get it is a true quad core. Anything less is stupid and a complete waste of money.

It would be better to sell lemonade on the side of the road for another month and get at least a quad core than settle for a lowly dual core. Some games require more than a dual core. Dual cores are for multitasking spreadsheets at an office. If stuck on dual core budgets, then just buy an old Dell office system and slap a video card into that.
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Yeah, it'll make a difference...in 3-5 years for high-end gaming. And probably 7-10 for low-end gaming (which this machine is being built for).

At which point, this machine will have been replaced...

So, why use some massive, power-sucking, multi-core space heater?
 
It's not gonna take 7-10 years for DX12 and Vulkan to proliferate that much. Those API's will expand much faster than DX10 and 11 did because they are actually a significant upgrade in performance and programmability. It'll make a bigger impact on lower-end hardware since it'll remove CPU bottlenecks and make the GPU the bottleneck more often. So it's not as irrelevant as you try to make it seem.

Anyway FX chips are still good for gaming, though of course the Intel chips have the strong integer cores which DX11 and anything before it prefers since those API's were multi-threaded, not truly multi-core. Recommending a super-gimped Pentium for a gaming box is a fucking joke unless the only game you're gonna play is World of Tanks and Starcraft 2. Even an i3 is pushing it but at least it's not as gimped as a Pentium. I'd shoot for a locked i5 myself if it were a budget thing, but that's just me. I still wouldn't throw an FX-83xx machine out the window like other people in here would if I received a system like that.

Friend of mine build a rig with a Vishera octocore and OC'd it to 4.8ghz with minor tweaks out the box, and he loves it. Says he keeps 60fps in every game he plays (he paired it with an R9-280.) I guess if you believe people run their rigs at 5ghz and GPU @ full load 24/7 for some dumbass reason it would make a difference to the electric bill, but...
 
buttons said:
I am a huge AMD fan, but i havent built amd anything in a long time. Price to performance/power is just not where it use to be. Intel prices have come way down too. You can get a six core intel Xeon for $50 that when overclocked probably beats the 8320 at about everything. I paid $70 for mine couple years ago and a $130 for an X58 sabertooth board

My advice is order a lenovo TS-140, throw a hard drive and video card in it and call it a day.

These have been popping up for $284-329 all the time lately.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...sourceId=1457895&sourceName=forums&rmvSB=true
Click to expand...


Used Xeon workstations/similar are the forgotten gem of the PC world. Buy one (sans GPU and HDDs) for a small amount and add the goodies and you have a rock solid PC that will last for years.

Xeon chips cost a lot less than the equivalent i7 on Ebay usually.
 
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Chas said:
Yeah, it'll make a difference...in 3-5 years for high-end gaming. And probably 7-10 for low-end gaming (which this machine is being built for).

At which point, this machine will have been replaced...

So, why use some massive, power-sucking, multi-core space heater?
Click to expand...

Did I say that he should use an AMD processor? No. I said that suggesting that he use a dual core is silly in this day and age. Save up a few more pennies and get at least a quad core.
 
For $800 builds, I buy used 3570k's for $160. Add a 212 evo and it's good to go for a long time. 2500k's sell for $130-140. I'd pick that over a power hog AMD 8300 series anyday. I see no reason to buy a new AMD cpu for $130-$150 because the used intels are a much better bang/buck.

I agree with the TS140 recommendation above. That's the best bang/buck for a starting point. Though, the psu will need to be replaced when using a higher power video card.

Also, the Lenovo TS440 goes on sale for $299 frequently as well. It lacks the 500gb platter drive, but has many hot-swap bays and a higher capacity psu.

As for Xeon's being "cheap", yeah if you get a used one. I've bought some new workstations for work and they're definitely not cheap then.

4 years ago, ~$7500 for dual Xeon 5690 cpus with 48GB ram
2 years ago, ~$7500 for dual Xeon E5-2690v2 cpus with 32GB ram (ten cores, 3.0ghz per core)
 
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