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Forums - PC Discussion - Building a PC, Thoughts about this Specs

I was never into PC gaming, so I am not sure about how long and how this setup will peform, I would like some thougts or alternatives in the same budget:

CPU: AMD FX 8350 AM3 4,2GHZ

GPU: ASUS RADEON R9 280 3GB DDR5 - Tahiti pro 2

Memory: Kingstom DDR3-RAM 8GB PC3-14900

HD: 256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD (Brand to be decided)

MotherBoard: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3

PSU: I was thinking about a 550 or 600W.



NNID: MagicalLight

FC: 4124 - 5888 - 4804

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Motherboard? PSU? Case (make sure the GPU fits!)?



What is your budget and what are your standards in gaming? Games, resolution, FPS?



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Teeqoz said:
Motherboard? PSU? Case (make sure the GPU fits!)?

MotherBoard: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3
PSU: I was thinking about a 550 or 600W.

vivster said:
What is your budget and what are your standards in gaming? Games, resolution, FPS?

PS4/XOne graphics level fidelity but with FPS above 30fps and 1080p. So not everything Very High with taxing AA. 

$700.



NNID: MagicalLight

FC: 4124 - 5888 - 4804

SLI 980 or riot.



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Skidmore said:
Teeqoz said:
Motherboard? PSU? Case (make sure the GPU fits!)?

MotherBoard: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3
PSU: I was thinking about a 550 or 600W.

vivster said:
What is your budget and what are your standards in gaming? Games, resolution, FPS?

PS4/XOne graphics level fidelity but with FPS above 30fps and 1080p. So not everything Very High with taxing AA. 

$700.

That's alright then I guess. Make sure you have a frame limiter on 30 fps and you should be absolutely fine. Should be able to stem all current games in console fidelity or better.

Try to save as much as you can on RAM, MB and PSU(but don't take a too cheap PSU either) and put all of the savings into the GPU. Upgrades to 280X or even 290 will be significant.

Don't overprovision your PSU. 500W are more than enough to have the system running at full power. You can take 550W to be on the safe side but more will be thrown out money and your PSU will run less efficent at idle performance.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

vivster said:
Skidmore said:
Teeqoz said:
Motherboard? PSU? Case (make sure the GPU fits!)?

MotherBoard: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3
PSU: I was thinking about a 550 or 600W.

vivster said:
What is your budget and what are your standards in gaming? Games, resolution, FPS?

PS4/XOne graphics level fidelity but with FPS above 30fps and 1080p. So not everything Very High with taxing AA. 

$700.

That's alright then I guess. Make sure you have a frame limiter on 30 fps and you should be absolutely fine. Should be able to stem all current games in console fidelity or better.

Try to save as much as you can on RAM, MB and PSU(but don't take a too cheap PSU either) and put all of the savings into the GPU. Upgrades to 280X or even 290 will be significant.

Don't overprovision your PSU. 500W are more than enough to have the system running at full power. You can take 550W to be on the safe side but more will be thrown out money and your PSU will run less efficent at idle performance.

Ok, thanks... For me to upgrade to a 280x is 50$, so it might be worth the shot.



NNID: MagicalLight

FC: 4124 - 5888 - 4804

You might want to think about getting a 1TB Seagate Barracuda SSHD instead of the SSD and HD combination. With those savings, you can get an R9 280X



riderz13371 said:
SLI 980 or riot.

certainly not for the proposed 700$

For your Intentions and price, the config is reasonable. Just bear in mind that the AM3+ platform is pretty much end of life, so don't expect upgrading your PC anytime without also having to switch your Mainboard. The graphics chip is also end-of-life (already getting replaced by the Tonga based 285), but it's still a very playable graphic chip, just a bit power hungry. An 80+ bronze or silver psu with 600W is advisable for your configuration, as both the graphics card and the cpu can spike past their TDP levels (although rarely, but it still may happen).

Alternatives: Intel Core i5 44xx (higher Instructions per clock, less consuming and heating), Nvidia Geforce 860 or 760ti (both however will not benefit from Mantle API), AMD Radeon 285 (bit more modern and benefits from the recent Omega driver unlike the 280), AMD A10 78xx, A8 7600 (both are just as fast unless more than 4 cores are supported, more modern platform and less powerhungry).



Skidmore said:

I was never into PC gaming, so I am not sure about how long and how this setup will peform, I would like some thougts or alternatives in the same budget:

CPU: AMD FX 8350 AM3 4,2GHZ

GPU: ASUS RADEON R9 280 3GB DDR5 - Tahiti pro 2

Memory: Kingstom DDR3-RAM 8GB PC3-14900

HD: 256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD (Brand to be decided)

MotherBoard: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3

PSU: I was thinking about a 550 or 600W.

If you can find a 285 (or 280x) close enough to the price of the 280, I'd recommend getting one of those. They are a nice little boost (although you can always overclock.) Their prices are fluctuating  from as close to  a $30 difference all the way up to a $70 one, depending on manufacturer - make sure to read reviews for each manufacturer though. Also consider rebates, they aren't too hard to do and it takes about a month or so to get the rewards card. With the 280x expect to run many games at 1440p with decent framerates, and some of those at 60fps. With the 280/285 expect to run almost all current games at 1080p high-max settings, and >30 fps.

For power supplies you can find a decent corsair 600w for about $40-70 before rebate. Your CPU does seem to consume quite a bit, about 160W max load, and the 280 or 280x will consume about 250W max load. That gives you about 410W max load, and a 600W Corsair CX or a 550W more efficienct PSU will be able to cover that depending on which other peripherials you'll have.

Your CPU is great, and should last the whole generation. I'm not sure how upgradeable it is though. You might want to consider that and spend a little bit more money for an i5 instead if upgradeability is important to you (you can buy a $90 board with similar features to the one you listed to compensate for the price difference of the CPU.) You can get an i5 4690k for about $50 more than the FX8350 and it's also unlocked like the FX8350, so you can overclock to your hearts desire. I believe the motherboard I linked allows for auto-overclocking devil canyon's CPU's so that might be a nice advantage, but I'm unsure. I have a similar motherboard and it has this feature for the Pentium G3258. In addition to all of that the i5 also has a lower TDP than the FX8350, so it will consume fewer watts than the FX8350, giving you more headroom on a cheap power supply. 

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-285-vs-Radeon-R9-280

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-vs-AMD-FX-8350

Also make sure you buy your GPU new. People buy these R9 XXX cards for litecoin/bitcoin mining run them into the ground and then try to resell them. 

Your build seems to be decent though. I was just providing some alternatives in your price-range, depending on what's important for you.