| cloud1161 said: It looks good. The Graphics Card and CPU seem extremely overpriced. I got my AMD FX 4100 CPU for $95 and it has virtually the same specs as that CPU. It's quad-core 3.6 GHz, 4.1 GHz overclock. Actually now that I look at it, that graphics card seems only a little overpriced, but I don't know if you really need dual DVI. I know I don't. Also, I would see if you can find those parts on NewEgg. From my experience, NewEgg offers the better deals than TigerDirect. That's just my preference though. |
The GTX570 was a placeholder. Dgc is either going for HD7870/660/660Ti. We ruled out the GTX570 as slower and inefficient and lacking VRAM.
As far as the CPU goes, it's not really fair to compare an FX4100 CPU to an i5 3470/3570/2500K, etc. because each of the Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge cores is actually faster per clock cycle. Right now IVB has more than a 50% advantage in IPC over Bulldozer/Vishera. It wouldn't be surprising to see cases where i5 is up to 50% faster than FX4100 in games and it also explains why i5 2500K / i5 3570K will have no problems outperforming an "8-core" FX8350 in most games.
Even as high as a 70% performance advantage in some modern games.
While the i5 does cost $100 more, it would be short-sighted to consider this expensive in this case since the CPU is going to outlast the GPU by far. Saving $100 now on not getting the i5 means you'd have to upgrade very soon, vs. having the i5 "K" series that can overclock to 4.5ghz and easily last through 2-3 GPU upgrades, if not more. Of course there will be a lot of games like Far Cry 3 that are primarily GPU limited and FX4100 will do just fine but you can't account for other future games that need more CPU power. Skyrim also responds well to a fast CPU. I think the $100 extra for i5 3570K/2500K is well worth it over the FX4100, or any FX for games since with the Intel CPU you can feel safe that for 3-4 years your CPU will keep up with your future GPU upgrades, especially with a K series as that leaves room for overclocking.
