Arthran's Replacement Rig (or ARR! for short) - Advice Needed on parts

[Arthran]

So, whilst I was supposed to get a new PC for my Birthday last year, the mrs managed to blow hers up ! So I had to replace hers with a great machine from scan, and i've had to wait for mine.

Well, now my primary C drive is failing and my PC does not want to boot 9 times out of 10. So its time to upgrade!

So, The plan is to stick as close spec-wise to the mrs. Luckily I specced her machine to be pretty much what I want.

So here's the build:

Motherboard:
Either
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx
Or
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

I cant decide if there's really any noticeable difference with the PRO version and whether its worth spending the extra, Any Suggestions?

CPU:
I Want:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-f...he-125w-retail
but will settle for
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/15-ca...5200mt-s-95w-r

I'd rather the 3.8 as well, I wont have to push it too far overclocking and it has a better cache.

CPU Cooler:
I'm looking at something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nda-7...nce-cpu-cooler

BUT! I'm honestly not sure, for years I've used stock coolers and as I know I'm going to stress this machine, I'd rather keep it as cool as I can. Advice needed here

GPU:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-x...yport-2x-dvi-i

Or cheaper version of. But a 6870 that's for sure

Ram:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...-9-9-9-24-150v

Or similar. 8gb definitely, prefer 4gb sticks to give space for more. Not settled on a set yet.

Case:
The Mrs has an Antec 300, I'm tempted by then:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zalma...r-case-w-o-psu

Optical drive will be stolen from my current PC.

I WANT a 2TB disk in the machine as well, but Budgetry concerns mean I may end up stealing a 500gb from my file server.

Any Help and Guidance will be appreciated

Arthran

[shaithis]

You haven't said what your using it for......

That might be a spot-on spec, or it might be grossly over or under spec......

But as you have added a 6870 I will presume you are at least a little serious about gaming.......in which case I would rather spend a bit more on a SB chip, rather then the FX.

[Arthran]

DOH!

So to summarise usage, this Machine will be primarily used for 1080P gaming (primarily Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2. Few shooters/AAA's. Mostly Strat or RPG/MMO's), recording using Fraps and Live streaming (once BT sort out Infinity at my new house), Other than that its all non-intensive applications

[Arthran]

The FX is primarily to match the Mrs's X6 1055, and also to be value conscious with a Hex Core, with a lot of games it will allow a reasonable FPR whilst keeping a couple of cores free for XSplit/Fraps

[shaithis]

As someone who likes SC2 also......this would make me go intel in a heartbeat....and that's at 1024x768!



EDIT: It's the same story with most Blizzard games as well....and even though I cannot find any info about Diablo 3 on AMD CPUs, I half expect the same to hold true.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Once you start going a decent amount over £100 I would really be looking at a non-K Core i5 or K series Core i5 TBH. The Core i3 2100 is also pretty decent although there are plenty of AMD alternatives at that price(they tend to be slower at stock clockspeeds in many games but not too far off IMHO).

Regarding SC2,it even runs fine on a 2.9GHZ Phenom II X4 as I have quite a few mates who play it themselves. We also play games like Sins of a Solar Empire and both Supcom 1 and 2.

OTH,since SC2 uses only 2 threads the Intel CPUs will produce higher framerates. Hence,even a Pentium dual core will do well in the game.

The best FX series CPU is the FX4170:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,87.../FX-4100/Test/

It is nearly the same speed as a Core i3 2100 in the game and faster than a Phenom II X4 980BE and FX8150.

However,you do realise you can get a 95W Phenom II X6 1045T for around £95 from Scan:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

OTH,I suspect that a Core i3 2100,Phenom II X4 965BE,FX4170 or FX6200 would be faster at stock clockspeeds.

Overclocking is not guaranteed but one Hexus forum member got a decent overclock out of their example:

http://forums.hexus.net/cpus/236129-...rclocking.html

Regarding the motherboard the Asus M5A97 PRO is a fantastic motherboard as I know a few mates who use it themselves and Bagnaj97 uses the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 which is also great.

However,both motherboards should not be more than around £80 and Scan is way too expensive for the Asus.

Both Ebuyer and Amazon have it for under £80:

http://www.ebuyer.com/270702-asus-m5...edium=products

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0053GR7G...SIN=B0053GR7GG

If you are not overclocking get this motherboard:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

[Arthran]

OTH,since SC2 uses only 2 threads the Intel CPUs will produce higher framerates. Hence,even a Pentium dual core will do well in the game.

See this is why I want the Hexa Core, With SC2 only using 2, Xsplit, livestream and fraps can all happily run on the other 4 cores without giving too much of an FPS Impact. Or at least that's my train of thought. I'm trying to balance game performance and Performance with video encoding

[shaithis]

See this is why I want the Hexa Core, With SC2 only using 2, Xsplit, livestream and fraps can all happily run on the other 4 cores without giving too much of an FPS Impact. Or at least that's my train of thought. I'm trying to balance game performance and Performance with video encoding

Do they need 4 cores though?

Because if they don't.....you will be sacrificing a lot of game performance for no reason what so ever.....and I find it hard to believe that all the FRAPs stuff I have been seeing for years has needed 2-4 cores to capture.

[Arthran]

oh I doubt it does, I'm simply trying to balance performance. I'm also thinking that taking fraps footage and editing it is one of the most painful things I've ever done on my old dual core (rendering is a massive pain!), Simply thinking that more cores on multi-threaded renderer would be a good thing.

Not claiming to be right, just sharing my reasoning for the current preference, I may be wrong. Budget is a massive issue as well, so I'm trying to to get best over-all bang for buck.

[Butuz]

-double post :/

[Butuz]

For gaming I would go for an i3 / i5 over an X6 or FX as the intel has similar (sometimes better) performance but with MUCH lower power draw.

If you must stay AMD for whatever reason I would agree with CAT-THE-FIFTH - get the X5 1045T over any FX chip.

I also wouldnt bother with the H40 watercooler. A £40 140mm fan based air cooler will outcool the H40 whilst probably being quieter.

Butuz