Best performance/price upgrade help

R

RichardAtkinson

New Member
Hey guys, new to the forum, and liking it very much so far.

I am trying to find the maximized price vs. performance system I can. It needs to be future-proof.

Without further wait:


Motherboard: MSI 970A-G46 AMD 9 Series Motherboard (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1963472&CatId=7248)

CPU: AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961)

RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-231-519)

Power Supply: XION XON-850P14F High Performance 850WPower supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817190029)

Grand total: $370 without taxes, $418 with. Note: I would be willing to buy a Hyper 212 Plus fan if REALLY necessary.


The questions:

1) Is this build basically as good as it gets for the price, and will last for the next couple of years?

2) Will the stock CPU fan/heatsink combo be sufficient at slightly overclocked speeds?

3) If answer to (2) is no, would slapping another 120mm fan on the other side, facing the same way be a worthwhile addition to increase air-flow and cooling?


Thank you all kindly for your time and effort.

Cheers, and best regards,



Richard Atkinson
 
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that's half a build, and the cpu isn;t the best, an intel i5 would be much better but the 8120 is good too, but i'd wait for the next gen of FX, still won't be as good as an i5 but will close the gap some. the power supply you chose sucks, get a corsair, xfx, antec, pc power and cooling, nzxt, silverstone, or seasonic. nd if you want speed a small ssd for the os would be good.

What is this going to be used for?
 
Sorry, I meant to write that it's an upgrade. I've got the other necessities (case, HD, Optical Drive, 6 fans, Video card, etc.

You're sure an i5 would do much better? Performance benchmarks show the FX8120 to be almost exactly like the Intel Core i5-3450 @ 3.10GHz.

In regards to the power supply, I mistakenly posted the wrong link. Here's the one I meant to post: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1583411

Is that a good choice? Would it power the 125Watt FX8120?

Thanks for your help mate, all appreciated.


Cheers,

Richard
 
They seem to perform relatively the same, but overall it seems like you're right. The only problem being is that I'm pretty tight on cash, and I doubt I can find a decent motherboard, decent i5, and decent RAM for the price of this setup.

Do you think it's possible?
 
My other gear is an older GTX 260 812 core OC'd, HAF332 or whatever it is case, 6 fans, but an older Seagate Drive which is becoming pretty outdated.
 
if you have an oem copy of windows then it won't work with the new motherboard, they lock each key to the motherboard to prevent piracy, only the retail version is transferrable
 
I've got a spare OEM version of Win7, and not afraid to use it! ;). Just trying to get a good budget system. If we're going intel based, here's the lowest I found, a full $160 more than the AMD kit:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7073161&CatId=6988

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7114016&CatId=6978

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-231-519

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139030

You really think it's worth the extra $$$?
 
jonnyp11 said:
if you have an oem copy of windows then it won't work with the new motherboard, they lock each key to the motherboard to prevent piracy, only the retail version is transferrable
Click to expand...

"Retail" OEM is transferable. You just have to ring MS and activate (and give an explanation - I generally say hardware upgrade due to other failed hardware)
 
Found the same two parts in Canada from the same store.

You're positive the AMD rig will be that much worse that it would not be worth those $160 dollars with which I could buy a new HD + GPU?
 
My current rig:

EVGA 680i SLI motherboard + Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 3.00GHz + Ultra PSU 650 Watts (broken fans, basically taped 2 fans to it) + GTX 260 (mid overclock) + REALLY old hard drive (5-6 years old)

Actually I'm in Canada, which is the problem. The Americans have free shipping + lower prices.
 
it won't be as good but a fx-6100 or 8120 with a gigabyte 990fx-ud3 or similar would do the job plenty well and putting that money towards a 6870 or 6950 or gtx560 or 560ti would get you a lot better performance in games, or a second 260 on ebay or something provided the psu is good enough, a tx650 or similar should do it.
 
Hmm, I see. If I overclock the 8120, you think it will match up to the i5 2500k?

I think I could use two cars, actually. I am just afraid the PSU won't support it... or do you think it will? Which scenario is better/will it work:

-Dual GTX260's
-GTX 260 for PhysX and 6950 for display
-Just 6950
-Just GTX 260
 
G80FTW said:
Old? My Western Digital hard drives in my current computer are older than that....
Click to expand...

Reassuring, then. No need for an upgrade, I'll just back my computer up.
Thank you for everyone's help on here. I figure that with a tight budget I'm going to go AMD on this one since I plan on OCing the 8120 anyhow. Should pull well ahead of the i5 2500k, but not with the stock cooler. We'll see.


Thank you everyone for the help.
 
You're sure? I've researched a variety of benchmarks that show that at the stock 3.1GHz it performs 2-3 fps less than the 2500k, and with Turbo + overclock it pulls well ahead.

Strange.
 
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