Should I buy a Black Friday computer or build one myself?

spirit

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
ihaveacamaro said:
Is upgrading worth $11?
Click to expand...

Put the 11 bucks and however much you save on the other stuff on a better graphics card. That's where the performance lies.

You'll see no difference between 8GB and 16GB of RAM. Trust me here, I went from 8GB to 16GB, admittedly for VMs, but in gaming there is no difference.
 
FuryRosewood

FuryRosewood

Active Member
I would just buy the dell and swap the PSU myself...but thats me. 700 dollars including a i7 and windows? thats pretty decent. you will spend a grand doing it yourself.
 
spirit

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
FuryRosewood said:
I would just buy the dell and swap the PSU myself...but thats me. 700 dollars including a i7 and windows? thats pretty decent. you will spend a grand doing it yourself.
Click to expand...

Problem with the Dell is the graphics card is mediocre and the CPU is too high-end. It's an unbalanced system.
 
I

ihaveacamaro

New Member
StrangleHold said:
If your talking about the video cards memory. Effective core clock is the memory quad pumped. Its real speed is 300mhz with so to speak 4 lanes.
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I am talking about the video card, sorry should have specified.

Do you mind noobing it down for me? I'm not sure I understand?
 
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
ihaveacamaro said:
I am talking about the video card, sorry should have specified.

Do you mind noobing it down for me? I'm not sure I understand?
Click to expand...

You have clock cycles. In single the data is sent on the rise on the clock cycle, its true clock speed. DDR the data is sent on the rise and falling of the clock cylce, double pumped. DDR5 data is sent on the, easy way of saying it. On the bottom/half rise/top/half down/bottom. Hence quad pumped, data can be sent 4 times on a single clock cycle. Effective core clock. Like this, it better to have 4 lanes with traffic going 400 MPH then a single lane going at 1600 MHP. Traffic clutter in a single lane.
 
I

ihaveacamaro

New Member
StrangleHold said:
You have clock cycles. In single the data is sent on the rise on the clock cycle, its true clock speed. DDR the data is sent on the rise and falling of the clock cylce, double pumped. DDR5 data is sent on the, easy way of saying it. On the bottom/half rise/top/half down/bottom. Hence quad pumped, data can be sent 4 times on a single clock cycle. Effective core clock. Like this, it better to have 4 lanes with traffic going 400 MPH then a single lane going at 1600 MHP. Traffic clutter in a single lane.
Click to expand...

gotcha so it's a similar situation of having 2 x 4 GB RAM rather than 1 x 8 GB RAM.

Makes sense to me, thanks! :)

Now, I am just seeing if the fx 8320 will ever go on bf or cyber monday sale because pretty much everything else I bought was discounted in one way or another. Last thing to buy and then everything is bought! So excited!
 
I

ihaveacamaro

New Member
Alright here's the final final build:

Upgraded to 16 GB RAM since it was only $12 more and I do video editing.

Everything but the processor has been bought already.




Processor:
AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core
http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FX-Series-.../dp/B009O7YU56
$175

Graphics Card:
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition OC 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102983
$210


Motherboard:
ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128514
$110


Memory:
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231489
$50


Storage:
Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM 3 TB SATA 6 GB/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148736
$90


Case:
Thermaltake Chaser MK-I System Cabinet
http://www.overstock.com/Electronics...tml?cid=123620
$160


Power Supply:
CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139028
$70


Optical Drive:
ASUS Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 8MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...c3grabb3r-_-Blu-Ray+Burners-_-ASUS-_-27135252
$75



Total Rebates = $100

Total Build without processor = $765 - $100 = $665

Total Build with Processor = $665 + $175 = $840

This is the same amount of money that I had posted earlier, but in the earlier one I hadn't accounted for all the rebates. So the earlier one was more like $800 and this one is $840. It is within my budget though, so I'm happy :) Thank you everyone for your help!

I'm sure I'm still going to be asking more questions though so this thread might come back alive lol
 
Last edited:
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
ihaveacamaro said:
gotcha so it's a similar situation of having 2 x 4 GB RAM rather than 1 x 8 GB RAM.

Makes sense to me, thanks! :)
Click to expand...

Sorta of. Now your talking single vs. dual channel. In dual channel both sticks can be write or read at the same time. In single channel all the data has to be read or write through a single channel to each stick.

In your scenario above with 2X4 vs. a single 8. Dual channel will improve performance slightly. The big difference will come in as say your runing 2/3/4 mis matched sticks and they are running a single channel vs. 2 or 4 sticks in dual channel.
 
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ihaveacamaro

New Member
StrangleHold said:
Sorta of. Now your talking single vs. dual channel. In dual channel both sticks can be write or read at the same time. In single channel all the data has to be read or write through a single channel to each stick.

In your scenario above with 2X4 vs. a single 8. Dual channel will improve performance slightly. The big difference will come in as say your runing 2/3/4 mis matched sticks and they are running a single channel vs. 2 or 4 sticks in dual channel.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think I made the wrong analogy, but I understand what you're saying (both video card and RAM) and it makes sense to me :)

Interesting info, so say you were running a 2 gb, a 6 gb, and an 8 gb single channel. You would see an improvement by switching to 2 8 gb dual channel?
 
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