Is it any good and how much power will it need?

ShaneW1986

Hey folks building a new rig and am very new to all this, this is the set up I have decided to go for.

CPU - AMD FX 8150
MB - ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
Ram - 16 GB DDR3 Ripjaws X
Graphics - ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB
Hard Drive - 2TB Seagate 7200rpm
Wireless Card
Gigabyte Gaming case with 4 fans

POWER SUPPLY ??????? how much power will I need?

Is this set up going to be any good for games? I want to be able to play anything with full settings?

Any light anyone can shed on this would be much appreciated thanks in advance.

Tea_Bag

whats your budget? youre better off going intel on a 2500K/3570K, and drop some of the ram to improve the GPU. thats a pretty budget-y GPU at this stage.

Procrastastudy

6870 is just about to drop off the map - really silly prices for 6XXX gpus now.

ShaneW1986

I know everyone keeps saying that you should go for Intel but from all the neutral reviews I can find on the web which are few and far between due to the Intel to the death supporters and the die die die AMD haters! Supposedly the FX 8150 keeps up fine with the 2500 with only fractional differences in gaming performance, its also not meant to have hit its peak yet due to the fact that they haven't released any games that truly need that many cores. I'm looking to buy this chip and not having to bother upgrading it for as long as possible.

As for budget I don't really have one but would like to keep it as close to 800 euro mark as possible I don't want to be spending silly money.

GCDlawstudent what graphics card would you recommend then?

Anyone got any idea what sort of psu i will be needing?

So far on dabs.ie its working out at 915 euro with a few extras and a 700watt psu.

ED E

ShaneW1986 wrote: »

So far on dabs.ie its working out at 915 euro with a few extras and a 700watt psu.

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/home.jsp?lb Forget dabs

You dont need 700W I'd say, probably more 500/550, but it depends on the GPU.

Procrastastudy

It would really depend on what you're playing, at what resolution and what fram rates you want. At the very least I would hold off until the 660ti hits the US.

WillyFXP

http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/
handy tool. I'd only use this if going for a corsair PSU though, or possibly add another 100w on the result if going for another brand.

ShaneW1986

I hoping to use my 42inch telly as my monitor and at as high resolutions as possible. Mainly looking at playing arma 3 in the future but would like to be able to play anything comfortably on high settings.

Procrastastudy

Size wont matter much (thats what shh.. nm) its likely that unless you are a lottery winner you don't have a 4K (name not value ) screen yet so I'm going to assume 1080p which is pretty easy going on GPUs to be fair.

At that resolution something like a nVidia GTX670 should max out everything - that said that is over kill. The nVidia 660ti is probably going to be your best bet.

An AMD card would be better at high resolutions - like the 7950 with 3GB ram and a wider bus (linkage). nVidia cards tend to fall down at very high resolutions but that isn't really going to effect you do nVidia would be the way to go.

ShaneW1986

Thanks for all the reply's and help so far.

GCDlawstudent was looking at the GTX 670 and to be honest its a pricey for my liking its around the same as what I'm spending on my cpu motherboard and ram. Is there anything less expensive i enjoy gaming but wouldn't consider myself so hardcore that I would spend 450 euro on a graphics card.

Procrastastudy

The 660ti

If you have to buy before mid August then the AMD7850 if you will overclock or the 7870 if not. You will probably be unhappy when the 660ti come out if you buy either now though. The 660ti is rumoured to be a $200 card with the performance of a AMD7950 in everything but the highest resolutions (beyond 1080p)

Monotype

What do you need 16GB of RAM for? Most people barely use 4. Go for 8GB and you'll have plenty.
The advantage of a 2500K/3570K is that they can overclock quite far. The FXs overclock too but the power consumption increases rapidly.

A 550W unit such as the XFX or OCZ ZS sold on dabs is enough for a midrange system, say something like a 7850 and 2500K overclocked. The AMD CPU should be similar, although as I already said, the consumption increases rapidly when overclocked. AMD are releasing new AM3+ CPUs within the next two months. They're also releasing a new socket, FM2, although this will be more geared towards builds without dedicated graphics.

Procrastastudy

A little bit of a hijack but I think it's discussion will benefit the OP: AMD CPUs firstly I love AMD. As I've said before I used to work for an OEM and AMD resp were brilliant normally had massive 'assets' and no technical knowledge. I actually respected them for that as we had all the technical knowledge we needed and knew the score as regards they were much better value CPUs. I'm afraid that leads me to my next point that I wouldn't be 100% on AMD these days so I am very open to correction.

Performance

Toms Hardware isn't exactly impartial but have the Intel CPUs way ahead of the AMD ones. If this was a scam I'd be very suprised if they weren't called out on it. At the other end of the scale you've that peter-pan scate dood Linus who has done some very basic testing on frame rates and found the AMD CPUs slower.

Value

It used to be that for a given performance the AMD was cheaper - this doesn't seem the case anymore. Even if it where the extra expense you need to spend on faster memory, PSUs and electricity seems to negate it somewhat.

Piledriver/Trinity

Its not that I don't want to recommend AMD - once these new technologies hit the market I will of course read up and make a judgment based on price/performance. I'm pretty sure trinity will take over from the i3-2XXX in budget systems if the pricing is got right. To my mind AMD just aren't there yet.

Incidentally I've no love for Intel and the crap they pull with processor sockets - they are just making some fantastic CPUs at the moment. I hope AMD hand then their arse - its better for everyone if they do.

Monotype

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

I'm pretty sure trinity will take over from the i3-2XXX in budget systems if the pricing is got right.

Except that by the time we get them, the i3-3XXXs will be out and Intel will be ahead again.

I agree, it's not really worth investing money in Bulldozer. Get yourself a nice Z77 board and if you don't want to plough too much into the CPU at the moment, you can save a bit and pick up a 'K' one later for overclocking.
On hardwareversand, someone posted an 8 'core' CPU for €150 which is actually a competitive enough price if you're going to make use of all those cores, when the 3570K is €220+ and the 2500K seems to float around €200, but fluctuates quite regularly.
Oh yeah, as for the AMD CPUs not reaching their full potential in games as they're not coded for enough cores, I doubt we'll be seeing much change in that regard and it will be a while before you can see any game heavily designed for it. Most games are built around the limitations of consoles.

Procrastastudy

Monotype wrote: »

Except that by the time we get them, the i3-3XXXs will be out and Intel will be ahead again.

I'm not si sure that in specific applications (people who cant afford a GPU but want to play games) the Ivybridge i3s will have the edge - the (limited) benchmarks I've seen put the APUs ahead of the HD4000 - only time will tell of course as it all comes down to price!

Monotype wrote: »

Most games are built around the limitations of consoles.

Obviously a long way off but the new Xbox apparently is an octocore... I have to agree though AMDs selling point of 8 cores is a bit moot. Didnt I read somewhere that they aren't true cores either? They go beyond the i7's logical cores - kind of 1.5 cores per 2 advertised.

Gbear

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

The 660ti is rumoured to be a $200 card with the performance of a AMD7950 in everything but the highest resolutions (beyond 1080p)

I'd be astonished if it's going to be that cheap. That's about half the price of the 7870.

More like $300. $200 = only €161

I use a HDTV as my monitor. It's 1080p and once you get used to the size you can use it every day. I'd say lower than 1080p would wreck your eyes though, unless you put it about 10 feet away from you.

Procrastastudy

Your right I mean $200 range sorry eg sub $300 that said I've seen reports of $329.