Gaming rig for FM

Hi people,

It's about time i upgrade my computer, currently running an system with AMD dual core at 2.6ghz with 4 gig or ram, and now feeling the time for an upgrade as it's been 3 years since any upgrades to processor and ram.

I'm stuck with wether to go for an AMD system or Intel. Big AMD fan but i've heard good things about intel processors.

The processor i'm looking at are the AMD Phenom x4 965 3.4ghz which is £136 and board for it is Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 which is £76

or for intel

Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66 ghz for £133 and the board Gigabyte GA-EP43T-USB3 for £74.

I'm swaying towards the AMD system but does the intel use the power it's got better than the amd?

Oh and i'm goign to stick in 8gb of ram and run windows 7 on it.

What are you thoughts on this or any different bits you thinki should get?

PS this is to make my FM to run a fair bit quicker.

Intel = Performance

AMD = Cost effective

depends on what you are after, if you want the top performance possible and money isnt too much of an option go Intel, if not AMD as you will get more performance for you money.

Sadly i don't have the money to buy an i7 system otherwise i would lol. Just been looking at phenom reviews and people have clocked it to 4ghz with just air cooling so swaying that way.

Yea, as i say, value for money its defo best to go for an AMD setup.

I'm planning to build an i7 system in the coming months but i've got to save up 1st so its going to be some time.

I just built an i5 750 2 weeks ago, fm10 absolutely flies on it. Had the same debate as yourself vs Phenom 965 but the i5 is a lot better than the Q8400 you're looking at. Cpu = £150, Gigabyte P55-UD2 motherboard = £80 was what I bought and it's only £20 more than the Phenom build. The i5 comes out on top performance wise unless you overclock the hell outta the 965!

Whatever you do, do not buy the Core 2 Quad. It is old technology and overpriced. The real choice is between the 965 as you mentioned, or the i5 (750). It really does not matter that much, but if the i5+motherboard (remember you need to take the MB price into account) comes out just a tad bit more than the 965+MB, go for the i5.

And for the RAM, you really shouldn't need more than 4GB under normal circumstances. But it's your call I guess.

i have to agree with what has been said recarding intel over AMD,

deadeyedunc: thats good to know as im buying a i7 when i get paid so its good to know that it flies on the i5 im itching to get my mits on an i7

you don`t really need a very powerful pc to play FM on so that will do it mate.

Just been doing a bit more research and found this Phenom II x4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750

In the verdict it says this: The Intel-based PC delivers better application performance with considerably better power consumption; while the AMD-based machine can deliver fractionally better games performance.

The phenom processor is £20 less as well, arghhh. swayed towards the intel for a bit but as i don't really use many applications, notepad and dreamweaver. And games, FM mostly but total war, sims 3 very rarely.

Anyone else here looking at this thread use any of these processors i'm looking at?

if you've got the money to blow then i'd go intel, but your setup sounds fine, especially if you're only playing FM mate. If you're considering playing something else as well then upgrade

Save a little bit more moeny and go for an i7 rig, its worth the little bit extra for slightly better future proofing.

you don`t really need a very powerful pc to play FM on so that will do it mate.

i know FM is a side thing for this rig as i do alot of 3d rendering too and video editing which is what the rig is being built for.

get a Mac

Save a little bit more moeny and go for an i7 rig, its worth the little bit extra for slightly better future proofing.

Any loan sharks you know that might be willing to lend me about £2k so i can build a system which can use the full power of the i7? I can make a down payment of 1 broken arm.

Any loan sharks you know that might be willing to lend me about £2k so i can build a system which can use the full power of the i7? I can make a down payment of 1 broken arm.

I built my own for £750

get a Mac

Can't afford one of those, unless i see that loan shark, then could have that i7 and mac.

I built my own for £750

What stuff is in your rig?

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail

Memory: OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 Low-Voltage Triple Channel (OCZ3G1333LV6GK)

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)

Video Card: HIS ATI Radeon HD 4670 IceQ DDR3 1GB

Monitor: eMachines 17" 8ms

Speakers/Headphones: Creative 5:1 Surrond Sound Speakers / Labtec Headphones

Keyboard: Microsoft Anti-Spill Keyboard

Mouse: Razer Diamondback

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard

Computer Case: Thermaltake Centurion 590

Copy and pasted from my Xfire profile. I was lucky enough to get Windows 7 for free due to my college course.

The i7 essentials (processor, motherboard, DDR3 RAM) hard drive and the new case only came to £550 actually.

only looking to spend about £400 as it's going to be an expensive summer this year. but i may hold up, will do some more research on the i7 core.

Copy and pasted from my Xfire profile. I was lucky enough to get Windows 7 for free due to my college course.

The i7 essentials (processor, motherboard, DDR3 RAM) hard drive and the new case only came to £550 actually.

Nice Spec pc man only thing id change would be the board but thats IMO as ive had nothing but issues with Gigabyte boards the ones i buy always seem to be flakey as hell

Nice Spec pc man only thing id change would be the board but thats IMO as ive had nothing but issues with Gigabyte boards the ones i buy always seem to be flakey as hell

The only board I had that had fried was an ASUS board in my second build, which is what made me change to Gigabyte.

My "weakest link" in my rig are

1) My hard drives which I havent change from IDE yet.

2) My monitor, its only got a 8ms refresh rate and "only 17".

3) My graphics card, although its DX10, 1GB RAM and Crossfire capable, it takes up 2 PCI slots (the fan covers my second slot).

Its just finding money to upgrade them

Can't afford one of those, unless i see that loan shark, then could have that i7 and mac.

well the police have had a word with him on corrie mate, so you might be out of luck

Well my boss brought in the latest computer shopper today and it had a breakdown on the processors and things so this is what i've gone for.

Core i5 750 £154

ASUS P7H57D-V EVO £145

OCZ3G1600 - 4GB £96

all these from pix mania, next i'm wondering about is power, currently got a 900w modular psu but i did have problems with running out of power when plugging in some usb devices.

The other components in my current rig are,

2 x 320 SATA HDD

2 x 500 IDE HDD - Will lose one and replace with SATA as it only has 1 IDE port

1 x Card reader, temp and fan monitor,

1 x Radeon x1550 512mb

and the componets i have attached via usb,

joystick, hd webcam, g15 keyboard and mx revolution mouse.

too much good stuff out there!! i am so out of date, i didnt know what an i7 is till this thread. can i7s get integrated to laptops or is it only viable for desktop??

Just been doing a bit more research and found this Phenom II x4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750

In the verdict it says this: The Intel-based PC delivers better application performance with considerably better power consumption; while the AMD-based machine can deliver fractionally better games performance.

The phenom processor is £20 less as well, arghhh. swayed towards the intel for a bit but as i don't really use many applications, notepad and dreamweaver. And games, FM mostly but total war, sims 3 very rarely.

Anyone else here looking at this thread use any of these processors i'm looking at?

Trust me, the difference in games performances won't be enough to matter BUT the intel CPU will give you better performance outside of games. I currently use the Intel CPU that they review there and have a friend who has the AMD CPU they review there, and despite our setups being pretty much identical other than the CPU, I get far better performance for things like startup time and even in games, except when the graphics settings are put up as high as they will go where his does pull ahead a little bit.

Go for the Intel.

The only board I had that had fried was an ASUS board in my second build, which is what made me change to Gigabyte.

My "weakest link" in my rig are

1) My hard drives which I havent change from IDE yet.

2) My monitor, its only got a 8ms refresh rate and "only 17".

3) My graphics card, although its DX10, 1GB RAM and Crossfire capable, it takes up 2 PCI slots (the fan covers my second slot).

Its just finding money to upgrade them

i understand that, (i went through about a dozen Gigabyte boards in 3 years they were either DOA or fried within months i haven overclocked anything. luckily Gigabyte seemed genuinly intrested in finding out why they were keeling over and getting it sorted.

and your weak links

1) theres really no reason not to go SATA they re just soooooooooooo cheap

2) :o 8ms refresh rate scary

3) most the decen gfx cards now take up two slots for cooling the huge chips

Worked out if i dont go out this weekend or next i can buy the essenials to get my rig up and running

too much good stuff out there!! i am so out of date, i didnt know what an i7 is till this thread. can i7s get integrated to laptops or is it only viable for desktop??

Looks like you can buy ones with i7 cores, dell sell some laptops with i7 cores at 1.8 which have 'turbo' up to 2.8

Intel is the way to go

Just been doing a bit more research and found this Phenom II x4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750

In the verdict it says this: The Intel-based PC delivers better application performance with considerably better power consumption; while the AMD-based machine can deliver fractionally better games performance.

The phenom processor is £20 less as well, arghhh. swayed towards the intel for a bit but as i don't really use many applications, notepad and dreamweaver. And games, FM mostly but total war, sims 3 very rarely.

Anyone else here looking at this thread use any of these processors i'm looking at?

Tbh for FM you should buy whichever processor runs Excel quickest

I have not checked into it, but can FM actually use all four cores of a quad core? Most games use two at most.

Edit: Checked. Appears it does use all four cores. Excellent..

Tbh for FM you should buy whichever processor runs Excel quickest

What do you mean mate?

Jokes tend to be boring when they're explained, but I'll give it a go :-/

The remark was aimed at the alleged graphical beauty of FM and the specs requirements for optimum performance deriving from that...

Jokes tend to be boring when they're explained, but I'll give it a go :-/

The remark was aimed at the alleged graphical beauty of FM and the specs requirements for optimum performance deriving from that...

Oh yeah i see now,

Recently invested in an Asus G73jh, and whilst the 5870 is slightly overkill on the GPU side of things; the 6GB & i7 720QM is lightening (8 cores) running the 3 main European leagues on medium database.

Buy one of these G73's from America and you are effectively saving yourself £700 (£1800 rrp) (inc. delivery).

Highly recommended.

Don't overlook a excellent True Power PSU!

Back again. So i'm set on the set up with processor, board, ram etc. But now i'm also looking at water cooling for it so i can clock up the processor a bit.

But i'm wondering what sort of set up i should go for, Just the cpu water cooled or the whole thing, cpu, north and southbridge, gpu.

The Cpu would be easier as i've read i can get away with a 120 mm rad which i can store inside case of my pc, but if i go for the whole thing will need to look at a 360 set up with 3 fans, and cutting open the top of my pc to fit it.

Using a Antec P180 case if that helps.

Thanks

Are you planning on seriously overclocking?

How much power do you need? what are you going to run that will need that amount of overclocking that you want to get water cooling?

It's completely insane - you will spend excessive amounts on an extra 10% and potentially bork your CPU.

agreed Watercooling is good but only if your really want to push the CPU at the top edges of its limits and need to keep it cool and if your going watercooling you need to realise that if your going for CPU cooler and GPU cooler you will need two seperate loops otherwise whichever gets "cooled" second will likely increase in temprature

P.S. a week before i build a i7

I was thinking of splitting the cool water into two, one going cpu and the other going gpu and joing together for the rad if i get recomended to cool everything using water cooling.

Well i want to get what i can out of the processor i'm getting, also want to upgrade my gf at a later date so i can play all the different games i've got maxed out.

Thinking of using it on an i5 750 which is 2.66 ghz and read that with good cooling you can touch 4 ghz with it, which would be nice.

Lucky for you acidmonkey, far to skint at the money to get that damn tax and holiday.

What case you putting it all in?

The thing is rag, why spend such a huge amount now on specs far beyond what you need? I never understand why people do that. You could save half of what you spend and upgrade a bit sooner and it will still cost you less. There is no reason to invest so heavily in a machine that will be still be obsolete as quick as any other system.

I tend to try and rebuild my pc every 3-4 years, i'm about 3 and a bit years now, and with the i5 cores at a decent price i thought i might as well go for it, if i get this processor, mobo and ram, that should be my core sorted for a while, then maybe new gfx card in a year or so time then i should be good until something dies or 3 years passes

i just upgraded to AMD 955 3.2 Quad and i absolutely love it. (except the fan which had to be replaced, it was annoyingly loud)

As one person said, intel for performance, amd for price. I'd only go with intel if it were an i-series chip, the core 2 duo are older technology but still highly priced .

Back again. So i'm set on the set up with processor, board, ram etc. But now i'm also looking at water cooling for it so i can clock up the processor a bit.

But i'm wondering what sort of set up i should go for, Just the cpu water cooled or the whole thing, cpu, north and southbridge, gpu.

The Cpu would be easier as i've read i can get away with a 120 mm rad which i can store inside case of my pc, but if i go for the whole thing will need to look at a 360 set up with 3 fans, and cutting open the top of my pc to fit it.

Using a Antec P180 case if that helps.

Thanks

If you wanted to WC with this case, best mount a twin rad on the back of the case and only LC the Cpu and Chipsets. It is not a WC friendly case being a micro tower. It could be done but would require some major modding as you have touched upon. For Gpu cooling, you always should use a seperate rad/loop setup for a rig, unless you plan from the ground up and use a pre cooling rad on the loop between the main rad and res.

Edit. Sorry that should have before the main rad. It could still be set up as a post chill rad though.

If you are getting the AMD 965, just go for the 955, it's essentially the same, and the new c3 version of the 955 can overclock to over 4ghz on air cooling.

Also, there is no need for 8 gigs of ram right now. Just go for 4, it will be plenty for a couple years, and if the mobo has enough slots, you can also add more later.

Yeah, but cutting out an HSF means less hot air circulating, thus you can cut down on fans and more accurately predict airflow in terms of intake and exhausting. It also enables a more tangible cooling aspect for your Hard Disks.

I badly need an upgrade on my PC. Only got a dual core running at 1.83 and 2gb ram on a gigabyte 3300

Guess I am looking at a new everything to make a decent rig.

Well on the case I can get rid of the 2hdd bays and put a res and pump there. How would I mount the rad on the back? Can you get kits to help fit them?

Yeah. If you get a Swiftech rad, they have the mounts on rad already. Check out this link though, XSPC are one of the best retailers around. There are mounting bracket kits there. With the res, you want to ideally keep it as high as possible. I mounted mine in the top optical drive bay. Moving the hard disks caddy should be easy enough, you can get mounting kits kits for those too.

http://www.watercoolingshop.co.uk/

One tip though. Get a piece of cardboard and cut to the size of the case inside and sketch out the locale of the components. Does not have to be completely precise as such in terms of the measurements, but close as to. Look at where you can place the pump. This is the most important because it can right pain to get this in the best location. A usual place is at the bottom front of the case or at the back. Personally I wished you had gone for an Antec 1200 or something, but this build is doable.

Lucky for you acidmonkey, far to skint at the money to get that damn tax and holiday.

What case you putting it all in?

Already got the case its going in an Antec 900 Two getting the MoBo the CPU, the Ram and a Gfx Card week tomorrow

and the reason? i have the spare cash now i probs wont in a while so genrally get the best i can afford and the fact i genrally rebuild every 3/4 years getting best i can afford theres no reason why not.

Guess I am looking at a new everything to make a decent rig.

Not beyond hope, even what's considered Legacy. PM me your specs and I will happy to offer an opinion atleast.