Returning to playing Football Manager - advice on PC Specs

Hi All,

I used to be an avid fan of the old Championship Manager series playing from CM 93/94 all the way to CM4. However, not long after that I decided to quit games for a while. Recently, I've been playing Career Mode on Fifa 12 on PS3, and it got me wanting to play a proper football management game again. I currently have an old AMD Athlon 64 4800+ CPU/4 GB RAM/500GB Seagate 7200RPM HDD.

However, I've decided that if I were to play Football manager, i should do it properly and upgrade my PC. I was thinking of getting a AMD A8-370/8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM/120GB Agility 3 SSD or a Intel Core i5 3470/8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM/500GB Western Digital Blue HDD. The AMD is $100 cheaper than the Intel i5, but the Agility 3 is $40 more expensive then the Western Digital Blue. I know that the i5 has a much better benchmark than the AMD, but was wondering if the SSD would help load the game faster. One other thing that made me consider the AMD, is that it comes with a better GPU onboard. I know this isn't necessary for FM, but it opens other possibilities, such as playing other games.

I was wondering if anyone has similar setup and their experience? Is the performance on the i5 worth the $100 extra, even without the SSD? Is there a site where I can see benchmarks of FM and CPU/RAM? I can't seem to find one. Any recommendations/thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

There is a thread where people have all holidayed the same loaded database and posted the time it took do their computer to do it as well as their PC setup. Unfortunately I have no idea where to find it, if anyone knows the thread I mean please post it

Will give you an idea of the difference between the 2 processors when it comes to FM.

oh ok. i'll go have a search. Another option is to maybe get the ipad 3 and buy the FM app? Man, what lengths to go to for FM Can't wait to start playing again!

I wouldn't bother with an SSD just for FM, go for it if you want it for your PC in general - but I'd recommend getting a storage hard drive at the same time, and using the SSD for programs and for Windows.

The important components are by far the processor and memory (in that order).

For FM 4GB of RAM is sufficient, while Intel processors at present will always be better than AMD (but then there is the issue of the price).

Perhaps you could let us know what your budget is - that way we can suggest components for you.

I have a 1TB disk for storage as well as a 4TB NAS.

I'm in New Zealand, and y current budget for the new PC is around NZ$850 and I have 2 systems in mind. The PC would be mainly used for Football Manager, web surfing, writing documents, watching movies/TV (HD and non-HD) I have a PS3 so that would be used for games such as FIFA and Battlefield.

Here is my components that I've chosen and the price.

CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 ($268) or AMD A8-3870 ($171)

Mobo: Asus P8H-77M-PRO Intel Board ($164) or Asus M5A97 EVO ($169)

RAM: 2x 4GB D1600MHZ DDR3 ($31 each) so $62 for both

CASE: Cooler Master Elite 431 with 500W PSU ($135)

Hard Disk: Western Digital Blue 500GB ($98) or OCZ 120Gb Agility 4 ($160)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64 ($130)

The Intel Machine comes to about $857 ($7 over budget) and the AMD comes to about $827. The Intel benchmarks much better than the AMD, but the AMD has a better APU. The Intel at the moment sounds good with the better CPU performance, but AMD has the better graphics. I was thinking the price difference between the CPU could maybe be negated a little by the SSD. Loading times a little quicker? Oh, and this doesn't include the estimate $130 to pre-order FM2013!

FYI, here is the link to the fm2012 benchmark thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/285828-Football-Manager-12-Benchmark-Thread