Some questions on CPU sets and chipsets

Wcool

Hi,

A friend of mine want a new PC capable of daily Office work (a lot) and playing some games on Medium setting. No overclocking or graphics editing.

I still have some hard disks lying around plus a Nvidia GTX9800 GPU and a Windows license will come from a friend working at Microsoft.

I was thinking about buying the following exta for the build:

Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s for the operating system
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Solid-State-Disk/67795/Samsung+SSD+840+120GB+SATA+6Gb+s.article


AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Tray, Sockel AM3+ around 100 Euro
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Socket+AM3/80150/AMD+FX-6300+Prozessor%2C+Tray%2C+Sockel+AM3%2B.article

ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3, Sockel AM3+, mATX around 60 euro
http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/47599/ASUS+M5A78L-M+USB3%2C+Sockel+AM3%2B%2C+mATX.article

Or Intel option:

ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, Sockel 1155, mATX around 60 euro
http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/80354/Special+item%3A+ASRock+Z77+Pro4-M%2C+Sockel+1155%2C+mATX.article

Intel Core i3-2130 Box, LGA1155 around 115 euro
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Socket+1155/50381/Intel+Core+i3-2130+Box%2C+LGA1155.article

and memory + case to fit and at least a 500 watt power supply and some CPU cooler.

Questions:

The CPU + mother board is most crucial it seems. I don't care about brand but will need USB3.0.
Would you go for:
1) Intel Core i3 + motherboard
2) AMD FX6300 + motherboard
3) Some Intel motherboard with new Haswell processor and forget about dedicated GPU (which is old anyway)
4) Intel Core i5 + motherboard (+70 euro, not a big problem but will it bring any benefits?)
5) Something else?

A further question is: is there a big difference between Intel chipsets? There is H77, B75 and Z77. I am not sure about the differences. Is it important keeping in my mind it will be used for average office tasks.

The reason why I consider older Core processors is because it seems most improvement was in the builtin graphics chip, not in the CPU itself.
No point in buying the most expensive new generation if the old generation will do quite well. Unless the GTX9800 is seriously slower than Intel Graphics 4000 on the CPU? Opinions on that logic?


Thanks for any suggestions

Monotype

Z77 allows overclocking, with a "K" CPU. B is for business or something and H is more for budget range (generally more geared towards people looking for integrated graphics).

And Intel build will give you great "per core" performance - upgrades are good as you could go to the powerful 3570K or 3770K if you wanted to upgrade, but that's it then. Haswell would be a better choice, if possible, but the boards are expensive and the i3s haven't been released yet. AMD will grant you more cores and performance could potentially better if your programs use the cores or worse if you're only using single/dual threads. The FX6300 is damn good value at the moment for what you're getting, and you could overclock it too.

Since you haven't specified a case, I'm assuming that you're okay with ATX motherboards - there's a much bigger selection.
The new R2 revision of the Extreme3 has an abundance of features - a USB 3 header among them. Much better than the one with the old chipset that you were looking at. About €4 cheaper than the Intel build.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/79813/ASRock+970+Extreme3+R2.0%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article


The 9800 GTX is not really new, but integrated hasn't quite caught up that far yet...............

....... although - have you considered AMD's APUs? I think we're getting a new lineup very soon. The motherboards are good value for what you get. Their current top APU is the A10-5800K. It has good graphics for integrated. Probably more powerful than the 9800 actually. Or at least close enough. If they're releasing their 6XXX series any day, I'd consider that first. It would be more efficient than having a graphics card in there.

Those hard drives - how old are they? HDD technology has come a fair way. They've increased in speed quite a bit over the past few years. Alternatively, it might be a good idea to throw in a small SSD (64GB or so) for your main programs and store anything large on the older drives.

Wcool

Thanks very much. I actually did not think about an ATX board. You are right, it does not matter much how big the motherboard is.

Good points about the buildin graphics of AMD, but I am not sure if they play most games on medium setting. On the other hand, if the builtin graphics card is not sufficient, I can always buy an extra card.

I have already budgetted 80 euro for an SSD for the OS. My drives are Samsung 500gb drives but perfectly ok for storing docs, movies and the occasional game.

Is there much performance difference between an i3 and i5? and where do the AMD cpu's fit in. The artificial benchmarks do not always match real world performance, it just needs to open word docs and browsers at a fast speed. Overclocking is also really not needed.

marco_polo

You could even get this done well under budget if you wanted, something as cheap as this would be more than decent for office work and a bit of moderate gaming.

I threw in a HD7750 because it is still under budget but a decent upgrade from the 9800, but if you chose to reuse the 9800 instead it would be just over 310 delivered. 8GB ram is probably overkill as well, 4GB will usually do the job for normal office work.

The G2020 is clocked a bit slower that the i3-3220 and lacks hyperthreading (which isn't of much use in office computing or gaming anyway), but you are getting probably 85%+ of the performance of the i3 for half the price.

Item|Price
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.95
2 x 4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€54.52
MSI B75MA-E33, Intel B75, mATX, DDR3|€47.86
Intel Pentium G2020 Box, LGA1155|€50.69
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 400W|€39.05
PowerColor Radeon HD 7750, 1GB GDDR3|€77.74
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€389.79

Wcool

Wow that looks like a good price, 2 questions: is 400 watt really enough? and will the Pentium G2020 carry enough weight for gaming? I just don't know how much CPU bound games are these days? I guess it would be enough for Word and Excel

Gumbi

400 is waaay enough.

Wouldn't 4GB be enough? It would save ~ 30 quid. Which could see the GPU upgraded to a 7770. Or it could just save 30 quid :P

marco_polo

Wcool wrote: »

Wow that looks like a good price, 2 questions: is 400 watt really enough? and will the Pentium G2020 carry enough weight for gaming? I just don't know how much CPU bound games are these days? I guess it would be enough for Word and Excel

400W is definately overkill but it is a nice PSU, and there are only a few good quality units below that sort of wattage that I know of.

EDIT: Just noticed it is out of stock, but there are a some decent alternatives if that is still the case when you go to order it.

I can't find useful bench marks specific to the G2020, but it is very similar to the G860 pentium from the previous generation (even almost the exact same passmark scores G860 and G2020)

If you look in the review below of a good few games, you can see the G860 performs very well when compared to the i3-2100, and it would be a very similar situation with the i3-3220 and G2020 as they are the aproximate ivy bridge successors.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120.html

Gumbi wrote: »

400 is waaay enough.

Wouldn't 4GB be enough? It would save ~ 30 quid. Which could see the GPU upgraded to a 7770. Or it could just save 30 quid :P

I mention of ditching 4GB, although your follow on good idea never occurred to me.

Gumbi

Sorry, missed it. I definitely think there's no need for 8GB for this kind of desktop.

marco_polo

Gumbi wrote: »

Sorry, missed it. I definitely think there's no need for 8GB for this kind of desktop.

And of course it is a very easy thing to rectify anyway at a later data if we are both wrong. :P

Gumbi

marco_polo wrote: »

And of course it is a very easy thing to rectify anyway at a later data if we are both wrong. :P

Indeed!

Wcool

Thanks for all the feedback, I think I go for your config verbatim Marco_Polo. I might not buy the GPU and try my GTX9800 first and buy an optical disk for convenience with installing, but it pretty much is what I am looking for.

1 more small question: that GPU, anyone have experience with the loudness of the fan?

I say this as I build myself a desktop a year ago which sports an XFX RADEON HD 6870 and the only thing I did not like about that build was the indredible loudness of the GPU. I won't be buying XFX anymore.

marco_polo

Wcool wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback, I think I go for your config verbatim Marco_Polo. I might not buy the GPU and try my GTX9800 first and buy an optical disk for convenience with installing, but it pretty much is what I am looking for.

1 more small question: that GPU, anyone have experience with the loudness of the fan?

I say this as I build myself a desktop a year ago which sports an XFX RADEON HD 6870 and the only thing I did not like about that build was the indredible loudness of the GPU. I won't be buying XFX anymore.

It just there because it is the cheapest 7750 TBH, the cooler looks average enough so you probably be audible enough while gaming, there are probably better ones or 7770s for not much more. I just noticed it is a GDDR3 version as well, a GDDR5 one would be much better.

Sure come back with a budget when if decide to buy one later one and somebody will suggest something decent.

Wcool

Sideway question: How do you produce those nice hardwareversand lists?

marco_polo

Wcool wrote: »

Sideway question: How do you produce those nice hardwareversand lists?

Just stick the javascript from the first post into a bookmark, and use thebookmark when in on the basket page of supported sites.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056303834