The problems with a new build and misinformed boneheads


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So I am doing a build for the son of a Dr friend of mine.  He has been excited about this from the first day his mother said she would help pay for it.  Everything has been going well, and I met his mother @ Fry's on Sunday & we picked up all the parts.

They wanted to keep it around $1000 including a monitor.  Since he is not a gamer, I thought this wouldnt be too difficult.  The final price was $1090 I think.

 

 

Here is the issue:

Her son apparently has a friend who thinks he is a computer know it all and started filling their heads (mainly the son's) with BS & now the kid is less than excited.
I sent him an email proposal of sorts showing the hardware & the price breakdown (mainly for the mom to OK)
He let his know-it-all-friend pick it apart.

Here is the build:

AMD fx8350
8GB Patriot Viper DDR
nVidia 750GTX (hes not a gamer)
antec 650W Gamer High Current  PSU
Some ugly RAIDMAX case he picked out
Corsair H60 watercooler
ASUS M5A99FX Pro 2.0 mobo
120GB mx100 SSD
1TB Caviar Black
24" ASUS monitor

Not a bad little system

His friend apparently started rolling his eyes @ the mere mention of AMD saying "oh man AMD sucks"
"Only 8GB RAM ?!?"
and a couple of other quotes that I dont remember

Now, the mom trusts my judgement 110% & is only concerned because her son is concerned.

I have explained it to the mom that many people who dont know any better will dog AMD but I assured her this CPU is an excellent performer.  And 90% of people never use more than 3GB RAM, if he thinks he needs more, its an easy upgrade

I still have the system, its 95% complete but I thought I would rant in here since I know many people would feel my grief, and have probably been in the same situation.

I explained we had a budget to adhere to and we would have to make serious sacrifices to the quality of components if we were to go with an equivalent intel CPU.

I am sure this kid thinks his friend knows more than me so its not like I can just tell him, "your friend is a moron and I have probably forgotten more than he will ever know" - actually I'd like to say that - but I wont.


So there it is... for everyone's amusement

Thanks for letting me rant.

Now back to work on this "crappy system"

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Not a gamer?

 

750GTX, 650 Watt Power Supply, Watercooling?

 

I would have personally gone with an i5 Intel and could have put the whole system together with Monitor for around $650-$700 easy, especially if he's not gaming on it.

 

i5-4570 has built in HD Graphics, so you can save on that 750GTX and you only need a 500 watt PS in that case also.

 

I have to agree with his friend TBH

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1k for that system? Seem's a little overpriced. You can get that cpu with ram\motherboard for around $270 at microcenter. SSD\Cooler\HDD\Case\PS\vidcard would be around another additional $400. With a monitor it should be around $700-$800.

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nVidia 750GTX (hes not a gamer)

antec 650W Gamer High Current  PSU

Corsair H60 watercooler

 

I sort of agree with xendrome.

 

The AMD processor and 8 GB memory are fine, but some parts seem to be too much for his needs.

 

If he absolutely doesn't care about gaming, then you could have omitted the graphics card, bought a Core i5 with that extra money, and used the integrated graphics.

 

That PSU is also a bit too powerful, unless you're planning for possible future graphics upgrades.

 

Watercooler? Why, exactly? Isn't it an overkill?

 

Still, it's a good system. Nothing wrong with it, performance wise, as is.

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xendrome, on 05 Nov 2014 - 01:30, said:

i5-4570 has built in HD Graphics, so you can save on that 750GTX and you only need a 500 watt PS in that case also.

500W would be way too much - even for an i7 + a GTX 970/980 a 400W (quality!) PSU would be perfectly sufficient.

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Watercooler? Why, exactly? Isn't it an overkill?

 

For the ultimate silence.

 

Still, a kind of overpriced and overkill setup, T3X4S, but at this stage (95% completed) it's pretty much done.

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Let me make sure I have this straight. This will be a general use system and not for gaming, correct?

 

Can build a decent rig for $350 and change that will do everything he needs, leaving $650 left over in the budget for other things. Like saving the money. I'm a big fan of that.

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Praetor, on 05 Nov 2014 - 02:03, said:Praetor, on 05 Nov 2014 - 02:03, said:

For the ultimate silence.

For "close to ultimate silence" - sure as hell less hearable than an extern radiator - just buy a big ass aftermarket cooling solution e.g.a Thermalright Macho HR-02:

pcgh-thermalright-macho-hr-02-test-00025

I have one in my gaming rig and it's almost unhearable from my case?

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I'm sure the system will be fine for him. I personally still wouldn't touch AMD these days, only because they don't provide what I need - power, lower power consumption. Plus, Intel has them dominated in both desktop and mobile platforms.

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500W would be way too much - even for an i7 + a GTX 970/980 a 400W (quality!) PSU would be perfectly sufficient.

 

Pft no I would never run an i7 and a GTX 970/980 on a 400W PSU, Even the MFG recommendations is 500 watt. The 12v rails need to be compatible.

 

A good i7/980GTX would likely be power cycling at full load with a 400W PSU.

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I agree with most people here.  AMD is just not a great choice for a high end pc.  Gamer or not.  He would have been better served with an i5, 240GB ssd and cheaper cooler, no video card.  16gb is total overkill and he will never use it but if that makes him happy.  At newegg its about 1041 for all that using a 212evo.

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For "close to ultimate silence" - sure as hell less hearable than an extern radiator - just buy a big ass aftermarket cooling solution e.g.a Thermalright Macho HR-02:

pcgh-thermalright-macho-hr-02-test-00025

I have one in my gaming rig and it's almost unhearable from my case?

 

Why should i buy it?  :laugh: The OP maybe, but me???  :laugh:

 

funny aside, i do have an Scythe Fan + huge dissipator and it's pretty good; but then again watercooling would be:

- silent;

- can OC the CPU and since the WC can provide better cooling, thus pushing the OC;

- has more coolness factor :)

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I agree with most people here.  AMD is just not a great choice for a high end pc.  Gamer or not.  He would have been better served with an i5, 240GB ssd and cheaper cooler, no video card.  16gb is total overkill and he will never use it but if that makes him happy.  At newegg its about 1041 for all that using a 212evo.

I'm curious, how so?

 

My AMD 6350 games just fine on a gtx760 and I have tried running games in ultra, or in the case of starcraft hots, extreme setting just to see how much the rig can take... yet to max it out...

I would like to know what it is I'm not doing to find these shortcomings in AMD chips, although I am aware of their power requirements

 

OP a little overkill with some components, but it seems like a fine rig, I'll bet it'll run for 7-10 years (barring catastrophic failure) with ease

(my Athlon x64 6400 dual core did, built 7 or so years ago, and only replaced it 6 weeks ago with this one, and I'd like to add, it is still running as I gave it to my son for homework purposes <amongst the games it still has on it>)

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Hes not a gamer, but he does a lot with Adobe Creative Suite.  Photoshop, After Effects, etc  apparently making videos and stuff. 

As for the watercooling, it was @ his request.  As soon as he found out there was such a thing, he really wanted it.

The PSU was only $10 more than the 500W stuff.  And I figured, if he ever upgrades the video card - it wont be a massive upgrade and the PSU will still suffice.

The video card was on sale, cant remember the price though.



Not sure if many of you have looked at the benchmarks of the fx8350, when you factor price, its a pretty good purchase in my opinion.

I can post some benchmarks ...

Personally, I use intel.  If we had more money, I would have done an i5 build


Regardless, I appreciate everyone's comments -


(this from techradar)
 

post-508501-0-94637800-1415182311.jpg

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I'm curious, how so?

 

My AMD 6350 games just fine on a gtx760 and I have tried running games in ultra, or in the case of starcraft hots, extreme setting just to see how much the rig can take... yet to max it out...

I would like to know what it is I'm not doing to find these shortcomings in AMD chips, although I am aware of their power requirements

 

OP a little overkill with some components, but it seems like a fine rig, I'll bet it'll run for 7-10 years (barring catastrophic failure) with ease

(my Athlon x64 6400 dual core did, built 7 or so years ago, and only replaced it 6 weeks ago with this one, and I'd like to add, it is still running as I gave it to my son for homework purposes <amongst the games it still has on it>)

 

I never said it was a bad rig, just I would put my money elsewhere.  It's a pretty well known fact that Intel has much better performance and had better power management.  Those benchmarks posted above actually prove my point more. Seriously unless you are compiling or rendering its the only thing the AMD will do well compared to the Core i5.  Anything is not heavily core dependent will be quicker on the i5, including 95% of windows and application functions.  Love the fud here.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1261

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I agree with most people here.  AMD is just not a great choice for a high end pc.  Gamer or not.  He would have been better served with an i5, 240GB ssd and cheaper cooler, no video card.  16gb is total overkill and he will never use it but if that makes him happy.  At newegg its about 1041 for all that using a 212evo.

How do you know?

 

I pretty regularly use 16GB to its fullest extent.

 

AMD is still lessexpensive than Intel, so if they are trying to hit a certain budget, it should be considered.

 

The only place I would never consider AMD is in a laptop.

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Not a gamer?

 

750GTX, 650 Watt Power Supply, Watercooling?

 

I would have personally gone with an i5 Intel and could have put the whole system together with Monitor for around $650-$700 easy, especially if he's not gaming on it.

 

i5-4570 has built in HD Graphics, so you can save on that 750GTX and you only need a 500 watt PS in that case also.

 

I have to agree with his friend TBH

I would do three (and only three) minor tweaks.

 

GTX750Ti (vice GTX750) - better availability, without either greater electric bill impact or a large increase in price.

 

Intel i5-4670K/Z97 chipset (replacing AMD CPU and motherboard) - better support for non-gaming usage (as well as the odd game).

 

CoolerMaster Hyper212+ EVO vs. water cooling - far less cost, and little to no loss in cooling efficiency.

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How do you know?

 

I pretty regularly use 16GB to its fullest extent.

 

AMD is still lessexpensive than Intel, so if they are trying to hit a certain budget, it should be considered.

 

The only place I would never consider AMD is in a laptop.

 

I love these posts.  Well you count for like .01% of users then.  Besides workstations and running vm's it's pretty hard to even exceed 8GB.

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I love these posts.  Well you count for like .01% of users then.  Besides workstations and running vm's it's pretty hard to even exceed 8GB.

I love these posts too.

 

Lets see some statistics for your percentage of users.

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