Recommended Posts

No, no no we cannot be having this. The dual core i3 obviously beats all of the quad/hexa/eight core processors :p. It is also so much cheaper (even though the motherboards are more expenisve).

at least that way you are forced to get a good mobo, not the crap suggested in the OP.

Here is my AMD + UK Price recomendations:

This is for the full machine, PSU + Case and the lot.

APU Build

?327.70 inc VAT + Free Delivery

Budget Build (General office work, internet browsing, flash games)

?209.67 inc VAT + Free Delivery

Mainstream (Medium settings, office work, photoshop.etc)

?388.04 inc VAT + Free Delivery

High-End (High settings, photoshop video rendering.etc)

?610.57 inc VAT + Free Delivery

Ultimate (Maximum settings, Video Rending, Extreme power!)

?1201.80 inc VAT + Free Delivery

This build could do with a lot of changes, for example the PSU costs nearly as much as the processor :o. I chose corsair because it is a reputable brand and 850W is more than enough juice for this :p

  • Like 1

I haven?t looked over all your builds, Site Lab, but it seems like you?ve just thrown in AMD processors for the sake of it, regardless of their performance.

In your APU build by including a discrete graphics card, you?re negating any value you would get with the AMD 3870K. I?m not sure it would be able to outperform the Pentium G850 in the budget build which is cheaper($87 vs $139). We don?t have a low cost HTPC build, and that?s probably where an AMD APU would shine, using integrated graphics.

In your high end build, an Intel i3-2120 ($127) is going to outperform that FX-6100 ($149) according to that chart I posted on the last page. Hell, it looks like even the Pentium G850 will out perform at less than two thirds the price.

And, I don?t know how you can honestly recommend the AMD FX-8150, which is underpriced and outperformed by the Intel i5 2500K, for any build, much less an ?extreme power, money be damned? build.

  • Like 1

but it seems like you?ve just thrown in AMD processors for the sake of it, regardless of their performance.

I haven't. There is reason why I have chosen each setup. These aren't meant to beat intel, but where they do they are quite good machines for the prices.

In your APU build by including a discrete graphics card, you?re negating any value you would get with the AMD 3870K. I?m not sure it would be able to outperform the Pentium G850 in the budget build which is cheaper($87 vs $139). We don?t have a low cost HTPC build, and that?s probably where an AMD APU would shine, using integrated graphics.

Ok, the reason i including a discrete graphics card with the APU is because of the crossfire performance when combining a 6670 and the intregated graphics in the GPU. Since I cannot find any benchmarks with the crossfire here in question, I turned to Youtube. For example here we have:

<- Battlefield 3 running on this setup with 40FPS on medium/high settings.

Infact, change that just found one.

game05.jpg

60 FPS on Dirt 2 on medium, which is more than playable for the price of the system.

Here is Saints Row 3 running on the same setup -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIYeRy2nQlc

For the price, this is quite an excellent budget gaming system, this is why I chose this setup.

In your high end build, an Intel i3-2120 ($127) is going to outperform that FX-6100 ($149) according to that chart I posted on the last page. Hell, it looks like even the Pentium G850 will out perform at less than two thirds the price.

Here, the i3-2120 will probably beat the FX-6100. (If a Phenom X4 970 or X6 1090t was available, I would have chose that but I chose the next best thing due to reviews/ratings on ebuyer itself...).

According to PassMark benchmark scores, the FX-6100 scores 5,616 and the i3-2120 scores 4,200. Plus the FX-6100 has more cores than the i3. (Six cores vs Two)

However, lets look at what a similar system would cost on the same website:

Total price is now: ?643.16 compared to ?610.67. For ?32.49 extra you are basically getting 4 less cores, a bit more performance in gaming and less performance in multi-tasking/other stuff.

And, I don?t know how you can honestly recommend the AMD FX-8150, which is underpriced and outperformed by the Intel i5 2500K, for any build, much less an ?extreme power, money be damned? build.

Course the i5 2500k may be cheaper, but "money be damned" like you said :p

Anyway, the reason i recommended the FX-8150 in the AMD category is because it is the fastest AMD CPU available and actually offers more performance than the i5 2500k.

In passmark the FX-8150 scores 8244 whereas the i5-2500k scores 6743. Also, the FX-8150 has 8 cores compared to the 4 in the i5-2500k. (Not that will be much of an improvement for most applications).

In DIRT 3:

http://www.hardwares...php?image=39558

The FX-8150 offers 7 MORE FPS! (Such a MASSIVE improvement *sarcasam*)

http://www.hardwares...php?image=39556

In Cinebench 11.5 the FX-8150 comes closer to the i7-2600k (which is dearer than the FX-8150.)

In photoshop CS5 the FX-8150 takes less time than the i5-2500k:

image014.png

However, in 3d Max the i5 does beat the FX-8150 by a small margin :(

image015.png

41713.png

IN Civilization the FX-8150 gains an additional 4 fps.

41708.png

In Dirt 3 here, Il admit the i5-2500k is faster.

41705.png

In Metro 2033 it is 0.5fps slower. (Not that much)

41706.png

At 1920x1200 it is 2.5 slower.

41704.png

In the Rage vt_benchmark the FX-8150 takes less time to transcode textures.

41695.png

In multi-threaded benchmarks the FX-8150 beats the i5-2500k, however in single threaded the i5-2500k wins.

41698.png

The single most important benchmark. ITS FASTER IN 7-ZIP THAN THE I5!!!!!

41697.png

Renders faster.

41693.png

Its faster in EXCEL as well.

Lets see at the price though:

Quote

With intel options of:

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor ?168.46

AND Asus SABERTOOTH P67 R3 P67 Socket 1155 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard ?148.83

The price comes to: ?13 dearer.

Ok, the reason i including a discrete graphics card with the APU is because of the crossfire performance when combining a 6670 and the intregated graphics in the GPU. Since I cannot find any benchmarks with the crossfire here in question, I turned to Youtube. For example here we have:

Battlefield 3 running on this setup with 40FPS on medium/high settings.

Infact, change that just found one.

60 FPS on Dirt 2 on medium, which is more than playable for the price of the system.

Here is Saints Row 3 running on the same setup ->

For the price, this is quite an excellent budget gaming system, this is why I chose this setup.

You're right, it's not easy to find a benchmark that pairs the AMD 3870K with discreate graphics against an Intel CPU with the same. If there were, these would be a lot clearer issue.

Here, the i3-2120 will probably beat the FX-6100. (If a Phenom X4 970 or X6 1090t was available, I would have chose that but I chose the next best thing due to reviews/ratings on ebuyer itself...).

According to PassMark benchmark scores, the FX-6100 scores 5,616 and the i3-2120 scores 4,200. Plus the FX-6100 has more cores than the i3. (Six cores vs Two)

However, lets look at what a similar system would cost on the same website:

Total price is now: ?643.16 compared to ?610.67. For ?32.49 extra you are basically getting 4 less cores, a bit more performance in gaming and less performance in multi-tasking/other stuff.

The Asrock P67 EXTREME4 V3 is a bad deal (at least in comparison to the Gigabyte GA-970A-D3). If you go with the Asus P8Z68-V LX, you end up saving ?16 and getting a better system.

Course the i5 2500k may be cheaper, but "money be damned" like you said :p

Anyway, the reason i recommended the FX-8150 in the AMD category is because it is the fastest AMD CPU available and actually offers more performance than the i5 2500k.

Lets see at the price though:

Quote

With intel options of:

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor ?168.46

AND Asus SABERTOOTH P67 R3 P67 Socket 1155 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard ?148.83

The price comes to: ?13 dearer.

Sure, if we're buying on value, you can make an argument against an i5 2500k. But if you're comparing performance (and this build is suppose to be the ?extreme performance? machine) the i7 3930k (or any i7 for that matter) will win handily.

Plus the FX-6100 has more cores than the i3. (Six cores vs Two)

?

Also, the FX-8150 has 8 cores compared to the 4 in the i5-2500k. (Not that will be much of an improvement for most applications).

I'd just like to point this out since you've compared the number of cores. Much like it was a bad idea to compare MHz during the Pentium 4 days (when AMD was thoroughly out preforming them at a lower clock speed), so too is it to compare cores. They are two different architectures and your performance in the real world will vary as a result.

Secondly, AMDs Bulldozer?cores? are not cores in the traditional sense. A Bulldozer ?module?, a pair of core, is what is a traditional core. Each ?core? has it's own integer logic, L1 cache, and 128-bit floating point logic. However each pair of ?cores? (one ?module?) shares early pipeline stages (eg. fetch, decode), L2 cache, and 256-bit floating point logic. The result is something in between 2 traditional cores and 1 traditional core, that works well at integer heavy workloads and less so at floating point work. I hesitate to liken it to Hyperthreading because they are two wholly unrelated technologies.

With Ivy Bridge launching in like a week these AMD to 2500K comparisons are kind of pointless. Anyone thinking about buying a system right now would be waiting to see what happens with Ivy Bridge as Intel will be unleashing a full compliment of i7 and i5 processors in all price ranges.

And even if someone wasn't interested in the new Ivy Bridge chips the older Sandy Bridge processors will still hold their own and be significantly discounted.

SiteLab, you are partly right about APUs, but not, at all, about the Phenoms and Bulldozers.

Here is a read you might find interesting.

Of course, its concentration is mainly on gaming, but also, in other benchmarks, Bulldozer can't compete with i5, in some even i3, obviously not in multi-threaded apps.

Vice, I agree, about the IvyBridge part.

Thing is, that there are people who can't wait for the next gen tech. I personally have built 2 PCs in the span of last 2 weeks.

I will update the processors lines, when IVyBridge is available in masses

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Hey guys, is the AMD 6870 still the best card for under $200 USD?

Or would the Nvidia GTX 560

or something not on the list?

I'm trying to help a friend pick the best card for under 200.00, and since I've completely switched to a mac, I've lost touch with the PC hardware scene. :s

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Half of the system specs above are missing hard-drives, other half have hard-drives listed & priced.

No consideration for optical drives.

Also, I don't (personally) agree with a number of your proposed specifications; I can either build better for less on the budgets or better for similar on the higher end specs (assuming USA only websites).

Wasted my time opening this thread, let alone reading it - very disappointed.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

How often is this updated? Just curious, I'll be in the market in a few months, will probably just post a thread for all of your thoughts when that occurs but I like the idea of this thread.

What do you want to know?

  • 2 months later...

What the hell is this 'guide'??? Seriously... this is total crap.
I haven't looked at the PC hardware market since 2006 so reading something to get me up to speed would've been perfect. Being given example builds with NO explanation whatsoever is just crap. Then obviously you get people disagreeing with that build....

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • A 13 billion year old secret about our Universe's origin was revealed by Sayan Sen Image by Pascal Küffer via Pexels Researchers at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik (MPIK) in Heidelberg had recreated a key chemical reaction from the early universe, producing results that could change scientists' understanding of how the first stars formed. The study focused on the helium hydride ion (HeH⁺), which is widely regarded as the first molecule to form in the universe. Scientists believe HeH⁺ appeared around 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe had cooled enough for electrons and atomic nuclei to combine into neutral atoms in a period known as recombination. This marked the beginning of chemistry in the cosmos. Immediately after the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago, the universe was extremely hot and dense. As it expanded and cooled, hydrogen and helium became the dominant elements. Once neutral helium atoms formed, they could react with ionised hydrogen nuclei, or protons, to create helium hydride ions. Although simple in structure, HeH⁺ played an important role in the young universe. It was the first step in a chain of reactions that eventually produced molecular hydrogen (H₂), a molecule made up of two hydrogen atoms and now the most abundant molecule in the universe. Molecular hydrogen later became a key ingredient in the formation of the first stars. At the time, the universe had entered a phase often called the cosmological "dark age." Matter had become transparent to light following recombination, but there were still no stars or galaxies producing visible light. Several hundred million years would pass before the first stars appeared. For those first stars to form, large clouds of gas had to collapse under their own gravity. To do that, the gas needed to cool by releasing energy. While hydrogen atoms can help with this process at high temperatures, they become less effective below about 10,000 degrees Celsius. Molecules can continue the cooling process by releasing energy through rotational and vibrational motions. Scientists have long considered HeH⁺ a potentially important coolant because of its comparatively large dipole moment, a property that describes how electric charge is distributed within a molecule and allows it to release energy efficiently. The amount of helium hydride present in the early universe may therefore have influenced how easily the first stars could form. At the same time, HeH⁺ was constantly being destroyed. Under primordial conditions, its main destruction mechanisms were recombination with free electrons and chemical reactions with hydrogen atoms. These reactions ultimately helped produce molecular hydrogen, linking the formation and destruction of HeH⁺ to the chemistry that shaped the early universe. For many years, theoretical studies suggested that reactions between HeH⁺ and hydrogen atoms would become much slower at low temperatures. Scientists believed there was an energy barrier along the reaction pathway that reduced the chances of the reaction taking place in the cold conditions of the early universe. The new study suggests otherwise. To investigate the process, researchers recreated a closely related reaction using deuterium, a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen that contains one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. When HeH⁺ collides with deuterium, it forms an HD⁺ ion and a neutral helium atom. This allows scientists to study the reaction in a controlled way while closely mimicking the behaviour of the original reaction involving hydrogen. The experiments were carried out at the Cryogenic Storage Ring (CSR) at MPIK, a specialised facility designed to recreate conditions similar to those found in space. Researchers stored HeH⁺ ions in the 35-metre storage ring for up to 60 seconds at temperatures just a few kelvins above absolute zero and merged them with a beam of neutral deuterium atoms. By adjusting the speeds of the two particle beams, the team measured how the reaction rate changed with collision energy, which is directly related to temperature. The researchers found that the reaction rate remains almost constant as temperatures decrease. In other words, the reaction does not slow down at low temperatures as earlier models predicted. “Previous theories predicted a significant decrease in the reaction probability at low temperatures, but we were unable to verify this in either the experiment or new theoretical calculations by our colleagues,” explained Dr Holger Kreckel of MPIK. “The reactions of HeH⁺ with neutral hydrogen and deuterium therefore appear to have been far more important for chemistry in the early universe than previously assumed,” he continued. According to the researchers, the reaction appears to be barrierless, meaning there is no energy obstacle preventing it from taking place efficiently even at very low temperatures. The findings support recent theoretical work led by physicist Yohann Scribano, whose group identified an error in a widely used potential energy surface, a mathematical model used to describe how the energy of a system changes during a chemical reaction. The error appears to have caused previous studies to significantly underestimate reaction rates under primordial conditions. The new calculations closely match the experimental results. Together, they suggest that helium chemistry in the early universe may need to be re-evaluated. Because molecules such as HeH⁺ and molecular hydrogen played an important role in cooling primordial gas clouds, the findings could help scientists build more accurate models of how the first stars formed. By showing that helium hydride was likely destroyed more efficiently than previously thought, the study offers new insight into the chemical processes that shaped the universe during its earliest stages and helped set the conditions for the emergence of the first stars. Source: Max-Planck Institute, EDP Sciences This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
    • "What an interesting smell you've discovered"
    • It could EASILY be 70 for the base game BUT + lots of FOMO to make it up to 100-120, like a few days Early Access, online money, pre-order bonus cars, weapons, missions, clothing, avatars or profile stuff, etc... And still WAY TOO MANY people would buy those and make Rockstar insane money.
    • Just to understand: your solution to getting rid of an online password manager is...another online password manager?
    • Cjam 2.5.0.0 by Razvan Serea Cjam is a lightweight and fast MP3 editor for Windows that lets you cut, join, and edit MP3 files without re-encoding. This means your audio quality remains untouched, and edits happen instantly. Cjam is ideal for quick, lossless edits—whether you're trimming music, combining tracks, or preparing audio for learning tools or podcasts. It features batch processing, scripting support, cue and playlist file handling, and a simple interface. Cjam is perfect for anyone who needs efficient MP3 editing without the complexity of full audio suites. Cjam requires a PC running Windows 10 or later and Microsoft .NET 6.0 or later. Key features for Cjam: No Re-encoding: Edit MP3 files without losing quality. Cut and Join MP3: Easily cut, trim, and combine MP3 tracks. Batch Processing: Edit multiple files at once for faster workflows. Scriptable Interface: Automate tasks with a custom command language. Cue and Playlist Support: Handle CUE and playlist files for seamless audio management. Fast and Lightweight: Quick processing with minimal system resources. Lossless Audio Editing: Ensure your edits don't affect audio quality. Simple User Interface: Clean, intuitive design for easy navigation. File Format Support: Works with MP3, Cjam-specific file formats (CJAMC, CJAMJ, CJAM). Cjam 2.5.0.0 changelog: Added clipboard-based import/export support for mp3DirectCut Added clipboard-based export support for REAPER Added support for naming IMP3 elements Changed the Reset behavior to preserve Undo/Redo history; use Shift key + Reset button to clear it Added a new command parameter (qcp) Added 8 new entries to lang.txt (main_c124-126, main_d150-151, main_m082, vme_c014, vme_d005) Fixed a bug where the il parameter was incorrectly applied when pasting VMP3s into the main list Fixed several other minor bugs Download: Cjam 2.5.0.0 | 1.4 MB (Freeware) Links: Cjam Home Page | Cjam Manual | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      JuvenileDelinquent earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      DrWankel earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      DrWankel earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      504
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      163
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      91
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      72
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!