View Full Version : Processor wants, and woes.
Lately, I have been doing A LOT of shopping around for a new desktop to compliment my laptop, and one of my new found chief worries is having enough processor power to make the desktop difference concrete without making my wallet cry.
The two sets of processors I am looking at are obviously, AMD's 6 Core Processor Line, and the Intel i5 - LOW end i7 line due to higher end i7's costing in the mythical range of thousands of dollars.
Would I see a better performance with the 6 cores, or the i5 line of certainly capable. My main intent for use with this computer will be varied from high def movie watching (Already have an ATI RADEON 5570 for that, and a blu ray drive... and 8 GB RAM.), to mid range gaming with mild use for school and such.
I will note that I do sorta plan on learning to overclock a little, and also know that processor power isn't everything so any suggestions for other parts that would improve realistic performance without shoving thousands of dollars in cost down my throat are also welcome.
factotum
2011-01-05, 10:04 AM
Watching movies requires very little in terms of CPU power--it's mostly done on the graphics card. Games--well, what do you mean by "mid range" games? To be honest, I think it's rare for even high end games to require more than 4 cores; I have an AMD triple-core running at 3.2GHz paired with an nVidia 8800GTX and it's been sufficient for any game I've thrown at it so far (including stuff like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2). To be honest, I would suggest getting a better graphics card than a better CPU for gaming, since the one you have is slower than my 8800GTX (which is around two years old now!).
Of course, all this will probably change over the next couple of years as games start to take more advantage of multiple CPU cores, but I certainly don't think anything above a quad-core is really necessary right now unless you're doing 3D rendering or stuff like that!
Erloas
2011-01-05, 10:34 AM
First are you planning on buying a pre-built computer or building it yourself?
As factotum said just about every video card will handle HD movie decoding and will require very little processing power. The biggest advantage of a desktop over a laptop (and building it yourself) is the video card. It will have the biggest impact on gaming.
For the most part as long as you have a decent processor your video card will be the limiting factor in the majority of games. The primary time processor power comes into play is encoding/decoding. If you are editing audio or video files (or just transcoding them from one format to another), running filters in photo programs, or doing a lot of compression or encryption activities those are going to be the primary benefactors of a high end processor.
So the most important thing is what you are going to be doing.
Also what is your budget? "Making your wallet cry" has different values for everyone.
Generally speaking for low end builds I prefer AMD and for high end builds I prefer Intel for processors. And at this point I would almost always go with AMD for video card(s) unless I found a very good deal on Nvidia (otherwise they aren't really worth their higher power usage for the same performance at the same price points)
Also when looking at video cards, find one that can run games well at 1920x1080/1200 because thats what all the decent monitors run at. If you're going to go for a movie watching and gaming PC you don't want to be stuck with a smaller monitor.
If you are looking for faster boot times and responsiveness you might also look into picking up an SSD, though they don't tend to fit into lower budgets.
Would probably help to check some of the benchmark sites to get a good idea of what level of video card and processor you need to fulfill your needs and expectations.
I visit Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/us/)a lot. Look for their system builder marathons to get an idea of what you can get at a certain price range (though note they don't have OS cost included in their builds). And they have "best video card/CPU for the money" articles they update every month which gives a basic idea of what each one is capable of at each price point. They also have full benchmark charts, though its been a little while since I've checked them so I'm not sure how up-to-date they are.
Its easier to give specific advice when you give a potential build then it is to talk rather generically.
As for my build. Well, I'm open to either buying it, or building it myself. I have the technical skill to do the latter without any real issue (and honestly. Instruction Manuals make it easy enough for just about anyone.).
For a budget... well, let's hit up around 700-800 USD. A fairly modest budget for a gaming desktop from the obscene prices I've seen on sites like Newegg or Amazon, but it's what I have to work with.
As for a potential build? Well, here's what I've been able to dredge up.
AMD Phenom II X6 1045t Processor.
1 TB SATA 2 7200 RPM HDD,
ATI RADEON 5570 Video Card
8 GB RAM
ASUS M4A785-M -- AMD 785G Hybrid CrossFire Chipset
Hewett Packard standard case with a 450 watt power supply, and AMD fan I found for BARGAIN BIN prices of 20 dollars.
As above 450 watt power supply.
1,280 x 1,024 resolution CRT from ancient history I got for 20 dollars, about 20 inches from current measurements. But don't hold me to it.
That's pretty much it so far. If there's anything I can get better for the money, or if 8 GB ram is excess and I can cut down....
Erloas
2011-01-05, 04:29 PM
Is this what you are looking at? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883147370)
Thats not a very well balanced build. Also a quick mental check puts the price at about $600 in hardware. The graphics card is well below what the rest of the system is capable of. It will be holding you back in your gaming. And unless, as mentioned before, you plan on doing heavy processor dependent tasks you probably won't get much use out of the extra cores and only limited use out of 8GB of RAM.
The power supply is very questionable... all OEM supplies are, some can be good but many aren't and there is no way of easily figuring that out.
The motherboard, while being a decent brand, is a micro ATX board, not a big issue but really limits you on space, and it only has 1 PCI-Ex16 slot so it doesn't do Crossfire (it has a hybrid energy saving system that disables the discrete video card when its not needed and just uses the integrated), but I'm not sure which discrete video cards actually support that.
And it looks like it has a 4-phase power circuit, which does support a 125W processor but its on the high end. Especially if you are even thinking about OCing I would get a more robust motherboard that doesn't have to run at high loads in normal use.
Are you including a new monitor in the $700-800 budget?
My brother is thinking about opening a shop with some gaming computers and about a month ago I did a test build for him that was pretty much that same budget including monitor, and OS.
Here is the list (http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?Source=MSWD&WishListNumber=11885594) noting that the PSU would need switched out (current is out of stock) and that we purchased the monitors and OS last month during the Black Friday deals.
There is plenty of room for adjustments there, but its a fairly well balanced build. And of course if you save money on the case and/or monitor I would put that first to a better video card, then to more RAM and/or a faster processor.
factotum
2011-01-05, 05:20 PM
I agree with Erloas--you've got a very oddly balanced setup there. (Oh, and note that you'll need a 64-bit operating system to make full use of 8Gb of RAM, if you choose to go down that route). The 6 cores of your Phenom are going to spend most of their time idle, even when running games, while that 5570 will be flogging its little guts out--or at least it would be if you were driving a decent resolution monitor.
If I was building a PC that I wanted to handle decent gaming needs, and that I didn't need to be able to render a model of the USS Enterprise in less than 34 seconds, I'd cut back on the CPU and get a better graphics card and monitor. RAM, well, 8Gb is OK, IMHO--it certainly means you're not likely to run across anything soon that'll exhaust your installed RAM, whereas it's entirely possible that would happen if you only had 4Gb.
Is there something wrong with my current CRT? :smallconfused: I know I'm suffering some on vertical resolution but the horizontal resolution is higher than most I've seen (1280 > 1080. Unless CRT's did something else.) .
Also, with some modifications to that linked build here is what I came up with.
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 case with 120 MM fan.
500 Watt Power source, ATX 2.2 Power supply.
SAPPHIRE RADEON 5750 Graphics Card
Phenom II 945 3.0 GHZ (AM3) socket.
The 4 GB G.SKILL
Western Digital SATA 7200 RPM 1 TB HDD
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Would this be capable enough to run Starcraft II on low settings, or maybe even medium with a decent framerate? I'm not expecting to be able to run it all on Ultimate and such without any frame rate reduction, but I would like to be able to play it.
Erloas
2011-01-06, 03:51 PM
Is there something wrong with my current CRT? :smallconfused: I know I'm suffering some on vertical resolution but the horizontal resolution is higher than most I've seen (1280 > 1080. Unless CRT's did something else.) .
Well its 1024 compared to 1080, and 1280 compared to 1920, which is where the big difference comes in. Its also why I made sure to go with a 1920x1200 monitor instead of 1920x1080, but they are much harder to find then they were even 1-2 years ago. Nothing wrong with a CRT though, its just that usually people want to upgrade to a nice LCD, and as it is, I love my 26".
500 Watt Power source, ATX 2.2 Power supply.
...
Phenom II 945 3.0 GHZ (AM3) socket.
Main thing with the power supply is actually how reliable it is more then the power rating. And even with just power rating the good quality PSUs will have more usable power then the cheap ones. A lot of cheap ones might claim half their total power on the 3.3V and 5V rails, even though normal usage sees something like 60-80% of the power used by a system coming from the 12V rails. Of course the hard part is knowing which ones are the good ones and there isn't a straight forward way of knowing. For the most part it can be tied to the manufacturer.
Here are a few articles on it if you are interested. First one is who the OEMs are for the various companies along with some of what to look for in terms of reliability, the other two are product comparison reviews, but of course they don't test most of your possibilities.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-manufacturer-oem,2729.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/500w-psu-power-supply,2658.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-psu-80-plus,2746.html
As for the processor the reason I picked the Athlon X4 was because it tested almost the same as the Phenom X4 but was about $40 cheaper. The Phenom being a Black Edition it gives you more overclocking options though. They are both good, I just thought the Athlon was a better value.
As an aside, I know you were looking at more RAM before, here is another article on what sort of impacts you might see with more RAM and if its worth it to you. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-9.html)
Would this be capable enough to run Starcraft II on low settings, or maybe even medium with a decent framerate? I'm not expecting to be able to run it all on Ultimate and such without any frame rate reduction, but I would like to be able to play it.
I don't know what Starcraft 2 really requires. I do remember seeing an article testing it out. I haven't re-read it, but I did find it for you to look through. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/starcraft-ii-radeon-geforce,2728.html)
I was under the impression that Athalon processors didn't have an L3 cache, which meant slower processing even at the same represented GHZ.:smallconfused:
However, if there is no realistic difference (and I only plan to run games on medium. That high, and ultra stuff is for people with entirely too much money, or people who lurv their graphics.)
As for Overclocking.. urg.. I have no idea how to do that. I did like 3 weeks of video tutorials just so I could know to point the Processors arrow in the right direction to avoid breaking any of the pins.:smalltongue: So Athalon may turn out to be better for me anyways.
Again, I just want to be able to play the games at all. My current desktop rig is vastly outclassed by my Laptop. The desktop by the way, runs an Intel ATOM at 1.8 GHZ, .8 GB RAM after OS, and basic internet browsing, and lags during even simple tasks despite my 10 MPBS connection.:smalltongue:
The Laptop is good and all, but I need something that'll have the power to run games, and run them with that amazing speed, and power that can only really come with a desktop (IE. Anything above 2.5 GHZ processing, and 3 GB RAM, and the 2.5 is after turbo boost, and it BAKES my lap when I do.)
Now after reading that I choose a power supply from a yellow named brand maker, and did all that pizazz.
New Build:
COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100284VXL Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Acbels 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
2 X G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX
From the RAM page, and quite a few other things. It seems 8 GB is an eventual necessary upgrade. So I updated as is proper.
Worira
2011-01-06, 04:55 PM
If your goal is Starcraft II on medium, that's pretty substantial overkill.
Also, Erloas, you realize monitors can run fullscreen applications below their native resolution, right?
factotum
2011-01-06, 05:02 PM
L3 cache does help, but it tends to help certain workloads more than others. e.g. something like SETI@Home, where the computer is running through the same fairly smallish dataset over and over again, will benefit hugely from L3 cache. Games, again, not so much--not only are games typically handling way more data than will fit in the L3 cache, so they're having to go back to main memory most of the time anyway, as already noted above, they'll generally be GPU-limited rather than CPU-limited. Many, many years ago the original 300MHz Celeron was an extremely popular processor for gamers, because it overclocked to 450MHz really easily; yes, it had no L2 cache, but the additional performance from the overclock way overcompensated for that!
[EDIT] Worira, LCD monitors really don't like running at anything other than their native resolution (or an exact multiple thereof). On a 1920x1080 monitor like mine the picture quality goes to heck at anything other than that resolution--I imagine 960x540 would probably work OK, being an exact multiple of the original resolution, but I've not found a graphics card that supports such an odd resolution!
If your goal is Starcraft II on medium, that's pretty substantial overkill.
Also, Erloas, you realize monitors can run fullscreen applications below their native resolution, right?
Well, I'm also a pretty hardcore RPG fan. So I also plan on Final Fantasy XIV (For those of you who know me. This as my primary motive is no shock.:smalltongue:), and The Old Republic (Sadly, not out yet.:smallfrown:) So I'll need the ability to run those as well.
I am however, not, a fan of shooters and such (I'm a Story man. I want a gorram book with my game.:smallbiggrin:, and recent shooter trends don't support this.), what this means is that I don't have to worry so much about true processor hungry programs (Crysis 2. I'm sure there are quite a few men after twin liquid cooling systems for their CPU's as they overclock desperately.:smallwink::smalltongue:)
As for my monitor.. well my main discouraging factor is that anything decently sized costs upwards of 200 dollars in the LED market. Huge.. huge dissuading factor when compared to said 20 dollar CRT and I really get to appreciate 720p video at the same rate. I've never really experienced 1080p video outside of theater, but by and large it didn't seem like that huge a difference.
Erloas
2011-01-06, 05:46 PM
Also, Erloas, you realize monitors can run fullscreen applications below their native resolution, right?
Yes, but the scaling on LCDs can be very hit or miss. My monitor handles it fine, the one my brother has, not so much. My HDTV handles 720 and 1080 fine but nothing really in between. And if I'm going to pay for a monitor with higher resolution I don't want to loose all that extra space by not having a video card that can handle it.
I've never heard of Acbels, but it might just be hard to find in the US. Without that I can't check any of the specs to say much about it.
As Factotum mentioned, in practice the Athlon II runs fairly closely to the Phenom II. Check the reviews and see if its worth it to you, but the performance gains aren't anything near the 40% increase in cost.
This aside, I found myself in possession of enough surplus monies to secure the 3.5 GHZ Black Edition Phenom 970.
Is this significant enough an upgrade to be worth the extra hundred dollars, or if I'm going to get that much should I go ahead and switch over to Intel which I hear is by far superior to AMD?
Erloas
2011-01-06, 07:29 PM
Its really hard to judge what some of that is worth. In normal use I don't think you would see a real big difference, and if you have an extra $100 to spend a second video card would probably give you the largest increase in gaming performance. But then thats overkill for your monitor resolution... and with crossfire you would probably want a higher end motherboard and the justification for a better processor would be there as well.
Intel is also a good option, and a few things favor their architecture. There are some good mid-prices options with them too. But there is also the fact that the Sandy Bridge chips (next generation of i-core processors) are set to be released very soon. So in another couple weeks/month you might have more options and it will likely have an impact on the price points of what you are currently looking at too.
Of course at some point you simply have to make a choice and buy it because things are always improving and there really is no perfect time to buy.
After realizing said budget could get me more than I hoped, I did some tinkering, and such and came up with the new list. Now, I realize that I may be a bit of hypocrite here, but gog darn it I've scrimped and saved for this for a long, long time.
COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
LG CD/DVD Burner Black IDE Model GH22LP21 LightScribe Support - OEM
HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 (0F10383) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Rosewill RNX-G300LX IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Card
HIS H685F1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - OEM
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX (Because many reviews have stated no In Game preformance difference. :/)
Now I'm fairly certain this will keep my running a good while into the near future as far as things at my resolution go. I will eventually update to a smallish 18 inch LED (because I sit close to the computer. Not much use in a big screen when I'm only 3 or so feet away.), but for now I'll be borrowing a friends Windows 7 disc, and installing it on the harddrive from disc when I do get it.
Erloas
2011-01-07, 11:14 AM
Looks pretty good.
Pretty much just personal preference, but I like Western Digital hard drives compared to the others. Don't remember if I've had Hitachi, but I've always had good luck with WD and have a few Seagate drives fail.
The sound card... I tend to not find them worth while any more. The quality of sound on motherboards has improved a lot from what it once was. Also unless you have some fairly high end speakers you will probably never be able to tell the better SNR or frequency range that a dedicated sound card gives you because your speakers aren't good enough to take advantage of it. However it is cheap, so it might be worth giving it a try, or you could try onboard first and pick up the sound card later if it doesn't fit your needs.
You are missing a power supply. And if you could, provide a direct link to the one you are looking at if you are finding stuff from some place other than Newegg.
As an aside, if fan noise is much of an issue and/or you want to think about OCing later you might also look at an aftermarket CPU heatsink. The box ones work fine at stock but don't give you much overhead to OC and the fans tend to run at a bit higher RPM then the larger aftermarket ones (and higher RPM means more noise).
Looks pretty good.
Pretty much just personal preference, but I like Western Digital hard drives compared to the others. Don't remember if I've had Hitachi, but I've always had good luck with WD and have a few Seagate drives fail.
The sound card... I tend to not find them worth while any more. The quality of sound on motherboards has improved a lot from what it once was. Also unless you have some fairly high end speakers you will probably never be able to tell the better SNR or frequency range that a dedicated sound card gives you because your speakers aren't good enough to take advantage of it. However it is cheap, so it might be worth giving it a try, or you could try onboard first and pick up the sound card later if it doesn't fit your needs.
You are missing a power supply. And if you could, provide a direct link to the one you are looking at if you are finding stuff from some place other than Newegg.
As an aside, if fan noise is much of an issue and/or you want to think about OCing later you might also look at an aftermarket CPU heatsink. The box ones work fine at stock but don't give you much overhead to OC and the fans tend to run at a bit higher RPM then the larger aftermarket ones (and higher RPM means more noise).
Huh. Well that sound card news is definitely great. That allows me to get the Black edition so I can OC more easily (I've done some research today.. Not nearly as complicated as they make it sound.).
I've also heard things about the Arctic 5 Thermal Compound and such for aftermarket Heat Sinks being the best around. Is there any truth to this or should I just go ahead and pick up a liquid cooling system?
As for the power supply. I simply forgot to copy paste it. I got the below
COOLMAX CUG-700B 700W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Certified / CrossFire Ready PSU. Normally, Cool Max wouldn't be on my list, but a lot of reviewers said this particular model was up to snuff, and actually provided enough support on the 12 Volt Rails...
Erloas
2011-01-07, 01:09 PM
Huh. Well that sound card news is definitely great. That allows me to get the Black edition so I can OC more easily (I've done some research today.. Not nearly as complicated as they make it sound.).
Generally speaking it is pretty straight forward. It doesn't get all that complicated until you really try to push things.
I've also heard things about the Arctic 5 Thermal Compound and such for aftermarket Heat Sinks being the best around. Is there any truth to this or should I just go ahead and pick up a liquid cooling system?
Thermal compound is the sticky glue like substance between the processor and the heatsink. Its not a bad idea to have some around, but generally speaking heatsinks ship with some and its usually of pretty good quality. You still need it for liquid cooling systems as well. I haven't set up a liquid system myself, I'm not pushing my hardware to the point where it makes any sense to do and there are a lot more considerations (they can form condensation in humid climates that can be a huge issue). Generally I wouldn't look at liquid cooling until you are in the 1500-2000 budget.
COOLMAX CUG-700B 700W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Certified / CrossFire Ready PSU. Normally, Cool Max wouldn't be on my list, but a lot of reviewers said this particular model was up to snuff, and actually provided enough support on the 12 Volt Rails...
Haven't used them myself and don't know too much about them. The specs look good.
Tyndmyr
2011-01-07, 01:18 PM
Lately, I have been doing A LOT of shopping around for a new desktop to compliment my laptop, and one of my new found chief worries is having enough processor power to make the desktop difference concrete without making my wallet cry.
The two sets of processors I am looking at are obviously, AMD's 6 Core Processor Line, and the Intel i5 - LOW end i7 line due to higher end i7's costing in the mythical range of thousands of dollars.
Would I see a better performance with the 6 cores, or the i5 line of certainly capable. My main intent for use with this computer will be varied from high def movie watching (Already have an ATI RADEON 5570 for that, and a blu ray drive... and 8 GB RAM.), to mid range gaming with mild use for school and such.
i5s are fine. i7s are nice, but the price hit isn't worth it for most users.
I will note that I do sorta plan on learning to overclock a little, and also know that processor power isn't everything so any suggestions for other parts that would improve realistic performance without shoving thousands of dollars in cost down my throat are also welcome.
I'd advise against overclocking until you know exactly what you're doing. If you feel you need processor advice, you shouldn't be OCing.
Solid memory is good. Don't buy over 4g unless you run a 64bit OS.
A nice video card is also good. Consider a motherboard with dual PCIe slots in case you later want to utilize crossfire or something.
I asked for Processor advice because I don't have the MONEY to learn what all the different brands of processors do realistically. I know their benchmarks and all that pizazz etc, but a lot of times the actual perforamance will vary wildly from what it advertised. Thus, I asked playground what I should do. When in doubt. Refer to those with wells of experience as deep as only the internet can provide.
The current motherboard has 3 PCI slots for the use of graphics cards, and with a 750 watt power supply I have some pretty comfortable room for Crossfire later.
In the realm of OC'ing.. yeah with that advice is does sound a bit wiser not to touch it. 3.5 GHZ is more than enough for conventional applications though so I'll be fine until they start busting out the 4.0- 4.5 GHZ's next year. :smallwink::smalltongue:
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