Buying a new PC: advice wanted

[Ashtagon]

So my old PoS PC keeps crashing. Time to buy a new PoS.

Basic question: My default plan is to get a desktop PC. Is there any reason not to, in terms of price:performance ratio?

Option A: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
AMD 8x core 4GHz cpu (top end in its class; is there a compelling reason to go to Intel?)
Asus M5A97 mobo
8 GB ram (is there a compelling reason to go up to 16 GB?)
1 GB AMD Radeon HD6450 graphics (low-spec, but good enough for me)
2x 1TB SATA-III hard drives (two to act as backups for each other; )
DVD/CD reader/writer (low-spec optical drive; don't need blu-ray)
650W power supply (can I get away with 450W?)
extra fans, processor cooling
4 TB external hard drive (primary backup/archive solution; non-negotiable!)

No sound card (integral sound)
Integrated LAN
No modem, no firewire, no floppy drive, no TV card
No monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, webcam (old ones still good)
No operating system (this will save almost £100; I'll grab the Windows 7 CD from my previous computer, which should still be good)

£765 incl vat

Option B: http://www.computerplanet.co.uk/custom/index.html
Computer Case Cooler Master Force 500 - NEW
CPU AMD FX 8350 (8 x 4.0 GHZ) - (Free Hitman Sniper Challenge Game)
CPU Heatsink XIGMATEK LOKI Heatsink & Fan - Low Noise
Memory Crucial 8GB PC3-12800 1600MHz (1x8GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3)
Graphics Card ATI Radeon HD 6450 - 1 GB - (XFX) - Silent - (PCI-E)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-78LMT/USB3 (AMD 760G) - VGA/DVI/HDMI
Sound Card Motherboard Integrated HD Sound
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
Power Supply Cooler Master 500W PSU - Low Noise
CPU Compound Cooler Master High Performance Thermal Compound
Hard Drive #1 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB
Hard Drive #2 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB
Optical Drive #1 Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader - Black - (SATA)
Security Software FREE - Webroot AntiVirus 2013 (1 Year - 1 PC License) - FREE FOR ORDERS PLACED BEFORE 03/06/13
DVD/CD Burning Software FREE - Nero V10 Essentials Suite 2
DVD Playback Software FREE - CyberLink PowerDVD 10
Free Gift FREE - 6 Port Surge Protection
Monitor Cables & Adapters FREE - DVI Port to VGA Monitor Port Adapter

623.31 incl vat

This build does not include an external hdd.

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/13367417/art/western-digital/my-book-studio-wdbcpz0040.html?amp%3Bnopopup=1&gclid=CPCt94j8xbcCFavHtAodFmcA9A#srcid=11270
4TB external hdd £180 incl vat

[Don Julio Anejo]

You haven't mentioned the single most important piece of information: what do you plan to use it for.

AMD FX-8350 is a good, but very finicky CPU. Some things run amazing on it (a lot of video encoding software comes to mind), many others run worse than on 4-core i5's.

If you're not playing games, you might as well go Intel, their CPU's have a decent integrated GPU, the HD 4000. Other AMD lines have even better GPU's (A8/A10 series come to mind). Also, Intel Haswell line (successor to the current Ivy Bridge) is about to come out, and the GPU there is supposed to be ~2x better than the HD 4000 (which will put it slightly above AMD Trinity).

In the end, it depends what you're doing. If you're doing lots of video (why else would you want so many hard drives?), AMD will do just fine. A decent video card will help too, more and more software is starting to use OpenCL for acceleration, especially in photo/video editing. If, on the other hand, you want it for daily use, FX-8350 is overkill as very few applications can make use of 8 cores. You might be better served by a much lower end Intel (i.e. i3 with HD 4000), if only to save on the video card.

[Ashtagon]

What am I using it for? Why, just logging onto facebook and forums, plus a little bit of light word-processing. Why?

In all seriousness, the two internal hard drives are going to be in a raid configuration for extra reliability, and the external drive is going to be my data archive. I may consider reducing the size of the internal drives, if given a good reason.

This is intended to be a games and business machine.

I'd be very interested in seeing a comparison of the merits of the various lines of CPU on the market today, if such a comparison exists. Currently, my decision is based on the knowledge that my AMD-based machines have remained reliable for longer than the Intel-based ones, and the one I listed is the highest spec I can reasonably afford.

[factotum]

Tom's Hardware article on best gaming CPU for various price ranges:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html

[Ashtagon]

Revised spec:

Computer Planet:

Computer Case Cooler Master Force 500 - NEW
CPU AMD FX 4100 (4 x 3.6 GHZ) - (Free Hitman Sniper Challenge Game)
CPU Heatsink XIGMATEK LOKI Heatsink & Fan - Low Noise
Memory Crucial 8GB PC3-12800 1600MHz (1x8GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3)
Graphics Card ATI Radeon HD 6450 - 1 GB - (XFX) - Silent - (PCI-E)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-78LMT/USB3 (AMD 760G) - VGA/DVI/HDMI
Sound Card Motherboard Integrated HD Sound
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
Power Supply Cooler Master 500W PSU - Low Noise
CPU Compound Cooler Master High Performance Thermal Compound
Hard Drive #1 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB
Hard Drive #2 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB
Optical Drive #1 Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader - Black - (SATA)
Security Software FREE - Webroot AntiVirus 2013 (1 Year - 1 PC License) - FREE FOR ORDERS PLACED BEFORE 03/06/13
DVD/CD Burning Software FREE - Nero V10 Essentials Suite 2
DVD Playback Software FREE - CyberLink PowerDVD 10
Free Gift FREE - 6 Port Surge Protection
Monitor Cables & Adapters FREE - DVI Port to VGA Monitor Port Adapter

Grand Total Inc Vat: £ 536.31

(buying external hdd separately as more cost-effective that way)

I figure I'm not likely to need to increase my cpu power significantly above what I have now, so no need to max out on the spec there.

-----

Or from PC Specialist:

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-4130 Quad Core CPU (3.80GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)

Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97 R2.0(DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, Windows 8 Ready!)

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6450 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

£491 incl vat and delivery

[AMX]

1x 8GB RAM? :smallconfused:
Can you get 2x 4GB for the same price?

The GA-78LMT-USB3 supports dual channel - if you use only 1 RAM stick, you get only half the memory bandwidth you could have.

[shawnhcorey]

What? No SSD?


What am I using it for? Why, just logging onto facebook and forums, plus a little bit of light word-processing. Why?

If that's all you're going to be using it for, why not a laptop?

[Ashtagon]

What? No SSD?

Too expensive for what they deliver.


If that's all you're going to be using it for, why not a laptop?

That was a joke. It's actually going to be heavy word-processing, not light word-processing.

More seriously, laptops have a very poor performance:price ratio.

[Erloas]

Surfing the next and word processing takes almost nothing, so they are all way overkill for that.
You mentioned games, but not really anything specific about them. You looking at games demanding games like Metro: Last Light, middle games like Skyrim, or light games like Warcraft?
And what resolution is your current monitor that you are going to be reusing? That video card is going to struggle a bit with any medium demanding games if you are running at 1920x1080 (1080p) or higher, but it should be reasonable for lower resolutions.

I don't know about at the sites you are looking at, but at retail there are significantly more powerful GPUs for not a lot more money.

And it seems like these are all mostly pre-built machines, have you thought about building it yourself? A lot more customization and better price to performance ratio. It is not that hard to do, installing Windows tends to be the most difficult and time consuming part and you are already planning on doing that.

[Ashtagon]

My monitor does 1440x900 as its maximum resolution. That was Awesome(tm) when I bought it, but I know it's rather sub-par these days.

When I bought it, graphics cards with 1 GB of memory or more didn't even exist. So I'm fairly confident that a 1 GB graphics card will be sufficient.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Had a long post typed up on my laptop, which crashed :smallfrown:

Video card memory is only important for a single thing - storing textures. Everything else is decided by the GPU, or the chip that does the actual 3D rendering. The more powerful the GPU is, the more it can do - render higher resolutions, use more detail, give you better frames per second, etc. Just like a regular CPU with regular CPU tasks.

A Radeon HD 6450 is really only sufficient for games like League of Legends which aren't graphically demanding in the slightest. It would likely even have issues with older games like Oblivion, simply by virtue of having a very weak GPU. If you want to do any kind of gaming, at least get an AMD 7770 or equivalent (my knowledge is about 3-4 months out of date).

If you just want to play something like League of Legends for the foreseeable future, you should seriously consider integrated graphics. For LoL, for example, my laptop (i5-3210m which is the lowest-end laptop i5 with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics) gets ~50 fps on max settings at 1366x768 and I can play games like Fallout: New Vegas (albeit poorly) with medium settings and anti-aliasing off.

An AMD A10-5870 (desktop CPU with Trinity GPU integrated into it) would give me about double the performance. Quick Google-fu also told me that an AMD A10-6870 due to be released soon (like, within a few days) and might be an even better option. Both CPUs will run around $120-130.

tl; dr: If you want to play games, get a more-or-less OK video card like the Radeon HD 7770. If you think a low-end card is fine, go with an integrated solution instead.

[Ashtagon]

Had a long post typed up on my laptop, which crashed :smallfrown:

Video card memory is only important for a single thing - storing textures. Everything else is decided by the GPU, or the chip that does the actual 3D rendering. The more powerful the GPU is, the more it can do - render higher resolutions, use more detail, give you better frames per second, etc. Just like a regular CPU with regular CPU tasks.

A Radeon HD 6450 is really only sufficient for games like League of Legends which aren't graphically demanding in the slightest. It would likely even have issues with older games like Oblivion, simply by virtue of having a very weak GPU. If you want to do any kind of gaming, at least get an AMD 7770 or equivalent (my knowledge is about 3-4 months out of date).

If you just want to play something like League of Legends for the foreseeable future, you should seriously consider integrated graphics. For LoL, for example, my laptop (i5-3210m which is the lowest-end laptop i5 with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics) gets ~50 fps on max settings at 1366x768 and I can play games like Fallout: New Vegas (albeit poorly) with medium settings and anti-aliasing off.

An AMD A10-5870 (desktop CPU with Trinity GPU integrated into it) would give me about double the performance. Quick Google-fu also told me that an AMD A10-6870 due to be released soon (like, within a few days) and might be an even better option. Both CPUs will run around $120-130.

tl; dr: If you want to play games, get a more-or-less OK video card like the Radeon HD 7770. If you think a low-end card is fine, go with an integrated solution instead.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/amd-computers/

This is where I'm most likely to buy my new PC from.

The 2x1TB hard drives are non-negotiable, and SSD is not an option (too expensive for what they offer). I need USB3 and 6GB/s on the motherboard, which rules out the extreme bottom-end. I don't need blu-ray. I want to keep the system quiet, without spending silly money on silencers. I need to keep costs low. Don't need peripherals. Other than that, build me a system :smallsmile:

[Avilan the Grey]

I have an ASUS top of the line gamer laptop that is now almost two years old. Very pleased with it, but very expensive (of course I still got it for a steal, since the same laptop actually bought in Sweden would have been twice as much, I bought it during vacation in the US).

Prices are relative after all, and what is considered expensive in the US is dirt cheap here.

Anyway, I can't decide if you are sarcastic or not when you say you are mainly going to use it for well non-serious gaming.
If you are serious it seems to me you are buying a serious overkill of a machine.

That said, if you are going to play ANY kind of games outside flash based ones, always buy a graphic card with a separate memory. Never ever buy a computer with a graphic card that shares it's memory with the computer's RAM.

[The Succubus]

Well, if it packs up before you get your new one sorted, I can lend you my old laptop - it's an Alienware M17, with a 17" display, 8Gb Ram, 512Mb ATI video cards and a fairly hefty amount of space. I don't use it these days because I have a new one. It does have Windows Vista on it but aside from that it's been a faithful little beastie. =)

[Ashtagon]

{table=head]Videocard Name | Passmark G3D Mark | Rank (low=best) | Videocard Value (high=best) | Price (USD) | Flagged | Price (GBP) | Price (GBP) 2
GeForce 210 | 185 | 409 | 7.4 | $24.99 | 1 | 568 | 0
GeForce GT 610 | 345 | 315 | 8.63 | $39.99 | 1 | 575 | 7
GeForce GT 620 | 434 | 289 | 8.68 | $49.98 | 1 | 587 | 19
GeForce GT 630 | 721 | 187 | 12.17 | $59.23 | 1 | 589 | 21
Radeon HD 6450 | 293 | 342 | 7.03 | $41.68 | 1 | 573 | 5
Radeon HD 6670 | 1051 | 125 | 15.02 | $69.99 | 1 | 592 | 24
[/table]

The above are the graphics cards under serious consideration, using some of the data on http://www.videocardbenchmark.net merged with data from PC Specialist. Looks like the Radeon HD 6670 is the best of a bad bunch. But is it good enough to justify it and not using the integral graphics?

Incidentally, the lowest ratings on the website are for the SiS Mirage (G3D=2, rank=736, value=NA); the highest is the GeForce GTX Titan (G3D=8352, rank=1, value=8.19).

[Avilan the Grey]

{table=head]Videocard Name | Passmark G3D Mark | Rank (low=best) | Videocard Value (high=best) | Price (USD) | Flagged | Price (GBP) | Price (GBP) 2
GeForce 210 | 185 | 409 | 7.4 | $24.99 | 1 | 568 | 0
GeForce GT 610 | 345 | 315 | 8.63 | $39.99 | 1 | 575 | 7
GeForce GT 620 | 434 | 289 | 8.68 | $49.98 | 1 | 587 | 19
GeForce GT 630 | 721 | 187 | 12.17 | $59.23 | 1 | 589 | 21
Radeon HD 6450 | 293 | 342 | 7.03 | $41.68 | 1 | 573 | 5
Radeon HD 6670 | 1051 | 125 | 15.02 | $69.99 | 1 | 592 | 24
[/table]

The above are the graphics cards under serious consideration, using some of the data on http://www.videocardbenchmark.net merged with data from PC Specialist. Looks like the Radeon HD 6670 is the best of a bad bunch. But is it good enough to justify it and not using the integral graphics?

I would get any of those rather than using the integral. But it depends on how much gaming you would do if it's worth $70. I think I would go for it, though.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I would get any of those rather than using the integral. But it depends on how much gaming you would do if it's worth $70. I think I would go for it, though.
AMD A10-5800K gets you ~1200 3DMark 11 graphics score. Tom's Hardware review. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224-8.html) GT 630 averages around 1123. A10 costs ~130.

AMD 6450 gets you ~500. A10 Trinity GPU is actually 2.4 times better than the 6450... The only catch is you need better RAM (1866 actually makes a pretty big difference over 1600 in some tests).

Other than that, I still say go for at least a 7770 if you do gaming.

[Ashtagon]

AMD A10-5800K gets you ~1200 3DMark 11 graphics score. Tom's Hardware review. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224-8.html) GT 630 averages around 1123. A10 costs ~130.

AMD 6450 gets you ~500. A10 Trinity GPU is actually 2.4 times better than the 6450... The only catch is you need better RAM (1866 actually makes a pretty big difference over 1600 in some tests).

Other than that, I still say go for at least a 7770 if you do gaming.

USD 130 is beyond my budget.

If it wasn't listed in the list above, that either means it is beyond my budget or that my expected supplier doesn't do the card. In that specific case, my expected supplier would charge GBP 62 above the base price from the bottom-end graphics option.

Ultimately, each £100 spent means a one-month delay in being able to make a decision that could stabilise my housing situation. Housing is marginally more important than having an elite graphics card. I'm buying because I have to (old machine is failing), not because I want to upgrade to the latest greatest system.

[The Succubus]

These are the folks I bought my new one from:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/

They do a pretty good selection of mid-range PCs and I believe you can still get Windows 7 put on them too. There's also no crapware on the computers either, which is a very, very pleasant surprise. ^_^

[Erloas]

USD 130 is beyond my budget.

If it wasn't listed in the list above, that either means it is beyond my budget or that my expected supplier doesn't do the card. In that specific case, my expected supplier would charge GBP 62 above the base price from the bottom-end graphics option.
Actually the $130 is for a CPU with a decent built in graphics chip. While for any serious gaming you want a dedicated video card, the old belief that integrated graphics can't do anything at all isn't quite accurate anymore. So the cost different for the CPU is probably not as much as the low end dedicated graphics cards.

As an aside, 3DMark is a poor judge of what to expect from a video card. And even to get a comparison you have to make sure the same version is being used (they update it pretty much every year). Seeing as how you haven't mentioned a single game its hard to say if any given solution would be "good enough." Because the best of a cheap bunch of cards still does you no good if it won't play the games you want to play.

The other option is to buy a system with integrated graphics and then wait a few months until you have some more money and then buy a dedicated graphics card for it. So long as you get a good enough power supply to handle the card they can be installed in literally about 5 minutes and most of that time will be spent disconnecting the case and opening the side and putting it back.

[Ashtagon]

Actually the $130 is for a CPU with a decent built in graphics chip. While for any serious gaming you want a dedicated video card, the old belief that integrated graphics can't do anything at all isn't quite accurate anymore. So the cost different for the CPU is probably not as much as the low end dedicated graphics cards.

As an aside, 3DMark is a poor judge of what to expect from a video card. And even to get a comparison you have to make sure the same version is being used (they update it pretty much every year). Seeing as how you haven't mentioned a single game its hard to say if any given solution would be "good enough." Because the best of a cheap bunch of cards still does you no good if it won't play the games you want to play.

The other option is to buy a system with integrated graphics and then wait a few months until you have some more money and then buy a dedicated graphics card for it. So long as you get a good enough power supply to handle the card they can be installed in literally about 5 minutes and most of that time will be spent disconnecting the case and opening the side and putting it back.

So the advice is that none of those cards are up to spec compared to the integrated graphics that would be available?

[Erloas]

From the PCSpecialist.co.uk site you linked to:
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD A10-5800K Quad Core APU (3.8GHz) & Radeon™ HD 7660D Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® F2A85-M: (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s)
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
Integrated AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series Graphics
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
RAID
RAID 1 (MIRRORED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD) (£9)
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Total is $459 with VATS. Does not include an OS.
It uses the A-10 APU processor that Don Julio Anejo mentioned earlier.
I'm pretty sure you said you wanted the drives RAIDed too.
I'm always very hesitant around power supplies when they don't give you any information. FSP and Corsair are both generally good brands. You probably don't need more then 450W (even if you get a decent video card later) but without knowing what brand it is the quality could be very questionable.

The Tom's Hardware link to the A-10 Infinity shows it should handle your monitor resolution reasonably well across most games. I can't find a direct comparison between the A-10 integrated graphics and the 6670 (without more time then I have to look right now). It would be a reasonable option to get that now and if it can't handle the games you want to play then upgrade the graphics card later when you have more money (or if you get a new monitor that runs at a higher resolution some time in the future).

[Ashtagon]

From the PCSpecialist.co.uk site you linked to:
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD A10-5800K Quad Core APU (3.8GHz) & Radeon™ HD 7660D Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® F2A85-M: (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s)
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
Integrated AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series Graphics
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
RAID
RAID 1 (MIRRORED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD) (£9)
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Total is $459 with VATS. Does not include an OS.
It uses the A-10 APU processor that Don Julio Anejo mentioned earlier.
I'm pretty sure you said you wanted the drives RAIDed too.
I'm always very hesitant around power supplies when they don't give you any information. FSP and Corsair are both generally good brands. You probably don't need more then 450W (even if you get a decent video card later) but without knowing what brand it is the quality could be very questionable.

The Tom's Hardware link to the A-10 Infinity shows it should handle your monitor resolution reasonably well across most games. I can't find a direct comparison between the A-10 integrated graphics and the 6670 (without more time then I have to look right now). It would be a reasonable option to get that now and if it can't handle the games you want to play then upgrade the graphics card later when you have more money (or if you get a new monitor that runs at a higher resolution some time in the future).

To that build, I'd need to add the superquiet cpu cooling and usb3 ports, bringing it up to 483.

[Erloas]

To that build, I'd need to add the superquiet cpu cooling and usb3 ports, bringing it up to 483.

It has USB 3.0 ports, they are built into the motherboard. The USB Option is a bit misleading, because it has the top option, which is actually no option at all and just uses the default USB ports on the motherboard, and the last 2 options are extra add-in USB ports on top of that. That motherboard has 2 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. There are another 2 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 headers in the center of the motherboard which should be plugged into the front panel of the case, though with the cheapest case only having 2 USB ports it is hard to say which ones they would connect, it would be trivially easy to move them to the USB 3.0 ports if they connected them to the USB 2.0 ports instead.
There are also front and back panel aftermarket options that have the cables to plug into said USB headers so you can use them even if your case doesn't have them built in.

As for the CPU cooler, the stock coolers are fairly quite now. At least the Intel ones I have used have been, you never hear them over the case fans. I couldn't say for sure how this particular AMD cooler performs in terms of noise though. It just seems like an odd extra expense when you aren't planning on overclocking and budget seems to be your primary concern.

[AMX]

There are another 2 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 headers in the center of the motherboard which should be plugged into the front panel of the case, though with the cheapest case only having 2 USB ports it is hard to say which ones they would connect, it would be trivially easy to move them to the USB 3.0 ports if they connected them to the USB 2.0 ports instead.
Assuming the front-panel ports actually support USB 3.0.
3.0 has more pins than 2.0, after all.

[Ashtagon]

Is there a solid reason to choose an A10 processor over the FX one?

[Erloas]

Is there a solid reason to choose an A10 processor over the FX one?
The A-10 has the reasonably good integrated graphics, you would probably end up spending quite a bit more to get the FX with low end video card.
A quick check also shows the A10 seems to perform better in single-threaded applications and the FX performs better in multi-threaded. (http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/382/AMD_A10-Series_A10-5800K_vs_AMD_FX-Series_FX-6100.html) But the caveat with that is they are running synthetic benchmarks which can use all 6 cores of the FX, in something that only uses 2-4 cores, the A-10 might come out better (I don't know, but given the better single threaded performance it seems likely).
The power usage comparisons are also not really a good direct compare because the FX is just the CPU and the A-10 is the CPU+GPU and another integrated GPU or discrete GPU on the FX board would use a lot more then the 5W power difference listed.


Assuming the front-panel ports actually support USB 3.0.
3.0 has more pins than 2.0, after all.
You are right, I hadn't really looked at them. I didn't realize they changed the header on the USB 3.0 since they use the same plug on the other end.
The after market front and rear panel USB 3.0 plugs are still pretty cheap even if you can't use the ones on the case.

[Ashtagon]

I will almost always be having a localhost private webserver running in the background, which is multithread. My version of MS Office is also multithread (open office isn't apparently, although I tend not to use that so much).

Is psp 8 single or multi thread?

I'm going to take a wild guess that most (all?) modern games from Starcraft/Diablo II/Warcraft III onwards are multi thread?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Almost all games by now use 2 threads. Past that is more difficult. Some like Skyrim still only use 2. Others like Battlefield 3 or Crysis 3 scale well and can use up to 8 or 4 with hyperthreading.

The Tom's Hardware link to the A-10 Infinity shows it should handle your monitor resolution reasonably well across most games.
That's precisely my point, it's cheaper than buying an extremely low end video card, and gives you better performance to boot.

[Ashtagon]

Okay, two viable options now...

A10-Based, integrated 7000-series graphics, £480

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)
AMD A10-5800K Quad Core APU (3.8GHz) & Radeon™ HD 7660D Graphics
Free Item
Free Item
FREE SIM CITY GAME with any AMD A8 & A10 APUs!

Motherboard
ASUS® F2A85-M: (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s)

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
Integrated AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series Graphics

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI-EX CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days


FX-Based, AMD RADEON™ HD7770 graphics, £548

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-4130 Quad Core CPU (3.80GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)

Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97 R2.0(DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, Windows 8 Ready!)

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD7770 - DVI,HDMI,DP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 3 Capable
Free Item
Free Item
FREE FAR CRY 3 + BLOOD DRAGON with AMD 7770 GPU!

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days


As I understand it, the graphics on these two are essentially the same. The FX-based one should be marginally better for multi-thread applications. Is there a compelling reason to pick one over the other (besides price)?

[Erloas]

Office being multithreaded is pretty much a non-point because there is almost nothing you can do in any part of office that is going to tax even a single core on modern processors. Maybe, just maybe, a very large very complex spreadsheet in Excel might cause one core to be used a noticeable amount.

The 3 games you mentioned aren't even modern and were all out before multi-core processors were available or common. But yes, almost all modern games will take advantage of multiple cores. Few of them will be able to take advantage of 8 cores, but most will be able to use 2-4 to some extent, and it is entirely on a game-by-game basis.

A local webserver probably also uses very little resources most of the time. You haven't said what your current computer is, but if you are running it now then any of the processors mentioned will run it without a problem. Unless of course you are currently seeing slow downs on your system when the webserver is being accessed.

PSP 8... is that Paint Shop Pro 8? That was the most common hit when I searched for that. If it is... well PSP 8 came out in 2003, the first dual core processors (at least in common use) was in 2006. There is not going to be a processor out that wouldn't be able to handle that easily.


Short version is that even if you have 40 different threads going in many different programs, if none of those threads are demanding or being used with any regularity (most threads even loaded will be sitting dormant waiting to be used) it isn't going to make much of a difference if they are shared between 2 cores or 8. And if you have 2 really demanding threads and 38 simple threads then 3 cores may work just as well as 8.

[Don Julio Anejo]

They are not the same. The 7770 is significantly more powerful than the A10 integrated graphics; video card power is measured by the processor that's inside them, NOT memory. Second system should allow you to play pretty much any current game you want on maximum or near-maximum settings at your resolution. You would still be able to add a video card to the first system, but if GPU is taken out of the equation, the FX-4100 is a better CPU by itself.

Second one also seems to be using a normal ATX case, while the first one uses micro-ATX, meaning the first one will be smaller physically, but there's going to be less space to upgrade it later (i.e. not all video cards can fit).

The three games mentioned will run on pretty much anything. Hell, I could probably run SC and Diablo II on my phone if someone made a port. The question is if you will want at some point to play newer games. If not, absolutely any laptop with at least Ivy Bridge or Trinity will work fine as well. Hell, I can play SC2 on mine (Intel HD 4000) just fine on max settings (just probably not multiplayer, but I like my campaign).

[Ashtagon]

Current rig:

Windows 7 home premium 64bit
Office 2010 Pro

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 4-core 2.5GHz
Memory: 8GB ram
Drives: 1TB HDD; basic CD/DVD R/RW
Graphics: NVidia GeForce 8400 GS (500 MB)
integrated sound, lan

Amusingly, the graphics card self-diagnostics says it is incompatible with the games "Pong" and "Monopoly" :smallconfused:

[Erloas]

I hadn't noticed the case on the A-10 was a micro-ATX case, the next step up in cases (and would be the same as on the FX system) is 15GBP more.

And as Don Julio Anejo says, the HD 7770 is significantly more powerful then the HD 7660D in the A10... Yes, the naming conventions are difficult to decipher if you don't know how they work. The HD 7770 is a very good mid-to high end graphics card.

The video card is probably almost the entire price difference between the two systems.

And as I said, you can keep the 6xUSB 2.0 option on the USB Options section and still have USB 3.0 because the website uses a very poorly worded option selection. That is a 14GBP upgrade to get 2 extra USB 3.0 ports and you already have 2 built in, another 2 that can be added for less then $8 (from Amazon using US prices because that is what I have to go with). Are you going to need 4-6 USB 3.0 devices connected at the same time?

[Erloas]

The computer you have now is decent. The video card is crap, but that is a cheap fix.

You just said the system now is crashing, from a performance standpoint is there anything it can't do? And if it is just playing games you can fix that with $70 video card, or about 1/10 of the cost of the systems you are looking at.
Assuming at least that we can help you fix your current system from crashing.

That could actually be a fairly cheap and easy thing to fix. Usually crashing doesn't mean "has to be replaced." We could try to trouble-shoot your current system first. I was assuming we would be looking at a 5-8 year old computer with a dual core processor at best and 4GB RAM if we were lucky.

And since you need USB 3.0, well you can get a PCI/PCI-Ex card to install into your current system that will probably cost the same or less then the upgrade (that I was saying wasn't actually needed) on the new system.

[Ashtagon]

On the A10 box, It's £14 to get the USB3 card installed (which I factored into the £480 quote), or £15 to get the case upgraded from micro to standard. I don't believe in paying extra for the same functionality and having the overall system bulkier to boot.

Is the 450W PSU actually sufficient for the two machines?

On the FX box, changing the graphics from 7770 to 7750 brings the price down from £548 to £549 £529. The next Radeon card down is in the 6000-series, which I understand to be inferior cack.

If I go for the A10 box, I could probably justify getting 16GB of ram. That would bring the price to £536 (still cheaper than the FX box). Is that a better investment of the extra money than the FX box?

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'm going to go with Erloas and also suggest simply buying an HD 7770 to go with your current computer. I've used an E8400 (CPU that's about 2/3 the power of yours) until late December and had no issues at all with it until I needed to do some very CPU-intensive tasks (a lot of virtualization). I had no issues whatsoever playing games, including Skyrim at 1920 by 1080 at near-max settings with a hundred or so mods installed. I was limited by my video card way more than I was by my CPU.


On the A10 box, It's £14 to get the USB3 card installed (which I factored into the £480 quote), or £15 to get the case upgraded from micro to standard. I don't believe in paying extra for the same functionality and having the overall system bulkier to boot.
The motherboard you chose already comes with 4 USB 3.0 ports in the back. Adding a USB 3.0 card simply adds an extra USB 3.0 card, but it doesn't take away from the 4 ports you already have. If you want access to them near the front, you can always buy a USB extension cable (like the one that comes with wireless mice/keyboards or wi-fi adapters) for $2-5.

Is the 450W PSU actually sufficient for the two machines?
Yes. Beyond ~300W, main draw is almost always the video card. Even then, few use 150+W. 7770, for example, uses around 80 watts at maximum load.


On the FX box, changing the graphics from 7770 to 7750 brings the price down from £548 to £549.

Sooo... you save a negative 1 pound? :amused:
But in general, don't go for the 7750. It's actually often a more expensive card that has 2/3 the performance of a 7770. Its main point is that it can be passively cooled (i.e. without a fan), so it can be used for ultra-quiet computers like home theatre PCs while still allowing for mild gaming.


If I go for the A10 box, I could probably justify getting 16GB of ram. That would bring the price to £536 (still cheaper than the FX box). Is that a better investment of the extra money than the FX box?
8 GB of RAM is more than sufficient for most uses, even including video memory. If you ever find yourself lacking, you can always buy 8 more gigs.

[Erloas]

The only problem with a Micro-ATX case is that it becomes a pain to add anything to it later, as they usually have the half-sized expansion card height which makes it a pain to add any cards to it later.
But looking at the picture of the case it still seems to be similar thickness, so it might not be a "normal" Micro-ATX case, which is a good thing. But the Micro-ATX case has an 80mm fan but the next one up has an 120mm fan and you will hear the case fan a *lot* more then you are going to hear your CPU fan and 120mm fans are always quieter then 80mm fans.

If the price difference is only £1 then for sure stay with the 7770 over the 7750.

Their site says the 7770 would be good with a 450W power supply.

As for upgrading to 16GB of RAM, you will probably see no real world difference between 8 and 16GB. Maybe if you are doing heavy photo or video editing, but even then you would have to have a 64bit program because 32bit programs can't address 8GB of RAM anyway (and PSP is a 32bit application, there aren't that many 64 bit applications out there yet)

[Ashtagon]

If there were a way to positively identify what is wrong with my current rig, I would swap out those components with newer parts. But I lack the tools to test individual components. If it were working at 100% efficiency, it would do everything I'd want (except maybe throw polygons around the screen like they are going out of fashion).

I have a large-capacity external hdd on order anyway (I need a serious data archive/backup solution anyway). Once I have made my backup, I'll look into swapping out ram, and seeing if that makes a difference.

If I can avoid spending a monkey on a new computer, I'll be happy.

[Erloas]

I doubt it is RAM on your old computer, but it is possible. Most computer parts are either dead on arrival or they are fine, there are few parts that die over time. The only two parts that are likely to marginally fail and continue to do so are the hard drive and the power supply. Any problems with the hard drive should show up in the Windows Event Viewer. There are a lot of other problems that could show up in the Event Viewer as well.

How long has it been crashing? Does it go to a blue screen of death, hang and need to be forced to just down, or just restart? Will it do it at any time, only when you are doing one certain type of thing, only when playing games, only after you have been using the system for a while?

You can use several overclocking utilities to test the stability of various parts of your computer. They are normally used to make sure the part is stable when overclocked but it will also show if it is stable during normal operations. MemTest is the one for RAM. I forget the names of some of the others at the moment, but I can find them later.

[Ashtagon]

My first step will be to swap out the ram, because I just happen to have some compatible ram chip lying around.

I can't just swap out the hdd, because I don't (yet) have a data backup solution available (outgrew it with my last hdd upgrade; new external backup being delivered in the next week). Once I am able to back up my data, swapping out the hdd will be the next option in testing the machine.

fwiw, although 8 gb of ram is installed, windows only seems to report 4gb. I'm fairly certain that discrepancy is significant.

[Don Julio Anejo]

My first step will be to swap out the ram, because I just happen to have some compatible ram chip lying around.

I can't just swap out the hdd, because I don't (yet) have a data backup solution available (outgrew it with my last hdd upgrade; new external backup being delivered in the next week). Once I am able to back up my data, swapping out the hdd will be the next option in testing the machine.

fwiw, although 8 gb of ram is installed, windows only seems to report 4gb. I'm fairly certain that discrepancy is significant.
Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows? 32-bit cannot generally address more than 3 GB of RAM. With Windows 7, this number was increased to 4 GB, but it can't go any further.

[Ashtagon]

Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows? 32-bit cannot generally address more than 3 GB of RAM. With Windows 7, this number was increased to 4 GB, but it can't go any further.

64 bit Windows 7, as noted upthread.

[Erloas]

There are ways of testing out components without purchasing new ones and swapping them out. You can't always say for 100% certain what the problem is but you can narrow down the possibilities a lot before you purchase something.
The HD can be tested quite a bit without replacing it or even deleting all of the data on it.

Even with only 4GB of RAM showing up I would not necessarily say that is the problem of the crashes because if it doesn't even see the second chip it isn't going to be writing to it for it to crash the system. You can also test that by removing all but 1 stick and running the system for a while (and using the aforementioned Memtest) and see if it crashes when it normally would and then swapping out the 1 stick that is installed with another one. If a stick is completely dead the system won't even boot when you get to that one. And if you are using all 4 slots (a 4x2GB setup) some motherboards seemed to have issues with that at times but you can look that up and I haven't heard of that happening in a long time.

[Ashtagon]

There are ways of testing out components without purchasing new ones and swapping them out. You can't always say for 100% certain what the problem is but you can narrow down the possibilities a lot before you purchase something.
The HD can be tested quite a bit without replacing it or even deleting all of the data on it.

Even with only 4GB of RAM showing up I would not necessarily say that is the problem of the crashes because if it doesn't even see the second chip it isn't going to be writing to it for it to crash the system. You can also test that by removing all but 1 stick and running the system for a while (and using the aforementioned Memtest) and see if it crashes when it normally would and then swapping out the 1 stick that is installed with another one. If a stick is completely dead the system won't even boot when you get to that one. And if you are using all 4 slots (a 4x2GB setup) some motherboards seemed to have issues with that at times but you can look that up and I haven't heard of that happening in a long time.

The bios reports 8gb being present, but inside the windows environment, only 4gb is reported.

In any case, I'm going to delay any jiggery-pokery until I have had a chance to back up the data.

[factotum]

The bios reports 8gb being present, but inside the windows environment, only 4gb is reported.

I would double-check that you actually have the 64-bit version of Windows, then...it should say it in the system properties.

[Ashtagon]

I would double-check that you actually have the 64-bit version of Windows, then...it should say it in the system properties.

Yes, it is definitely the 64 bit version of Windows. Or at least, the signals my eyes are sending to my brain indicate that it is claiming to be a 64 bit version.

[Ashtagon]

Re: current PC patching...

I have 4GB of ram (not 8GB as I had previously supposed). The 8GB refers to teh replacement ram I have purchased.

Motherboard: Asus M2N68-AM SE2
CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 quad core
Bios: v1502

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=M2N68-AM+SE2&os=25

The mobo&bios *should* support that cpu, but claims not to. I'm going to try flashing the bios with the latest bios version.

[Ashtagon]

Flashing the bios didn't fix it. I still have a mobo and cpu that on paper are compatible but the bios claims the cpu isnt compatible.

I can afford to replace this machine completely. But if I try to go for piecemail component replacement and get it wrong, that's going to break my bank.

[Erloas]

Where does the BIOS say it isn't compatible with the CPU? I don't think I've ever seen that before, though I haven't tried either, so I don't know.

You should be able to do a lot of troubleshooting and testing without ever having to replace a part so you can figure out what the problem is before purchasing anything.

The first step would be to tell us more about the symptoms of when it crashes and if there are any errors showing up in the Event Viewer so we can start to narrow things down a bit.