Is this AMD build a good deal?

[Refreshment]

FX 6300
ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3

Both for around 180. Mainly gaming purposes. Also was thinking to pair it up with Nvidia gtx 660, a gygabyte one that is around 170.

Any best builds in similar price range?

 

[Wynix]

What country/currency?
An i3 will be better for gaming due to much better single threaded performance, you should be able to get one with a motherboard for around the same price.

 

[Alexko]

What country/currency?
An i3 will be better for gaming due to much better single threaded performance, you should be able to get one with a motherboard for around the same price.

If the build is meant to last more than a couple of years, I wouldn't get a dual-core. Not in 2014 with Mantle already here and DX12 just around the corner. Plus, there are a few games that just don't run well on fewer than 4 cores.

The FX 6300 isn't ideal but it's cheaper than the best solution, which would be a quad-core Haswell.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

180 + 180 + 170 = 530

i5 4660 $190
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117302
Cheap H87 mainboard $52
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=haswell_mainboard-_-13-135-354-_-Product
Radeon R9 280X $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202046&cm_re=r9_280x-_-14-202-046-_-Product

total $492 and much much faster.

edit: I noticed that on newegg the parts you mentioned are quite a bit cheaper so maybe the above parts are more expensive in your country as well. Still, compared to your parts the i5 is 70 dollars more expensive but the mainboard is 20 dollars cheaper. The GTX660 is 60 dollars cheaper so 70 + 60 - 20 = 110 more expensive. Though you mentioned the rig will be mostly used for gaming so if possible I suggest you consider spending the extra 100 bucks or so because it will buy you a system that is a fair bit more powerful and probably save you money and frustration down the road.

 

[homerdog]

Would go with a Haswell i3 over FX6300. The i3 would be largely faster in games and the platform is much more modern. Spring for an i5 if you can, but i3 is no slouch.

 

[Refreshment]

180 + 180 + 170 = 530

180 was both the fx 6300 and the mainboard.

Anyway, had to held off sadly. The 6300 for 99 was an offer but in an interesting turn of events the suggestion for a Pentium Anniversary edition came on. Yes, a dual core processor. It seems if you get the thing to around for 4GHZ it does quite well in a lot of gaming scenarios even better than an FX 8350, which is a processor a tier above the 6300.

So the idea eould be to grab a decent intel board and this processor with a future upgrade in mind in case something like a 2500/3670/4670K or whatever comes up.

Also grabbing a card right now is hell, mostly old models refreshed at not so great prices. The only interesting card for me (in price range) is the 750Ti, amazing performance for that low consumption, yet the R265 is a lot better for almost the same price. The ideal would be something like something whatever Maxwell gpu follows the 750Ti.

So in short im really confused now.

To the i3 suggestions. Which exactly? The one i saw was like 180 us for the cpu alone, Intel has way of an abrupt gap in price between the chip models.

Oh and a ton of thanks for your suggestions. XD

 

[Rurouni]

The i3 should be around $90-100ish. Basically it's supposedly the same price as FX6300. i5 is the one costing $180. Anyway, I wouldn't bother with FX series.

 

[Alexko]

Some FX processors offer pretty good value, but not really for gaming. Plus the platform is about as dead as it gets. I'd get a quad-Haswell or at least make plans to upgrade to one, I think it's really the right compromise for a solid gaming machine. As an alternative, you might want to consider a cheap, used quad-Sandy/Ivy if you can find one.

As for GPUs, AMD is supposedly about to release a couple of new cards, the R9 285 and 285X, which are rumored to be comparable to (or perhaps slightly faster than) the 280(X) while drawing significantly less power. The probable launch date is August 23.

 

[homerdog]

I bet you can find a used i5 for cheap. I got an i5-3450S for ~$100 about 18 months ago. Even today a Sandy or Ivy Bridge chip would be fine.

 

[hoom]

So I'm kinda looking at a quick cheap Mobo, CPU & RAM upgrade from my current 3.7Ghz Thuban with 4GB RAM.

Have been quite out of the loop on the current play for CPU/Mobo combos.
Don't really want to spend too much time getting up to speed so can I get some quick answers?

There is not really anything groundbreaking coming suddenly soon? Skylake with the EDRAM seems kinda exciting but I understand is not till mid-next year now & I'm not sure I want to wait for that (could just get RAM now assuming DDR3 will still be standard then?)

i5 4690K looks OK from price/performance view & looking to do a bit of overclock.
Can't overclock the non K ones at all right?

What chipset should be used with that?
Seems to be 3 or 4 currently available & I saw a headline about overclocking being blocked on some chipsets?

Is it worthwhile to spend a relatively large bit extra for faster than 1600 RAM?
Have seen indications RAM speed doesn't matter much with these Intel chipsets.

I believe my current CPU cooler has different connector things for Intel/AMD sockets of the time, is it likely to still have compatibility with the current Intel socket too?

 

[Malo]

The non-k processors can't be overclocked easily with the multiplier. On some motherboards you can raise to turbo clock but that's about it.

 

[homerdog]

i5 4690K looks OK from price/performance view & looking to do a bit of overclock.
Can't overclock the non K ones at all right?

Right.

What chipset should be used with that?
Seems to be 3 or 4 currently available & I saw a headline about overclocking being blocked on some chipsets?

You must use Z87 or Z97 to overclock.

Is it worthwhile to spend a relatively large bit extra for faster than 1600 RAM?
Have seen indications RAM speed doesn't matter much with these Intel chipsets.

It can be worth it to spend a little extra on DDR3 1866MHz 9-9-9-24 RAM, but not worth more than ~$20 over 1600MHz IMO.

I believe my current CPU cooler has different connector things for Intel/AMD sockets of the time, is it likely to still have compatibility with the current Intel socket too?

Absolutely. If it fits LGA775 it will fit the latest LGA1150 boards and anything in between.

This is my go-to memory kit these days:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148740

But you could save $30 and get this instead without losing much:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313288

 

[hoom]

Thks

Hmm, so that pushes my price a bit higher than I'd have liked :-/

How about i5 4670, H97 chipset & 2*4GB 1600 RAM?
Seems likely to be reasonable speed bump, no overclocking but I guess thats a price to pay for being a bit cheap.

 

[homerdog]

I wouldn't worry about overclocking. A decent i5 is plenty fast at stock.

I have a i7-3770k (Z77 chipset) which I got in a trade for a i5-3450S (and me building the guy's computer). It is still at stock and I haven't had the slightest urge to OC it even though I easily could.

My bro runs a i5-3550 + H77 chipset and TBH you can't tell the difference between that and my 3770k in games. My i7 does encode videos faster but the 3550 ain't exactly slow at that either.

BTW both systems run 16GB DDR3-1600MHz 9-9-9-24 RAM. Ivy Bridge doesn't care about RAM faster than that. Haswell gets some small gains from 1866MHz CAS9 RAM, but you'll likely never notice it unless you rock the IGP.

Hell even my old rig with QX6700 @3GHz and 6GB DDR2-800MHz CAS4 runs most games very well... I loved overclocking those old Core2 Duo/Quad chips. Now it is boring and pointless