jamesfed Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 It matters on the AMD APUs as the APU uses system RAM for graphics stuff
Arthur Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 (edited) Personally I'd go for 16GB Me too. With RAM prices rising, I would stock up now. I have found full atx boards way more reliable under any form of load. I haven't has any issues with my (mATX) Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen. 3 even under full load. If Asus make a Haswell compatible P8Z77-I Deluxe, I might even downsize to mini-ITX for my next gaming PC. It matters on the AMD APUs as the APU uses system RAM for graphics stuff Samsung's Green RAM would be perfect for an AMD APU. It runs at 1,600MHz, but can be overclocked to 2,400MHz+. That would slaughter Intel's IGPs! :eek: Edited January 30, 2013 by Arthur
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I think @Rawns is planning on sticking a dGPU in anyway so the APU won't get any significant benefit from the RAM speed. OCZ are supposedly sorting their game out now, but I'd still not trust them, their return rates have been abysmal in the past. A Samsung 840 Pro (830 if you can still find one cheap) or a Crucial m4 would be my recommendations, I've experience of both and they're fast and reliable. Intel have always had an excellent reputation but I can't speak to them personally, and I've not heard much either way about Plextor, still fairly new to the market (although the performance is very good). 16Gb RAM would be lovely, but the significance of gobs of RAM is reduced somewhat by having fast storage in an SSD. Personally I'd be more than happy with 8Gb and put the pennies elsewhere, but that is entirely a matter of opinion
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) Indeed @sonofsanta, a dedicated GPU will be installed. I'm happy with 8Gb of RAM, should be plenty for gaming as most games are more CPU intensive. I can always stick more in down the line if required. Also, it means I can get a better quality SSD. Cheers for the heads up @Arthur. Funnily enough, my mate said on Steam last night that I should avoid OCZ SSD's like the plague and go for a Samsung instead as their SSD kit is excellent? Edited January 31, 2013 by Rawns
CHR1S Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I have a OCZ Vertex 3, never had any issues with it (touch wood)
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Cheers for the heads up @Arthur. Funnily enough, my mate said on Steam last night that I should avoid OCZ SSD's like the plague and go for a Samsung instead as their SSD kit is excellent? Samsung are brilliant, but unfortunately they've just transitioned to a new model with the old one having just gone out-of-stock, so their prices are not as stellar as they once were. The 840 Pro would be the best SSD - bar none, IMO - but is £105 @ Amazon. The standard 840 is much cheaper @ £78 (Amazon again) and performs about the same as the old 830 did - we've used one here and they are still brilliant drives, the only potential issue is they are using cheaper TLC NAND and so should have a shorter lifespan. Samsung will have taken firmware-level steps to mitigate this and I would imagine the level of daily write you would need to do to wear it out is still enormous, but if you're planning on shuffling gigabytes of data on & off the SSD every day, it's worth bearing in mind. If you're just sticking Windows & selected applications on it, mind, you'll be fine. 1
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 Does anyone know what Scandisk SSD's are like in terms or performance and reliability?
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Does anyone know what Scandisk SSD's are like in terms or performance and reliability? Not as good as the standard Samsung 840, and reliability is an unknown quantity still as they're so new. Anandtech seem to think it should be fine, given the market Sandisk has traditionally occupied, but they also say their OEM drives have been a bit iffy in the past. If it's cheaper than the 840 then might be worth it, but the Samsung is better in a straight out fight. 1
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 Not as good as the standard Samsung 840, and reliability is an unknown quantity still as they're so new. Anandtech seem to think it should be fine, given the market Sandisk has traditionally occupied, but they also say their OEM drives have been a bit iffy in the past. If it's cheaper than the 840 then might be worth it, but the Samsung is better in a straight out fight. Samsung wins then. Thanks again.
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 Right! Re-re-revised spec list as it stands! CPU: AMD FX-8350 4GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor (£15 more for the next one up! ) MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 Socket AM3+ 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard RAM: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Tactical Memory OS HDD: Samsung 120GB 840 Series SSD Kit Steam HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB Hard Drive (7200rpm) SATA 64MB Existing GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 280
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Samsung wins then. Thanks again. np Right! Re-re-revised spec list as it stands! CPU: AMD FX-8350 4GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor (£15 more for the next one up! ) MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 Socket AM3+ 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard RAM: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Tactical Memory OS HDD: Samsung 120GB 840 Series SSD Kit Steam HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB Hard Drive (7200rpm) SATA 64MB Existing GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 280 Looking fairly well rounded to me now, the GPU will be the only thing that will hold that back for now but it's a solid foundation to drop in a 660Ti or 670 later on What PSU/Case were you going for?
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) np Looking fairly well rounded to me now, the GPU will be the only thing that will hold that back for now but it's a solid foundation to drop in a 660Ti or 670 later on What PSU/Case were you going for? Yea, I'm liking the look of it too and getting quite excited about placing the order. Think I'm pretty much there now. I've got a 1000w gaming PSU in my current rig so I'll just use that. I'm also tempted to use my existing case in the interests of saving some cash. However the door on the front is broken so I'm undecided. Again though, recommendations welcome. Think my current GPU would perform better if I had better spec hardware. I'll see how it runs with it and like you say, can swap it out for upgrade at a later date. Edited January 31, 2013 by Rawns
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 The Coolermasters are serviceable at the bottom end, and fine fine cases higher up (£50+). Corsair have built an excellent reputation recently, with all their cases. The Antec Three Hundred is a long time stalwart, as is the Fractal Design Core 3000. Depends on how much you want to spend, what your priority is (noise or cooling) and your aesthetic preferences. There's plenty of reviews about for any decent case, anyway. Also now I should stop pretending I'm getting to build a new PC and do some of my job, I suppose 1
OB1 Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 If you can live with your current case for a bit longer I'd recommend saving up and really splashing out on a new one. It's the one thing that can stay with you for years, everything else is interchangeable. Good quality cases from Silverstone, Antec, Lian-Li and the like last forever. 1
CHR1S Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 +1 for any Fractal Design case, one of if not the best case I have owned/seen.
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 I like plain and simple looking cases. I'm not a fan of the monster gaming rigs that look like UFO's built them! Nothing toooooo big, with average noise and cooling. It's tucked under my desk so that shields most of the noise away.
SYNACK Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 If you can live with your current case for a bit longer I'd recommend saving up and really splashing out on a new one. It's the one thing that can stay with you for years, everything else is interchangeable. Good quality cases from Silverstone, Antec, Lian-Li and the like last forever. +1 love me some Antec, use them a lot when I can.
Rawns Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) Now these are lush looking cases!!! Fractal Design Core 3000 Case | Ebuyer.com Antec All Black 302 Three Hundred Two Case | Ebuyer.com Edited January 31, 2013 by Rawns
LosOjos Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Just to pipe in a little, if you keep an eye on Overclockers UK - Computer components, hardware & gaming PC B-Stock (listed under 'Clearance Lines'), you can get some real bargains, more often than not the only difference is any promo items are missing, for instance I bought a 560Ti that didn't include the advertised Arkham Asylum, but rather than costing £160 I only paid £60 1
flyinghaggis Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) If I was going to build another system in future I'd be tempted to go for one of these :- BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black [bFC-PRO-300-KKXSK-RP] Looks really neat and, most importantly, it can take a full sized GPU card. The only serious drawback I can see is that the ITX board limits how much ram it can accommodate. I'm actually tempted to build another PC when Haswell is released in June as my current one is now 3 years old but there isn't really anything out there it struggles with at the moment so it's pretty hard to justify except for fun! Edited January 31, 2013 by flyinghaggis 1
Arthur Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Looks really neat and, most importantly, it can take a full sized GPU card. Silverstone's FT03 looks quite nice too. It supports two graphics cards upto 13.77” long and the Mini version can take a 10" card (which would be enough for a GTX 670 or 680). http://i.imgur.com/64bNaFx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/jWLsvra.jpg The only serious drawback I can see is that the ITX board limits how much ram it can accommodate. Would you need more than 16GB RAM? 8GB DIMMs aren't that expensive (~£70 for a dual channel kit). 2
flyinghaggis Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 (edited) Why would you need more than 16GB RAM? 8GB DIMMs aren't that expensive (~£70 for a dual channel kit). I like using it for running virtual test environments and a lot of the Microsoft Server OS's need quite a lot of RAM these days. If you're running virtual LAN with a DC, Exchange, SQL then you start eating up the stuff pretty quickly so I'd prefer to have the flexibility to install more than 16Gb to be honest [i currently have 18Gb]. Like you say RAM's dirt cheap so £140 would buy 32Gb providing you have the DIMM slots. Edited February 1, 2013 by flyinghaggis
Rawns Posted February 1, 2013 Author Posted February 1, 2013 I like using it for running virtual test environments and a lot of the Microsoft Server OS's need quite a lot of RAM these days. If you're running virtual LAN with a DC, Exchange, SQL then you start eating up the stuff pretty quickly so I'd prefer to have the flexibility to install more than 16Gb to be honest [i currently have 18Gb]. Like you say RAM's dirt cheap so £140 would buy 32Gb providing you have the DIMM slots. Even running a few VMs and a server, 16Gb would still be enough wouldn't it? (4Gb host, 4Gb DC VM, 1Gb per Workstation VM?) Anyway, this is a home PC so doubt I'll be doing anything like that on it!
Arthur Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 this is a home PC so doubt I'll be doing anything like that on it! One of the other benefits to having lots of RAM is that you can keep all of your programs open in the background while you are gaming. On my PC, Google Chrome alone takes up ~11GB RAM if I have lots of tabs open. I like using it for running virtual test environments and a lot of the Microsoft Server OS's need quite a lot of RAM these days. I also use my gaming PC for running VMs. This is why I upgraded it to 32GB - 16GB just wasn't enough. I'd prefer to have the flexibility to install more than 16GB to be honest I agree, but for a gaming PC 16GB is fine for most people. It's a shame an enterprising motherboard manufacturer hasn't made a mini-ITX motherboard with 4 x DDR3 SO-DIMM slots. It would cost ~£146 to have 32GB RAM (so only a few pounds more than standard desktop-sized DIMMs). With DDR4 on the way, it's unlikely we will ever see affordable 16GB non-ECC DDR3 UDIMMs for motherboards with only two slots.
Rawns Posted February 6, 2013 Author Posted February 6, 2013 For those interested, phase one has begun! Ordered a case and mobo which I shall be assembling on the weekend. I'll then look at getting the core components in a week or so. I went for this case in the end: Casecom K5-9388 Black Case with Blue LED 120mm Front Fan Motherboard was this: Asus M5A97 PRO 970 Socket AM3+ 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard Ex-display model too so saved a few bucks.
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