Motherboard/CPU advice: for home build

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silens

22 posts

Geek

#166295 8-Mar-2015 18:24

I'm putting together a self-built pc and currently in the process of buying parts.

Currently I have:

Case: Cooler Master N400
Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X OC Video Card

Other parts I'm aiming to get:

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
(1 or 2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Cheapest on pricespy)
SSD: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
~850 watt modular power supply

I'm aiming for this pc to be a decent gaming pc, a decent development machine, and a home media server. For those reasons I tried to pick a motherboard that supports as many drives as possible as I may have to buy more in the future. As my current home machine is an Acer Aspire 5750 laptop with Integrated Intel HD 3000, this should be a decent and relatively cheap upgrade.

I'm not 100% sure that I'm picking the right motherboard and will like to hear others' thoughts about my proposed build.

Cheers,

Xeon

302 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1253506 8-Mar-2015 19:01

What's the budget (for remaining parts)?

silens

22 posts

Geek

#1253509 8-Mar-2015 19:08

I'll say $1500 is absolute max I can spend on the other parts.

My current build on nz.pcpartpicker has 8gb of memory, 2 of the 3tb drives, a 850 watt modular power supply, and a blu-ray drive (that can also record dvd's, only chosen as my home doesn't have a blu-ray player) for 1329.26 (+ shipping).

kiwikiwi

455 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1253529 8-Mar-2015 20:02

I can go cheaper then that.

Intel Build Here

PCPartPicker part list: http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/MzBYt6
Price breakdown by merchant: http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/MzBYt6/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($350.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($54.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($179.00 @ PC Force)
Memory: Kingston Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($212.00 @ Paradigm PCs)
Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($172.37 @ Wiseguys)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($148.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($196.95 @ Wiseguys)
Total: $1312.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-08 19:59 NZDT+1300

It's an Intel build yes so if you don't need all 8 cores that the FX-8350 has, then the above build will run slightly cooler, be more power efficient at idle and under load and still have the same performance.

You can also follow me on twitter here @kiwifortw I do twitch streams every now and then at twitch.tv/kiwiforthewin :)

HTTP 404 Sarcasm not found.

Sideface

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#1253575 8-Mar-2015 21:15

kiwikiwi: ... It's an Intel build yes so if you don't need all 8 cores that the FX-8350 has, then the above build will run slightly cooler, be more power efficient at idle and under load and still have the same performance.

+1
How many people actually need or use 8 cores in real life?
I vote for the 4-core Intel version.

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timmmay

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#1253657 9-Mar-2015 07:47

Suggest Samsugn 840/850 pro SSD, very reliable.