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On December 05 2012 03:43 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 18:46 Womwomwom wrote:Show me any game where the i5 has over a 100% performance increase over the Phenom x4 - after all it's over 200% more expensive. I'd hardly call that the sweet spot in terms of value. And I'm not arguing that the i5 is not a noticeable increase in performance, or isn't the best gaming/streaming CPU to buy. But the value is relatively terrible if your ONLY gaming, and for pure performance, it is more often not a significant increase in performance. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/6Even though there can be just about a 100% performance difference in Shogun Total War, that's ignoring the point. If you don't care about huge FPS dips and stuttering, you're better off buying a console and a cheap computer to do whatever. At least developers are good enough to understand the limitations of the console and work around it with variable resolution tricks and whatever. A lot that care about what they're doing have gotten especially good at squeezing blood from a rock. Have you seen The Witcher 2 on the Xbox 360? I reckon it looks and performs better than what most entry level desktop systems could muster. Hey I can definitely say that I can get fairly smooth gameplay in BF3 multiplayer on my i5 750 but that's definitely not the case on larger maps. I know for a fact that you can't get stable 60 FPS in multi player/single player with the specs they have, Eurogamer did a benchmark of upper midrange GPUs showing that is utterly false so I have no idea what magic they're casting on their systems. So Shogun Total War is one. I suspect Stalker Call of Pripyat with the Complete mod won't be all that smooth (i.e. no stutter, not talking about FPS) on a system with weak single threaded performance because I know it definitely isn't silky smooth with an overclocked i5 750. Same goes for Arma 2 with the Day Z mod. I imagine there is a decent gulf between older generation processors and current generation processors in something like Anno 1404. There are a lot of games that need a decent CPU to push good, stable FPS. Which games are they? They're games with heavy physics or AI components, which is becoming increasingly important. Then we've got games with the Witcher 2 where there is quite a significant gulf between a stock i5 2500k and a stock Phenom II X4 980, which is good if you want to maintain a smooth experience. Skyrim within cities is also extremely CPU intensive and most benchmarks show a significant gulf between the i5s and the old Phenom II processors...and even more so if you go get a bunch of relevant mods. Dark Souls is another one that needs an extremely beefy CPU if you don't want to deal with stuttering and frame dropping. Value isn't terrible if you are playing games that can harness that potential and you're not destitute. Its the sweet spot processor for gaming...if you don't know, sweet spot means best bang for your buck, I think just about everyone besides you agree that it is. Especially since the 45nm SOI AMD processors have all been EOLed this month and you quite literally can't find them in Australia anymore. Edit: I'm also ignoring emulators like Dolphin and because its an emulator, you want to keep FPS as stable as possible to prevent shit like slowdown. The sweet spot CPU does not limit you in what you want to do, provided you even wanted to do these things in the first place. That's why its the sweet spot. It give you pretty much complete freedom now and in the near future and you get a relatively smooth experience you cannot get on a console. Of course I care about fps dips and quality. I stand corrected on a game where the i5 can be a significant increase in fps though (total war). Perhaps in most cases the Phenom does not appear too far behind because of optimization. It still is rather extreme areas that would cause a phenom x4 not to work, total war benches, and in the arma bench listed, while the i5 is getting 2x the performance, the phenom is still getting a decent fps. 50-60+ fps is best obviously but 30+ fps is playable. I think if your going to go with a $80 CPU then you have to accept that your gonna get 30+ in certain areas, and that's not too bad for the price. Show nested quote +I don't even know why people are comparing Phenom II X4's to i5's. Just because they're both quad cores doesn't mean they should be compared - everyone but hardware newbies should know not to compare specs of completely different architectures. The direct competition to Phenom II X4's are the i3's, primarily the i3 2100 (though right now the slightly superior i3 2120 and even more superior i3 3220 are all basically the same price). Yeah it costs $30 more but it's also slightly superior (the 3220 even more so) in the vast majority of games (the Phenom x4 might be slightly better in BF3 multiplayer), draws about 1/3rd of the power, and is on a superior platform where you can upgrade to an i5 3570 (the next-gen AM3+ CPU's are still going to be behind the i5 3570 in gaming performance and probably power consumption too, so the argument can't even be made for upgrading on AM3+). Not even, and the price difference is generally much larger. I'd say the direct competitior to the Phenom x4 is the Pentium G850 (860, etc, depending on exact model). Below the G2120 and i3-2100, unless you include overclocking, in which the Phenom x4 will outperform both the g2120 and i3-2100 at a lower price. And the major difference is that Phenom x4 is generally slightly behind in everything to Pentium/i3 at stock, but the Phenom is almost twice as good at streaming performance. A much larger difference than that between the i5 and phenom in 264 performance.
Pricing on pentium processors is so screwed up. Pentium G860 (better than a G850) costs 10$ less. A G870 is 8$ more than the G850. And an X4 965 is less expensive than an X4 955. Go figure.
Taking into account the fact that you need to buy a nice motherboard to overclock, you'd be into i3 3220 range probably. Especially because you'd need a decent cooler to get a real overclock going (I know you can get a modest overclock with the stock cooler, but that would be noise and not that great), and I dunno if a modest overclock would be enough to overcome a 3220 (no experience with AMD stuff, although my friend has an X4 965).
You're only including processors, but what happens when you include a good motherboard, fan, etc? The price goes up. And then there's power draw, and somebody earlier calculated 15 euros (I think that was the symbol I saw?) a year, which after 2 years ( a reasonable upgrade cycle) would have been enough to afford an intel CPU anyways. I don't know pricing on AMD motherboards, but I assume that to get a decent one you'd be paying more than a B75.
Edit: Pentium G860 only 69.50 on Amazon, and G870 for 85$ on Amazon. Same as Phenom pricing. (Difference is 3Ghz/3.1Ghz SB) And a G2120 is 95$. Factor in higher motherboard cost or anything, and it is certainly in the same price range as Phenom II X4. Even if you don't include that, power consumption of a G2120 is literally less than half of a Phenom II, about 45%. And fwiw, it is 89.99 on NCIX. So pretty much same price range as Phenom II for sure. Nobody is going to buy one processor over another that is five dollars more for clear benefits. (If only one thing, power consumption is definitely > 5$ over a year, and you shouldn't have a CPU for only a year)
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Hello, I've come to the decision that I am going to get a new computer since my current computer is a little low tech as I am interested in streaming SC2 at decent quality with very very little to no in-game FPS drops and lag.
I already have the phenom II x4 965 processor that I will be using for the build. My budget for the rest of the parts are in 200-400$ and I would like all of the parts to be from an online store excluding ebay.
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On December 05 2012 05:13 Alryk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2012 03:43 Belial88 wrote:On December 04 2012 18:46 Womwomwom wrote:Show me any game where the i5 has over a 100% performance increase over the Phenom x4 - after all it's over 200% more expensive. I'd hardly call that the sweet spot in terms of value. And I'm not arguing that the i5 is not a noticeable increase in performance, or isn't the best gaming/streaming CPU to buy. But the value is relatively terrible if your ONLY gaming, and for pure performance, it is more often not a significant increase in performance. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/6Even though there can be just about a 100% performance difference in Shogun Total War, that's ignoring the point. If you don't care about huge FPS dips and stuttering, you're better off buying a console and a cheap computer to do whatever. At least developers are good enough to understand the limitations of the console and work around it with variable resolution tricks and whatever. A lot that care about what they're doing have gotten especially good at squeezing blood from a rock. Have you seen The Witcher 2 on the Xbox 360? I reckon it looks and performs better than what most entry level desktop systems could muster. Hey I can definitely say that I can get fairly smooth gameplay in BF3 multiplayer on my i5 750 but that's definitely not the case on larger maps. I know for a fact that you can't get stable 60 FPS in multi player/single player with the specs they have, Eurogamer did a benchmark of upper midrange GPUs showing that is utterly false so I have no idea what magic they're casting on their systems. So Shogun Total War is one. I suspect Stalker Call of Pripyat with the Complete mod won't be all that smooth (i.e. no stutter, not talking about FPS) on a system with weak single threaded performance because I know it definitely isn't silky smooth with an overclocked i5 750. Same goes for Arma 2 with the Day Z mod. I imagine there is a decent gulf between older generation processors and current generation processors in something like Anno 1404. There are a lot of games that need a decent CPU to push good, stable FPS. Which games are they? They're games with heavy physics or AI components, which is becoming increasingly important. Then we've got games with the Witcher 2 where there is quite a significant gulf between a stock i5 2500k and a stock Phenom II X4 980, which is good if you want to maintain a smooth experience. Skyrim within cities is also extremely CPU intensive and most benchmarks show a significant gulf between the i5s and the old Phenom II processors...and even more so if you go get a bunch of relevant mods. Dark Souls is another one that needs an extremely beefy CPU if you don't want to deal with stuttering and frame dropping. Value isn't terrible if you are playing games that can harness that potential and you're not destitute. Its the sweet spot processor for gaming...if you don't know, sweet spot means best bang for your buck, I think just about everyone besides you agree that it is. Especially since the 45nm SOI AMD processors have all been EOLed this month and you quite literally can't find them in Australia anymore. Edit: I'm also ignoring emulators like Dolphin and because its an emulator, you want to keep FPS as stable as possible to prevent shit like slowdown. The sweet spot CPU does not limit you in what you want to do, provided you even wanted to do these things in the first place. That's why its the sweet spot. It give you pretty much complete freedom now and in the near future and you get a relatively smooth experience you cannot get on a console. Of course I care about fps dips and quality. I stand corrected on a game where the i5 can be a significant increase in fps though (total war). Perhaps in most cases the Phenom does not appear too far behind because of optimization. It still is rather extreme areas that would cause a phenom x4 not to work, total war benches, and in the arma bench listed, while the i5 is getting 2x the performance, the phenom is still getting a decent fps. 50-60+ fps is best obviously but 30+ fps is playable. I think if your going to go with a $80 CPU then you have to accept that your gonna get 30+ in certain areas, and that's not too bad for the price. I don't even know why people are comparing Phenom II X4's to i5's. Just because they're both quad cores doesn't mean they should be compared - everyone but hardware newbies should know not to compare specs of completely different architectures. The direct competition to Phenom II X4's are the i3's, primarily the i3 2100 (though right now the slightly superior i3 2120 and even more superior i3 3220 are all basically the same price). Yeah it costs $30 more but it's also slightly superior (the 3220 even more so) in the vast majority of games (the Phenom x4 might be slightly better in BF3 multiplayer), draws about 1/3rd of the power, and is on a superior platform where you can upgrade to an i5 3570 (the next-gen AM3+ CPU's are still going to be behind the i5 3570 in gaming performance and probably power consumption too, so the argument can't even be made for upgrading on AM3+). Not even, and the price difference is generally much larger. I'd say the direct competitior to the Phenom x4 is the Pentium G850 (860, etc, depending on exact model). Below the G2120 and i3-2100, unless you include overclocking, in which the Phenom x4 will outperform both the g2120 and i3-2100 at a lower price. And the major difference is that Phenom x4 is generally slightly behind in everything to Pentium/i3 at stock, but the Phenom is almost twice as good at streaming performance. A much larger difference than that between the i5 and phenom in 264 performance. Pricing on pentium processors is so screwed up. Pentium G860 (better than a G850) costs 10$ less. A G870 is 8$ more than the G850. And an X4 965 is less expensive than an X4 955. Go figure. Taking into account the fact that you need to buy a nice motherboard to overclock, you'd be into i3 3220 range probably. Especially because you'd need a decent cooler to get a real overclock going (I know you can get a modest overclock with the stock cooler, but that would be noise and not that great), and I dunno if a modest overclock would be enough to overcome a 3220 (no experience with AMD stuff, although my friend has an X4 965). You're only including processors, but what happens when you include a good motherboard, fan, etc? The price goes up. And then there's power draw, and somebody earlier calculated 15 euros (I think that was the symbol I saw?) a year, which after 2 years ( a reasonable upgrade cycle) would have been enough to afford an intel CPU anyways. I don't know pricing on AMD motherboards, but I assume that to get a decent one you'd be paying more than a B75. Edit: Pentium G860 only 69.50 on Amazon, and G870 for 85$ on Amazon. Same as Phenom pricing. (Difference is 3Ghz/3.1Ghz SB) And a G2120 is 95$. Factor in higher motherboard cost or anything, and it is certainly in the same price range as Phenom II X4. Even if you don't include that, power consumption of a G2120 is literally less than half of a Phenom II, about 45%. And fwiw, it is 89.99 on NCIX. So pretty much same price range as Phenom II for sure. Nobody is going to buy one processor over another that is five dollars more for clear benefits. (If only one thing, power consumption is definitely > 5$ over a year, and you shouldn't have a CPU for only a year)
On newegg maybe but there's a general price range for these CPUs new. Most of the time the 860 is more than the 850, 965 is more than 955, etc.
You dont really need a nice motherboard to overclock an x4, it's only the x6's or c2 revision 125TDP phenom x4's that you need to worry about. Phenom x4 nowadays run at 95TDP so you really aren't producing as much heat relatively. Even if you do buy a shitty motherboard, some aftermarket VRM cooling will help manage any 24/7 overclock at 4ghz just fine. With $10 in aftermarket VRM cooling, your basically paying the same prices for intel and AMD motherboards.
You just have to buy smart, not buy expensive. A 4+1 phase should be available at the $30-40 price range.
When you include a slightly better motherboard OR VRM aftermarket cooling, and a heatsink, that's maybe $20-35 extra. A 4ghz Phenom x4 will double the performance of an i3-2100 for streaming, and will be equal or better in gaming. It will also cost equal, or less.
The difference in power draw is less than a lightbulb. That's really quite insignificant.
AMD AM3 motherboards are known for being cheaper than their Intel counterparts, your making a big deal out of something that's entirely the opposite.
Like I said, Intel is always the way to go, unless you are overclocking and/or streaming on a budget, in which case Athlon ii/Phenom ii is a much better value compared to Intel at the same price point. The i5 is a much better chip in every way except value per dollar. If streaming is important to you, than the Phenom x4 is better than anything Intel up to the i3, and when you include overclocking, the Phenom x4 is much better. Which you really need to do to make the Athlon/Phenom shine over Intel.
Anyone who is overclocking or streaming probably isn't going to care about power draw... you can't stream 720 on an i3-2100, but you can on a phenom x4. Otherwise, of course Intel the way to go, and no is disagrees with the fact that Intel chips are simply much better pieces of electronics. Hence why AMD dropped the price of their flagship to Intel's non-gaming, mainstream celeron and pentium line-up.
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On December 05 2012 09:41 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2012 05:13 Alryk wrote:On December 05 2012 03:43 Belial88 wrote:On December 04 2012 18:46 Womwomwom wrote:Show me any game where the i5 has over a 100% performance increase over the Phenom x4 - after all it's over 200% more expensive. I'd hardly call that the sweet spot in terms of value. And I'm not arguing that the i5 is not a noticeable increase in performance, or isn't the best gaming/streaming CPU to buy. But the value is relatively terrible if your ONLY gaming, and for pure performance, it is more often not a significant increase in performance. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/6Even though there can be just about a 100% performance difference in Shogun Total War, that's ignoring the point. If you don't care about huge FPS dips and stuttering, you're better off buying a console and a cheap computer to do whatever. At least developers are good enough to understand the limitations of the console and work around it with variable resolution tricks and whatever. A lot that care about what they're doing have gotten especially good at squeezing blood from a rock. Have you seen The Witcher 2 on the Xbox 360? I reckon it looks and performs better than what most entry level desktop systems could muster. Hey I can definitely say that I can get fairly smooth gameplay in BF3 multiplayer on my i5 750 but that's definitely not the case on larger maps. I know for a fact that you can't get stable 60 FPS in multi player/single player with the specs they have, Eurogamer did a benchmark of upper midrange GPUs showing that is utterly false so I have no idea what magic they're casting on their systems. So Shogun Total War is one. I suspect Stalker Call of Pripyat with the Complete mod won't be all that smooth (i.e. no stutter, not talking about FPS) on a system with weak single threaded performance because I know it definitely isn't silky smooth with an overclocked i5 750. Same goes for Arma 2 with the Day Z mod. I imagine there is a decent gulf between older generation processors and current generation processors in something like Anno 1404. There are a lot of games that need a decent CPU to push good, stable FPS. Which games are they? They're games with heavy physics or AI components, which is becoming increasingly important. Then we've got games with the Witcher 2 where there is quite a significant gulf between a stock i5 2500k and a stock Phenom II X4 980, which is good if you want to maintain a smooth experience. Skyrim within cities is also extremely CPU intensive and most benchmarks show a significant gulf between the i5s and the old Phenom II processors...and even more so if you go get a bunch of relevant mods. Dark Souls is another one that needs an extremely beefy CPU if you don't want to deal with stuttering and frame dropping. Value isn't terrible if you are playing games that can harness that potential and you're not destitute. Its the sweet spot processor for gaming...if you don't know, sweet spot means best bang for your buck, I think just about everyone besides you agree that it is. Especially since the 45nm SOI AMD processors have all been EOLed this month and you quite literally can't find them in Australia anymore. Edit: I'm also ignoring emulators like Dolphin and because its an emulator, you want to keep FPS as stable as possible to prevent shit like slowdown. The sweet spot CPU does not limit you in what you want to do, provided you even wanted to do these things in the first place. That's why its the sweet spot. It give you pretty much complete freedom now and in the near future and you get a relatively smooth experience you cannot get on a console. Of course I care about fps dips and quality. I stand corrected on a game where the i5 can be a significant increase in fps though (total war). Perhaps in most cases the Phenom does not appear too far behind because of optimization. It still is rather extreme areas that would cause a phenom x4 not to work, total war benches, and in the arma bench listed, while the i5 is getting 2x the performance, the phenom is still getting a decent fps. 50-60+ fps is best obviously but 30+ fps is playable. I think if your going to go with a $80 CPU then you have to accept that your gonna get 30+ in certain areas, and that's not too bad for the price. I don't even know why people are comparing Phenom II X4's to i5's. Just because they're both quad cores doesn't mean they should be compared - everyone but hardware newbies should know not to compare specs of completely different architectures. The direct competition to Phenom II X4's are the i3's, primarily the i3 2100 (though right now the slightly superior i3 2120 and even more superior i3 3220 are all basically the same price). Yeah it costs $30 more but it's also slightly superior (the 3220 even more so) in the vast majority of games (the Phenom x4 might be slightly better in BF3 multiplayer), draws about 1/3rd of the power, and is on a superior platform where you can upgrade to an i5 3570 (the next-gen AM3+ CPU's are still going to be behind the i5 3570 in gaming performance and probably power consumption too, so the argument can't even be made for upgrading on AM3+). Not even, and the price difference is generally much larger. I'd say the direct competitior to the Phenom x4 is the Pentium G850 (860, etc, depending on exact model). Below the G2120 and i3-2100, unless you include overclocking, in which the Phenom x4 will outperform both the g2120 and i3-2100 at a lower price. And the major difference is that Phenom x4 is generally slightly behind in everything to Pentium/i3 at stock, but the Phenom is almost twice as good at streaming performance. A much larger difference than that between the i5 and phenom in 264 performance. Pricing on pentium processors is so screwed up. Pentium G860 (better than a G850) costs 10$ less. A G870 is 8$ more than the G850. And an X4 965 is less expensive than an X4 955. Go figure. Taking into account the fact that you need to buy a nice motherboard to overclock, you'd be into i3 3220 range probably. Especially because you'd need a decent cooler to get a real overclock going (I know you can get a modest overclock with the stock cooler, but that would be noise and not that great), and I dunno if a modest overclock would be enough to overcome a 3220 (no experience with AMD stuff, although my friend has an X4 965). You're only including processors, but what happens when you include a good motherboard, fan, etc? The price goes up. And then there's power draw, and somebody earlier calculated 15 euros (I think that was the symbol I saw?) a year, which after 2 years ( a reasonable upgrade cycle) would have been enough to afford an intel CPU anyways. I don't know pricing on AMD motherboards, but I assume that to get a decent one you'd be paying more than a B75. Edit: Pentium G860 only 69.50 on Amazon, and G870 for 85$ on Amazon. Same as Phenom pricing. (Difference is 3Ghz/3.1Ghz SB) And a G2120 is 95$. Factor in higher motherboard cost or anything, and it is certainly in the same price range as Phenom II X4. Even if you don't include that, power consumption of a G2120 is literally less than half of a Phenom II, about 45%. And fwiw, it is 89.99 on NCIX. So pretty much same price range as Phenom II for sure. Nobody is going to buy one processor over another that is five dollars more for clear benefits. (If only one thing, power consumption is definitely > 5$ over a year, and you shouldn't have a CPU for only a year) On newegg maybe but there's a general price range for these CPUs new. Most of the time the 860 is more than the 850, 965 is more than 955, etc. You dont really need a nice motherboard to overclock an x4, it's only the x6's or c2 revision 125TDP phenom x4's that you need to worry about. Phenom x4 nowadays run at 95TDP so you really aren't producing as much heat relatively. Even if you do buy a shitty motherboard, some aftermarket VRM cooling will help manage any 24/7 overclock at 4ghz just fine. With $10 in aftermarket VRM cooling, your basically paying the same prices for intel and AMD motherboards. You just have to buy smart, not buy expensive. A 4+1 phase should be available at the $30-40 price range. When you include a slightly better motherboard OR VRM aftermarket cooling, and a heatsink, that's maybe $20-35 extra. A 4ghz Phenom x4 will double the performance of an i3-2100 for streaming, and will be equal or better in gaming. It will also cost equal, or less. The difference in power draw is less than a lightbulb. That's really quite insignificant. AMD AM3 motherboards are known for being cheaper than their Intel counterparts, your making a big deal out of something that's entirely the opposite. Like I said, Intel is always the way to go, unless you are overclocking and/or streaming on a budget, in which case Athlon ii/Phenom ii is a much better value compared to Intel at the same price point. The i5 is a much better chip in every way except value per dollar. If streaming is important to you, than the Phenom x4 is better than anything Intel up to the i3, and when you include overclocking, the Phenom x4 is much better. Which you really need to do to make the Athlon/Phenom shine over Intel. Anyone who is overclocking or streaming probably isn't going to care about power draw... you can't stream 720 on an i3-2100, but you can on a phenom x4. Otherwise, of course Intel the way to go, and no is disagrees with the fact that Intel chips are simply much better pieces of electronics. Hence why AMD dropped the price of their flagship to Intel's non-gaming, mainstream celeron and pentium line-up.
I still don't know why you say the i5 is not good value per dollar. It's a starcraft website, and I can 100% affirm that an i3 3220 does not run the game on ultra late game. It drops down to ~15 FPS which isn't very playable. I bought one ~3 or 4 weeks ago, and play Starcraft on it. Maybe there are other games where it's less important (there definitely are actually) but for SC2, yes, an i5 is definitely the best value, considering you can't max the game without one. (smoothly)
Edit:
At a 70W difference (TDP is 125W, if we're calculating using Intel TDP, we will use AMD TDP) between a Phenom II X4 and a i3 3220 (125 - 55 = 70)
The average price of electricity in the US is 11.53 cents per kwh. So lets use the same math and assume 2 hours of use per day (and it's likely to be MUCH higher than that, I know my computer is. Especially considering we're gamers)
.07 x .115 x 2 x 365 x 2 = 12 bucks. Not much, but again, we're looking at 2 hours of use per day. Some people are bound to get 4-8 hours use out of it, especially if you think you'll be streaming or anything. I know that I use my computer more than 2 hours a day. And it's highly likely that people looking to build a gaming computer will be able to also play for more than 2 hours a day. And obviously you won't be at 55W/125W the entire time, but the "negligible" difference essentially finishes accounting for the price difference once you factor in the 20-35$ that you decided on yourself. 85 + 32-47$ = 117-129$, approximately the price of a 3220. Plus, considering the fact that streaming with a phenom ii would just produce a subpar stream in sc2 and subpar graphics (turning down effects, possibly physics), I don't see how it makes sense. Maybe it would produce a better stream (at SC2's expense likely), but at the expense of pretty much everything else imo. And the cheapest AM3 motherboard is 50$ once you include shipping (except for an unrated foxconn thing). You can get an IVB ready H61 motherboard for 45$ -50$ if you pick Asrock (7$ shipping like the AMD's).
I mean, I guess I won't debate a phenom x4 doing a 720P stream, but it's literally at the expense of everything else... I'm not really debating that, just the numbers you were throwing out  I hate it when people twist stuff (Not saying it was intentional, but from what I can see on Newegg the numbers don't really add up)
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I still don't know why you say the i5 is not good value per dollar. It's a starcraft website, and I can 100% affirm that an i3 3220 does not run the game on ultra late game. It drops down to ~15 FPS which isn't very playable. I bought one ~3 or 4 weeks ago, and play Starcraft on it. Maybe there are other games where it's less important (there definitely are actually) but for SC2, yes, an i5 is definitely the best value, considering you can't max the game without one. (smoothly)
What graphics settings you have shouldn't really impact the CPU as much. If you are having trouble running Ultra but not Medium/Low, then that's a GPU problem. I find it hard to believe you are hitting 15fps minimum in 1v1 though, even if your on 1080.
And obviously you won't be at 55W/125W the entire time, but the "negligible" difference essentially finishes accounting for the price difference once you factor in the 20-35$ that you decided on yourself.
No, you rarely run at the max TDP unless under very heavy load, even gaming you aren't going to run max tdp the entire time. So 2 hours at max TDP is a huge overestimate on the average person.
If you really want to save money on electricity, you go with a better quality PSU, something that doesn't matter whether you are going Intel or AMD.
Plus, considering the fact that streaming with a phenom ii would just produce a subpar stream in sc2 and subpar graphics (turning down effects, possibly physics), I don't see how it makes sense. Maybe it would produce a better stream (at SC2's expense likely), but at the expense of pretty much everything else imo. And the cheapest AM3 motherboard is 50$ once you include shipping (except for an unrated foxconn thing). You can get an IVB ready H61 motherboard for 45$ -50$ if you pick Asrock (7$ shipping like the AMD's).
A Phenom ii would not produce a sub-par stream at all, my athlon ii x4 at 3.4ghz produced a very high quality stream - 720@45fps, zero dropped frames, less than 1% frames lagged (with OBS there is always frames lagged, as long as its not significant your fine, this isnt an athlon ii problem), 20+ minimum fps in the biggest of battles, averaging around 50+ fps in-game and definitely 35+ in extreme lategame in battles. Just doing a comparison, my stream looks better than most pro streamers.
Phenom x4 is a sub-par CPU, no doubt about it. But when it's overclocked, it's not so sub-par anymore, and when it comes to streaming, it's better than Intel at the price point. It's not going to be an i5, but your talking a 14% difference from a 3.7ghz Phenom and an i5-2400.
You put the Phenom x4 C3 on a 4.0ghz+ core / 2.6ghz NB, which is a very conservative 24/7 daily overclock on the phenom possible with a hyper 212+, and you'll have better performance than an i5-2400 in streaming performance. A i5-2400 which is $100+ more expensive.
I mean, I guess I won't debate a phenom x4 doing a 720P stream, but it's literally at the expense of everything else... I'm not really debating that, just the numbers you were throwing out I hate it when people twist stuff (Not saying it was intentional, but from what I can see on Newegg the numbers don't really add up)
An overclocked Phenom x4 competes with an i5 for streaming (won't beat the better i5's or overclocked i5's, but it competes, and beats the 2400), competes and beats the i3-2100 in general usage, and is priced like a Pentium.
At worst, the Phenom is insignificantly worse than the Pentium (phenom stock) or i3 (phenom overclocked with aftermarket cooling and better parts). But it is SIGNIFICANTLY better in streaming. The Pentium/i3 does not beat a stock/overclocked Phenom by more than 20% in any application, just 5-10% in everything but h264 encoding performance.
There is no twisting going on, and Newegg is always changing their prices. They had the Phenom x4 on $80 for over a week, they stopped all the sales because of the end of the holiday sales, but you can find the PHenom x4 for $80 at many other places.
According to a google search, the Phenom ii x4 955 starts at $75 new. Just google "Phenom ii x4 955 CPU" and click on "Shopping" and you'll see. Pentium G850, $76 new. i3-2100 was going for $113.67 at cheapest.
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Budget: 7000SEK (around 1000$)
Hello there. I am going to buy new computer, and I would like your opinions for a good build!
What I want to do with it;
- Stream and play SC2, Dota2 and other single player games (basically I want to futureproof it as much as possible aswell) on high graphics with no FPS drops.
- Alttab between windows and games with no lag and a negligible loading time.
- Be able to talk in skype, listen to music and have other shit running in the background while doing these things.
My current build that I'm thinking of is here;
http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/2628666/2012-12-02
Site is in swedish but you can read the parts at least.
What I am thinking about is a better CPU (people have told me CPU is good for streaming and SC2 needs a good one).
Basically I'm looking for all sorts of tips and I hope you can help me!
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Your build is pretty good. But it's weak for streaming & SC2 (because of your processor).
I went to the same website & tried to put together my own list using a 7870 for graphics card, but going to an i5-3570k overclockable configuration (ideal for streaming SC2), keeping the SSD and your same basic format. Unfortunately, I came up with a build that cost 8040 kroner.
So that's a problem. The differences between the two builds basically boiled down to an extra 500 kroner for an aftermarket cooler & an extra 1000 kroner for the more expensive CPU.
Not sure what to tell you. You can get the SSD later, not overclock for less kroner (no heatsink, cheap B75 motherboard instead of z77 motherboard, i5-3470 instead of i5-3570k), or get a cheaper graphics card (won't matter for SC2 & Dota2, but for shooter games/Total War series, that sort of thing, it will).
But if you go with the configuration you have now (which is pretty good for what it is), you're not going to be able to stream SC2 well. Certainly not if you don't overclock the Phenom.
Here's what I went up with. Note also that maybe you can save some kroner by comparison shopping with komplett.no?
http://www.inet.se/produkt/5310020/intel-core-i5-3570k-3-4ghz-ivy-bridge
http://www.inet.se/produkt/1902222/gigabyte-ga-z77m-d3h-matx
http://www.inet.se/produkt/6909703/be-quiet-pure-power-l7-430w-80-bronze
http://www.inet.se/produkt/6308779/thermalright-macho-120
http://www.inet.se/produkt/5308830/crucial-8gb-2x4096mb-cl9-1600mhz-ballistix-sport
http://www.inet.se/produkt/5409436/gigabyte-radeon-hd7870-2048mb-oc (I'm assuming this one comes with the same game coupons)
http://www.inet.se/produkt/6911325/bitfenix-merc-alpha-svart
http://www.inet.se/produkt/7104250/dvd-rw-samsung-24x-dl-svart-oem
http://www.inet.se/produkt/4304280/1tb-western-digital-caviar-blue
http://www.inet.se/produkt/4304406/ssd-120gb-intel-330-reseller-2-5
Sorry I didn't see anything better/in budget.
P.S. the i5-3570k is 170 kroner less at komplett.no & the same motherboard looks 120 kroner cheaper (not sure if both are taking taxes/shipping into account), so maybe you can chip away at costs.
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Hey guys, my friend is looking to build his own computer. He won't be doing anything serious just playing newer graphic intensive games such as battlefield 3, etc and watching videos/streams.. I know this thread and the people who contribute are very knowledgeable so I had him fill out the questions for me to post.
Budget: $500
Resolution: 1920x1080
Uses: New gen games, watching streams
Upgrade cycle: 2 years or so (doesn't really matter since he won't be doing serious stuff)
Date of building it: during christmas break
Overclocking: no
OS; Windows 8 would be fine
Add a second gpu: no
Parts: haven't looked at any, don't really know what to get
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On December 06 2012 08:37 Nightops wrote:
Hey guys, my friend is looking to build his own computer. He won't be doing anything serious just playing newer graphic intensive games such as battlefield 3, etc and watching videos/streams.. I know this thread and the people who contribute are very knowledgeable so I had him fill out the questions for me to post.
Budget: $500
Resolution: 1920x1080
Uses: New gen games, watching streams
Upgrade cycle: 2 years or so (doesn't really matter since he won't be doing serious stuff)
Date of building it: during christmas break
Overclocking: no
OS; Windows 8 would be fine
Add a second gpu: no
Parts: haven't looked at any, don't really know what to get
i3-3220, 660ti or 7950, 350+ 80%+ bronze psu (corsair has some good deals right now on egg), cheapest motherboard possible lga1155 with pciex16, whatever case looks best (nzxt gamma and rosewill challenger are good low price cases, at budget range the case is priced basically on the fan which you can just buy a better aftermarket fan). 2x2gb of the cheapest CL9 1.5v ram (2x4 if he wants to use a second monitor maybe, i mean ram is so cheap).
should be way under budget. a locked i5 like the 2400 or ivy bridge would be an upgrade for more money, would be stronger, but given the 2 year upgrade cycle and its just for gaming i think an i3 ivy bridge would be a better buy, put the money towards a better GPU instead of CPU. Most games are GPU intensive, not CPU intensive, and i3 is more than powerful enough for the next 2 years in gaming.
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whats your guy's opinion on buying parts used or from places like ebay?
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If you like to gamble than go ahead.
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^ I strongly disagree with that sentiment.
Buying used from places depends on the place, and ebay depends on the 'place', ie the seller, too. Newegg sells on ebay, do you think buying newegg is a gamble by extension?
It depends on the part. Most computer components warranties' are covered by serial number, so if you go along and buy a GPU off ebay, and it breaks, i mean provided the part isn't super old, like if you get a gtx 460 (which has a 3 year warranty from most places, like MSi), and since it hasnt been out for 3 years obviously, it will be covered under warranty.
Sellers will also list the condition of the item - if it's listed as new, and it doesn't work, your going to get a refund at the very least, or a replacement. Ebay is a shithole for sellers, but if your buyer you are pretty well protected and covered. There's even an option on ebay where if you don't have the money, you can opt to pay for it after it is delivered to you. No strings attached - no credit check, nothing, as long as you have a paypal account linked to a bank account (ideal say, if you sold a bunch of stuff on ebay and paypal. as paypal is, is taking 2 weeks until you can access the funds, or for you to make sure the item works).
The seller also doesn't get their money until you give good feedback, so if you get an item and shit doesn't work, you get your money back 99% of the time. There's a lot of people who abuse this, frankly... and they get away with it, but for the average buyer, this means you aren't going to get screwed on ebay as long as you buy from someone with good rep, which is 99% of people, as it's so stringent on ebay and getting 1 bad rep will ruin you as a seller.
It also depends what your going for.
I STRONGLY recommend buying parts on ebay.
Some things you can just find super silly deals on. A perfectly good H50 sold for $11 recently. Know why? Because the mounting screws were stripped badly. This would really suck in most scenarios, but Corsair actually gives out free mounting brackets if you email them (they list them for $9.99 on their website, but if you email them they will send you one no questions asked). A noctua NH-D14 with a messed up mounting bracket sold for I believe $20 recently. Again, Noctua sends you free mounting kits, as long as you provide them with an invoice or a verifiable picture of the heatsink.
If the item is a bit more stuck up - thermalright, for example, doesnt provide mounting kits, you can almost always find replacement parts for cheap. I've never seen a mounting kit cost more than $9, but you can be sure that a heatsink sold without a mounting kit will knock off over $20 for the buyer.
Don't listen to skyR, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Ebay is a great place to buy used stuff. The gamble is entirely up to you. I gambled when I bought a phenom x4 955 with 5 missing pins and 300 bent pins, but I knew the gamble. Sellers are obligated to provide pics of the items, and an item listed with stock photos you can just avoid.
I've never heard of any bad experiences on ebay. You can find pure gems because of stupid shit, and get it cheap because your smarter than everyone else. People who don't realize the mounting screws on a motherboard for a certain brand are the same screws you can find at a hardware store.
Even just regular used items, the sellers will list all the details almost every time, and if it isn't clear, you can PM them. They'll list working conditions, physical defects, et cetera, and if it has a chip that wasn't included in the description, like physical damage or something minor even, you can get a refund, send it back, et cetera no problem.
Buying ebay used is like buying new, the stuff is guaranteed. Most sellers also accept returns and have warranties, something you can look up on the item page. It's just about knowing how to buy from ebay. Don't buy from someone with negative feedback or less than 10 feedback, obviously (which isn't too common, anyways).
Buying new for most computer components, is what I think is stupid. Just too overpriced when items are covered by serial number these days, in most cases.
There's also MANY places to buy from used that are trustworthy. Tomshardware has a market to sell on (not sure how much i trust that place, to be honest, bunch of fucking idiots on TH that have no clue what they are talking about and just talk out their ass and give bad advice), and OCN has a trading forum, as do most overclocker's networks, that are extremely trustworthy, sell items for the right price, and list everything in perfect order, and a reputation to go off of.
If your really worried, list the used item in question, and we can tell you how trustworthy the post and seller is. It all depends what your buying though:
- ebay for items with serial number warranty, for new parts, and for defective items/for parts used that you think you can fix up (a $100 GPU with a broken fan listed for $30? get a replacement fan somewhere for $10!)
- OCN/Forums for obscure, small items like mounting kits, fans, cables, adaptors
- Manufacturers for kits/replacements/small items
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5930 Posts
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I just said its a gamble and you said its a gamble yet I don't know what I'm talking about. dur...
Buying used is not like buying new, you're an idiot. Sellers don't have obligations to provide pictures, an accurate description, to tell the truth, to accept returns, or anything. Warranty being done through serial numbers does not mean the product is not voided of warranty.
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5930 Posts
He's talking about escalating claims through PayPal. There is some degree of buyer protection depending on what the problem is. The only time it really happens is if the product is wildly different from what you get (like a bait and switch) or the product is DOA and the seller refuses to do anything about it.
Of course that doesn't stop users from being unhappy with their product because it dies a few months after the purchase date like what happens to a few of those cheap Catleap/Crossover/Shimian monitors. It also doesn't cover defects that most people might not consider to be defects like clicking PSU fans or coil whine.
Edit:
He's right some companies will cover warranty if it has a serial code (its really just a DOM). A lot, like Antec, will reject you if you lack a receipt or have a receipt under someone else's name.
In many ways he's right but also very, very wrong. For things like processors, it is always a gamble especially if you know they've overclocked with it. If they've overclocked to achieve some stupid e-penis metric that forums like OCN love (you know stupidly aggressive overclocks with high voltage and LLC on), then I wouldn't be surprised if the processor is damaged in some capacity.
And for things like monitors, buying second hand is always a gamble no matter how many pictures the person takes. Given the person taking the picture generally knows nothing about monitors, you're not going to get much more information out of them.
Of course I have to wonder how much money you actually save from this unless the item you are buying is truly FUBAR. The shipping costs from eBay are always more expensive than from a retailer like Newegg, you can never be sure what condition the item is going to get to your front step, you might not get warranty on the item, and you have to deal with a billion different sellers instead of one central source.
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Hello there,
I am going to build a new pc from the components below and I am not sure how strong PSU I should use.
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770
MB: ASUS P8H77-M - Intel H77
RAM: Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2133 XMP
HDD: Kingston HyperX 3K - 90GB
*************************************************
GFX: Asus EN8800GTX/HDTP/768MB DDR3
HDD2: Samsung T66S - 400GB 16MB SATA-300
DVD: LG GGW-H20L
As you can see, I am using 4 new components and 3 old from my old PC (I have not enough money right now).
Could you please help me with selecting the appropriate PSU? (Please, keep in mind that I will upgrade my gfx card in the future) 
Thanks!
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On December 06 2012 17:14 BroER wrote:Hello there, I am going to build a new pc from the components below and I am not sure how strong PSU I should use. CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 MB: ASUS P8H77-M - Intel H77 RAM: Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2133 XMP HDD: Kingston HyperX 3K - 90GB ************************************************* GFX: Asus EN8800GTX/HDTP/768MB DDR3 HDD2: Samsung T66S - 400GB 16MB SATA-300 DVD: LG GGW-H20L As you can see, I am using 4 new components and 3 old from my old PC (I have not enough money right now). Could you please help me with selecting the appropriate PSU? (Please, keep in mind that I will upgrade my gfx card in the future) Thanks!
Is this for gaming? If so, drop the i7 3770 for an i5-3470 (assuming you aren't overclocking), drop the 16GB RAM for 8GB, and then spend the 140$ you just saved on a GTX 650 Ti or 7770 or something like that. You could even temporarily drop the SSD and then get a 7850/GTX 660.
PSU: Rosewill Capstone 450W for high end vs maybe something like an Antec VP-450 for lower end?
Edit: Reasoning being a 7850 is way better than 8800 GTX, and you'll have a brand new PC. For gaming, you will never notice the performance difference between an i5 and i7, except for maybe when you stream.
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I've been looking at some of these "sealed liquid cooling" systems for my cpu (like for example the Corsair H60. Do I need to pay any special attention to the case I have if I get one of these? Or should it work no matter what case I get?
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5930 Posts
They screw into whatever 120mm fan slot you have. I wouldn't bother with those closed watercooling kits unless you lack the room for a large heatpipe cooler or need to constantly move the desktop. They're often louder and don't exactly perform any better.
If you want to get the watercooling kit for whatever reason, make sure you have enough clearance for a fan and the radiator put together in your case. Also it goes without saying but try and not bend the tubing excessively.
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I gotta say Belial you talk through your arse too often. "Buying ebay used is like buying new" Bollocks. Sheer and utter bollocks.
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EPT
