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Need Help choosing my next System

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited March 2011 in Ten Forward
Hey Guys,

I've finally decided that it was time to buy a new PC. I've had my current system:

Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 Gig ddr2 ram for about 5 years now and it's just time.

I tried setting a budget of about $400.00 (Went up to $500.00) to go out and piece together a new system, I'm just talking case, cpu, motherboard and ram.

I don't really care about powerfull video cards and I just use onboard video and sound cards.

I've narrowed my choices down to the following 2 barebones systems that I found.

System 1
Cpu: Phenom II X6 1100T (6 x 3.3GHz - 9MB Cache)
Mother Board: Asus M4A78LT-M (With built in ATi Radeon HD3000 Video )
Ram: Patriot Memory Sector 5 G Serries (16gb)
Nicer Black mid tower
Standard 450 watt Power supply
Total price $512.72 w/ Shipping

Pros: This system is fully loaded for what I'd be doing with it and it has better than average video
Cons: I know nothing about AMD and only have word of mouth to go on (Going to take a chance on it)

System 2
Cpu: Intel Core i7 950 (4 x 3.33GHz CPU - 8MB Cache)
Mother Board: MSI X58M
Ram: Patriot Memory Sector 5 G Serries (8gb)
Standard Black mid tower
Standard 450 watt Power supply
Total price 564.80 w/ Shipping

Pros: It's Intel a company that I've been building my systems around for years
Cons: Puts me out of my set budget (still do able)

I tried to see if I could come up with better prices on these systems by getting the parts on my own and I found that the barebones were cheaper by about $75.00 on the AMD and $125.00 on the Intel :eek:

I average aobut 5 years between computer upgrades and I want to make sure that my next system will still be useful to me 5 years from now.

I have to admit that I'm afriad to branch away from Intel; however, I hear that this AMD company is just has good as Intel but at half the price.

What do you think?

(Updated 1st System choice and budget)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I've been reading a bit about building computers lately, so I can grant you my opinion based on the opinion of the author, anyway....

    If you want to play sto, just a cheap $20 graphics card can really boost your graphics, you don't have to invest in an expensive $300 one like the ads tell you to. You might want to reconsider that. If you get one, I'd recommend getting one that can do 1080p output -- that could be useful down the road.

    AMD is better for budget computers, they outperform Intel at the lower levels. If you want reliable on a budget, AMD & Asus are the way to go. I'd push you towards that first one you listed. Just at a glance, the names of the components look good. I'd look up reviews for each piece before buying.

    Meanwhile, there's something fishy about that Intel system you listed, like they swept the dirt under the carpet. An i7 processor is a very powerful processor, much moreso than you'd ever need (unless you're chugging data for a math study or somesuch). Just about all of the money you'd pay into that system would be going straight to that processor, meaning the other stuff onboard is garbage and very prone to failure.

    In particular, my experience with MSI has been poor -- I had a graphics card self destruct after a couple months. I called their tech support and they said that the heat sinks were falling off of them because they were getting too hot. Sure enough, I looked and found a heatsink stuck to the bottom of my case.... never could get that thing off, glue sticks well when it's cold. :rolleyes: I don't know how their motherboards go, but *I* wouldn't use one if someone gave it to me free.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    My uninformed view says that the first choice looks like its more bang for your buck and that possibly you aren't paying for brand names.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    OK, the first one is bad as the processor is under 3 ghz. more cores is not better due to the fact that most things can't even see two cores never mind 6.

    the second one is fine but you wouldn't feel the perfromance hit if that was a dual core i5 at the same clock speed.

    Clock speed is still king for most games that aren't crysis 2. first job is 3 ghz minimum. second is more cores.

    Intel are ment to be better but unless you are right at the bleeding edge of wring every last grain of perfromance from them I doubt you would be able to tell.

    Hort is talking rubbish about graphics cards. This is standard for him.

    GFX card wise nothing less than a 560 Geforce or a 6750 ATI, a gig of texture memory is more than enough unless you some how have a quad HD monitor or something.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Followup:
    Okay, the MSI board looked okay afterall. Maybe that was just a bad run I had with the card.

    The CPUs you mentioned are both on this chart. It looks like the $180 AMD has 90% of the overall performance of the $280 Intel.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Get an Alienware...it will never disappoint you....and the keyboards light up like the fourth of July!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Get an Alienware...it will never disappoint you....and the keyboards light up like the fourth of July!

    Except when your budget is broken at over $500. then an Alien ware is not your friend.

    They are very very expensive.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Hoplite wrote: »
    Except when your budget is broken at over $500. then an Alien ware is not your friend.

    They are very very expensive.

    My M15X was $1600. I hear you can get the M11 for a lot less.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    MSI makes decent boards! Personally, I'd go with the AMD since it is better bang for your buck. The i7 may be dual threaded per core but 6 cores are better in certain tasks than 8 threads. I build systems as a part of my job and I recommend a lot of AMD systems and even have a couple of my own.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I've updated my 1st choice of systems and raised my budget up to $500.00.

    I'm pretty sure that I'll be ordering the AMD system next week, it fits my budget and if I don't like it I can always get something else next year.

    Don't get me wrong, I love Intel, I've never had any problems with the systems that I build using Intel parts.

    I just want to give AMD a try so I'll know 1st hand if I'll like their products or not in the future.

    The new AMD cpu that I chose is the top of their line.

    Thanks again!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I never entered this thread before...so here does.

    I've always used AMD or ASUS for my computers, and I've never had any troubles caused by them. Over-voltage (aka power surge) maybe, but never with the motherboards or CPU itself. In fact, I only recently (i.e. within the past few months) upgraded my graphics card, and I'm looking into upping my RAM from 4GB to 6+ GB to improve the speed of the machine.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    MGDawson wrote: »
    I never entered this thread before...so here does.

    I've always used AMD or ASUS for my computers, and I've never had any troubles caused by them. Over-voltage (aka power surge) maybe, but never with the motherboards or CPU itself. In fact, I only recently (i.e. within the past few months) upgraded my graphics card, and I'm looking into upping my RAM from 4GB to 6+ GB to improve the speed of the machine.

    Then don't buy RAM, get an SSD.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    MGDawson wrote: »
    I never entered this thread before...so here does.

    I've always used AMD or ASUS for my computers, and I've never had any troubles caused by them. Over-voltage (aka power surge) maybe, but never with the motherboards or CPU itself. In fact, I only recently (i.e. within the past few months) upgraded my graphics card, and I'm looking into upping my RAM from 4GB to 6+ GB to improve the speed of the machine.

    unless you're doing lots of video, photo editing etc you might find that 6gb of RAM does not have a noticeable difference. if its just day to day stuff and games then personally im not sure i would even bother with anything above 4GB.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    unless you're doing lots of video, photo editing etc you might find that 6gb of RAM does not have a noticeable difference. if its just day to day stuff and games then personally im not sure i would even bother with anything above 4GB.

    Going above 4GB can help but you really won't notice the difference that much. If you always have a few different things open all of the time and have completely disabled the Windows Page File, then you will likely notice the difference a bit. How you achieve 6GB though is really one major question. Most motherboards are either dual-channel or tri-channel so you should populate your memory banks according with DIMM's of equal size and speed. If you don't leave a lot of stuff open while doing other things, don't encode video and or audio, go with an SSD. Not only does an SSD provide instant gratification in how snapier your PC will be, goot times go down, things respond much quicker, etc. If you're running Windows XP or lower, then the speed an SSD can add to your system is significantly reduces due to the OS not supporting Trim.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    MGDawson wrote: »
    I'm looking into upping my RAM from 4GB to 6+ GB to improve the speed of the machine.

    Ummm do you have a 64-bit OS? I've only read the advertisements, but it sounds like a 32-bit doesn't use above 4GB effectively.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    hort_wort wrote: »
    Ummm do you have a 64-bit OS? I've only read the advertisements, but it sounds like a 32-bit doesn't use above 4GB effectively.
    I have run 64 bit Windows 7 virtually since it came out, young Gaijin. :D
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