New Build Coming Up

[Murph]

Well I am thinking its time to update the old system. Here are the parts I spec'd out on NEWEGG:

 

AMD FX-8370E 8 core @ 3.3 ghz 95 watts

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866 16 gb (two stick)

Gigabyte GA-990-FXA motherboard

EVGA 02G-P4-3757-KR G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 FTW w/ ACX Cooling Video Card

Antec 1200 V3 full tower case

Antec 620 watt power supply

Samsung 850 Pro 512 gb SSB

LG Blue ray burner

ASUS Blue ray reader

Western Digital 2 TB green drive

ASUS 23" VX238H widescreen monitor

Logitech mouse 500

Razer keyboard

Windows 7 SP1 professional (till Windows 10 comes out)

 

$1622.00 roughly shipped

 

I had to min/max some of the components due to $$$$ issues, but I think this will do me quite well for now. It is a big update on my quad core 4 gb system now. I am transferring two 1 gb drives from the old system to the new one. My old system will become a homework/linux testing system out on the landing for the kids to use. I am wedded to AMD since they have always done well by me, and the same goes for Antec and Corsair. I was torn between the ASUS or the Gigabyte motherboards, but my current mobo is a Gigabyte and it has done me well. EVGA makes a decent card.

[Rickard N]

Just out of curiosity, do you often burn blue-rays while you read another?

Samsung makes solid (no pun intended, well maybe) drives and I think it will serve you well! I have both a standard 830 and an EVO 840 so I would say you'll like the pro

 

I would maybe go for four 8GB sticks or did you mean 16GB total? If the latter, maybe 4 4GB sticks wich MIGHT increase performance but I don't know if it's needed really.

 

/R

[Murph]

No, it is just that the cost of a regular DVD/CD drive is close to the same, and this allows me to use the reader for other formats as well. Plus I tend to not use the burner to watch movies, etc, I tend to do that on the reader drive. 16 gb total, I had to drop it from 32 gb of ram till later when I can add another 16 gb and bring it up to 32 gb total. I like the pro due to the warranty provisions on it. A buddy went through two ssd drives in about eight months, both died for some unknown reason, so he went back to a traditional HD.

 

 

Just out of curiosity, do you often burn blue-rays while you read another?

Samsung makes solid (no pun intended, well maybe) drives and I think it will serve you well! I have both a standard 830 and an EVO 840 so I would say you'll like the pro

 

I would maybe go for four 8GB sticks or did you mean 16GB total? If the latter, maybe 4 4GB sticks wich MIGHT increase performance but I don't know if it's needed really.

 

/R

[sunday]

WD Green drives had some unreliability complains in the past because the "green" algorithm that used to save energy did shorten a lot their lifetime, because of parking and unparking the heads way too often.

 

If you value the data stored in a HDD, I'd go for a NAS with WD Red drives (especially if you have lots of computers at home), or, at least, with a local WD Black drive in your computer. WD Blues are not too bad either, but cheaper.

 

These statistics could be useful. Also, after some time without looking at them, seems I need to install HGSTs on my system as soon as possible...

[Rickard N]

Why don't you use the burner to watch stuff? Does it make more noice or something? I have never thought along these lines so input is good!

I have used SSDs for the past 5 years now, the first was bad, but I had it replaced and it's still working (I think it's a Corsair something). After that I added two more and those are the samsungs. Works like a charm so you'll most likely have no issues *knocking on head*

The RAM looks like you've thought it through although 32 GB sounds like a lot if you're just doing home stuff

 

/R

[Guest Jason L]

Please, please ditch that AMD FX-8370E and get an i5. Obviously need to swap the mobo too.

 

What on earth do you do that requires 32 Gb of ram?

Edited May 31, 2015 by Jason L

[Max H]

I've been using a crucial drive for the past year without issue - a crucial MX200 (the updated version of mine) seems to have the same warranty per newegg, and saves $80.

 

750ti's aren't the best card for value - an AMD 265 will pull ahead or match it in games, and costs the same as the card you're looking at.

 

Intel CPU's are comfortably ahead of AMD right now - while AMD is still the cheapest way to get 8 cores, so giving the best bang for your buck with heavily multi-threaded tasks, intel CPU's can process more per cycle and so are faster in the majority of tasks. If you are looking for heavy performance in multithreaded tasks you'll be better served by a non-E model with a higher power consumption - it'll make little difference in temperature or your energy bills, but will let the CPU run at a higher speed when all cores are in use and costs less to buy. The plain FX-8370 costs $10 less, for instance.

AMD's socket FM2+ will be about as fast as that system if you're looking to do general computer stuff (word processing, web browsing and gaming), and are a lot cheaper. They have more modern CPU's and chipsets, so the cores are a bit more powerful but they only go up to quad core (which isn't an issue most of the time, very few programs will use 4 cores never mind 8).

Intel CPU's are a lot faster, but more expensive to match. Generally an intel dual core system costs about as much as an AMD quad core system, while an intel i5 quad core will cost as much as the 8-core system you're looking at (and will run rings around it most of the time)

[Ivanhoe]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8370E+Eight-Core

 

Average CPU Mark 7857

Single Thread Rating: 1429

 

If you're looking for a killer space heater (and 95W will heat up a room, trust me), I'd be looking for fewer cores and a higher single-thread rating than 1429. My 3 year old AMD FX-4300 benches out at 1418 per thread.

[Murph]

I use the reader so that I do not put too many clock hours on the burner. It is just a quirk for me from the old days, not anything really important. The Samsung PRO line has a better warranty, and it will be the boot drive, with all the data going to the WD. I do photoshop, and have some really, really big scans of old 4x5 negatives, and have crashed my old 4 gb system several times working on them. The file sizes tend to be 1 gb+ TIF files.

 

Why don't you use the burner to watch stuff? Does it make more noice or something? I have never thought along these lines so input is good!

I have used SSDs for the past 5 years now, the first was bad, but I had it replaced and it's still working (I think it's a Corsair something). After that I added two more and those are the samsungs. Works like a charm so you'll most likely have no issues *knocking on head*

The RAM looks like you've thought it through although 32 GB sounds like a lot if you're just doing home stuff

 

/R

[Murph]

I am an AMD fan from old times, and they have done me well so far. If I was going to use Intel, I would save up for a few more months and get an i7. Photoshop on the ram. I know the Intel i5 chips are good, but I am building for the next four to five years, and I just cannot afford an i7 which is what I would add if I could get the $$$. I haven't really looked at the FM2 series of motherboards and chips, but I will. I am still two weeks away from pulling the trigger on the new build.

 

Please, please ditch that AMD FX-8370E and get an i5. Obviously need to swap the mobo too.

 

What on earth do you do that requires 32 Gb of ram?

[Murph]

I chose the 95 W version over the 125W and 220W ones, since I really don't need that much heat, also I am running a 95W 4 core right now. Since I am going bigger, I would like to have an 8 core 32nm processor so I can get ready for the 25nm processors coming out (the mobo will take them).

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8370E+Eight-Core

 

Average CPU Mark 7857

Single Thread Rating: 1429

 

If you're looking for a killer space heater (and 95W will heat up a room, trust me), I'd be looking for fewer cores and a higher single-thread rating than 1429. My 3 year old AMD FX-4300 benches out at 1418 per thread.

[nabqrules]

One thing you'll also get with the Reds and Blacks for Western Digital are better warranties (3yr for Red and 5 yr for Black.) If you do any video encoding using handbrake, the FX 8 cores really work well.

 

I have no big complaints with my 8320, but it does put out a bit more heat than my Phenom ii did(I'm overclocked so heat output is rather high) Gaming is alright on AMD, but Intel is in the lead and unless AMD comes up with something major that competes with Intel desktop processors (not FM2) my next build will be Intel.

[Murph]

Now here is the question do I wait for windows 10 or do I build with windows 7 pro?

[Ivanhoe]

Win 7. Wait until Windows 2₁₀ starts getting some rave reviews from desktop users, before leaping that chasm. The norm now is that MS will offer a low-$ upgrade path to existing users.

[Murph]

I agree, I will get the Windows 7 Professional and install it. Later I will add Winders 10. I upgraded the HD from a Green to a Black WD. I am still torn on water cool vs air cooling. But I might make the move in a week or so.

[nabqrules]

With Win7 Pro the upgrade path for Win10 is for the Pro Version, and I understand the upgrade offer to WIn10 is good for a year so you should have plenty of time.

 

I'm using h100i's on my 8320 Desktop and an 8320e Media Server. Both are quiet after fiddling with fan profiles. If you're not going to overclock , some of the mid priced ($30-40) air coolers will work well. I think the 8370e gets the crappy AMD heatsink (all aluminum). I only say that because the 8320e in my media server came with that one instead of the copper heatpipe one.