Need help on choosing components

[Bogdan6]

I'm looking forward to build my first PC and I want to build one that will last. Problem is budged it limited (<$400, $600 is extreme push).
Anyway, got around and asked people for opinions, in the end here is the point where I'm stuck.
http://i.imgur.com/GGbkrAt.png
Long story short: from browsing shops and shit, decided to go for AMD cause "good 'n' cheap", bunch o' people say it's good. Ask further, other people say AMD is crap and suggest me doing the Intel thing (buy everything godly and shit CPU like i3 or Pentium and replace it with i7 when got more cash).

The thing is, I'm simply stuck. Both parts are bringing solid arguments (AMDers saying I shouldn't spend money on 2 CPUs and the build is godly enough, Intelers saying Pentium is powerful enough to handle most games and an Intel build would last longer than an AMD one).

Which one would you choose? I agree that a 2 cored Pentium wouldn't compare with an FX-8300 which has godly peformance, but simply upgrading the CPU doesn't sound that bad actually (well, except an i7 costs more than all other components togheter).

[R00Kie]

If you're on a budget i would go with AMD. Intel is generally higher quality but personally i don't think its worth the huge price increase. get a good GPU and you're good to go. I built budget ($450) desktop 7+ years ago and it still plays recently released games at a least mid/high settings.

[Innoc]

Give some thought to how you buy to make uogrades down the line a little easier. Look at your Ram constraints and know how your board will use it and if you can buy so that you can upgrade later and continue to use what you first buy...great. Don't skimp on psu...stick with a reputable unit that reviews well and allows some head room if you need it....more powerful gpu perhaps? And pay attention to cooling flow for the chassis. Again, read the reviews. Poor cooling can spell an untimely death for your system.

Best of luck to you.

[Headz]

Trouble is if you buy fx8350 a cheap board will throttle the cpu down due to poor and not many vrm's so to get the best out of the 8350 you would need something like a sabertooth ( I had one ) very good boards but cost a fair amount.

If you decided to overclock then a much more expensive psu is required for it.
In UK the price of an i5 4690k is about the same as 8350/70 but you can get away with a much cheaper board as the power useage for them is very low in comparison, so you save money on board and psu.

Most games still like higher single threaded performance, and when dx12 comes it is even less cpu overhead, so have this in mind for the future.

Work out the cost and spend the rest on a decent gpu, I would wait for release news of upcoming a amd 300 series, but looks like most of them are going to be a rebrand except the 390/x as of now.

As for going i5 using the stock cooler will be ok for stock speeds but and evo 212 cooler would allow for some great oc's as well as being cheap.

I went from sabertooth, phenom x6 oc 1100t to a 4690k and gigabyte soc force mobo, very impressed at the difference if fps, the minium fps have shot up in games and sometimes average double what my phenom did on cpu demanding games, gcard is a 7950 3gb.

All the best on your choice.

[Bogdan6]

Yeah, unfortunatelly after checking the site that is going to provide me the components, I saw the M5A99FX motherboard isn't avaible to purchase anymore.
However after searching around I found this one you mentioned, Asus SABERTOOTH or a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3.

Regarding the GPU, I think the Sapphire Radeon R9 270 is godly enough.

From what I heard from my cousin and a few suggestion from Reddit, a solution would be purchasing that MoBo and upgrading the CPU at a later time in future. TBH, the only thing I would let down from here would be the CPU, I'm not buying RAM bellow 8GB, Power Source is ok enough for me, but would buy a better one (maybe 600W or more in case I'll need to upgrade in the future), GPU, well initially started with a lower one, but my cousin purchased the Radeon and said he's pretty happy with it and running games smoothly even an ultra quality.

You and a few other people told me that Intel CPU's are quality superior compared to AMD, but an 8 cored FX is no match to a 2 cored Pentium so probably I'll stick with the AMD built for now. If by magic I get a bigger budget by summer (when I hope I can at least afford half of the parts) then probably I'll go for an i5, but prices hit the roof recently (cheapest is an i5 4460 which is almost $250).

Ugh yeah, a note, I don't really plan on overclocking anything around there so I want something to run at least decent and lasting for some years without playing with things around.

[KubeDawg]

Tbh, I'd go with AMD any day of the week. Sure an Intel chip is going to be faster, but you tend to have more cores with an AMD chip and it's cheaper. For the motherboard, definitely stick with a name brand, something with overall good reviews. I've had 2 gigabyte boards now and neither have given me a single problem, so I'd recommend it over an ASUS.

I just upgraded my PC not too long ago this year. Here's what I ended up with using a similar budget:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128627
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231460
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150719
Also ,when you think about a power supply, make sure it's not an off brand and look for an 80+ rating. This will make for a more efficient PSU and result in a smaller energy bill.
For hard drives, I'd suggest a relatively small SSD for the OS/programs and a standard SATA drive for additional storage.

[Headz]

Something to also make a metal note, even though I loved the sabertooth, it was only pci-e 2.

New haswell boards are pci-3 and this will help in the future for gcards a lot, otherwise you will start to bottle neck the gpu.

My best advice from having both, is to buy whatever i5 you can afford on a cheap non overclocking gigabyte mobo, and pair it with whatever your budget will allow, also haswell supports avx2, amd only avx, this may also impact greatly in the future.

look up benchmarks for them both, I will link some when have more time.

[Headz]

update, higher single threaded perf still the best option over moar cores
Not shitting on amd, the i5 4690k is the first intel cpu I ever bought for desktop, and this is why, typical of most games, trend does not look to change anytime soon.

[Bogdan6]

So after talking a bit with my pops he agreed to raise a little bit the budget so I can go straight for the i5. While still a part of me is poking me for the AMD, I think the i5 is the right solution, less cores, but more performance per single core.

Well anyway, thanks to everyone who helped me out there, love you a bunch