Project Reality Forums

Hello,

I'm about 90% determined to buy a new computer now. I'd like something that'd be able to power War Thunder at 1440p and max settings. With the Ground Forces coming out in few months I'm guessing the requirements are going to go up quite a bit.

Anyway, here's what I gathered so far:
Intel Core i3-4330, Sapphire Radeon R9 280X, Thermaltake VM30001W2Z - System Build - PCPartPicker

Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
MSI Z87-G43 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card
Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
+DVD RW unit +case

I'm mostly confused about the motherboard - I have little or no idea what to look for. I'd like one that has enough space for a possible 280x crossfire build + a slot for a sound card and possibly some more space for whatever I might put in.

I have couple of questions:
How well would an above mentioned set-up work with modern games at 1440p?
Which parts are bottlenecks?

Feedback welcome,
thank you!

Well, you have an aftermarket CPU cooler strapped onto a locked i3 processor, which is a waste of $30. And go for dual-channel memory (2x4Gb) rather than single channel (1x8Gb). You also have an outrageously overpriced GPU - you could get a GTX770 or a cheaper R9 280X for ~$300.

What's your budget?

ShockUnitBlack wrote:Well, you have an aftermarket CPU cooler strapped onto a locked i3 processor, which is a waste of $30. And go for dual-channel memory (2x4Gb) rather than single channel (1x8Gb). You also have an outrageously overpriced GPU - you could get a GTX770 or a cheaper R9 280X for ~$300.

What's your budget?

Thanks for the feedback,

I screwed up with the GPU, did not mean to put that...
Here's the new built with your suggestions. Still not sure about the R9 280x vs GTX 770, I can get hem at pretty much the same price. If I eventually decide to go SLI/ Crossfire which performs better? And which could last longer?

Modified build:
Intel Core i3-4330, Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X - System Build - PCPartPicker

Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor
Asus B85M-E/CSM Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (somebody on Reddit recommended for some reason)
Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (Why would 2x 4gb be better?)
Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card
EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (no idea about this)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
+Oprical drive and case

I'm willing to drop about 800 on this build.

Thanks!

It works out to about a 5% performance improvement using dual-channel,

I'd suggest buying a decent Z87 mobo now, so in a few years you can buy a used i5-4670k and aftermarket cooler and overclock, to extend the life of the build.

If you play War thunder with DX9 at 1440p, you could drop down another tier, to the GTX760 or R9 280.

2x4GB memory it is, can you point out a decent mobo from this list just to point me in the right direction. Also, why not DX11?

Thank you!

MoBo: LGA1150 Z87 ,
use this website to check the overclocking potential of your motherboards:
Sin's Hardware - VRM List (THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS BUILD AT THIS POINT)

Since the LGA1150 motherboards were a minor upgrade from the LGA1155 designs, the designs were well tested and there are very few bad Z87 motherboards. THat MSI 43 is a good option, the Asus Z87-A, Gigabyte UD3H, ASRock Z87M Extreme4. You have to actually read through and compare the features and decide what you want.

Avoid ECS and Biostar.

I forgot to mention that your PSU doesn't give enough juice to handle Crossfire/SLI.

Here's what I would start with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($132.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($145.97 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.25 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($334.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $773.16
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-25 18:43 EST-0500)

Premium gaming motherboard vs cheap budget motherboard yields same fps and overclock : buildapc

Premium gaming motherboard vs cheap budget motherboard yields same fps and overclock

Good discussion on your pending decision to buy a mobo.

Is there a certain reason you pick the i3 over another CPU?

You might get a twice better AMD CPU for them money I think

Ok, we're making progress here. Please note that all these US prices don't apply for me, I might change the configuration later according to the prices in EU.

I've decided that GTX 770 might just be a better option over R9 280x, I replaced 1x8GB with 2x4GB and I chose Asus Z87-A as a motherboard (still confused about the number of USB ports but whatever).

Now what's the deal with SSD? It's expensive and I've lived so far without one, should I consider buying it?

@ShockUnitBlack I know 500W won't be enough for a SLI build, but I don't want to buy more powerful PSU now just because I might get SLI in a year or two. In that time I'll probably save enough money on electricity

@Careless Somebody said: "Get an i3," so I checked the benchmarks and it does pretty well + is cheap. What other CPU woould you recommend?

Modified built:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($132.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($134.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.25 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($334.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $752.18
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-26 06:01 EST-0500)

Thanks for the help, more feedback welcome!

I would suggest the AMD FX-6300 , or the newer revision renamed the AMD FX-6350.
Buy that Hyper Evo 212 CPU Cooler you first listed.

Use this to find a good AMD mobo:
AMD Motherboards - VRM info database

Use this guide to overclock:
AMD Bulldozer and Piledriver Overclocking Guide - Asus Motherboard

coomparison:
Intel Core i3 4330 vs AMD FX 6300

So, you'd recommend the 6 core one. As far as I understand I'd only need that cooler if I decide to OC it, right? Because I don't want to do that out of the box. I can also see it's single core performance is significantly worse than the i3 one. How would it run PR, considering all the weird performance issues? And how do newer games respond to multi cores?

Also, that mobo thread is 130 pages long, I really hope there's 1 must read post because I'm not reading all that ??:

An FX 6300 overclocked to 4.8Ghz will beat out a stock 3570k when it comes to almost any programs that's fairly threaded(uses more than 1 or 2 cores). Except for gaming. Gaming requires each core to be very strong. And at stock, 1 core of a 3570k, is more powerful that an FX 6300 core overclocked to 4.8Ghz. There may not be much of a difference at this point but the 3570k will still be a little stronger in my opinion.

BUT... to get the FX6300 over 4.4Ghz will require an expensive all in one liquid cooler. With the coolermaster hyper evo 212, you can get the FX6300 up to around 4.4Ghz, maybe 4.6Ghz, which will outperform the i3-4330 in all tasks.

SO... depends on what games you play.
IN most cases, the i3-4330 is the better long term choice.

read this:
[Discussion] FX-6300 vs i3-4330 (Haswell) with HT : buildapc

After reading that I'm 100% for i3. I don't want to OC and 1150 socket has much more to choose from in the future. I play PR, WarThunder and Insurgency (Source engine).

Any other thoughts? Any reason I should be thinking about a SSD?

So far:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($132.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($134.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.25 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($334.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $752.18
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-26 12:15 EST-0500)

Thank you!

I'm bumping this as the time for purchase is coming up. I've gotten some WarThunder benchmarks and as it seems i3 wouldn't realyl be able to push it to the max as well as I thought. I decided to replace it with i5-4670k. I realize it's priced higher, but it doesn't much matter. With the new CPU and Mantle API in mind I have 2 questions:
-Can I/ Should I still keep the Asus Z87-A as the motherboard?
-Should I be considering the AMD R9-280X instead of the GTX 770?

Thanks.

With regard to your SSD question... have you ever used a computer that had an SSD for the OS? I personally can't go back ever since I used my first gen SSD all the way back in... 2009 [Corsair P64]. As gifts to all my family members during their birthdays I bought each an SSD for their laptops and they asked me how I made their computers so much faster (I had to explain the difference between faster & responsive at that point)

So basically if you have cash to spare, even a small <100GB SSD just for your OS and most accessed programs [Office suite, Adobe suite, a game or two] paired with a large storage drive for everything else, will make a huge difference in my opinion.

The 280x gives a little frame-rate boost in most cases, but honestly, I would personally save the $$$ and put it towards your incremental upgrade in ~1.5 to 2 years It uses almost exactly the same amount of power there, so that's not a factor.

I've been out of the motherboard game for too long to offer any sage advice on that topic, sorry

'[R-CON wrote:Psyrus;1984065']With regard to your SSD question... have you ever used a computer that had an SSD for the OS? I personally can't go back ever since I used my first gen SSD all the way back in... 2009 [Corsair P64]. As gifts to all my family members during their birthdays I bought each an SSD for their laptops and they asked me how I made their computers so much faster (I had to explain the difference between faster & responsive at that point)

So basically if you have cash to spare, even a small <100GB SSD just for your OS and most accessed programs [Office suite, Adobe suite, a game or two] paired with a large storage drive for everything else, will make a huge difference in my opinion.

The 280x gives a little frame-rate boost in most cases, but honestly, I would personally save the $$$ and put it towards your incremental upgrade in ~1.5 to 2 years It uses almost exactly the same amount of power there, so that's not a factor.

I've been out of the motherboard game for too long to offer any sage advice on that topic, sorry

Thanks, I've never used an SSD before. I kind of don't want to spend money on it right now, will probably get it later and just make a fresh install.

Waiting for more feedback on the whole build before I start bugging all the local dealers to get me a good deal

Here's how it looks:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($76.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($81.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($334.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $878.44
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-15 06:49 EST-0500)

'[R-COM wrote:LITOralis.nMd;1979522']An FX 6300 overclocked to 4.8Ghz will beat out a stock 3570k when it comes to almost any programs that's fairly threaded(uses more than 1 or 2 cores). Except for gaming. Gaming requires each core to be very strong. And at stock, 1 core of a 3570k, is more powerful that an FX 6300 core overclocked to 4.8Ghz. There may not be much of a difference at this point but the 3570k will still be a little stronger in my opinion.

BUT... to get the FX6300 over 4.4Ghz will require an expensive all in one liquid cooler. With the coolermaster hyper evo 212, you can get the FX6300 up to around 4.4Ghz, maybe 4.6Ghz, which will outperform the i3-4330 in all tasks.

SO... depends on what games you play.
IN most cases, the i3-4330 is the better long term choice.

read this:
[Discussion] FX-6300 vs i3-4330 (Haswell) with HT : buildapc

That is the 8300 series that needs a better cooler. Even a Hyper 212 can get a 6300 up to 4.8GHz. One of my friends attempted to OC a 6-core limited 8350 to 5GHz with a DeepCool ICe Wind Pro and it worked gr8.

i just recently got a new PC and i have the i5-4670k and the Z87-A and im very happy with both, definitely recommended, easy to use bios, and although i havent Oc'd yet, it looks like the bios makes it pretty accessible.

EDIT: I would HIGHLY recommend getting an ssd if you can spare the bucks, even 64GB would be great. my pc boots up in about 7 seconds from fully off to full functionality on the desktop. and PR maps load in less than 20 seconds