Need Help Considering a new desktop-recommendations to run Hearts of Oak

[Hylie Pistof]

I just got back home and it was not all that good, mainly because I messed up and let some malware into a brand new system. I ended up having to do a complete format and reinstall.

Last year I put together an FM2+ system using the 6800K Richland apu.
This year I put together another one using the 7850K Kaveri apu.
If I build another one next year it might have the rumored Carrizo apu in it.

These are good mid range rigs with a nice upgrade path. Recommended video cards for them are the R9 270X and the R9 290 because they are Mantle compatible. Plus their performance should perk up when HSA becomes available.

Sorry Thagarr, but I will never buy another Intel cpu as they are just gouging us with their prices IMHO.

Here is a screenie of HOOCOT loads on my system. As you can see the cpu is loafing and the poor little 280X is pretty much running flat out. So it appears the video card is more important than the cpu.

 

[Thagarr]

I just got back home and it was not all that good, mainly because I messed up and let some malware into a brand new system. I ended up having to do a complete format and reinstall.

Last year I put together an FM2+ system using the 6800K Richland apu.
This year I put together another one using the 7850K Kaveri apu.
If I build another one next year it might have the rumored Carrizo apu in it.

These are good mid range rigs with a nice upgrade path. Recommended video cards for them are the R9 270X and the R9 290 because they are Mantle compatible. Plus their performance should perk up when HSA becomes available.

I built my sister a new business rig last year with a 6600. they are decent processors, and there is no doubt that they beat Intel as far as price for performance goes. I built her rig for under $500 and it blows mine away.

Sorry Thagarr, but I will never buy another Intel cpu as they are just gouging us with their prices IMHO.

No need to apologize mate, I agree completely that Intel is gouging the hell out of it's customers, they have been doing it for decades. The benchmarks speak for themselves though, for pure number crunching Intel blows anything AMD currently has to offer out of the water. I despise Intel's marketing tactics, they could have released an 8 core consumer chip 2 years ago and chose not to, stating stability reasons. There is no doubt in my mind they simply wanted to milk the market for every penny they could. Typical corporate thinking.

I am even more disgusted with the way AMD has been handling there product development over the past few years though, the last chip they released that even remotely competed with Intel's top of the line offering was the Phenom II back in 2009. They are not putting up a very good fight against Nvidia either, three more AMD execs just left the company in yet more "restructuring", including the head of their GPU division.

Here is a screenie of HOOCOT loads on my system. As you can see the cpu is loafing and the poor little 280X is pretty much running flat out. So it appears the video card is more important than the cpu.

It really depends on a lot of different factors. Obviously the graphics are handled by the GPU, and some games even use the GPU to generate terrain and do other things now as well, because GPU chips have become much more powerful. As well as the usual computer IO and basic operating system function, the CPU still handles most of the other calculations, such as AI and many other things that currently aren’t in Hearts of Oak. As I stated in the other thread, I really want AMD to compete, they have simply chosen not to.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It is not that AMD has chosen to not compete, but that they have been hobbled in their attempts to do so. For instance their chip maker, Global Foundries in Germany, has been unable to shrink their dies below 32nm while intel has 24nm or so. Smaller die size means greater efficiency as you know. There is a rumor that AMD has recently acquired the tech for smaller dies from Samsung and delivered it to GloFo.

I do hope this is true although the up side of larger dies is better heat dissipation. Intel cpus have a reputation for being fragile while AMD chips are unbreakable. I know because I have tried to break my 8350 by running it at 5 ghz and 1.64 vcore. Its VID is 1.288 vcore. The motherboard rebooted at that level. I also ran my 9590 at 5 ghz for 6 months with no problems and at that level it was trading blows with OCed intel 4970Ks. A change in motherboards caused me to put it on the shelf for now as the new one kept rebooting with it.

Then it also appears that GloFo has gotten better at making the chips they are manufacturing today. My 2 year old 8350 runs in the 4.76-4.82 ghz range depending on motherboard on air, but the latest E chips are reaching higher clocks at lower voltages. I am very tempted to get an 8370E and see where it will take me with air cooling. 5 ghz?

I don't know much about their video cards except that everyone is saying to wait until the next generation is released next spring/summer. And yes there are continuing changes in their management.

 

[Captain Armstrong]

Whoa! This thread has gotten some great replies! sorry I haven't had much chance to reply myself, was skiing for a few days. So it seems like I could go for building this system on my own based on this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883156313 but with a better power supply and motherboard. Or something with the AMD-A10-7850k APU that hylie mentioned with the graphics cards he listed above. I probably can't afford the monster 8-core intel processor, though I'm sure it'd have quite a bit of longevity. That being said, It might not be a bad idea to get something on the higher end of HoO performance now, so that when all the bells and whistles are added it will still run it well.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That cpu is not able to overclock so you will sit at that performance. No one buys AMD with the intention of leaving it at stock clocks, so you might as well go with that since you don't seem to be interested in OCing. For example, the 7850K I just built is running at a steady 4.1 ghz with no turbo and can go a little higher with a little effort.

What jumps out at me about that Dell is the slow memory. Intel likes fast ram and so does the 7850K. I put 2400 mhz ram in it and would suggest the same for you.

For a PSU I would recommend a big Seasonic. How big depends on how far you will go with the next video card. I only have an 850 watt Seasonic and the R9 295X needs a 1,000 watt PSU, so I can only upgrade to a 290X.

I suffer from sticker shock whenever I get close to anything intel so can not make any recommendation on motherboards.

 

[Thagarr]

@Hylie Pistof, AMD knew about the 32 nm issue long before the release of the Phenom II, they also knew that Intel's new chips would be 22 nm. Intel chose to sink a lot of capitol in to R&D and shrinking their dies, AMD did not. Instead, AMD decided to focus on their graphics capability’s and squeezing that on to the same die as their CPU. While this certainly helped for laptop gaming, their main goal was to sell more chips to console manufacturers. Intel matched the GPU feat rather quickly, and managed to improve their graphics chips considerably in the process.

While the bigger die size does indeed help with the robustness and stability of the chip, overclocking CPU voltages does not give the same performance improvements that it once did. Once chip speeds got above 1000 mghz, the limiting factor became motherboard architecture. Even with SSD's, the basic I/O is still very restrictive to CPU speed. This is one of the reasons for the UEFI BIOS, another being so Microsoft could more easily control what operating system is installed on pre-built machines.

The memory speed only really becomes an issue if your are trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your rig. That 800 mghz deference is negligible in most tasks other than extreme gaming. It can also make a bit of a difference in 3D model rendering, but it's doubtful you would notice the difference. The heavy lifting is still going to be done by the CPU.

@Captain Armstrong, it's a good thing you were skiing! You got back just in time for a Newegg deal! They are offering the same Dell PC that I linked to earlier for almost $200 cheaper, it is now on sale for $879! This deal also comes with Windows 8.1, should you decide you would like to try that at some point. That's correct, it comes with Windows 7 64 nit as well, two operating systems for the price of one! Although I will debate the fact that 8.1 is actually an operating system!

The one caveat though, to take advantage of Newegg deals, you have to be signed up for their email spam list to get the discount. The good thing is, you can sign up before you order, and then unsubscribe after they ship your dtuff. If you have never dealt with Newegg before, they will send you deals almost every day, sometimes twice a day, it is really quite annoying. Once you unsubscribe though, they will stop. Anyway, you can see the full list of deals HERE! There is also a couple of monitors listed, if your looking to get a new one of those as well.

The only real downside that I see about the way the Dell is configured is the fact that there is no SSD, but the drive that is in there is 7200 RPM. You can upgrade to an SSD later, if you choose. If you would rather go the AMD route, or build your own, I am certainly willing to help you part out a system, but that Dell is tough to beat at that price! You can upgrade the power supply in the Dell later too, should you need to.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Intel has an 80% market share which is bordering on a monopoly. AMD did what they had to do to stay in business. Without the console sales they would be shut out of most markets.

1ghz is so last century. It is true that the motherboards are the biggest hangup with AMD setups as it is hard to find decent ones. Where the intel boards have built in active cooling systems the AMD users are ghetto rigging fans onto their boards to keep them cool while overclocking. On the other hand intel boards typically run in the $300-$500 range while the most expensive AMD board is $240. The UEFI bios is pretty neat as you can use the mouse to navigate, which makes overclocking much easier and faster.

Hyperthreading: Correct me if I'm wrong but I heard that intel patented hyperthreading, locking AMD out. AMD countered with 8 cores and now intel is coming back with 8 cores plus hyperthreading as they are rebranding their Xeon server chips.

EDIT: About ram, what I have heard from those who own both brands is that intel likes fast ram and FX likes tight ram timings. The AMD APUs likes fast ram too. The faster the better and lots of it.
I have tested ram timings on my FX rig and it works as they say. The overall improvement in performance peaks at 1866 and tapers off beyond that with faster clocks being less noticeable. I tried faster looser ram in one motherboard and slower tighter ram in the other. The slower faster ram is noticeably snappier in everyday use and is what I am using. What speeds? 2016 mhz VS 1952 mhz.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I came across this thread and it has some interesting info. This guy is testing both intel and amd systems on the same games and posting the results. Only the first 2 posts need to be read. What this seems to indicate is that the best video card wins and the cpu is not that important.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1534128/vishera-vs-devils-canyon-a-casual-comparison-by-an-average-user

 

[Thagarr]

I would hardly classify a company that spent $5.2 billion to acquire ATI a small company. It is certainly smaller than Intel though, but that is no excuse for not continuing funding for R&D to keep your chips competitive.

Intel did invent Hyperthreading, can't really blame them for patenting their own tech. AMD does have their own version though, using multiple modules per core. AMD put out the first true Quad-core processor as well, I have it in my system now. That chip actually stood up with Intel's top offering at the time, a dual core 4 thread. I believe they called it a Core 2 Quad, but it has been a while.

The way that information is presented in the thread you reference is a bit confusing, and not clearly laid out. It does seem to point to the fact that the average user really isn't going to notice a difference, and I agree. Yes, AMD has been playing up the gaming angle for the past few years because that is ALL it has to work with, and that is only because it did purchase ATI. Most games are written to take advantage of both ATI and Nvidia hardware designed to speed up gaming. They have also lost that edge to Nvidia. They can not compete head to head with Intel in number crunching ability, such as rendering video, 3D Cad, or a multitude of other demanding tasks.

As I stated in the other thread, I have built AMD rigs for a long time. I am a big AMD fan, but they did make a conscious choice not to compete head to head with Intel. Something that they had been doing for many years, and succeeding! Which is the real shame here, because without AMD's competition, there would not have been a lot of the advancements that have happened at the same rate over the past 20 years. I am done supporting a company that has decided mediocre performance is good enough. I really see no point in continuing this discussion as it keeps covering the same ground over and over.

What I recommended to Captain Murphy was a pre-built system based on the requirements that he listed. If someone has never built a system before, it can be intimidating to anyone, that recommendation removed that hassle. While it is not a top of the line, bleeding edge machine, it will certainly handle any game he throws at it. I have also offered to help him part out both an Intel or an AMD system, if he so chooses.

 

[Captain Murphy]

What I recommended to Captain Armstrong was a pre-built system based on the requirements that he listed. If someone has never built a system before, it can be intimidating to anyone, that recommendation removed that hassle. While it is not a top of the line, bleeding edge machine, it will certainly handle any game he throws at it. I have also offered to help him part out both an Intel or an AMD system, if he so chooses.

Fixed that for you...
I have built my own machines for many years and even then a new build is always intimidating to an extent simply because the technology has changed in the time between my last build and the new build. My previous build was a Q6600 quad core and now with an i3570 pretty much all of the architecture changed enough to need a good bit of research. I also changed cooling types, bridge cooling systems, ram cooling and heat sink, etc so it was a pretty drastic change.

The only thing I can attest to in regards to the AMD/Intel choice is that for work I use Intel and get around a 4-6 year lifespan from them. For home use I have been using AMD chips (cost savings) and tend to get a 2-4 year usage from them. Most of that is because I am easily dropping $400-500 on my work machine for a processor and for home I am in the $100-300 range at most so the tech is already a year or two old by that point, thus reducing the useful life. I do recommend that when building anything to stick to compatible chipsets for GPU and CPU (Intel/NVidia, AMD/ATI) simply because you will run into weird driver issues over the life of the machine with a mixed set (I constantly had issues with my ATI GPU and Intel CPU but identical GPU with AMD chipset did not have the same issues).

 

[Thagarr]

Whoops, thanks mate!