Legit Reviews

Hello folks.

It is that bittersweet time again, deciding on what parts to slap together and hopefully have a nice machine for the next ~4 years.
Been researching and evaluating for days, but looks like the decision will not come about without an external nudge...

the base:
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
5 different Seagate/Maxtor HDD

AMD option:
case Define R4 [89,8 €] + Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm [8,81 €]
MB MSI 760GA P43 (FX) [48 €]
CPU AMD FX 8320 3.5GHz AM3+ [135,37 €]
RAM Patriot 8GB KIT DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Viper 3 (PV38G160C9KRD) [69,18 €]
GPU MSI N660Ti 2GD5/OC [229,34 €]

Intel option:
case Define R4 [89,8 €] + Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm [8,81 €]
MB ASROCK H77 Pro4/M [69,2 €]
CPU Intel Core i5 3570 3,4 GHz (BX80637I53570) [183,98 €]
RAM Kingston HyperX 8GB 2x4GB 1600Mhz DDR3 CL9 (KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) [63,66 €]
GPU MSI N660 Twin Frozr III 2GD5/OC [179,95 €]

priorities (in order):
- storage options
- storage cooling (in my current rig with 37°C outside HDDs go above 50°C from anything besides browsing)
- 30+ FPS in games at 1080p maxed without AA; GPU upgrade in 2+ years
- image editing
- video editing
- silent enough to sleep 3m away
- maybe GPU OC; obviously no plans for CPU OC

final thoughts:
Many sources seem to suggest that the core heavy AMD route is far better, especially for the future with quadcore AMD inside both upcoming consoles. Why is it that much cheaper then?! All because of the horrific (+ 50+% ?!) power consumption? SATA3 seems to only make sense for SSD, right? After 4 years it is time to take a look at nVidia and see what they have to offer, how great CUDA really is and run DOOM3 HD mod without white screen... unless there's some crucial drawback perhaps?

Mates, your input, please.

I would suggest researching the 8-core amd compared to the i5 and i7 before thinking all those cores make a huge difference ;) I think they should but they are not as impressive as you may think (see AMD, INNOVATE dammit, make those 8 cores ACT like 8 cores and double what an i7 can do).

I vote the i5 but with a gigabyte MB. Well any board other than the crappy, damaged, doesn't care about customers company called asrock. People need to stop supporting crappy companies like that and support ones that will stand behind their product an not ship faulty products and then say its all the customers fault (lots of customers at fault huh assuck)

rampage over

I do a LOT of HD video editing and you have to have the right programs installed to use all cores to make use of your cpu too. I use i7's in all my systems right now (even laptop) to get the fastest video processing I can. I still think using the video card for processing is nice but I do notice a degradation in quality compared to cpu only for some reason.

You do not say what the primary function is for the system. Massive hd video editing I would go i7, massive gaming I would step up the gpu, silent running I would go water cooling and use ssd for hard drives.

FYI - the upcoming consoles are using the 8-core AMD cpu because they got them for a low price. i7 still outperforms them in most areas even though they are only quad-core. AMD really missed an opportunity in this arena

i7 is great to have, but the price is ridiculous and I am not paying that even though I have the money.
I am well aware that Piledriver cores are sort of a joke, but there is a lot of them and multithreading is on the rise.

Ah, just yesterday I have read that long rant about how Asrock has horrific customer "support". Maybe, my current MB is Asrock too and... well, the mouse PS2 died quite early on, but that wasn't worth a 30 day return cycle so I bought a USB mouse and it was smooth sailing from there.
So yea, some more classy manufacturer would be nice... Hoooowever, only Asrock seems to offer all the SATA connectors I desire for less than 150 € in my region. For that kind of cash I can buy 2 or 3 Asrock boards. Like them or not, my options are limited at best. Customer reviews of availible PCI SATA controllers were rather bad too.

I do not say what the primary funtion is, because it is to become my personal home rig and it has no primary function.
As I said in the priorities list, this PC is supposed to be decent at everything, but not necessarily beastly, because I am well aware that the above builds aren't and... Let me tell you why I decided to upgrade:
1) need more HDD than fit in current board and case
2) current rig stutters when playing certain mkv files, in rare cases very badly
3) during summer HDDs heat up over 50°C which sucks and there are no options for additional cooling in current case

Storage comes first.
SSD is not storage, at least not cost effective storage. Waiting 15s or whatever longer is no big deal.

GTX 660 seems to run everything alright and should last for at least 2 years, I hope. And even though I have found a 660 Ti for 27 € more, which actually seems to make them same performance/price, the difference should be 20% at best, which sounds like a lot, but then I made a table:
15 20 25 30 35 FPS 660
18 24 30 36 42 FPS 660 Ti
15 and 18 are equally crap. 20 is bad and 24 is... almost not bad. 25 picks up from there and 30 is for the most part OK, at least for single player.
The segment where Ti is the difference between playable and crap seems rather slim and it is almost certain they will get obsolete together. Overall FPS delta is not that dramatic.
I am not a pro gamer and find demanding 60 FPS no matter what a waste of money. If I were to pursue that, 1/2 the spent money would go on the GPU, which is frivolous if not asinine since the GPU has almost no use outside of gaming.

So yea, 3570 it is I guess... AMD got their console deals so they shouldn't miss my money this time.

Thank you for your time.

I know this is a little late, and I can't speak for the current generation AMD CPUs...but when I finally upgraded to an i5 from my AMD 1090T (which ran everything smoothly game/video wise), it was purely for the video rendering speed. Taking a home movie to DVD would be maybe an hour on my 1090T to render menu's, and transcode the video. However when I did the first one on my 3570K i5 it was around 15 minutes. Oh, and it was the same project that was done on the 1090T. I was floored at the performance boost. Granted, the 1090T is several years old, and the i5 is pretty recent.