I'm an Intel man. I've had good luck with multiple core Celerons. I built a pretty nice hackintosh for about $300 excluding monitor.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I'm an Intel man. I've had good luck with multiple core Celerons. I built a pretty nice hackintosh for about $300 excluding monitor.

I've got nothing against Intel - built many rigs with their chips.

The last couple builds I used AMD, as they offered the "best bang for the buck" solution. When comparing Intel chips of similar performance, they always seem to cost double. 🙁

Personally all the mainstream CPUs have sufficient performance these days. So I would base my decision on the motherboard. Things such as the number of slots, placement of slots (many still come with PCI or have a slot right next to where the graphics card goes), USB 3 support...

You can save heaps if you are happy going with mATX.

But all in all that system looks fine. Shame that RAM is s o expensive again. Used to be peanuts.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Personally all the mainstream CPUs have sufficient performance these days. So I would base my decision on the motherboard. Things such as the number of slots, placement of slots (many still come with PCI or have a slot right next to where the graphics card goes), USB 3 support...

You can save heaps if you are happy going with mATX.

But all in all that system looks fine. Shame that RAM is s o expensive again. Used to be peanuts.

I've never bought a mATX mobo for a main rig - pet peeve of mine. I'm curious why RAM prices increased. With hard drives - flooding in Thailand... Seems like the stuff should be cheaper than ever to make.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Personally all the mainstream CPUs have sufficient performance these days. So I would base my decision on the motherboard. Things such as the number of slots, placement of slots (many still come with PCI or have a slot right next to where the graphics card goes), USB 3 support...

You can save heaps if you are happy going with mATX.

But all in all that system looks fine. Shame that RAM is s o expensive again. Used to be peanuts.

Have AMD managed to catch up to Intel's low-mid range offerings? The last time I checked, supposedly a Core i3 would perform better in single-threaded applications than AMD's top of the line. 😜

Currently have what your considering and wouldn't go with any other AM3 mobo if you decide with AMD. FX6300 was really cheap considering it has 6 cores with the same amount of cache as the 8 core (paid around $100-$120 or so about a year or more ago). Not even going to mention how it compares to Intel since price/performance ratio is obvious (if you dont mind spending bucks, Intel is obviously faster). Wouldn't go with any other board if you choose AMD; mobo has to have at least an 8 phase VRM which this one does, otherwise you'll have instability, throttling issues, and not a reliable setup overall (even if you go with 4 cores). Had a lot of trouble with ASUS AM3 boards; you should stay away from MSI AM3 mobos too. I'm also running 98SE on this and it's stable despite having 16GB of ram available (it aint exactly easy to install 98SE like this though and you must use IDE emulation with sata HDD/CD drives (can enable it for only last two sata ports 4/5). It's totally worth it in my case).

One reason you might want Intel over AMD, is they perform better under Windows 7 normally. Bulldozer/piledriver need a different scheduler to perform optimally. There's some tweaks and guides out there to fix this but it's annoying. Piledriver has no problem on Linux however (currently running a bootstrapped Linux with CFLAGS according to AMD's official GCC optimization guide; and yes it's bloody fast). If you need Windows to exploit your CPU as best possible, Intel is probably better.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Have AMD managed to catch up to Intel's low-mid range offerings? The last time I checked, supposedly a Core i3 would perform better in single-threaded applications than AMD's top of the line. 😜

I don't know since most stuff I run nowadays supports multi cores. Of course, my single core 800MHz Pentium III works great in my retro gaming PC. 😀
The AMD chip I'm looking at seems comparable to an i5 - i7 though.

Holering wrote:

Currently have what your considering and wouldn't go with any other AM3 mobo if you decide with AMD. FX6300 was really cheap considering it has 6 cores with the same amount of cache as the 8 core (paid around $100-$120 or so about a year or more ago). Not even going to mention how it compares to Intel since price/performance ratio is obvious (if you dont mind spending bucks, Intel is obviously faster). Wouldn't go with any other board if you choose AMD; mobo has to have at least an 8 phase VRM which this one does, otherwise you'll have instability, throttling issues, and not a reliable setup overall (even if you go with 4 cores). Had a lot of trouble with ASUS AM3 boards; you should stay away from MSI AM3 mobos too. I'm also running 98SE on this and it's stable despite having 16GB of ram available (it aint exactly easy to install 98SE like this though and you must use IDE emulation with sata HDD/CD drives (can enable it for only last two sata ports 4/5). It's totally worth it in my case).

I remember reading something about 8 phase VRM and it seemed pretty important. I've always had good luck with Gigabyte but MSI... meh.

I'd like to go with the 8 core AMD chip, but money's tight atm. I can always upgrade later.

The FX 6300 is a great chip and it has found its way into a lot of friends' houses! The only thing I would advise against would be Gigabyte. Every motherboard I've had from Gigabyte has been trouble one way or the other. Of course, this is just me, but I would never buy another product from them.

I'd much rather go with a similar Asrock (cheaper) or ASUS (pricier) board. I have really good things to say about the M5A97 R2.0, as I have been using it with my Phenom II X6 1055T (which I'm running at 3.5GHz). You also might be able to save some money by going to cheaper RAM, I think these DIMMs are quite expensive for what they are. Look for 1600MHz ones without cooling and check the price difference. It might save you 20$.

F2bnp wrote:

The FX 6300 is a great chip and it has found its way into a lot of friends' houses! The only thing I would advise against would be Gigabyte. Every motherboard I've had from Gigabyte has been trouble one way or the other. Of course, this is just me, but I would never buy another product from them.

I'd much rather go with a similar Asrock (cheaper) or ASUS (pricier) board. I have really good things to say about the M5A97 R2.0, as I have been using it with my Phenom II X6 1055T (which I'm running at 3.5GHz). You also might be able to save some money by going to cheaper RAM, I think these DIMMs are quite expensive for what they are. Look for 1600MHz ones without cooling and check the price difference. It might save you 20$.

I was looking into an Asrock mobo before discovering the Gigabyte board. I've zero complaints with Gigabyte - used their mobos the most over the yrs. One thing that scares me about Asrock and others is the limited 1 yr warranty. It's mostly been my experience that less warranty = shorter product life.

Another happy 6300 owner - feeling reassured 😀

Holering wrote:

One reason you might want Intel over AMD, is they perform better under Windows 7 normally. Bulldozer/piledriver need a different scheduler to perform optimally. There's some tweaks and guides out there to fix this but it's annoying. Piledriver has no problem on Linux however (currently running a bootstrapped Linux with CFLAGS according to AMD's official GCC optimization guide; and yes it's bloody fast). If you need Windows to exploit your CPU as best possible, Intel is probably better.

I'm curious... Does Windows 8 fix this? cringing at Metro UI

I love Linux, but love gaming more. And I always have things running on my PC, so dual booting isn't practical. I'm considering a 24/7 Linux PC also but that = more electric u$age.

If you have a vid of Win 98 booting on that PC - it would be awesome. I was like wow booting Win 3.1 on P3/450 back in 99.

While I have the GA-970A-UD3 myself and it's really good, buying AMD is pointless nowdays. It's clear that AM3+ is a dead end and a current i5 offers more gaming performance than AM3+ will ever provide.

No love for APUs?

simbin wrote:

Holering wrote:

One reason you might want Intel over AMD, is they perform better under Windows 7 normally. Bulldozer/piledriver need a different scheduler to perform optimally. There's some tweaks and guides out there to fix this but it's annoying. Piledriver has no problem on Linux however (currently running a bootstrapped Linux with CFLAGS according to AMD's official GCC optimization guide; and yes it's bloody fast). If you need Windows to exploit your CPU as best possible, Intel is probably better.

I'm curious... Does Windows 8 fix this? cringing at Metro UI

No, it doesn't. You want high-end performance right now in current Windows, stick to Intel if you can.

Holering: You're reminding me of this: http://funroll-loops.info/
Vroom, vroom!

Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor

This CPU is $100 more than the AMD, but $100 less than the i7-3700 it's comparable to. No built-in graphics - should run cool. Still looking for a mobo.

Actually I believe your motherboard supports all Phenom II X6 chips. If you really are on a tight budget I'd just get one of those used on ebay if the pricing is right. That would be the most cost effective upgrade and would give you a nice boost over your dual core.

Otherwise might as well upgrade the whole thing to LGA1150 since that's the current Intel platform. I wouldn't go with Ivy Bridge anymore.

d1stortion wrote:

Actually I believe your motherboard supports all Phenom II X6 chips. If you really are on a tight budget I'd just get one of those used on ebay if the pricing is right. That would be the most cost effective upgrade and would give you a nice boost over your dual core.

Otherwise might as well upgrade the whole thing to LGA1150 since that's the current Intel platform. I wouldn't go with Ivy Bridge anymore.

Been running this system 24/7 for 5 yrs so I'd like to replace the mobo before I get hit with a bad cap or something. I'm trying to keep CPU Mobo RAM around $300 but hard to do with Intel.

I might just go for the Xeon with new mobo, use my existing RAM for now.

If it were me, I'd upgrade the CPU in situ (I wouldn't worry about replacing the board "pre-emptively" - the cap plague is mostly historical to components of its age, and it has the Gigabyte "ultra durable" tag on it; it should be fine) or not at all, and add a more robust graphics adapter (like a GTX 770) IF (and only if) I were experiencing performance issues with whatever games I wanted to play. If not, I would leave things alone for now - if it runs everything you need it to run and isn't unstable, what's the problem? 😀

It's also worth noting that the era of console stagnation is probably coming to a close with new hardware on the market, and that nVidia (probably AMD too) is very close to a completely new product launch (the Maxwell GPUs); I would at least wait for those to come out and either grab a GTX 700 series card as the prices sink, or one of the newer cards (they're supposed to be more efficient).

I don't see the faster memory as worth the money unless you're gaining capacity, and unless you're doing heavy multimedia or similar tasks, 8GB is more than enough. You likely will notice nothing between the two kits outside of benchmarks or other canned tests.

Yeah, I don't see why that motherboard shouldn't last. They use Japanese solid caps on these boards. I've been running a Phenom II X4 955@4.1 GHz for 2 or 3 years on my 970 and the system is rock stable.

I think my onboard SATA is going - Don't want to get caught dead in the water
6 port SATA PCI adapter costs too much

While newest Crysis and Battlefield games need a little tweaking, everything else runs max 1080p on this rig