Building a fresh system from exsisting hardware. Any thoughts or advice??

[mrdead1313]

So I recently built my first gaming rig on my own and decided I wanted to go a bit more all out on it. I decided to stick with AMD because of budget reasons and I'm becoming more familiar with the brand. I currently have a Richland apu setup and am moving to an FX series build. So I'll list both rigs first:

Current:
------------------------------
ASUS a55bm-plus/CSM
AMD Richland A10-6800k Black Edition
Stock AMD CPU Cooler
G.Skill Ares 2400 DDR3 RAM (8gb)
ASUS Radeon 6870
Kentek 700w PSU (crap, I know)
Apevia X Sniper 2 Mid Tower Chassis

New (with some current parts):
------------------------------
ASUS Crosshair V Formula
AMD FX 8350 Black Edition 4.0ghz
Zalman CNPS5X Performa CPU Cooler
G.Skill Sniper 2133 DDR3 RAM (12gb)
MSI R9 270x Gaming 2gb
Corsair TX650w PSU (maybe go modular?)
Apevia X Sniper 2 Mid Tower Chassis

I am also waiting for a used ASRock extreme9 mobo to show up anyday now. Only bought it because it was $100 on ebay and figured I'll keep whatever would be best for a slightly more future proofed build.

Any suggestions or changes I should make to get the most out of my build? Which motherboard should I stick to? Haven't built it up yet so any advice would be great. Thank you all for taking a moment of your time to help me out

 

[FR@NK]

Really not much of an upgrade other then the extra cores.

 

[Frick]

Why would you downgrade the RAM?

But the GPU, cooler and PSU (not really the PSU but it's nice to have a good PSU) is the only thing that will make a worthwhile difference. As frank says, the 8350 will not be much faster in games. Some games might benefit more from the cores, but I'm not clear on what games that would be.

EDIT: Wait do you have the Crosshair or was that part of the planned build? If you have it, why waste money on the Asrock? If you do not have it, ignore this.

And the motherboard has been bought in any case, go forth with the upgrade as planned. Keep the faster memory though. The 650W PSU is overkill, might come in handy though if you upgrade your GPU and/or go Crossfire or something.

 

[X71200]

Which Extreme9 board did you buy? If it's the Z77 it's a buggy board.

Anyway, I wouldn't consider AMD at all. Get a 4690K with a Z97-A and get rid of the Zalman cooler as well. Get a nickel plated Cooler Master TPC or a Hyper cooler. And a better PSU too. You can opt for an LZP-550 which goes with affordable price cuts on Amazon.

Since you're building a fresh setup you might as well get a newer, better case as well. Well actually if your budget allows, you might just keep the old setup and use it as a secondary.

 

[Frick]

Which Extreme9 board did you buy? If it's the Z77 it's a buggy board.

It's not the Z77 as it's paired with an FX CPU.

 

[X71200]

It's also worth mentioning 270X isn't a giant upgrade from a 6870 since it's a rebadged 7870.

 

[XSI]

i agree its more like side grade. you will not feel 8 cores kick in in many games. gpu upgrade is nice, thats biggest difference. i would stick with you setup+ 270x maybe change psu and add SSD.

 

[XSI]

270x is aBout 2times faster

 

[Jetster]

Keep your current build and get a R9 290 or 280. Then save to swap to Intel on your next upgrade
A friend of mine had a 8350 and two 7970s and he could not beat my bench scores. Then he switched to i7 4790K w/ two 7970s now I cant even get close to him

 

[X71200]

270x is aBout 2times faster

It's still 6870 to 7870. A 280X would be a better option.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

keep your RAM. The 2.4GHz kit is still better than the slower clocked 2133MHz kit IMO... 650W PSU is more than enough for CrossFire X/SLI. Again, like the rest of guys here says, do upgrade if your budget allows it. Oh, if you're planning to build a fresh new rig, best you take the Intel x AMD route if you want to keep the overall price down without compromising on gaming performance at 1080p. Here's my rough suggestion on it:

- Haswell Refresh based Intel Core i5 CPU (mid-range would do)
- G.Skill Ares 8GB 2400MHz DDR3 RAM (reused)
- Any Intel 9-Series Chipset Micro-ATX motherboard (H97 or better)
- Samsung 840 Evo 120GB Solid State Drive
- Seagate Desktop 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive
- Corsair Hydro Series H60 AIO CPU Cooler
- any vendor card based on AMD's R9 270 or R9 280 & OC it.
- any decent PSU brand, make sure it's around 650W for future upgrades.
- Corsair Carbide Air 240 Casing.
**add-on like better case fans e.g Corsair's AF120 or SP120, DVD drives etc, is all up to you.

Setup may not look much, but it's more than enough for single monitor gaming & plays most games on High @ 1080p without much problem.

 

[mrdead1313]

Why would you downgrade the RAM?

But the GPU, cooler and PSU (not really the PSU but it's nice to have a good PSU) is the only thing that will make a worthwhile difference. As frank says, the 8350 will not be much faster in games. Some games might benefit more from the cores, but I'm not clear on what games that would be.

EDIT: Wait do you have the Crosshair or was that part of the planned build? If you have it, why waste money on the Asrock? If you do not have it, ignore this.

And the motherboard has been bought in any case, go forth with the upgrade as planned. Keep the faster memory though. The 650W PSU is overkill, might come in handy though if you upgrade your GPU and/or go Crossfire or something.

That's why I was getting a decent psu I might go crossfire one day. And the crosshair is on the way along with the asrock. I've read things about upgrading to the 9xxx fx chips running hot in the crosshair so the asrock was either gonna be what I use or sold for a few extra buck for something else. This is all a learning experience for me and since I had a little cash to play with I figured I'd do this upgrade and sell my buddy the mobo, ram and apu since he's wanting a decent rig

 

[Vario]

I own 2 6850s and a 7850. The 7850 is almost the same as the 2 6850s in crossfire. a 270x is a 7870 which is 15% faster than a 7850. Therefore I'd bet that a 270x is twice as fast as a 6850/70.

(The reason I have the 6850s was the payment for building a computer for a friend was some of his old parts).

 

[mrdead1313]

270x is aBout 2times faster

I've definitely seen a decent boost in gaming just by the r9 270x upgrade. I really enjoy titanfall, and though I could run it on high-ultra settings with great fps, the new gpu allows for the 'insane' settings all maxed with no drops at all

 

[Recca29]

Keep your current build and get a R9 290 or 280. Then save to swap to Intel on your next upgrade
A friend of mine had a 8350 and two 7970s and he could not beat my bench scores. Then he switched to i7 4790K w/ two 7970s now I cant even get close to him

+1
Get anything >=270X

 

[EarthDog]

270x is aBout 2times faster

IF 2x means 58%, then you are correct.

 

[mrdead1313]

Thanks everyone. I'll have the crosshair in the next day or 2. Don't know what the hell is going on with the other board since I bought from a lame seller on ebay that's refusing to post tracking to be sure he's not 'scammed'. Whatever. Nonetheless I'm more excited to get the crosshair anyway. I guess my real question would be is this a waste of time? It's more for a small hobby than anything and I'm pretty strapped for extra cash to go intel. I always had Intel until this building frenzy I've been on. I'm wanting to learn to overclock and all that jazz which is the main reason I'm going to the fx series. Good idea or waste of time???

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Well, I wish you luck in building your brand new gaming rig. If you choose Intel, especially the unlocked K-Series, you will have the ability to overclock it... however you'll need a decent cooling system like water-cooling kit in order to keep the operating temperature down, same goes to the FX Series processors, especially when you bumped up the frequency & voltage. If you're not doing any OCing & prefer to take the reliability route, then a mid-range, non-K Core i5 CPU & a decent H97 board will save your wallet for future upgrades.