Hardware Is this a good budget gaming pc?

[Kirito-kun]

No. Avoid AMD CPUs at all costs.

A FX 8350 beats an i5 in most tasks and costs less. They also have great overclockability. AMD master race.

 

[Celice]

A FX 8350 beats an i5 in most tasks and costs less. They also have great overclockability. AMD master race.

Don't they also eat a ton of energy in comparison?

 

[Kirito-kun]

Don't they also eat a ton of energy in comparison?

If you want good performance and low power consumption, then Intel's the way to go.

If you want good performance at an affordable price, then AMD's the way to go. Since this is a budget build, I would assume price is more important than power consumption.

 

[Celice]

If you want good performance and low power consumption, then Intel's the way to go.

If you want good performance at an affordable price, then AMD's the way to go. Since this is a budget build, I would assume price is more important than power consumption.

What about overclocking, then? What's the practical tradeoff on a budget build between cooling, power consumption, and the processor itself?

 

[Originality]

If you're overclocking you need a good motherboard, power supply and aftermarket cooler. Cheaping out in those parts may kill the CPU and more.

 

[Lanlan]

Don't they also eat a ton of energy in comparison?

If by "ton" you mean about $0.80 a month, yeah. Totally.
Source

 

[Taleweaver]

What about overclocking, then? What's the practical tradeoff on a budget build between cooling, power consumption, and the processor itself?

To be honest, I don't think overclocking is very wise on a budget platform. It will have a standard (or lower) motherboard and the basic fan, which...isn't the safest to do this sort of stuff on. Depending on the manufacturer, they'll probably already set the BIOS settings in advance to make the best out of the rig that is still safe.

Also: overclocking increases the power usage, meaning a higher cost (though I don't know if that makes it come up higher than similar results on a higher-end machine). Which is another reason not to go there.


As for building your own rig...I'll give it to the others that it's not as hard as it looks, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it easy (unless you've got a history working with computer hardware). Make sure to take a long, hard look at the diagram of the motherboard and don't start with it until you can point out for each device where you need to plug in everything.

 

[Celice]

If by "ton" you mean about $0.80 a month, yeah. Totally.
Source

I'm not talking about a power bill: the implications are that with more energy comes higher temps on the processor itself, and how one will compensate for that.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

16GB master race with 500 tabs open and 3 VMs.

It's time to start thinking about cleaning up your tabs. I usually do that when I go above 150.

 

[Lanlan]

I'm not talking about a power bill: the implications are that with more energy comes higher temps on the processor itself, and how one will compensate for that.

They're designed to operate within safe temperatures at stock clocks with a stock cooler. You can even get a slight overclock with stock coolers. GPUs output much more heat, when I wanna warm up my room I just play something to stress my two 6950s.

 

[Celice]

They're designed to operate within safe temperatures at stock clocks with a stock cooler. You can even get a slight overclock with stock coolers. GPUs output much more heat, when I wanna warm up my room I just play something to stress my two 6950s.

And that's why I motioned above to the energy temps when one overclocks an AMD processor, like the one being discussed. Overclocking is a viable way to extend the performance of a budget build, so it should be taken into consideration the headroom of overclocking one brand of processors against the other, and the ensuing costs to maintain a comfortable temperature. This is, after all, an advice thread.

 

[Lanlan]

Well a $120 FX 6300 will overclock much better than a $120 i3-3220. I think all FX series processors and a lot of APUs are unlocked, which makes overclocking much easier.

Edit: And yes, i do have a slight AMD bias. I know more about AMD than Intel. But I have no problem recommending Intel or Nvidia when it's appropriate. I just like to cheer for the underdog.