Need help on upgrading my computer

[TheRedDevil18]

Hi, I am planning on upgrading my computer. I cant decide on which card to take, the powercolor 7850 or powercolor 7870. I also plan on getting a motherboard, but not sure how much to spend. I am not planning on overclocking and so I am planning on getting an i5 4430. Here are my choices, budget of around R6500

Here are the links

http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-ax7850-2gbd5-2dhpp-radeon-hd7850-2gb-256-bit-gddr5-pci-express-3-0-x16-desktop-graphics-card-includes-2-free-games-amd-silver-tier.html

http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-ax7870-2gbd5-2dh-oc-radeon-hd7870-oc-ghz-edition-2gb-256-bit-gddr5-pci-express-3-0-x16-desktop-graphics-card-includes-2-free-games-amd-silver-tier.html

http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=30&products_id=6581

http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=10113

http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=shopping_cart

http://www.mitabyte.co.za/pCO%20PV138G160C9K/Patriot-Intel-Extreme-Master-8GB-Kit-2-x-4GB-DDR3-1600MHz.aspx

My questions are, is it worth the extra R400 to get the 7870 or should I stick with the 7850, and also how reliable is rebeltech and wootware?, because this is my first time that I am buying with them. I live in Durban so they will have to deliver it. And also should I spend a grand plus on that gigabyte motherboard or rather go for a cheaper one?

 

[wannabe]

I've got the 7850 which works perfectly for me, but I still have to test it with battlefield 4. Basically these graphics cards will be the limiting component of your setup so generally buy as best a graphics card as you can afford.

Rebeltech and wootware are very reliable (or at least in my experience).

and since you wont be overclocking your cpu, you can buy a cheaper board.

 

[TheRedDevil18]

Ok, I think I might go AMD because of the price. Hows the fx 6300?
Talking about this one

http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=9015

And will it bottleneck the 7850?

 

[TheRedDevil18]

Hi TheRedDevil18,

If you have a look at the 7850 clock it's only 30MHz slower than the 7870 and Memory clock on the 7850 is faster - now depending on what resolution you play at the faster Memory clock will help so the clear choice is the 7850 but rather save the money and spend it on the cpu or motherboard,

the ram your looking at is a good price i would recommend it,the INTEL I5 4430 will be a great chip for you if your not overclocking and the PSU will be able to power your system,

for the motherboard something like the Gigabyte ga-P85-D3 is a great board but you will not be able to SLI or crossfire, if your planing to upgrade your ram at a later stage seeing that your only getting two ram sticks, ram prices will come down at some point due to the factory that burnt down, once they are back in production prices will come down again to a point where it's better to buy another set of ram sticks.

to give you an example 7 months ago we sold a set of adata value 2X4Gb ram at R540 and at the moment they are R1035,it will take some time for the prices to come down but they will.

So how about the AMD fx 6300, this one http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=9015
My budget is really tight and I could save quite allot over the i5.

I also plan on getting this motherboard, http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=722 or should I go for this board
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=5687, it supports sli and crossfire and its quite a low price

By the way my resolution is quite low 1360*768 but I do plan on upgrading to a 1080p monitor later on.

 

[TheRedDevil18]

Depending on what your doing with your system, if your only gaming with this system then the AMD would be good but if your budget allowed it i would go for the INTEL root - but i understand that not everyone has all the money in the world so if your only gaming and not using programs that need that much power per core then the AMD fx-6300 will still be good, i would recommend the MSI 970A-G46 motherboard because of the 4 ram slots and the SLI and crossfire features.

seeing that your looking to upgrade your monitor later i would still go for the 7850, because of budget cuts on the I5 see if you can get the MSI 970A-G46 because it will give you more options in the future (RAM and a second GPU)

My primary use for this computer will be for gaming. I will play games like BF4, COD titles and a wide variety of other games. Should I maybe go for an i3?, although it only has 2 cores and I heard that games like crysis 3 use more than 2 cores so I think that will be a limiting factor?

 

[TheRedDevil18]

If your going for a i3 them get the i3-4330 it will give you the same performance plus the best thing about this will be that you can upgrade in the future to a i5 (don't get a i7 for gaming)

you have a point with only two cores but if you think about it most games still only use two core and by the time all or most triple A games use all 4 cores you will have upgraded to a i5 in my opinion and for the motherboard something like the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP will work, it supports crossfire but not SLI it has 4 ram slots.

Don't think of the spec as "it's only a i3" it will perform the same as the AMD chips, it's a good platform to start from and the power you can later get out is great with a i5 plus the motherboard has a 1x PCI-e 3.0 and 1x PCI-e 2.0 slot so it can crossfire (No SLI), a lot of games still don't use crossfire and SLI to it's fullest so think of this system as a platform for the future.

I was also thinking the same thing, about upgrading in the future to an i5. But my question is, how long do you think the i3 is going to take me before I will need to upgrade?, and will the i3 bottleneck the 7850?. Also I see that for crossfire the ASRock H77 runs the second slot in x4 mode where as the MSI 970A-G46 which is the AMD board runs in 8x mode. I heard that x4 bottlenecks the second card. I dont want to spend too much on a motherboard so about a grand or so is fine. Also this is my first major upgrade, so I dont plan on upgrading anytime soon. What do you think?

 

[TheRedDevil18]

depending on how fast the gaming market changes the i3 will last a while and the bottleneck i don't think that there will be that big of a bottleneck if at all but i recommend that you get the i5 when you feel the performance drops,i can't give you a precise time till you have to upgrade your CPU,

crossfire is not SLI only SLI needs the second x8 lane,crossfire works in a 16/4 configuration see the link below it will explain the performance hits you get in games - some game only have couple of frames difference, it all depends on the games you play because every game is optimize different for crossfire and SLI,
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-10.html

Thats quite a big performance drop, like around 20%. I think I rather go for the fx 6300 and the MSI motherboard. I would probably overclock it abit in the future, but not now. Anyways, have you had any experiences with rebeltech and wootware?, are they reliable?, cause this is my first time buying online.

 

[TheRedDevil18]

I understand if the performance drop is to big,i don't have personal experience with them but have a look on hello peter and you can get a idea what people say about them,

Good luck with your build.

Ok, thanks allot man, you really did help me in my decision making. I have posted a thread on this site to get some input about Rebeltech, hoping to here some responses. Thanks again