Any good PC component specials atm? Looking for entry level box + gfx card

JerryMungo

JerryMungo

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So my son was tasked to hunt for stuff for his brother in law but it might be an uphill battle to find:

Mobo
CPU
PSU+Case
4Gb RAM
GFX card (entry level GeForce is fine)

where the CPU isn't a celeron (AMD is fine)
.
.
.
For R2.5k

Any ideas?
 
Yeah, I hear those are excellent value for money!
What board does that CPU require?
 
iaywtimnbe said:
So my son was tasked to hunt for stuff for his brother in law but it might be an uphill battle to find:

Mobo
CPU
PSU+Case
4Gb RAM
GFX card (entry level GeForce is fine)

where the CPU isn't a celeron (AMD is fine)
.
.
.
For R2.5k

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Secondhand is your best bet by far with such a small budget. Check out the Carbonite forum. You'll get really poor performance if you buy new.
 
Bryn26 said:
Secondhand is your best bet by far with such a small budget. Check out the Carbonite forum. You'll get really poor performance if you buy new.
Click to expand...

Performance is relative :)
The FM2 platform seems to be pretty good... I assume GPU is integrated into APU?
 
iaywtimnbe said:
Performance is relative :)
The FM2 platform seems to be pretty good... I assume GPU is integrated into APU?
Click to expand...

Not that relative. A decent graphics card costs double your total budget. I can assure you that a secondhand rig will destroy anything new that R2.5k can buy.
 
Bryn26 said:
Not that relative. A decent graphics card costs double your total budget. I can assure you that a secondhand rig will destroy anything new that R2.5k can buy.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. The APUs are surprisingly powerful. I've built three APU based machines so far, and they feel like running a +R7k PC in terms of responsiveness and ability to run games.
 
iaywtimnbe said:
Performance is relative :)
The FM2 platform seems to be pretty good... I assume GPU is integrated into APU?
Click to expand...

The APU is a normal CPU block with the GPU sitting literally on-top of the CPU. This means that they share the same memory and there is no bottleneck on the FSB that normally happens between physically separated CPU and GPU card. It is also much quieter since you only use one cooler. The trade-off is the limited space available, so only low to mid level chips can fit on the processor. However, the removal of the bottleneck and the ability to share memory vastly increases the efficiency of the GPU's clock cycles making it much more responsive than that chip would normally be on a card with its own memory.
 
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Razor88 said:
If you are using an APU, make sure you use the fastest RAM compatible with the motherboard. For the motherboard agentrfr suggested, it's 2133 Mhz

It makes a big difference in APU performance.

Example:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-bandwidth-scaling-trinity,3419-4.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/testing-memory-speeds-on-amds-a10-5800k-trinity-apu_2106/6
Click to expand...

True, but I was trying to not go over-budget.

If you are able to spend the extra bucks, get a 4gig stick of 2133MHz RAM.
 
Razor88 said:
If you are using an APU, make sure you use the fastest RAM compatible with the motherboard. For the motherboard agentrfr suggested, it's 2133 Mhz

It makes a big difference in APU performance.

Example:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-bandwidth-scaling-trinity,3419-4.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/testing-memory-speeds-on-amds-a10-5800k-trinity-apu_2106/6
Click to expand...

What that says to me is that price vs performance, the cheaper RAM gives way more bang for your buck (which is crucial here)

agentrfr said:
True, but I was trying to not go over-budget.

If you are able to spend the extra bucks, get a 4gig stick of 2133MHz RAM.
Click to expand...
yeah, it's quite a bit more

The bottom line is that this system needs to replace an aging system and needs to do day to day stuff first and game second (gaming is NOT a priority). Seems this AMD rig is the way to go.

Thanks agentrfr!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ordered... they open again on 6th Jan so I'll wait till then for shipping, but happy.
 
agentrfr said:
Not necessarily. The APUs are surprisingly powerful. I've built three APU based machines so far, and they feel like running a +R7k PC in terms of responsiveness and ability to run games.
Click to expand...

I've seen secondhand i7 rigs going for around R3k. There is a huge amount of value in the secondhand market.
 
 
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