Super Budget Gamer Build Attempt. Need Advice Plz

[Misplaced]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Starcraft 2, Multi-Boxing Diablo 3(4accounts) and WoW(5accounts).

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread.
Trying to keep it under 500 if possible.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Kind of sold on the FX-8150 and have a bad history with nVidia products so ATI/AMD fanboy it is.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
OCZ ModxStream Pro 400W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341015
Seageat Barracuda 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148373
Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042

and already have basics like plug and play monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Heard that the FX-8150 can OC to 4.3ghz at no voltage increase so that's as far as I plan on going.

8. What resolution will you be using?
24in 1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Within the next week or so. Maybe even today if there is some good July 4th sales on the parts I need.

 

[Remobz]

What if you buy an Intel i5 3570k with an Asrock z77 extreme4 but use the integrated graphics (HD 4000) on the Asrock mobo. Of course, you can save money for a GOOD graphics card down the road. The money saved on the graphics card could be sent in other areas for better quality products.

If not, then I guess Radeon 6670 might be a budget card for you?

 

[lehtv]

FX8150 is a terrible, terrible choice for gaming with its poor performance per core, and it's also too expensive for your budget and too power hungry for overclocking with your PSU.

Good that you can reuse components. Under $500 should be easy:

CPU i3-2120 $123
Mobo Asrock B75M $65
RAM 2x4GB DDR3 1333 $39
GPU Sapphire 7850 2GB $240. Will OC by at least 30% when needed, some even 40%
HDD Reuse $0
DVD Lite-on DVD-RW $18 or reuse...?
PSU Reuse $0
Case Reuse $0

= $485

This setup will last a long time before any upgrades need to be done. The mobo has a SATA 6gb/s port for an SSD and will take an Ivy Bridge i5 upgrade (used) so it's not a dead platform for you. (I'd recommend upgrading the CPU along with the GPU in a couple of years or whenever you decide 7850 is too slow, to avoid bottlenecking). The system is low power, suitable for your PSU, won't even use 200W during gaming.

 

[Misplaced]

Kind of worried how a dual core is going to handle with 6-8 games loaded at once. Also looks like I'm going to have to up the budget a bit to get what I want out of it.

 

[lehtv]

Wait, 6-8 games at once? What?

 

[Misplaced]

Wait, 6-8 games at once? What?

Multi-boxing accounts to maximize loot. 5x WoW or 4x D3 while running Sc2 or LoL + an AH account or 2.

My current phenom 8750 3core/R4800 gpu/4gb ram tops out at 3x wow or 2x D3 + random movie on VLC

 

[DSF]

Wait, 6-8 games at once? What?

He's planning to multi-box WoW and Diablo 3, which means playing multiple accounts simultaneously from a single machine I believe.

 

[Misplaced]

He's planning to multi-box WoW and Diablo 3, which means playing multiple accounts simultaneously from a single machine I believe.

Yes, exactly.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Why would he do that?

 

[lehtv]

Well. I can see threads being pretty important then. I'm not convinced though whether FX8150 is necessary. If a Phenom 8750 system can run what you're running, and you're shooting for a doubling in number of games, it stands to reason that a CPU twice that speed should achieve it. i3-2100 (dual core with HT, so 4 threads) is twice as fast in multithreaded. For 3-4 times the multithreaded performance (more with OC), FX-6100/6200 or X6 1090T would do, see here.

If you want to OC the CPU properly I recommend upgrading the PSU to 500-600W.

Do you happen to live near microcenter? They have nice deals on CPU/mobo combos.

 

[Misplaced]

Why would he do that?

More loot. In wow you use it to solo instances / arena / bg / farm as 5 attacks at once is generally enough to kill anything/anyone.

In D3 they made it even better as every player gets their own loot drops, so I have 1 insanely geared DPS char and 3 fully geared in Magic find/gold find gear that just follow and pick up free loot, so basically it's the same as me running something 4times with a much higher base of loot/gold. It's also what's paying for this new comp.

Well. I can see threads being pretty important then. I'm not convinced though whether FX8150 is necessary. If a Phenom 8750 system can run what you're running, and you're shooting for a doubling in number of games, it stands to reason that a CPU twice that speed should achieve it. i3-2100 (dual core with HT, so 4 threads) is twice as fast in multithreaded. For 3-4 times the multithreaded performance (more with OC), FX-6100/6200 or X6 1090T would do, see here.

If you want to OC the CPU properly I recommend upgrading the PSU to 500-600W.

Do you happen to live near microcenter? They have nice deals on CPU/mobo combos.

I'm about 3-4hours from microcenter so the drive would most likely out price the discount. Upping the PSU wouldn't be a problem was just trying to be cheap if possible, giving my current system to the wife and her's to the kids. Yea looking at those numbers a FX-6200 would probably handle my needs just fine, was just leaning towards the higher end as I really don't plan on upgrading again for another ~3years if possible.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Make sure you set thread affinity for each instance of a game you're running!

Why would he do that?

Could just be botting them, or some people like being able to solo instances/dungeons and such in games and just set-up basic macros/bots to spam certain functions (healing for instance). Most likely botting of some kind though, but hey we're here for hardware recs, not to enforce Blizzard's EULA.

And lehtv's build is nice, but I'm not sure its ideal for the intended uses. I think the OP would be better off with something that has 4 physical cores and just making up the difference in budget with the video card. Stated resolution is 1920x1200 however if you're multi-boxing everything will be running in windowed so it's far more strenuous on the CPU than it is on the GPU (not really sure where SC2 fits into this). The OP might even benefit from an i7 as that will give him 8 threads, set affinity of each instance to a different thread and no particular thread will ever max out.

 

[Misplaced]

yea I run the main(one I'm looking at) at 1920x1200 the rest are 200x150 windows

 

[mfenn]

OK, so the FX-8150 is a $200 CPU that is slower than Intel's comparable Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge quads. I see absolutely no reason for go for it in this case. You will want a quad core for the amount of boxing that you plan to do and will have to give up a little on the GPU in order to make it fit into $500.

There's also memory to worry about. I'm not sure that 8GB is enough, but I also don't see how to fit 16GB into this build for $500.

Lehtv's build is a good starting point, but swap the CPU to the i5 3570K for an additional $92 AP. You can't OC in a B75 mobo, but with the promo, it only comes out to be $5 more than the non OC-able 3550. Then drop the GPU to the 6870 to save $80 AR and you should be right at $500.