Help with a gaming PC

[Lancewielder]

Hi all,
I am planning to build my first gaming PC, and I have drawn up some specs.

AMD A10-6800K + HD 7790 Dual X OC
Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X
1 TB WD Blue

I will be playing primarily source based games, and just maybe Battlefield 4.

Can someone tell me if I should go for an R9 270? In my country, the R9 270 retails far below any 7870, and has about the same price to performance ratio as the 7790. This is the Powercolor R9 270, and AFAIK it does not have BF4 bundled.

Also do comment on my choice of specifications.

[MattyD_IP]

I would go for the R9 270, should perform roughly the same as the 7870 and could be increased with the right tweaks.

That being said, for source games you really don't need a 4GHz processor, go with one of AMD's new FX that are lower in the 3.2-3.8GHz area and then put that extra money towards a better card. I'd always recommend for games to go for a really good single card over dual, save the money and buy a second one later on.

[_I_]

get an i3 build, itll cost a little more, and offer better performance

the point of the fm2 builds is to save about $100 on a gpu
if your getting a dedicated card, go am3/am3+ or 1155/1150

[GrumpyOldGit]

Hi
A bit pointless buying an APU when your are planing to buy a GPU get an FX CPU best options today would be either the 6350 or 8350

[Lancewielder]

So I shall just go and get an Athlon X4 750K and then OC it to 6800K speeds. But is the GPU too weak to play any games for the next 2 years?

[senseidongen]

引用自 -MOO-wonderfulcow-MOO-：

So I shall just go and get an Athlon X4 750K and then OC it to 6800K speeds. But is the GPU too weak to play any games for the next 2 years?

Not a bad option at all (you could instead get a 760K as that's closer to the base clock of the A10-6800K) - it'll cost less than an i3 build, but offers fewer options for an upgrade in the future so it depends if that matters to you. I would say don't worry about it, especially as you've selected an FM2+ motherboard so you'll be ready for the steamroller based CPUs if you were to upgrade :)

EDIT: Also, given that PC tends to need more raw power than consoles and that the 7790 is about the same GPU power as the Xbone, it may be advisable to get a stronger GPU, but I doubt it'd be too weak to play any game that comes out - you might just have to turn some settings down every now and then :)

[Lancewielder]

Hey thanks a lot: will the processor bottleneck the R9 270 or can I scale to an R9 280X, since you suggest that a PC needs more raw power than a console? I happened to notice that a PS4 is a Pitcairn XT.

[senseidongen]

引用自 -MOO-wonderfulcow-MOO-：

Hey thanks a lot: will the processor bottleneck the R9 270 or can I scale to an R9 280X, since you suggest that a PC needs more raw power than a console? I happened to notice that a PS4 is a Pitcairn XT.

Probably varies quite a bit from game to game - in some you'll see more CPU limitation than in others I imagine. The PS4 has the same basic silicon as the HD 7850, so approximately equivalent to the R9 270 (though the PC card has higher memory bandwidth ) so I'd say R9 270X is probably a good card to get to give you the power edge on the consoles (based on the HD7870) - 280X would be a lovely thing to have if you can afford it but definitely overkill for Source games

The reason I say that PC needs tends to need more power is because of optimisation advantages of consoles - that advantage is now eroding though!