New hardware needed

[Cybermonkey]

Hi, since you all are game developers, I assume a lot of you are gamers, too. So, I need this new PC because my old one is needed in my office. What kind of hardware (CPU, graphics card) would you recommend? The problem is money, though. It should be at a reasonable price, means about 400 € (about 500 US$ or 320 GBP). [without OS!] Some specs are fixed: 8 GB of RAM and 1000 GB Harddisk. I hope you have some good ideas; it's possible for me to build this PC by myself by the way.

[User137]

I guess this would give some ideas:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
There's GPU, CPU and Harddisk benchmarks

And.. oh wow, i thought my yeaars old graphics card was with score 130 or so, it was actually bit more
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...HD+5600%2F5700
CPU gets score 2,226. I'd definitely get something more powerful than that. Did i read there are 3.6GHz quadcores for cheap'ish?

[SilverWarior]

Not so long ago I have been looking to build a new PC for my friend (he chaged his mind later on). The PC would be suitable for normal tasks like web browsing etc but would also be posible to run some les demmanding games. In slovenia it would cost me about 430€ for all components I gues in Germany it would cost even less.
So componets which I intedned to use are:
1. Gigabyte GA-880GMA-USB3 motehrboard http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3817#ov
Motherboard has some cool overclocking capabilities supports latest AMD A3+ socket and upto 16GB of DDR3 ram. It also has integrated AMD graphics card which is compatible with ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology which means that if you add standalone AMD graphics card also capable with this technology bth of them can be used to speed up graphics processing.
2. AMD FX 4 Core black edition processor http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskto...&f10=&f11=&f12=
This processor is from the latest AMD processor family and has great support for Open CL technology. It can be comparable with Intel i5 processors but has a bit lower price.
3. WD Caviar Blue 1 TB, 7200 rpm, 64 MB, SATA III (WD10EZEX) hard drive.
4. PRO-925B - ATX Pro-Line casing http://www.lc-power.de/index.php?id=323&L=1
The casing doesn't look like much but it does support good coling capabilities.

While the above configuration isn't suitable for serious gaming it can be easily upgraded by adding standalone graphics card (I recomend using AMD based graphics card to make most of it - AMD chipset on motherboard and capability of using both integrated and standalone graphics card together), adding aditional RAM and exchanging CPU for 8 core AMD FX processor.
NOTE: 430€ of estimated cost is only for Computer tower without CD/DVD writer(whic would be reused from my friends old computer), no Monitor or other periaphal devices.

[LP]

If budget is the issue, then I would suggest going for AMD FX 8150 or similar CPU as despite disappointing online reviews, in our own benchmarks, it appears to be a very powerful CPU. You can go for some cheap DDR3 1333 Mhz RAM and later upgrade to something like DDR3 1600 Mhz or higher. The only noticeable difference in RAM speed you will see going from 1333 Mhz to 1600 Mhz (mostly due to improved latency), so it's not recommended to spend on anything beyond that.

If you want to go for Intel, then you can go for cheaper last year's Sand Bridge CPUs, Core i5 2500K would be a very strong CPU, or you can even go for Core i7 2600K, although combined with motherboard it will eat your 400€ rather quickly. The benefit of going for those is new Intel HD 3000 integrated video card, which finally supports multisampling, OpenGL 3 and is a pretty good deal. It also seems to work in Linux very well.

[code_glitch]

Silverwarrior: AMD FX4 series... Peronsally I would steer clear from all but the top of the line FX series. However, the AMD route is probably the way to go unless you need the VERY best CPU on the market - although for the money thats going to be really hard... Edit: Ah, you meant FX 4 core not FX4... So basically I agree somehwat now... Sorry for the confusion . I did some research into the FX series into some depth since when it came out I was all 'FX is the future for my next build....' before seeing some stuff which I checked out just about every and was all 'oh.................... phenom ii x4 960t is is. no more available? wha'

Cybermonkey:
I finished my last build for £300 (monitorless) as an emergency so I didnt put in too much shopping around, but it was on budget and creams most £450 moniterless systems I can buy anywhere which is nice... Heres my process, 1) find market sweetspots and find a 'target specification'. 2) shop around, see where acrifices can be made so it fits around 95% of the budget including shipping... 3) enjoy XD

1. My recommendation would be to do something like this:
CPU: Athlon II x4 (one of the high end chips, if you dont mind a bit of overclocking...) Or a Phenom II x4 unless you can pick up a top spec FX-6 series or an FX8 series. The issue with bulldozer and the FX chips is simply that they do worse than previous generation Phenoms and Athlons when applications are badly threaded. So if you need more threads then go FX, if you need a few threads and lots of speed go Phenom. This would put you back around £60-95 depending on what you get. I have an Athlon II X3 (the 460 I believe currently with the stock cooler and if I have it running in its normal 3 core mode I get around 3.9-4.1GhZ which creams any core 2 and on the cpu benchmarks seems to stack up just under a mid range i5). If I unlock its 4th core I get a Phenom B50e which I can only take to about 3-3.2 GhZ due to it munching more power and spewing more heat into the stock cooler. My pick for germany would be this: http://www.lambda-tek.com/HDZ965FBGM...l~csDE/B255784 although there are 6 core phenom iis they are sort of expensive...

Motherboard: You're going to want an AM3+ board, with something later than an 870 chipset - AsRock do nice boards at nice prices as do asus in my experience - so that you get all the upgrade options open for quite some time as well as all the USB3 goodness and whatnot. I have an ageing AsRock 870 Extreme 3 R2.0 with the latest BIOS/EFI support. A VERY important thing to check since some SSD/motherboard combos can have issues. My setup is fine with SSDs now but not when I first built it - would only start in BIOS 'safe' mode on every 2nd boot... al fixed now though My recommendation at the moment would sit somewhere around an ASRock 970 Extreme4 which has all the latest as well as an x8/x8 pci slot setup if you want to crossfire later on... You can pick one up for around EUR95 apparently http://www.lambda-tek.com/970-EXTREM...A~csDE/B861327

GPU: This one has been moving at one heck of a pace lately. I have an HD5750 from XFX which is sitting at clock speed just higher than a stock HD5770 which is actually surprisingly capable of a GPU in my opinion since I have no problem playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, MAss effect 1,2 and 3 all on the highest settings at vsync (which for me is 1280x1024 at 60fps). Although for around £50-65 gets you an XFX HD6670 with 1GB of GDDR5. NOT DDR3. GDDR5. I like XFX for my cards, my friends likes Asus... We both had no issues. Although if driver support is a must consider an nVidia alternative. My board recommendation has no issues with SLI so....

RAM: A set of corsair XMS3s should have you covered. 2x4B should fill up some slots on that motherboard as well as be nice and dual channel.... and for only EUR40 http://www.lambda-tek.com/CMX8GX3M2A...9~csDE/2071001

Storage: In my experience: SSD boot drivers are here and they are the future. Take my old SU4100 laptop. A paltry penryn dual core deal with 1.3GhZ of headroom... HDD boot times are around 35isj seconds for my setup of mint. Stick in a first gen SSD and it'll do it in 12 flat. SO: for a boot drive I'd go for something like a 120GB Vertex 3 which can be had for around £60 and a 1.5TB WD caviar black for the storage drive for around there, say £70 to be on the safe side... Or save £10 or so and get 1tb... I prefer the 1.5tb deal since its more or less todays sweetspot. Put your OS and core applications (or all if you like XD) on the SSD and the data on the HDD and reap the rewards of blistering speeds and load of space...

Case&PSU: I usually buy these together since there are some bargains to be had. I paid £30 for my case and I got a brand name 650W psu. Okay the case is a tad flimsy but it has space, drive bays and a nice PSU so... From my above recommendations you should have a total cost so far of EUR40(RAM)+EUR90(CPU)+EUR95(MB)+GBP65(GPU)+GBP70(H DD)+GBP60(SSD)=EUR225+GBP195 which according to google is around EUR240 for a grand total of EUR445... which I know is EUR45 above the target, worst case scenario - that is, if you have no bargains, want the top of the line CPU option, 'spacious' SSD and extra space, pay extra shipping and land current RRPs... Lambdatek I have dealt with (in the UK) and are an awesome bunch so there you have it. Next...

From here you have some choices, heres the order I'd tackle them in:
1.) SSD: do you mind loading/boot times. An SSD boot drive makes things FEEL a LOT - and I mean a geological AGE FASTER - but is costly...
2.) HDD: I know this is an odd one HOWEVER if on windows, by the time you fill 1TB of space your OS is going to slow down. Quite a lot. If you dual boot or are a linux user you can pretty safely ignore this point (unless you apt-get everything on your HDD in which case... nuff said )
3.) GPU: If you dont play many games, going down a notch here can save a few euros although going down to far may affect compatibility with the latest OpenGL releases as older architectures lack the support. Eg. My 5750 only supports OpenGL3.2 if you go that far back, despite it giving out nice frame rates on everything I throw at it
4.) Motherboard: the 970 chipset is VEEERY nice in terms of upgradeability options. Full on native sata 6gbps, Am3+, >8 core support, USB 3.0 all out of the box by design - unlike the older 8 series which tend to feel a bit 'kludgy' to setup although those features are USUALLY possible... The 9xx series are usually 10euro or so more than the 8xx but its worth it if you upgrade rather than replace...
5.) CPU: I would recommend sticking to a phenom ii x4 black edition, it can be overclocked, it has threads, it has raw power and it'll do everything you ask it to. If you want to you can skimp to an x3 model and hope it unlocks when you need it to/permanently but there are no guarantees. x3s are quite capable on their own though. It depends if you do a lot of multithreading. Note that a step down here is only likely to save you a couple of euros at 10% performance cost or so so I'd advise against it...

So, where does the case/PSU fit in? Well simply - I can't survay the ebay, amazon and such sites to find a good bargain. Just try and find something with around 650W of juice from some brand or you might have power fluctuations that can hurt performance and worse - hardware. As for the grand total I think this target spec is doable for around EUR425-440 is if you shop around and take amazon and such shops up on their numerous xyz%off this week offers. Also it does, to the best of my understanding reflect a mid range market sweetspot and should - dpending on your needs (whether its gaming, encoding and such) serve you a good 3 years+ with the minor tweak here and there. eg: new game comes out, you want MAX not HIGH settings, need to spend what will be <EUR50 to crossfire and virtually double GPU performance

Anyway, sorry for the long post and all the depth, just didnt quite know the use scenario so I covered all the bases and since EUR400ish is my price point, if I hadnt built my new machine last year this is actually EXACTLY what I would build Hope this helps at least somewhat.

[Cybermonkey]

Hey, thanks guys.
@User137: Very useful links, thanks.
@all: I think I might go the AMD way. My actual PC is an Intel Core 2 Duo, with mainly Xubuntu 12.04 on it. Everything other than XFCE seems to slow down my Geforce 8600 GT. In my shop I got an Athlonx 64 X2 with only 2GB RAM (my home PC's got 4GB), already over one year old with onboard graphics and it seems faster to me. The PC before my actual home PC is already in my shop, it's a Pentium 4, a snail. Before that I had an AMD K5? It was like a Pentium with 200 MHz and was really fast for that days.
Well, I am not the hardcore gamer (seems that game programmers don't have time to play games ...) but now and then I like to play some games. I will definately have a look at the new Tomb Raider next year, besides of that we have some nice German PC gaming magazines with full versions on their CDs/DVDs. For example Drakensang used to be on one. Needless to say it doesn't perform very well on my actual PC.
Oh, another point I have to take care of: the graphics card needs to have a VGA port, since my (bit older) FullHD display has no other option to connect.

EDIT: What I found for even a lower price (319,00€) is a complete system with an Athlon II X4 631, 8GB RAM (DDR 3 - 1333MHz only), a Radeon HD6670 with 2GB and 640 GB HDD. (It will be a dualboot system). At last this is a bargain, I guess ...

[code_glitch]

2GB HD6670 = DRR3 not GDDR5 model, and that can result in quite a hit on performance... As for a VGA port, displayport has VGA adapters you can use... Though if its a system thats super-reposnive, an SSD truly is the way to go

[LP]

GPU: This one has been moving at one heck of a pace lately. I have an HD5750 from XFX which is sitting at clock speed just higher than a stock HD5770 which is actually surprisingly capable of a GPU in my opinion since I have no problem playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, MAss effect 1,2 and 3 all on the highest settings at vsync (which for me is 1280x1024 at 60fps). Although for around £50-65 gets you an XFX HD6670 with 1GB of GDDR5. NOT DDR3. GDDR5. I like XFX for my cards, my friends likes Asus... We both had no issues. Although if driver support is a must consider an nVidia alternative. My board recommendation has no issues with SLI so....

Drivers for AMD GPUs have issues almost on all platforms, so for stability I'd suggest Nvidia. If you pick AMD video cards, go for raw power, in which case get 6770 or higher. Mine Asus HD 6780 is pretty good, but fully loaded it runs at 90+ C, and 70 C if you use more than 1 monitor on it. If you don't need raw power, avoid AMD video cards for now.

P.S. Radeon HD 6670 does run Stalker - Shadows of Chernobyl smooth, but it quickly gets overwhelmed if you use 1920 × 1080 resolution, enable multisampling, or try Stalker - Call of Pripyat on med to high settings, for instance.

Storage: In my experience: SSD boot drivers are here and they are the future.

My experience says otherwise. I'd suggest sticking away from SSDs for now, unless you enjoy doing repair and reinstall every couple of months while losing all your data in the process. Unless, of course, you barely use your machine, in which case SSD will not make much difference anyway. Both Sandforce and non-sandforce SSDs have issues at one point or another; sure, not all of the fail within certain time, but it's like playing roulette. In our office, a sandforce-based SSDs have been replaced twice now (and they had latest firmware) and Crucial SSD has recently locked up and no way to extract the data from it. Sure, all of them received 7.9 score in Windows, but fewer seconds faster boot time was quickly overwhelmed by 2-3 days of repairs, headaches, calls to support center and backup recovery each time SSD dies. You can google for: "Intel SSD lockup", "Crucial SSD lockup", "Sandforce problem", "Samsung SSD lockup" and so on.

1.) SSD: do you mind loading/boot times. An SSD boot drive makes things FEEL a LOT - and I mean a geological AGE FASTER - but is costly...
2.) HDD: I know this is an odd one HOWEVER if on windows, by the time you fill 1TB of space your OS is going to slow down. Quite a lot. If you dual boot or are a linux user you can pretty safely ignore this point (unless you apt-get everything on your HDD in which case... nuff said )

Avoid large HDDs, they are usually slower or faster to age. Stick with 500 Gb, if possible. If you properly defragment your hard-drive, at least on Windows, the boot time difference between SSD and HDD is minimal. For instance, on my rig, Core i7 2600K with 2133 Ghz Patriot RAM 16 Gb, the majority of boot time is eaten by BIOS POST, not the actual OS startup (and no, I no longer use SSD).

Also, I remember reading an article somewhere that stated that hard drives available in stores are typically those that failed quality checks (the ones that passed QC are sold to companies at higher prices). In my own case, I've never seen any of my Fujitsu HDDs fail, neither WD HDDs, but I have experienced physical wear on Seagate HDDs (manifests itself as higher noise and lower performance).

P.S. I would not recommend overclocking, unless you want to kill your hardware earlier; overclocking is only possible if you have highest-end CPU and motherboard (OEM tested and certified to survive extreme usage conditions) along with very efficient cooling solution and years of experience doing it. Sure, it is a fun thing to do, but you get only a marginal performance boost since there are many bottlenecks in the system that are not affected by raw CPU speed.

P.S.2. As an example to above, AMD FX-8150 watercooled and not overclocked runs at 50C at 4.2 Ghz (Turbo boost) on full load, while on stock cooler it runs at over 70C, which is higher than 62C maximum OEM suggested temperature. No matter how hard I tried, my both Core i7 rigs running at full load and 3.8 Ghz (Turbo boost) slowly heat up to 70C while on expensive pure-copper air solutions and thermal paste. I can't imagine how can you cool this thing when overclocked without using anything but liquid nitrogen.

[WILL]

Before I can throw in my 2 cents, what kind of development do you want to do?

Cross-platform? Commercial? Stick to a single platform? library development? just hobby/freeware/community stuff? High end graphics and 3D with physics?

[Cybermonkey]

Before I can throw in my 2 cents, what kind of development do you want to do?

Cross-platform? Commercial? Stick to a single platform? library development? just hobby/freeware/community stuff? High end graphics and 3D with physics?

Development should be cross-platform, Windows and Linux. At the moment just hobby/freeware stuff, usually 2D (with physics ).