Computer Hardware and Electronics

[Kurt Fraser]

Sorry if I missed this information Radio but does the screen show anything at all?

@Kurt, I can see you are making double, triple, and quadruple posts in this thread. Please remember that the modify button is there should you decide you have more to say before somebody responds to you.

Telex that was already brought up.

Does anyone know about the quality of AMD's R9 Gamer Series RAM (http://www.radeonmemory.com/gamer_series.php)? AMD claims it is optimised for usage with their higher-end CPUs. I'm trying to work out if said optimisations are worth it, or if I should stick to something like Corsair or Kingston. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that I was using a relatively high-end FX-Series CPU (Which currently I'm not, but am aiming to do so soon enough).

Given the fact that it is for use with an FX series CPU it may well be better than the likes of Corsair or Kingston but I don't see it making a massive difference they appear to be similar in alot of ways

[Veritas]

Does anyone know about the quality of AMD's R9 Gamer Series RAM (http://www.radeonmemory.com/gamer_series.php)? AMD claims it is optimised for usage with their higher-end CPUs. I'm trying to work out if said optimisations are worth it, or if I should stick to something like Corsair or Kingston. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that I was using a relatively high-end FX-Series CPU (Which currently I'm not, but am aiming to do so soon enough).

It's relatively low-latency and relatively high-clock, so it is pretty good, but I'm sure you can get just as good for cheaper without the AMD branding. There's no such thing as RAM being more or less compatible with a given GPU; that's just silly.

[Telex Ferra]

Are you looking to buy 8GB or 16GB?

[criminula]

Are you looking to buy 8GB or 16GB?

Almost definitely 16GB. I'm planning an overhaul, going to grab a high end FX processor and a 990FX motherboard (Probably a GIGABYTE one) and quite possibly a liquid cooler. The RAM is the main area I'm unsure of.

[Kurt Fraser]

Are you looking to buy 8GB or 16GB?

Almost definitely 16GB. I'm planning an overhaul, going to grab a high end FX processor and a 990FX motherboard (Probably a GIGABYTE one) and quite possibly a liquid cooler. The RAM is the main area I'm unsure of.

If I could recommend any that I have had personnel delight with it would be the Kingston Hyper-X Beast 2400's they appear to run very smoothly don't seem to add any residual heat (or the cooling system just doesn't get bothered by it as it runs as quite as a mouse) and it works brilliantly with Nvidea Graphics Cards.

[Veritas]

Almost definitely 16GB. I'm planning an overhaul, going to grab a high end FX processor and a 990FX motherboard (Probably a GIGABYTE one) and quite possibly a liquid cooler. The RAM is the main area I'm unsure of.

You probably don't need 16GB, even with those advanced specs, unless you are doing serious processing/rendering work that would use up that much memory. 8GB is going to be more than enough.

With RAM, you want to worry first about clock speed, and second about latency. Your motherboard will have a certain maximum RAM clock speed, and you should try to get RAM approaching that speed, at relatively low latency (latency usually is in the format X-X-X-Y).

Also, you should strongly consider Intel instead of AMD for a processor. At the higher end, Intel blows AMD completely away.

[RadioActivitii]

I want to build a new machine, any suggestions? I'd mostly use it for graphic/video editing and games.

[Serris]

I want to build a new machine, any suggestions? I'd mostly use it for graphic/video editing and games.

This. Ordinarily, I'd suggest an Intel Core i7 processor for video editing. as most modern video editing software takes advantage of Intel's hyperthreading to render videos faster than comparable AMD processors. However, I'm trying to keep the price-to-performance ratio in favor of price. In terms of gaming performance, this configuration here will easily beat the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

[Veritas]

If you're getting an i5 or i7 (I would say i5, unless your work is pretty intense an i7 won't help much), you'll need a different motherboard as well.

There are some other modifications I'd make, will edit the build when I get to a PC.

Edit: OK, here we go.

First, this is around $860-900, which is a couple hundred dollars more. I'll step through the reasons for that, but there are some optional parts you can pare down to keep it cheap.

I swapped the CPU from AMD to an Intel i5. No need for i7. You're doing video editing but I doubt you're doing Video Editing of the kind where it'd help you. I also had to change out the motherboard for one with the correct socket; I picked the equivalent of what Serris had chosen - same manufacturer and part series, just for Intel instead of AMD. The CPU is pretty expensive - i5-4670K at around $220 - but you can overclock it if you upgrade your cooling later, and it is the latest Haswell model. You could probably save by finding a 3XXX or even a 2XXX series i5 instead (the performance differences between the series are very slight), but that isn't available on PCPartsPicker anymore.

The motherboard I picked is relatively low-end, but it should work just fine. You could swap it out for something better if you were OK with paying the cost, but it should fit your needs and it had a great rebate option.

I added a (very well-priced!) 120GB solid state drive. This is totally optional, but it will be a huge boost in performance over just a single hard drive. SSDs are just unimaginably faster for pretty much everything. You could pare down to a 64GB SSD, but even so I'd highly recommend getting one (plus, you can pull your HDD from your laptop if it's large enough to offer you extra space). It does add to your cost but in my experience, it is definitely worth it.

I swapped out the Radeon 7950 for an R9 270X. This is slightly cheaper for identical performance; it has less dedicated GPU RAM (separate from your system RAM), but a higher core clock speed, and it is ready for overclocking.

Even if you keep the AMD processor/compatible motherboard (which will save you quite a bit), I think the SSD and GPU changes will probably be helpful. Unfortunately, I don't see a way around the high price of Intel processors - you're paying a definite premium for performance there. You could go used, or find a site that's selling older models, but I have no experience with either (I haven't upgraded my processor in years!).

[RadioActivitii]

I won't mind paying a bit more for a processor as it will most likely last me for a few years. So it's possible for me to use the harddrive from my laptop as another in my desktop? It would save me time from redownloading installers and stuff.

[Veritas]

Yes, it is possible but would require disassembly of your laptop, and possibly buying a (relatively cheap) bay modification so the small laptop HDD fits somewhere in your case.

There's one other thing you can consider, and that's form-factor. This build is a midsized ATX case. There are smaller ones, particularly microATX, which would be about the same cost for potentially a physically smaller system - but you would lose out on expandability in the future. Is size important to you?

[RadioActivitii]

Well, I'd probably upgrade in the future as the specs got outdated.

On a new system, would this harddrive be C:\, cause if it isn't, there wouldn't be an issue with transferring data from it to the HDD in the computer, then wiping it, right?

[Veritas]

Hard drive numbers are assigned by Windows. Whichever drive you install to is always C:. If you connect another drive that has a windows install on it, it'll still be a different letter unless you boot from it, in which case it will be C.

[criminula]

I swapped out the Radeon 7950 for an R9 270X. This is slightly cheaper for identical performance; it has less dedicated GPU RAM (separate from your system RAM), but a higher core clock speed, and it is ready for overclocking.

Just thought I'd share my experience. I currently use an R9 270X (Although I use the 4GB ASUS model), and it has been very good to me. I had some installation issues (I had to reflash the BIOS to an updates version), but after that the card has had good performance and reliability so far.

[Grizz]

Updated Desktop specs.