Update on the budget build I posted the other day.

I posted a week ago asking about a build for a friend. It is using an AMD Athlon X4 860K Quad core 3.7GHz CPU and a Gigabyte Radeon R7 360 2GB OC GPU. We put one stick of HyperX Fury 8GB RAM in it. A few people were pretty down on the CPU and some weren't, so I thought I'd post the results.

After turning down or off the CPU-intensive options like shadows and particles, it ran everything else on high settings at a consistent 50-60 FPS. We went to a couple big battles and didn't notice much of a dip at all. It's not quite as pretty as Ultra, but it runs great! We hadn't even overclocked it yet when we played. Average temps were around 60C using the CM 212 Evo.

I'm mainly just posting this so people out there who might be looking into getting an AMD processor can see that it is not the end of the world if you go that route. The way some people were talking, it sounded like it would be low setting slideshow potato. However, this was not the case. So, maybe we got lucky with a good CPU and some of them are bad, but it certainly was better than the anti-AMD brigade led me to believe.

The anti-AMD brigade hasn't changed over the years, and they're rarely correct. I'm not quite a fanboy, but the price/value ratio AMD has just can't really be beat.

I think the primary issue that people have with the AMD CPUs is not so much the performance, but the lifespan of it. My friends have had personal horror stories of AMD CPUs performing brilliantly for the first 6-12 months, and then simply fizzling out and dying thereafter.

But yeah, as stated above, AMD has some of the greatest performance:cost ratio products on the market. For example, the AMD GPUs were an easy choice over the Nvidia GPUs for me.

I honestly think they might have been working on their AMD chipset optimization. I've got an FX-4100 and Radeon 6800, and 15-30 frames was to be expected for any battle involving more than a platoon of people. I stopped playing entirely for the last 6-8 months and found upon my return that it runs better now on high than it had before on medium/low settings. Now my fps seems to stay above 30 most of the time, regardless of how big the battle is.

No, that's simply not true anymore. AMD is not the bang for the buck king.

Anti- AMD brigade? That's just nonsense. CPU performance is quantifiable and well documented, this is NOT just people's opinions.

AMD gets so much crap because of the architecture they've been using, and the seemingly little about it their users seem to understand.

Bulldozer and Piledriver have been such dramatic failures that AMD has actually seen the light and is abandoning CMT (Clustered Multithreading) altogether. It just took them all this time to figure out that CMT was a non-starter.

They're now moving back to the SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) that Intel has been using for decades. They are shifting back to the tried and true "single core" performance, which is merely just a testament to Intel's engineering. AMD is calling it Zen.

And watch out! That Zen chip is going will be trying to use a 14 nm process! KEEP IT COOL!! Put it on ice if you have to.

This right here.

I used to be a fan of AMD/ATI from 2007 to 2014. I knew Intel/Nvidia was always 'better' but not cost efficient enough to justify paying for.

My old setup for PS2 was a Phenom II 970 X4 Black Edition with an ATI Radeon HD 5870. It ran PS2 wonderfully. And you know what, it probably still would (the decision to upgrade was NOT because of PS2, but other games I wanted to play). But the problem I saw was anything newer than 2013 for AMD started giving people problems in PS2 and other 2012-2014 games. Same thing with newer ATI cards beyond the 6800 series.

You pretty much needed R9 series and crazy high 4.4GHz+ CPUs to get PS2 to run better than the setup I had. Its like it took a dip down and then came back up. To me that wasn't cost efficient. Not at all. At least not as well as it should have been.

Then Intel came out with chips like the i7 4790K (there's better ones now, but it is a VERY common high end processor used in pre-builts) like I have, and of course Nvidias 900 series. Not only do they blow AMD/ATI out of the water. But they're cost efficient as well. The lower power usages takes the cake meaning you can drop buying expensive 800-1000W PSU and get 400-600W. The lower power usages makes the Motherboards cheaper as well.

AMD/ATI is still cheaper though. And if your budget is tight, go with it. But in the long run, you'll likely have to upgrade rather soon. And $600 every two years is more expensive than $900 every 5.

So if you're playing for one game. AMD is the way to go. If you want to save money and future proof a bit, go Intel.

But I have to make this closing comment. Never buy anything you can't afford to replace. If you save up and buy a 900 dollar system. Can you afford to do it again when the warranty runs out? I literally had a GPU die days before the warranty ran out. Can you imagine if it happened a week later? That's 350 I gotta shell out. Thankfully CPUs have onboard video so the computer isn't totally useless, just can't play games.

I see people make threads like the OP referenced all the time. How cheap can I go to play this game? If you have to ask that question, you can't afford to play the game. I'm serious. You have other priorities you need to take care of before getting into gaming.

PC gaming is an expensive hobby. Not the most expensive, but I really hate seeing players going paycheck to paycheck and stress themselves out when a computer part goes bad. I mean think about this. If you spent 900 on a machine to play PS2. And a part goes out that costs 200. And it took you a year to save up that 900. That means two months of savings is going right back into the computer.

That's two months savings that doesn't go into the next computer in a few years and doesn't go towards any other hobbies. And if they don't quite have the money on hand, then its 2 months without any sort of hobby (they blew it on that computer). Thats just a ton of stress that isn't needed.

I mean people can spend their money however they wish. But I speak from experience when trouble shooting friends' computers for them and find out its a bad part. The reaction is horrible. And they don't like to hear the answer when they ask how to prevent these hangups from happening. You gotta have cash on hand.

But that goes for any hobby. I mean my .45 M1911 or AR15 could have a major issue and take a $200 trip to a gunsmith to fix. I'm prepared for that. And I can go without them for a few weeks. If I need to wait for repairs or even save up the cash on hand to do it.

When its the computer.. that's a little tougher. People don't just use their gaming computer for gaming (well I do, but that's besides the point, I can afford it). They use it for email, social media, work, school... EVERYTHING. Its almost like the car they use. Thankfully most don't use their every day car for a hobby.

But some do and they run into the same problem when they bust something on the track (or wherver they choose to engage their 'hobby').

As I said, don't game on something you can't afford to replace. Keep your gaming machine separate from your life (work, school, social media, ect) machine. And if gaming is very important (your main hobby, method of stress relief, ect), don't buy anything you can't afford to fix the day the warranty stops.

Or roll the dice and see what happens. Choice is ultimately yours at the end of the day. You might get lucky and use the bargain computer forever with no issues. I've seen that happen too. But if something does happen. Don't burden on your friends.

Good stuff T.

Also with the way AMD is changing architectures every week it seems like, you could very well be looking at having to buy a new motherboard too.

No way, you too!? I just picked up a Kimber Custom II at Cabelas (yeah yeah I know, sue me) last night. Looking to punch some paper with it tomorrow.

I was just following up on my question I posted with the results, in case anyone was interested.

Mine is a simple Rock Island M1911, black with wooden grip. Went for a miltary style. Changed out the grips for custom pearl with US Army insignia engraved. I ticked off my concealed carry instructor by using it for the qualification part. He was 'concerned' that I wouldn't be able to hit the target quick enough to qualify.

I got 47 out of 49.

Your instructor sounds like kind of an idiot... let me guess, one of those Glock guys?

1911's pretty much rule IDPA. Can't hit targets fast enough....wtf?

He was retired coast guard, not even sure he used a glock lol. He seemed to prefer everyone to rent .22s. I dunno, I prefer the firearm in my hands to let me know when they've been fired other than the click of the hammer.

I managed to score a leather conceal carry hip holster from a door raffle at the local gun shop which was pretty damn nifty. So that's my Home Defense of choice.. well right behind the barking Chihuahua lol. For my actual concealed carry I use a 5 shot short barrel .357 revolver. The sneaky pete holster doubles as a galaxy cellphone case which is awesome.

Either that or this really dapper looking .38 special derringer. Wood and brass trim, looks like a gentlemans carry for sure. Girls have their shoes, I have my firearms to match outfits

*looks at airsoft collection*

*looks at real gun enthusiasts*



Well, at least you can't shoot people with normal guns on a regular basis... Or at least, it's not socially acceptable

my advice to anyone who can't afford a second computer even for just general use or only have one computer is when you replace components because you need to upgrade for gaming, keep the old parts because if something does blow up on you and isn't the motherboard one of your old parts can be used if your power supply can handle it and you can get some functionality back quickly.

this strategy has served me well in combination with keeping some money saved away somewhere to replace components that have stopped functioning.

Stick to Airsoft.. its cheaper

I'm just a collector.

WOW! That's really irresponsible of him. He should encourage people to be proficient and get familiar with their actual carry gun. Not to just use a .22 for increased accuracy so his students can pass the shooting exam. Just...wow!

Nice. My daily carry is a Springfield XD .40 SC. But my phone can't fit in my Blackhawk holster, so now I feel sad

AMD isn't and hasn't been been very good with their efficiency for a while now, that is power use to processing power compared to Intel.
Their bang for buck has changed over the years, with them mostly doing better since about 2007 in the more budget CPU end.




But having said that from 2001 to 2006ish AMD CPUs totally and utterly beat Intel CPUs in every way from a gaming perspective and general use perspective (Intel was better in a few niche aspects)........ yet Intel didn't really suffer and AMD didn't really dominate, because Intel had all the big companies tied up to use their CPUs no matter what.

But that period of AMD dominance most certainly drove Intel to produce the CPUs that have held the lead for the last few years.




Hopefully AMDs new architecture will be nice and power use to performance effiecent, because we really need an AMD, maybe some people don't remember the mid to late 1990's when Intels Pentium basically won the home computer wars in 1995 and wiped out all real opposition (with Pentium 60,66, 75 and 90mhz at that time).

They got to the Pentium 200mhz in 1996 and because they basically had NO competition (AMD and Cyrus didn't appear as real competitiors till 1998/1999) that was the best CPU you could buy for over a year (I think it might even have been 18 months) and retained its price pretty harshly (for a CPU over a year old).

If AMD isn't there, then Intel will stagnate again (same thing has happened with graphics cards then GPUs over the years too), and probably get more expensive again and consumers will lost out.

Very well stated.

Intel has always edged out AMD in top end performance. This is known and quantifiable, as you say.

My point here is that for a $99 6 core AMD FX (95w) and a $200 r9 380 video card, you've got a machine that can run PS2 on ultra with almost no dropoff even in big fights for less than what you'd pay for your i7.

This is also quantifiable, I have two rigs running that right now because I'm not building a hardcore machine until DDR4 becomes prevalent and I see what AMD's new architecture looks like. Then I will make my intel-amd decision again.

And there most certainly IS an anti-AMD brigade in the world. Most of if comes from out of context arguments and ignorance.

You want a top end beast? It's always been intel. You want something with moderately less performance, good enough to run current games but without as much longevity? You go AMD for far less money right now.

Taemien makes good points, but I think 5 years is too long to stretch realistically, for me. I'm ok with building a machine every 2-3 years for half the cost, but that's just me.

All that said - I'm considering intel for my next build simply because of my desire to be able to game/stream/record at high framerate, and THAT is where AMD budget builds unfortunately fall a little short.

i7? Dude low-end i5's are spanking anything AMD has on the market. In fact check the benchmarks. You can buy an i3 that beats AMD on most benchmarks.