SteveGrabowski

Wow, a $2300 system with a GTX 750 Ti and an $1800 system with a GTX 750? The author of this article should be shot.

That's a terrible deal even if it was brand new with the full two year warranty, as the reference cooler is complete crap on the 290 and 290x. The GPU goes straight to 94C and the card is constantly throttling under that woefully inadequate cooler. By contrast, this R9 290x is much better and comes with GTA V: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202079&cm_re=sapphire_tri_x_r9_290x-_-14-202-079-_-Product The cooler keeps temps in the 70s even though the GPU is putting out the same amount of heat. Newegg also has a similar hot deal on the Sapphire Tri-X R9 290.

Eurogamer is the only site I have seen test this; everyone else just tests video cards in combination with i7s. GameGPU occasionally does CPU benchmarks with Radeon cards, but most recent games they do them with GTX 980, GTX 980 SLI, Titan X, etc. GameGPU's i3 benchmark looks pretty reasonable for COD AW. This is very surprising though, since the COD AW performance article Eurogamer did was where they first discovered problems with the i3 and R9 280 combination. It's pretty disturbing here seeing the i3-4130 + R9 280 combination lagging significantly behind the i3-4130 + GTX 750 Ti combo for the entire city driving section of the GTA V benchmark.

Eurogamer's review of the GTX 960 shows AMD cards performing really badly when paired with i3s. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-review

You should buy an Nvidia GPU with an i3. The AMD DirectX11 driver crashes and burns with an i3 or lower when there is a lot of stuff on the screen. An R9 280 is overkill anyways for 768p. I'd go for a GTX 750 Ti, or perhaps a GTX 660.

The 290 hasn't been anywhere close to that price since November.

1. I got a Pentium G3258 and an H81 board for $75 last summer. I don't use the Pentium now, but still, a $70 CPU and a $50 board brand new for $75? 2. My Antec Neo Eco 620C power supply (Seasonic OEM) was $23 on a Shell Shocker deal from newegg. 3. My Antec GX500 case was a $25 Shell Shocker deal from newegg. Cable management kind of sucks but the cooling is outstanding.

I gotta echo what George Carlin said, that I'd rather have my 10 year old watch two people have sex rather than have him see two people kill each other.

I'd definitely pick the GTA V bundle if I didn't own the game already. Witcher 3 looks great, but GTA V is such an unbelievably fun game with tons of replay value.

Why are people surprised games are written for the lowest common denominator? They always have been. Game development is expensive as hell and producers put tremendous pressure on development houses to meet deadlines. We all know PC AAA gaming is all about getting better results than consoles by brute force, not by optimizations for us.

The 4790k does 4.2 GHz on all cores at stock speed, or 4.4 GHz on dual core or single core workloads . On the downside though you really shouldn't consider using the stock cooler with the i7-4790k even at stock speed. You'll definitely want an aftermarket cooler. Those graphics I showed are some of the best case scenarios right now with the i7 though. I know Witcher 3 is recommending an i7-3770 or better, but so did Shadows of Mordor, which runs every bit as well with an i3 from 2011 (the 2nd and 4th generation i3, i5, and i7 are all at 100 FPS locked on the GameGPU benchmark for Middle Earth). But I like the thought of having 8 threads to simulate the 8 cores in the consoles. There is a big thread here with everyone complaining about Witcher 3 being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (XB1), but that's something we all have to expect when playing console ports. The money is in the console releases, and the consoles are 8 very weak cores versus the 4 very strong cores in an i5. I'm not sure I trust studios to optimize their games for those four strong cores now.

So anyone who was going to buy GTA V anyways, this works out to basically a sub $200 R9 290. And arguably the best R9 290 on the market.

Yeah, you're right

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202143 Also comes with GTA V and Dirt Rally

It's like gamer religion that i7 offers no benefit over i5 for gaming, and it's repeated over and over again in this forum. That and it's always said that games don't use hyperthreading. Both are dead wrong. 2013 and before it was exceedingly rare to see games use the 8 threads of say an i7-2600k, but 2014 to present most games can use all 8 threads. There is a CPU benchmark of all major 2014 AAA games on GameGPU.ru which shows the thread usage for either the i7-2600k or i7-4770k (I forget which), and all 8 threads are used in each game. This wasn't the case 2013 and before when the same site's benchmarks show most games using only 4 hardware threads of an i7, occasionally 5, but 8 only in Battlefield 4. However, those 8 threads typically don't offer much better or even better at all performance than just using 1 thread per core on an i5. Sometimes you'll even get slightly lesser performance using an i7 over an i5. But there are definitely games that can squeeze more performance out using the extra 4 threads of an i7, just like there are games that can make usage of higher clockspeeds of an overclocked 4690k/4790k. You just can't make a blanket statement which is most important for gaming: hyperthreading or clockspeed? Which is why I like the 4790k, because it offers both. Here's their benchmark for DAI: And Crysis 3:

I don't think so, the i5-3340 is a pretty strong gaming CPU. I'd wait to see if Skylake is worth it before I thought of upgrading. What's your GPU though and what games do you play?

If you have the money for it without skimping in say the video card, the i7-4790k is the best. Some games like Arma 3 and Total War Atilla want flat out clockspeed and are CPU bound by a single core, some games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Crysis 3 are really core hungry and do better with the 8 hardware threads of an i7. So the i7-4790k is the best of both worlds, at least on LGA 1150. Though both of these classes of games are in a small minority. Almost all AAA games will perform the same on a locked i5, overclocked i5, locked i7, or overclocked i7 if you're targeting 60 fps. Don't buy a 4670k or 4770k, as they don't overclock as well on average as the Devil's Canyon 4690k and 4790k. If the extra $100 for the i7 is coming out of your video card or power supply budget, then absolutely opt for the i5-4690k instead, as it's not much of a step down from the i7-4790k unless you're trying to push 120 frames per second.

Probably not. Don't believe the hype on system requirements before a game is released; wait for actual benchmarks. Everyone was freaking out when Shadow of Mordor was recommending an i7-3770 and once it released we came to find out it runs just as well on an i3.

A Core 2 Duo will smash most games in the whole library of PC games, but no one would recommend one now. No one choosing between an i5 and a Xeon E3 is looking to see which can run Half Life 2, League of Legends, Duke Nukem, or Call of Duty 4 better.

I have that exact Xeon you're asking about, and it's a monster for gaming. It's a tough call for me between recommending the i5-4690k or the Xeon E3-1231v3. For most games they'll perform the same, since the majority of games are GPU bound at 1080p and above unless you're running an SLI/CF system or have a Titan X, as long as you have an Intel quadcore or better. You have the occasional game like Arma 3 or Total War Atilla that is really CPU bound by one core, in which case an overclocked i5-4690k will significantly outperform the Xeon E3-1231v3. But then you have the occasional game like Dragon Age Inquisition or Crysis 3 that is really core hungry and performs a lot better on a hyperthreaded quadcore like the Xeon E3-1231v3. I personally chose the Xeon because most games are now written to use all 8 threads (though they still perform the same as on an i5 in the overwhelming majority of cases), and because the consoles are octacores. I always expect AAA games to be written first and foremost for the XBox One and Playstation 4, since that's where the studios make the most money.

Virtually all recent games utilize four cores. The difference between my dual core 4.4 GHz Pentium G3258 and quadcore 3.6 GHz Xeon E3-1231v3 is night and day in every recent AAA game I have, save Bioshock Infinite, which does great on the Pentium even at stock 3.2GHz.

I can't think of any 980s less than 10", but I know this EVGA GTX 970 SC is since I have it. http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-04gp42974kr It'll probably be quieter and cooler than the short mini ITX ones too.

Damn that's a horrible price. Everything is so damn expensive in NZ. Still, I was blown away when I was talking to a tourist from Singapore in Fox Glacier, NZ who was telling me how cheap NZ is compared to Singapore. If the GTX 970 is that much out there, I'd probably wait to see if it comes down any or if the R9 380 is similarly priced. I always tell people in the US not to expect much of a price drop on the 970 since it's pretty reasonably priced here, but it seems like it has plenty of room to come down in price in your neck of the woods.

With what you're looking for, I would go with this: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ NCIX US) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($26.98 @ OutletPC) Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($112.99 @ SuperBiiz) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.49 @ OutletPC) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0 Video Card ($314.00 @ Newegg) Case: NZXT S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($67.99 @ SuperBiiz) Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($51.98 @ Newegg) Total: $901.41 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-11 19:45 EDT-0400 You should add a couple of 140mm case fans for intake, but it's a beautiful case with good airflow, a Z97 SLI board, an i5-4690k plus an aftermarket cooler, a very high quality power supply (it's Seasonic OEM), and one of the best models of GTX 970. You won't be able to turn grass on ultra and get a locked 60 FPS on GTA V with this system, but you will be able to turn it to Very High and max out most of the other settings in the game at 1080p and get 60 FPS butter smooth. It blows me away one can build a system this powerful for $900.

This is the system I have, not counting some data drives I recycled, and using a newer version of the EVGA GTX 970 than what I have. It's a really nice system that gets a locked 60 FPS with most settings on Very High or Ultra. For $50 more you could instead get a nice Z97 board and change the CPU from the Xeon E3-1231v3 I have to an i5-4690k for overclocking and still come in a little under budget, not counting OS. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jdmJXL With a $900 total budget you definitely shouldn't be considering any GPU less than a GTX 970.