AMD Upgrades.

[Plastictree]

Here is my build. http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/4657018

 

 

My cpu is a bit unstable. I get errors in p95 every 15 hours. This causes me to have some odd errors from time to time.

 

I want an 8350, but I can't find the tdp of my socket, but gigabyte says that it takes all fx cpus.

 

Here's the order that I think is best.

 

8350

Some sort of stock 780

An asus am3+ matx board  and a nice heatsink with silent fans(you guys can recomend me some, but I'll figure it out if not)

big hard drive(not ready for ssds yet)

Quieter, psu, maybe more watts, so I can use it in bigger builds in the future.

 

Does this order seem good to you guys, or is something else I should change, and what do you guys recomend when I didn't name something specific.

[DudeWazap]

What kind of CPU cooler will you be using on the 8350?

[Dr3nz4r]

Silent fans: Noctua NF-F12 / Be Quiet! Silent Wings 2

EDIT: Absolutly forgot the one and only Silverstone Air Penetrator Fans

[Gullerback]

I've recently upgraded to a FX 6300  and I've never been happier.  I got to 5ghz stable and running to my amazement extremely cool quite easily.

[Ryan Leech]

I've done a lot of research on this board myself and the first mistake you made was to buy this board in the first place. It's main problem is the fact that it doesn't have vrm heatsinks; if you would have spent $5 more on the other Gigabyte mATX board, your cpu would not have errors in p95. The other problem that stems from these mATX boards is that they all have a 4+1 power phase meaning a 4 core is the most you could put on this board safely, so I would not recommend putting the 8350 on the board, sadly though because not a single mATX board supports the 8 core, you are either going to have to stick it out with your current setup or go with a richland APU like the A10 6800K which has better performance than your cpu or even go to an Intel platform (not recommended).

[Ryan Leech]

Here is my build. http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/4657018

 

 

My cpu is a bit unstable. I get errors in p95 every 15 hours. This causes me to have some odd errors from time to time.

 

I want an 8350, but I can't find the tdp of my socket, but gigabyte says that it takes all fx cpus.

 

Here's the order that I think is best.

 

8350

Some sort of stock 780

An asus am3+ matx board  and a nice heatsink with silent fans(you guys can recomend me some, but I'll figure it out if not)

big hard drive(not ready for ssds yet)

Quieter, psu, maybe more watts, so I can use it in bigger builds in the future.

 

Does this order seem good to you guys, or is something else I should change, and what do you guys recomend when I didn't name something specific.

The best mATX board that you could buy is the GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-USB3 although the most I would recommend putting on it would be the FX 4350. Good Luck with your upgrades.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128565

[Plastictree]

I've done a lot of research on this board myself and the first mistake you made was to buy this board in the first place. It's main problem is the fact that it doesn't have vrm heatsinks; if you would have spent $5 more on the other Gigabyte mATX board, your cpu would not have errors in p95. The other problem that stems from these mATX boards is that they all have a 4+1 power phase meaning a 4 core is the most you could put on this board safely, so I would not recommend putting the 8350 on the board, sadly though because not a single mATX board supports the 8 core, you are either going to have to stick it out with your current setup or go with a richland APU like the A10 6800K which has better performance than your cpu or even go to an Intel platform (not recommended).

This helped alot. When I built my computer it was a budget build. So I went matx case, and went amd. So now I can't use more than 4 cores, can't sli. But if I went intel, id be happy with an i5 and be able to sli.

 

So how much improvement would I get from the new A10? I guess i can look that up myself

[Ryan Leech]

This helped alot. When I built my computer it was a budget build. So I went matx case, and went amd. So now I can't use more than 4 cores, can't sli. But if I went intel, id be happy with an i5 and be able to sli.

 

So how much improvement would I get from the new A10? I guess i can look that up myself

You can stay mATX with AMD and still have great performance, don't get me wrong the FX 4350 is a great cpu that comes stock at 4.2GHz and can be easily overclocked to 5.0GHz it will give you awesome gaming performance. If you really want the 8350 and sli then go ahead and step up to an ATX case like the NZXT Source 210 and an ATX motherboard like the GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 which has an 8+2 phase ready for the 8350. The other option would be an APU, but the FX 4350 will give you better performance. But no matter how strong the urge is to buy Intel don't do it cuz once you go intel, you can't go back to AMD. Also AMD needs all the help they can get so they can catch back up with Intel.

[Plastictree]

You can stay mATX with AMD and still have great performance, don't get me wrong the FX 4350 is a great cpu that comes stock at 4.2GHz and can be easily overclocked to 5.0GHz it will give you awesome gaming performance. If you really want the 8350 and sli then go ahead and step up to an ATX case like the NZXT Source 210 and an ATX motherboard like the GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 which has an 8+2 phase ready for the 8350. The other option would be an APU, but the FX 4350 will give you better performance. But no matter how strong the urge is to buy Intel don't do it cuz once you go intel, you can't go back to AMD. Also AMD needs all the help they can get so they can catch back up with Intel.

I am half of an amd fanboy. I just understand nvidia cards over amd cards, but i understand amd cpus and like them more than intel, well my pockets like amd over intel. Problem is, is that I love my fractal design define mini. It's micro atx though. Any changes to amd chipsets or updates to the phases on matx boards in the next year? by next summer?

[Ryan Leech]

I am half of an amd fanboy. I just understand nvidia cards over amd cards, but i understand amd cpus and like them more than intel, well my pockets like amd over intel. Problem is, is that I love my fractal design define mini. It's micro atx though. Any changes to amd chipsets or updates to the phases on matx boards in the next year? by next summer?

Steamroller is supposed to roll out at the end of the year, and hopefully AMD will have mATX chipsets and pcie 3.0. If AMD unveils mATX motherboards for Steamroller, I will probably be upgrading from my Core 2 Quad, which is sad because my Core 2 Quad still has better single threaded performance than the new Haswell chips let alone Vishera.

[WoodenMarker]

Get a 8320 instead. The 8350 is just a higher binned 8320.

Why get a 780? What are you doing that needs that kind of power?

You plan to spending a good chunk of money. Get a ssd.

[Plastictree]

Get a 8320 instead. The 8350 is just a higher binned 8320.

Why get a 780? What are you doing that needs that kind of power?

You plan to spending a good chunk of money. Get a ssd.

I just play a lot of games. And I enjoy a game better if it looks better. I got serious sam 3 and was disapointed because I had to turn everything low to get at least 30-40 fps average. So an ssd isn't going to increase my fps, it'll just increase my load times, and that's if I get all my games on that ssd, which is like 500 gb, so load times aren't that big of a deal to me. I wanted to end up with 2 blower style 780s but I can't do that on amd fx, obviously. I believe in tek syndicate where he believes that for just gaming, the 8350 beats intel. And I would like to do this before I have to start saving money to move out and have bills and shit. 

[WoodenMarker]

I just play a lot of games. And I enjoy a game better if it looks better. I got serious sam 3 and was disapointed because I had to turn everything low to get at least 30-40 fps average. So an ssd isn't going to increase my fps, it'll just increase my load times, and that's if I get all my games on that ssd, which is like 500 gb, so load times aren't that big of a deal to me. I wanted to end up with 2 blower style 780s but I can't do that on amd fx, obviously. I believe in tek syndicate where he believes that for just gaming, the 8350 beats intel. And I would like to do this before I have to start saving money to move out and have bills and shit. 

I wasn't so much arguing against the 8350 as it's basically the same cpu as the 8320 but has a higher guaranteed overclock. A 8320 can potentially do the same OC.

Unless you're playing games at 1440p 120hz, 2 780's will be overkill. A single 770/7970 can max out pretty much everything at 1080p.

Open air coolers are pretty much always better than blower style ones.

The point of an ssd is not to put your games on it as much as it is for your other applications and OS. The slowest part of your system is the storage drive adn when you go from hdd to ssd, the whole system feels smoother. 

If you had ever had to wait more than half a second for a window or browser to open, you can say goodbye to that with an ssd. 

[Plastictree]

I wasn't so much arguing against the 8350 as it's basically the same cpu as the 8320 but has a higher guaranteed overclock. A 8320 can potentially do the same OC.

Unless you're playing games at 1440p 120hz, 2 780's will be overkill. A single 770/7970 can max out pretty much everything at 1080p.

Open air coolers are pretty much always better than blower style ones.

The point of an ssd is not to put your games on it as much as it is for your other applications and OS. The slowest part of your system is the storage drive adn when you go from hdd to ssd, the whole system feels smoother. 

If you had ever had to wait more than half a second for a window or browser to open, you can say goodbye to that with an ssd. 

No arguing really, you guys are great. This is BIG upgrade for me, more of a rebuild at this point, and that's why I'm here. So I was wanting a blower style because my case is the define mini, but I guess if I took the side fan spot and filled it, I would be good. So. If I took the 8350 and two 780, which would be like 1500 right there, and went 7970 and 4350 to stick to the matx case, I would have 1000 left. 

 

 

 

So I just spent like an hour just looking at stuff, and I can't spend enough money with 4350 and 7970, even ghz edition. Here's what I ended up with http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1m9Jc

[WoodenMarker]

No arguing really, you guys are great. This is BIG upgrade for me, more of a rebuild at this point, and that's why I'm here. So I was wanting a blower style because my case is the define mini, but I guess if I took the side fan spot and filled it, I would be good. So. If I took the 8350 and two 780, which would be like 1500 right there, and went 7970 and 4350 to stick to the matx case, I would have 1000 left. 

 

So I just spent like an hour just looking at stuff, and I can't spend enough money with 4350 and 7970, even ghz edition. Here's what I ended up with http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1m9Jc

Edits: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1m9Tu

Not all cores are created equal. I wouldn't go down to a 4350 if I didn't have to. 

I'd also stick to WD and Barracuda for hdds. Perhaps the occasional Hitachi as well but I don't really see them with a competing price.

Don't spend more for an expensive 7970. Just overclock your own and save a lot of money.

[TechFan@ic]

I have a few suggestions & a few comments for you brother.

First things first, do not get an FX 4350, you can get an FX 6300 for 20$ less, the CPU draws slightly less power than the FX 4350 so you don't have to worry about the power delivery of the board it's also got 2 more cores which will come in very handy in a bunch of workloads including some games like Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3.

Secondly, a great cooler for this setup would be the Noctua NH-C14, it's whisper quiet and it's low profile, furthermore the cooler blows cool air onto the VRMs cooling them essentially working as a VRM heatsink which this motherboard lacks, this will improve stability and even allow you to overclock your CPU.

Thirdly, you can get a Sapphire 7970 Dual-X for 320$ new on amazon right now, that's more than 100$ cheaper than the 7970 Ghz edition you've picked, you can easily overclock the 7970 Dual-X to 1050Mhz on the stock voltage, giving you Ghz edition performance with very little effort.
 

[Plastictree]

Edits: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1m9Tu

Not all cores are created equal. I wouldn't go down to a 4350 if I didn't have to. 

I'd also stick to WD and Barracuda for hdds. Perhaps the occasional Hitachi as well but I don't really see them with a competing price.

Don't spend more for an expensive 7970. Just overclock your own and save a lot of money.

Ryan stated above that because of the 760 chipset on matx boards that 8 cores aren't supported, because of it only have 4-1 phase, which is why I stepped down to  4350. I have a 4100 right now and was only able to get 4.2 stable, so a 4.2 stock will be great to start with. I'm just looking at the cooler master heat sink pictures on pcpartpicker and it looks like that fan is proprietary, which I don't like. The heat sink will last forever, but the fan maybe not

[WoodenMarker]

Ryan stated above that because of the 760 chipset on matx boards that 8 cores aren't supported, because of it only have 4-1 phase, which is why I stepped down to  4350. I have a 4100 right now and was only able to get 4.2 stable, so a 4.2 stock will be great to start with. I'm just looking at the cooler master heat sink pictures on pcpartpicker and it looks like that fan is proprietary, which I don't like. The heat sink will last forever, but the fan maybe not

Ahh, I forgot about that--my bad. Get the 6300 instead.

The fan should last quite a while...

[Plastictree]

I have a few suggestions & a few comments for you brother.

First things first, do not get an FX 4350, you can get an FX 6300 for 20$ less, the CPU draws slightly less power than the FX 4350 so you don't have to worry about the power delivery of the board it's also got 2 more cores which will come in very handy in a bunch of workloads including some games like Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3.

Secondly, a great cooler for this setup would be the Noctua NH-C14, it's whisper quiet and it's low profile, furthermore the cooler blows cool air onto the VRMs cooling them essentially working as a VRM heatsink which this motherboard lacks, this will improve stability and even allow you to overclock your CPU.

Thirdly, you can get a Sapphire 7970 Dual-X for 320$ new on amazon right now, that's more than 100$ cheaper than the 7970 Ghz edition you've picked, you can easily overclock the 7970 Dual-X to 1050Mhz on the stock voltage, giving you Ghz edition performance with very little effort.

 

Thanks man.

If I said I wanted to OC a little bit, not crazy because I don't have room for a 240 rad, just a nice heat sink, would that change your recommendation for the 6300? And yeah I realized the whole price difference in 7970s.

And do I have room for that heat sink? I'm fitting this in my define mini

[Ryan Leech]

Ryan stated above that because of the 760 chipset on matx boards that 8 cores aren't supported, because of it only have 4-1 phase, which is why I stepped down to 4350. I have a 4100 right now and was only able to get 4.2 stable, so a 4.2 stock will be great to start with. I'm just looking at the cooler master heat sink pictures on pcpartpicker and it looks like that fan is proprietary, which I don't like. The heat sink will last forever, but the fan maybe not

While I do agree that the FX 6300 will give you better performance outside of games, the FX 4350 will give you better performance in game due to the fact that games can only utilize four cores. The FX 6300 has a clock of 3.5GHz while the FX 4350 has a clock of 4.2GHz meaning it will have higher performance than the FX 6300 due to its lower clock speed across those four cores. The problem with the FX 6300 is that it has 6 cores which means more power consumption. A common misconception among cpu buyers is that TDP is how much energy the CPU uses, while it actually refers to how much heat the CPU heat spreader can dissipate. Overall the FX 4350 will use less power than the FX 6300 even though the FX 4350 has a TDP of 125w while the FX 6300 has a TDP of 95w. The extra power used by the FX 6300 would put added stress on the motherboard due to its 4+1 power phase. In order to gain a stable overclock, you are going to need a vrm heatsink for added stability while also allowing for a higher overclock, which is what you are relying on for your 7970/770 to be fully utilized. FYI a stock FX 4300 will bottleneck a 7970 slightly in bf3 and Crysis 3. However I do recommend going with a Nvidia gpu due to the stability and reliable delivery of their drivers, although the choice is up to you. You can take your extra money and buy an SSD or some faster memory.

Better motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4305#ov

[TechFan@ic]

Thanks man.

If I said I wanted to OC a little bit, not crazy because I don't have room for a 240 rad, just a nice heat sink, would that change your recommendation for the 6300? And yeah I realized the whole price difference in 7970s.

And do I have room for that heat sink? I'm fitting this in my define mini

An FX 6300 is better than an FX 4350 in every imaginable situation, you have 6 cores, for 20$ less, this means that even if you only want a quad core, you can disable 2 cores on the FX 6300 and overclock, but because you have the option to disable whichever cores you want, you can disable the cores that overclock the worst (binning the CPU yourself) and this will allow you to overclock the CPU even better than an FX 4350.

According to Asus even an FX 8350 will work perfectly fine on that board.

I'm not entirely sure if the cooler will fit, but you can check out the dimensions of the cooler here.

 

[Ryan Leech]

An FX 6300 is better than an FX 4350 in every imaginable situation, you have 6 cores, for 20$ less, this means that even if you only want a quad core, you can disable 2 cores on the FX 6300 and overclock, but because you have the option to disable whichever cores you want, you can disable the cores that overclock the worst (binning the CPU yourself) and this will allow you to overclock the CPU even better than an FX 4350.

According to Asus even an FX 8350 will work perfectly fine on that board.

I'm not entirely sure if the cooler will fit, but you can check out the dimensions of the cooler here.

 

Yes the 8350 will function on the board but it puts a lot of additional stress on it and it also makes overclocking impossible.

[Ryan Leech]

I just play a lot of games. And I enjoy a game better if it looks better. I got serious sam 3 and was disapointed because I had to turn everything low to get at least 30-40 fps average. So an ssd isn't going to increase my fps, it'll just increase my load times, and that's if I get all my games on that ssd, which is like 500 gb, so load times aren't that big of a deal to me. I wanted to end up with 2 blower style 780s but I can't do that on amd fx, obviously. I believe in tek syndicate where he believes that for just gaming, the 8350 beats intel. And I would like to do this before I have to start saving money to move out and have bills and shit. 

Also if you aren't ready for an SSD, you could be like me and put two WD Velociraptors in raid0 if you don't believe in SSD's

[TechFan@ic]

While I do agree that the FX 6300 will give you better performance outside of games, the FX 4350 will give you better performance in game due to the fact that games can only utilize four cores. The FX 6300 has a clock of 3.5GHz while the FX 4350 has a clock of 4.2GHz meaning it will have higher performance than the FX 6300 due to its lower clock speed across those four cores. The problem with the FX 6300 is that it has 6 cores which means more power consumption. A common misconception among cpu buyers is that TDP is how much energy the CPU uses, while it actually refers to how much heat the CPU heat spreader can dissipate. Overall the FX 4350 will use less power than the FX 6300 even though the FX 4350 has a TDP of 125w while the FX 6300 has a TDP of 95w. The extra power used by the FX 6300 would put added stress on the motherboard due to its 4+1 power phase. In order to gain a stable overclock, you are going to need a vrm heatsink for added stability while also allowing for a higher overclock, which is what you are relying on for your 7970/770 to be fully utilized. FYI a stock FX 4300 will bottleneck a 7970 slightly in bf3 and Crysis 3. However I do recommend going with a Nvidia gpu due to the stability and reliable delivery of their drivers, although the choice is up to you. You can take your extra money and buy an SSD or some faster memory.

Better motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4305#ov

Turbo mode on the FX 6300 allows it to run 4 cores of the 6 at 4.1Ghz, it only clocks itself down to 3.5 when all 6 cores are active, you also get 1 more floating point unit and 1 more decoder with the FX 6300 giving you a tangible performance per clock improvement over the FX 4350.

[Ryan Leech]

Turbo mode on the FX 6300 allows it to run 4 cores of the 6 at 4.1Ghz, it only clocks itself down to 3.5 when all 6 cores are active, you also get 1 more floating point unit and 1 more decoder with the FX 6300 giving you a tangible performance per clock improvement over the FX 4350.

If he wants to get the FX 6300 and disable 2 cores that also works, but the FX 4350 is a higher binned chip and if he's going to be overclocking on a 4+1 phase mATX motherboard he is going to need all the silicon luck he can get so he can run the lowest voltage he can possibly run and therefore extend the life of his board and the chip itself. If he were to go with the FX 6300 I would recommend he go with the FX 6350 and disable two cores due to the FX 6350 being a higher binned chip and thus requiring less voltage. If price is a factor, he can buy the Fx 4350 at microcenter where both the FX 4350 and the FX 6300 are $119.