First AMD build for around 575 EUR

[annoyingmoments]

So my brother wants me to help him building a PC. No problem for me, if it would have been an Intel rig. (BTW: no flame wars here). As I do not know practically anything about AMD, I will need your help.

 

He intends to play games like Train Simulator, Cities:Skylines, CS:Go and and GTA V. The aim is to get Cities:Skylines and GTA V on a solid playable level in Full HD via HDMI and with High settings.

 

I will give him my old TV as a monitor, OS-wise we will use a student program I do have access to. No further peripherals are required.

 

As for a CPU cooler he will get an Thermaltake Contac 39 with one/two fan(s), which is lying around. The budget is 575 EUR.

 

If it would have been in his budget, I first thought about an Intel build with following components:

 

PSU: Corsair CX500 52,85 EUR

RAM: Kingston Value RAM 2*4GB DDR4-2133 CL15 30,85 EUR

SSD: SanDisk Plus 120GB SSD 38,85 EUR

HDD: WD Blue @1TB 46,19 EUR

Mainboard: MSI H110 PC Mate DDR4 ATX 73,50 EUR (cheaper one by ASUS which only concers me due to only having a 4-pin 12V-ATX-connector instead of 8-pins, which as far as I remember is BS if 4 or 8 in this case)

                   or Asus H110-Plus DDR4 ATX 68,82 EUR

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 boxed 194,91 EUR

GPU: Asus Radeon R9 380 Strix 4GB GDDR5 OC 199,94 EUR (after lot of research the Asus GTX 960 w/ 4 GB GDDR5 was kicked out due to low price/perfomance)

Case: Raijnintek Arcadia Midi Tower 31,21 EUR (depends on the CPU cooler, may be changed)

Front fan: be quiet! Pure Wings 2 120mm 6,39 EUR

 

Price for the Intel Skylake build: 674,69 EUR

 

It is nearly exact 100 EUR over his budget. And I had some trouble to figure out how many PCIe pins the GPU needs (6+2?), the power usage due to the R9 380 concerned me, which lead me to different PSU wattage calculators and let me to upgrade from a Corsair CX430M to a CX500. So we tried to create an AMD build with a similar perfomance. And again we stumbled upon high power usages of an only AMD build. FX-8350(?) 125W vs the i5-6500 <70W.

Another question was and still is, if we should go for the R9 380 or the GTX 960 4GB, both by Asus

 

Does anyone have suggestions for an AMD build with a perfomance next to an i5-6500? Therefore we would need another Mainboard and a different CPU of course, but by AMD. Furthermore we would re-evaluate the case as we will need a nice airflow in the case for the AMD heater system. The FX-6300 seemes quite good until I got my eyes on the 95W TDP and the i3-ish perfomance....

 

Thanks in regard.

[TheRandomness]

There are no AMD CPUs that will match an Intel CPU in terms of gaming performance I think. Also, stay away from Asus and Gigabyte 300 series cards.

[annoyingmoments]

3 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

There are no AMD CPUs that will match an Intel CPU in terms of gaming performance I think. Also, stay away from Asus and Gigabyte 300 series cards.

Well, that is what concerns me CPU-wise. I thought Asus and Gigaybte are solid GPU manufacturers. What about KFA2, any suggestions?

I still try to convince him to save some more to get a better, less-compromise system, but would still like to create a system at least on paper.

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, annoyingmoments said:

Well, that is what concerns me CPU-wise. I thought Asus and Gigaybte are solid GPU manufacturers. What about KFA2, any suggestions?

I still try to convince him to save some more to get a better, less-compromise system, but would still like to create a system at least on paper.

Stay away from Asus and Gigabyte as GPU OEMs

Go for a PowerColor/XFX/Sapphire/MSI R9 380 4GB - it's the best value GPU on the market.

Also, avoid the Corsair VS, CX and CS PSUs - go for a SeaSonic S12II 520W

[Herman Mcpootis]

you don't need an i5 to play games, this i3 will do just fine.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  (€120.15 @ Mindfactory) 
Motherboard: Asus H110M-K Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€63.17 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (€30.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Corsair Force LS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€40.00 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€49.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  (€187.86 @ Mindfactory) 
Case: Nanoxia DS1WIB ATX Mid Tower Case  (€19.51 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (€66.90 @ Caseking) 
Total: €578.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-02 16:14 CEST+0200

[don_svetlio]

Just now, herman mcpootis said:

you don't need an i5 to play games, this i3 will do just fine.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  (€120.15 @ Mindfactory) 
Motherboard: Asus H110M-K Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€63.17 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (€30.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Corsair Force LS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€40.00 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€49.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  (€187.86 @ Mindfactory) 
Case: Nanoxia DS1WIB ATX Mid Tower Case  (€19.51 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (€66.90 @ Caseking) 
Total: €578.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-02 16:14 CEST+0200

I fully support this build - fantastic value system

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Also, avoid the Corsair VS, CX and CS PSUs - go for a SeaSonic S12II 520W

btw, the new CX power supplies with the grey stickers are actually good now, but overpriced.

[Kobathor]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

you don't need an i5 to play games, this i3 will do just fine.

He's trying to play Cities: Skylines and GTAV, an i3 will not do just fine.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

btw, the new CX power supplies with the grey stickers are actually good now, but overpriced.

Yup. They are but they are 550/650/750 - the OP has selected the old CX500

[don_svetlio]

3 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

He's trying to play Cities: Skylines and GTAV, an i3 will not do just fine.

It will - Cities is a poorly optimized game which uses 2 cores mainly - HT will solve GTA V's woes.

[brolaugh_]

2 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

He's trying to play Cities: Skylines and GTAV, an i3 will not do just fine.

its hyperthreaded so it will manage..

[Matias_Chambers]

This is very good value: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/fqfX99

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, Matias_Chambers said:

This is very good value: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/GF6GmG

don't think a 2gb r9 380 will cut it anymore. and an itx mobo in an atx case?

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Matias_Chambers said:

This is very good value: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/GF6GmG

4GB VRAM cards are the preferred ones since a lot of games push over 3GB of VRAM now - SSD is also a plus

[Matias_Chambers]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

4GB VRAM cards are the preferred ones since a lot of games push over 3GB of VRAM now - SSD is also a plus

I changed it.

[brolaugh_]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

don't think a 2gb r9 380 will cut it anymore. and an itx mobo in an atx case?

its mATX, not itx

[Kobathor]

6 minutes ago, brolaugh_ said:

its hyperthreaded so it will manage..

it's 2 cores so it's not the best...

6 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

It will - Cities is a poorly optimized game which uses 2 cores mainly - HT will solve GTA V's woes.

I couldn't find one on Cities, but here's a comparison with an R9 380 (it has GTAV, just skip to the benchmarks):

In a few of the games, the i3 doesn't even get a "playable" (under 60 FPS) framerate as an average. On GTAV, the performance just about doubles with the i5.

[Matias_Chambers]

2 minutes ago, herman mcpootis said:

don't think a 2gb r9 380 will cut it anymore. and an itx mobo in an atx case?

I changed it to 4 GB

[Herman Mcpootis]

2 minutes ago, Matias_Chambers said:

I changed it to 4 GB

and now its over budget by quite abit

[Herman Mcpootis]

3 minutes ago, brolaugh_ said:

its mATX, not itx

oh, turns out it is. can't really tell the difference though.

[annoyingmoments]

10 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

He's trying to play Cities: Skylines and GTAV, an i3 will not do just fine.

Thats exactly why I went for a i5.

 

11 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Yup. They are but they are 550/650/750 - the OP has selected the old CX500

Well, we will find money for a 550 then.

[Matias_Chambers]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

and now its over budget by quite abit

Quite a bit? 16 more Euros? I don't think so

[Okjoek]

If making a new AMD gaming PC I would just wait for Zen/Polaris like I'm doing. Even if they don't turn out to be as impressive as advertised they should at least bump down the prices of existing hardware.

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, annoyingmoments said:

Thats exactly why I went for a i5.

 

Well, we will find money for a 550 then.

Just go with a bette PSU for cheaper - if you are spending 80$ on a PSU, then the CX are not good value and something like an S12G550 is MUCH better

[Herman Mcpootis]

4 minutes ago, annoyingmoments said:

Thats exactly why I went for a i5.

 

Well, we will find money for a 550 then.

if you really, absolutely need an i5(i don't think you need one.), you're willing to drop the ssd and don't wanna go over budget,

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€171.61 @ Mindfactory) 
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€43.58 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (€29.49 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€49.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  (€187.86 @ Mindfactory) 
Case: Nanoxia DS1WIB ATX Mid Tower Case  (€19.51 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (€66.90 @ Caseking) 
Total: €568.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-02 16:31 CEST+0200