My Future Budget Gaming PC

[Guymelif]

I am looking for a little input on a media center pc that will double as my gaming rig.

A8 3870K
ASRock A75M-HVS FM1
ASUS EAH6670/DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 6670
Patriot Gamer 2 Series 8GB

I choose to go with the 3870k in Crossfire mainly because of cost vs performance. I don't plan to play games that are physics intensive. but I feel that the A8 in crossfire should be able to handle anything I can throw at it. My real question is simply the ammount of memory to use. I feel that 8GB is safe. But If I could get away with 4GB then I would.

On a side note do all PC games support the Xbox 360 controller cause I plan on picking up a wireless receiver.


Anyways, that is my future rig. Any input would be appreciated.

[MATRIX 2]

You really should consider an intel cpu setup with a more powerful discrete gpu. IT would perform a lot better than your proposed setup (intel cpu would also likely run cooler/use less energy).

4GB of ram will be plenty for gaming and media playback.

Crosssfire/SLI is a joke and a waste, as single gpu is the way to go.

Only pc games with the games for windows certification are guaranteed to work properly with a 360 controller.

[maltrophstitan]

don't crossfire and yes you can get away with 4GB of system memory.
and buy this controller Razer Onza

am actually building a htpc right nowish not really focused on gaming but im sure you can up you gpu to what you want

im not done buying parts yet but this is what im looking at doing.
$50 - Pentium G620 LGA 1155
$70 - P8H61-M mATX Intel Motherboard
$18 - 4GB DDR3-1333
$65 - Radeon HD 6570 2GB
$130 - Caviar Green 2TB
$25 - Corsair 430W PSU
$90 - SilverStone Steel Micro ATX HTPC Case

thats under 500 for the basics, some of that was on sale and rebate but those really aren't that hard to come by.
for my build I would still need a Blu-ray drive and tv tuner and stuff like that which you wouldn't really need.

Oh and I use http://cpubenchmark.net to do comparisons for cpu's and gpu's to find the best price performance ratio for me.

[Valefor]

You might as well go for the extra RAM, as DDR3 is so cheap at the moment so there shouldn't be much difference in price.

I know many people say anything above 4GB is not really needed for gaming, but check out this review: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ram-me...iew-32053.html

[Nakatomi Uk]

I'll answer the question to the 360 controller a few PC games support it Giant Bomb here have a list of games that are supported but I am not sure if it's updated on a regular basis http://www.giantbomb.com/xbox-360-co...or-pc/92-2465/

As for the PC what games are you planning on playing exactly the 6550D GPU in that Fusion chip has 240 Shaders which is turn is kinda of low end really I suppose depending on the game it and how old it is you probably will get away with old games on high graphics but for todays on 1-2 year games maybe push medium.

AMD Bulldozer FX-6 (Six Core CPU) £109 (5 more than the one your planning on buying probably more better) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=6&subcat=1942

Crucial Ballistix 8GB £31 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=8&subcat=1517

Asus M5A97 AMD 970 £80 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...03&subcat=2046

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6670 "Ultimate Edition"1024MB (week special offer £72) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1983

£292 though add about £20 or under for delivery charges if you buy it all at once just need your case and HDD and optical drive and that should do you, probably looking at maybe £400 or less depending on if you already have the last few parts.

[Mikael]

You'd get much better results by doing the following:

- Exchange the AMD CPU for an Intel Core i3-2100 (or 2120/2130, if the price difference is small). Despite being dual core, it's generally much faster than the AMD CPU, thanks to its significantly higher single thread performance. Only in heavily threaded scenarios can the A8 match it (or sometimes beat it by a rather small margin).

- Go for a HD 6770 instead.

These changes will net you much better gaming performance.

EDIT: Regarding the memory, I'd say that 4GB is enough for now, unless you do anything specifically memory intensive or have a lot of stuff running simultaneously. However, I'd also say that it seems rather pointless not to just get two 4GB sticks and forget about it. 4GB sticks are extremely inexpensive right now.