Configuration advice

nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new PC. I've my eyes on AMD FX 8350. Earlier I was looking at i5 3550, but this thing seems more powerful at 4 Ghz with 8 cores.

My main use would be Linux and some gaming on Windows.

Don't ask me which games I'm going to play because I have been out of touch of the gaming world since a long time due to poor PC and full time Linux usage.

I generally like games of the types -
Racing
Thrill (Like Recoil, very old game)
In general popular games.

Since I'm a Linux user, I would obviously want hardware which works without glitches on Linux. I'm looking at AMD graphics cards as well, but I'm confused between the same and Nvidia for graphics.

I'll not be gaming beyond the full HD resolution.

So, advice a configuration for me. :)
 
Chaitanya

Chaitanya

Cyborg Agent
Answer these first for more clarity. :)
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/pc-components-configurations/149943-asking-new-pc-help-answer-these-questions-first.html
 
skeletor

skeletor

Chosen of the Omnissiah
Need to know your budget and the items you need to buy.

25K? CPU + Mobo + PSU + Gfx Card + Cabinet?

You can also save a thousand more if you go with i5-3470. Nearly same as i5-3550.

I'd be inclined towards FX-8350/20 here. I have read its review on Phoronix and it beats i5 clearly in multi-threaded benchmarks like video encoding and compiling. Single thread performance is 25% less.

Regarding graphic card, AMD's open-source driver will work completely fine without glitches. The open-source drover can handle heavy 2D games like Super Meat Boy too.

nVidia's proprietary blob is better on Linux. But then the nVidia card worth buying is GTX 650 Ti which costs over 11K.

Basically, the open-source AMD driver is completely fine for day to day Linux usage and 2D gaming. Audio over HDMI will also work and new X.org releases will be supported on time.

AMD's proprietary blob takes a while to support the latest X.org. Not so with nVidia.

Second, if you'll ever want to game 3D games on Linux after Steam is launched, then you should be using Ubuntu (Steam is only targetting Ubuntu) and AMD's proprietary blob works completely fine there.

I'd say:

AMD HD 6670 GDDR5 @ 5.3K.
Corsair CX430v2 @ 2.2K.
NZXT Gamma @ 2.3K

Rest 15K for CPU and Mobo.

i5-3470 + H77 motherboard or FX-8350/20 + 970G motherboard.

Note: If you go the Intel way, then you can also avoid buying GPU for the time being and use the on-chip Intel HD 2500. It will work completely fine in Linux. Infact Intel's only Linux driver is Open Source. For AMD, you'll need to buy a discrete GPU since a 970G mobo won't have an on-board GPU.

Note #2: FX-83x0 will consume more power than Intel when on full load but they run a lot cooler than Ivy Bridge. Higher power consumption translated into money means Intel will save you Rs. 400 in a year. (Assuming both processors run on full load 3 hours daily. Even this is not really real world usage. My point being, power consumption doesn't really matter for desktop PCs unless you run your PC 24x7 on FULL LOAD. Most long running processes are multi-threaded, so AMD will finish those in less time.)

Note #3: Intel can't be overclocked. AMD can be overclocked.
 
Skud

Skud

Super Moderator
Staff member
ico said:
My point being, power consumption doesn't really matter for desktop PCs unless you run your PC 24x7 on FULL LOAD. Most long running processes are multi-threaded, so AMD will finish those in less time.
Click to expand...

Nicely summed up. So many times we tend to overlook the real life situation.
 
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
2. What is your overall budget? If you can extend a bit for a more balanced configuration, then mention this too.
Ans: max 35k

3. Planning to overclock?
Ans: no

4. Which Operating System are you planning to use?
Ans: Linux mainly and Windows for gaming

8. When are you planning to buy the system?
Ans: December (or whenever fx8350 is launched)

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
Ans: assembler

10. Where do you live? Are you buying locally? Are you open to buying stuff from online shops if you don't get locally?
Ans: Pune. Local shop.

I have a 450 watt ATX supply already and I'd be reusing hard disks from my current pc. Also monitor.

Basically I want suggestions on processor and gfx front.

@ico, you said the single thread performance of the amd processor is 25 pc lesser than Intel. I'm wondering if it has any practical significance in my case since I'm not a hardcore gamer and it's only games where single thread performance matters.

I doubt very much that I'd be gaming on Linux, but I don't know (depends on availability of games and cost, etc. Just leave it as a side possibility). And since you say that the open source drivers for amd get faster support for xorg, I would go with it. I use Gentoo which is a bleeding edge distribution.

Regarding the power consumption issue, I'm not much bothered about it since I won't be running it on full load all the time!
 
Cilus

Cilus

laborare est orare
Then get FX-8350 with your eyes closed. And one good news for you...In Linux the Bulldozer architecture has an upper edge over similarly and slightly costlier Intel Processors. The reason is the better Multi-threading Optimization in Linux compared to Windows task scheduling. Even the older FX 8150 performs on par with i7 2600K in Linux.
Regarding Power supply, I guess you're talking about a generic 450W PSU from brands like Frontech or Intex. Well, they are not gonna supply enough power for a powerful rig like you're planning for. Get Corsair GS500 or GS600 or CX600 V2.
 
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
Cilus said:
Then get FX-8350 with your eyes closed. And one good news for you...In Linux the Bulldozer architecture has an upper edge over similarly and slightly costlier Intel Processors. The reason is the better Multi-threading Optimization in Linux compared to Windows task scheduling. Even the older FX 8150 performs on par with i7 2600K in Linux.
Regarding Power supply, I guess you're talking about a generic 450W PSU from brands like Frontech or Intex. Well, they are not gonna supply enough power for a powerful rig like you're planning for. Get Corsair GS500 or GS600 or CX600 V2.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the one that I have spare is made by some company called Navtech. I guess I'll go for Corsair 450W (or higher?).

Now that I've decided on AMD FX 8350 CPU, let's discuss about motherboards and gfx.

I've already explained the type of games I expect myself to play on Windows. And as I said earlier, the hardware should be supported well on Linux. Which means the mobo has to be chosen carefully.

I have 3 HDDs and 1 SSD for now. The SSD is used for Linux OS and HDD for data. Two of the HDDs are gone for warranty replacement.

I'm wondering if there's some cheap full hardware raid controller which emulates a block device. What I mean to say is, it should appear to the system as one single hdd instead of three or four whatever is connected to the controller, so that I can use the combination of HDDs on Windows and Linux both.

It seems to sound a bit funny, but I'm seriously looking for something of that sort. It's way better to use 2 / 3 7200 disks instead of one 10k disk. Improves performance and life of each disk.

I'll be using only RAID0 striping mode.

On a side note, some of the AM3+ motherboards I saw had the SB950 controller which does supports raid but software raid which is pointless if I want something to realize what I explained above. But that controller is not supported on Linux.

In the other case, I would use software raid on Linux and a separate hdd for windows. Seems to be overkill, but that's the way out to ensure performance at lower cost.

Some reviews for Gigabyte motherboards were bad and people complained about overheating issues, etc.

Which brand do you guys recommend, gigabyte or Asus? Or may be something else?

Some had an eSATA port as well, which would be appreciated because I might get an external hard disk for backup. But, I don't known if eSATA is supported in Linux. If it's not, there's no point in getting a mobo with that feature. USB 3 would be the option then which is definitely supported in Linux. The problem is, I even read some people complaining about usb3 bugs on Linux on the Gigabyte motherboards.

:confused:
 
skeletor

skeletor

Chosen of the Omnissiah
well, even Intel's RAID which I have on my Z68 motherboard can't be called hardware. More like firmware if not "software". SB950 is said to be working with mdadm here though - *erroneoustwain.com/posts/the-sb950-chipset-ubuntu-12-04-lts-and-raid-5. Not supported via dmaraid.

A decent RAID card will cost you a bomb. They aren't cheap and cheap ones don't perform good. Give it up. Old school rsync is fine. Plus, I'm not a fan of RAID 0 anyway. One HDD dies, you lose everything.

Regarding GPU, stick to AMD HD 6000 series. They've got great and stable open source support compared to HD 7000 series which is a work in progress. Get HD 6670 or HD 6770 or HD 6850 - whatever your budget is.

eSATA is useless. USB 3.0 is fine.

For Power Supply, if getting HD 6670 + FX-8x00, then Corsair CX430v2 is okay. Any faster GPU, then Corsair GS600.

nileshgr said:
I have a 450 watt ATX supply already and I'd be reusing hard disks from my current pc.
Click to expand...
Won't cut it. Read these threads:

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/power-supply-cabinets-mods/104472-basic-guide-right-power-supply.html

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/power-sup...89-power-supply-blacklist-thread-newbies.html
 
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
That sb950 raid on Linux. It doesn't work via fake raid. And anyway it doesn't matter. Because both are software raids. That guy has done it by disabling on board raid and using pure system based software raid just like what one would do when a system doesn't have a raid controller.

Also, I'm not using RAID0 for backup, but for daily usage. My IO usage is high due to local caching proxy and lot of compiling big packages. I believe the hdd I bought last year died because of the heavy io.
So I will setup raid across three disks so that the performance is good as well as life of HDDs is good.

The advantage of having a raid controller supported cross platform would be being able to use the array by partitioning. But it seems it's not possible and the cost of good hardware raid controllers.. Kill the idea.

I'll use raid array for Linux and a plain disk for windows.

I'll check out the GPUs and buy accordingly.
Of HD 6000 and 7000 which is better? You say the driver is work in progress, since I'd be buying it like almost after a month or more, do you think the driver would get stable by then?

ESATA is useless. Ok, so I need a mobo with usb3 which is supported in Linux.

Power supply fixed on Corsair.
 
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
How much would 16 GB DDR3 RAM cost?

And which brand of RAM should I do buy?

Or may be I'm over considering it... 16 GB on home pc? :p
 
M

macho84

Ambassador of Buzz
It's all based on type of ram

You can get one close to 5k starting upto 15k

Wat are you looking for. 1600/1866/2133/2400/2800
 
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
macho84 said:
It's all based on type of ram

You can get one close to 5k starting upto 15k

Wat are you looking for. 1600/1866/2133/2400/2800
Click to expand...

I think that would depend on the motherboard. I'm waiting for suggestions on that.

Cilus said:
Get G-skill Rams and for model, opt for their RipjawX 1600 MHz CL9 series.
Click to expand...

For the Gigabyte and Asus motherboard I saw, they were supporting 1866 Mhz RAMs. Wouldn't 1600 be slow?
 
Last edited:
OP
nileshgr

nileshgr

Wise Old Owl
Chaitanya said:
No man 1600MHz is too fast. 1333MHz is standard. for faster memory try dual channel setup
Click to expand...

I haven't bought the things yet. Just deciding on what to buy. Which brand of RAM should I get?

Why is nobody recommending a motherboard?
 
rohit32407

rohit32407

Ambassador of Buzz
He meant the RAM timings basically. CL9 would be 9-9-9-24 2N. Go for G skill to be exact this is the link G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) PC RAM (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL) | Ram | Flipkart.com . You can look for different sticks of different memory sizes for the same brand and ram timings(i.e CL9 )
 
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