New PC @ 30k

[whitestar_999]

intel i5 config is best for gaming as well as other usages.i5 2400 prices are ~9500 in nehru place i think & DH67BLC3 is available for ~5450 on flipkart.

 

[ajaymailed]

How about this guys? Will this be OK?

Component Make Price Processor Intel Core i5 2400 9500
Motherboard Intel DH67CL B3 5750
RAM G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT(4Gx1) 1193
Graphic Card MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC 8600
PSU Corsair CX500V2 3000
Case NZXT Source 210 Elite 2300

Total 30343

which config would peform better in gaming

Core i5 2400- 9500
Intel DH67CL B3- 5750
R6850 - 8600
Total - 23850

or

Phenom II X4 955- 6200
Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3- 4600
Radeon HD 6950 1 GB - 14500
Total- 25300.

 

[whitestar_999]

it depends.
i5 2400>>>any Phenom II x4
6950>6850
if playing on resolutions below HD difference between 6950 & 6850 won't be much noticeable.at full HD 6950 will perform better than 6850 but i5 is much faster so in games where cpu matters difference between 6850 & 6950 will be much smaller.

 

[RiGOD]

It all comes down to the playing resolution. Full HD? GPU matters more. Smaller resolutions? Less load on GPU. So the 6850 will be more than enough and with i5 on board it will rock.

 

[ajaymailed]

it depends.
i5 2400>>>any Phenom II x4
6950>6850
if playing on resolutions below HD difference between 6950 & 6850 won't be much noticeable.at full HD 6950 will perform better than 6850 but i5 is much faster so in games where cpu matters difference between 6850 & 6950 will be much smaller.

Are there significant no. of games where CPU matters (than the GPU)? i thought its the GPU which makes the differrence.

Battlefield 3 recommended requirements is any quardcore processor, doesn't even mention the clock speed. But 6950 & GTX 560 is the recommended card. anything below means game will struggle at High Resolutions & Maxx settings.
Battlefield 3 system requirements - Battlefield 3

from the anandtech CPU benchmark.
AnandTech - Bench - GPU12
AnandTech - Bench - CPU

@1680X 1050, i5 outperforms Phenom II X4 by 50% in FarCry 2. But only 17% in left4dead and 11% in Crysis warhead.

and 6950 outperforms 6850 by 20% to 40%.


if we take the latest Battlefield 3,
Battlefield 3 VGA and CPU performance benchmark test
diff between 6950 & 6850 @ 1920X1200 is 40%. diff increases at even higher resolution.

 

[whitestar_999]

right now there are few games where cpu relatively matters more compared to other games but as i already said even in these games 6950 will perform better just that difference between i5+6850 & phenom II x4+6950 will be smaller than expected.

cheapest phenom II x4 costs ~6000 while cheapest i5 costs ~9000 so the difference is only 3000 but performance gain is huge.also intel DH67CLB3 features sata3 & usb3 & cheapest amd mobo with these features too will cost ~5000.if you don't need these features & can not adjust your budget then only go for AMD.

 

[ajaymailed]

right now there are few games where cpu relatively matters more compared to other games but as i already said even in these games 6950 will perform better just that difference between i5+6850 & phenom II x4+6950 will be smaller than expected.

cheapest phenom II x4 costs ~6000 while cheapest i5 costs ~9000 so the difference is only 3000 but performance gain is huge.also intel DH67CLB3 features sata3 & usb3 & cheapest amd mobo with these features too will cost ~5000.if you don't need these features & can not adjust your budget then only go for AMD.

indeed sandybridge gave huge boost in performance, Core i5 2400 is a steal at 10K price level, its giving lots of value for the money we are paying. But i read many times that while building a gaming computer, save money on CPU and spend most on GPU.
it would have been easier for gamers if Athlon II X4 at 4K price was availaible in the market.

a stupid question would Pentium G620 bottleneck the HD 6950 in any of the present games?

 

[coderunknown]

which config would peform better in gaming

Core i5 2400- 9500
Intel DH67CL B3- 5750
R6850 - 8600
Total - 23850

or

Phenom II X4 955- 6200
Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3- 4600
Radeon HD 6950 1 GB - 14500
Total- 25300.

the AMD system is more powerful but you don't need an HD6950 for HD gaming. my suggestion is to get 960T with some better motherboard so that you can overclock is as well as unlock is safely later. As for GPU, wait for HD7XXX. else get HD6870.

a stupid question would Pentium G620 bottleneck the HD 6950 in any of the present games?

no. to make 620 act as a bottleneck, you'll need an even faster GPU.

 

[whitestar_999]

check this out:G620+6970
Intel Pentium G850, Pentium G840 and Pentium G620 Review. Page 4 - X-bit labs

the above test measures how well the cpu can handle the games without taking into account graphics card superior functions.

we do our best to make sure that the graphics card is not loaded too heavily during the test session: we select the most CPU-dependent tests and all tests are performed without antialiasing and in far not the highest screen resolutions. In other words, obtained results allow us to analyze not that much the fps rate that can be achieved in systems equipped with contemporary graphics accelerators, but rather how well contemporary processors can cope with gaming workload. Therefore, the results help us determine how the tested CPUs will behave in the nearest future, when new faster graphics card generations will be widely available.

New Intel microarchitecture is very well fit for gaming load that is why the new Pentium processors do really well in this group of tests. This entire family is quite comparable with Core i3 LGA1156 processors, so they fit perfectly for inexpensive gaming systems. Only more expensive Core i3 LGA1155 processors and in some cases Athlon II X3 can offer better performance than Pentium G850/G840/G620, when a game uses multi-threading efficiently enough.

edit:it looks like that 1600*900 resolution is going to be a problem because lower the game resolution more will be the cpu load.so either run games at 1080p on your 1600*900 monitor or get at least a core i3.

 

[ArjunKiller]

I won't be changing this monitor ever, I'm 200% sure about that. So I guess I have to take i5 + 6850 eh ? And no RAID

 

[whitestar_999]

then i5+6850 is good especially since you are keeping the monitor & getting anything higher than 6850 at that resolution is not going to make a difference anyway.also what about RAID.DH67CLB3 supports RAID 0,1,5,10.in fact now-a-days even a Rs.2500 AMD mobo supports RAID 0,1,10.however my recommendation is stay away from RAID unless it is absolutely necessary(which is not for most of the people).RAID is meant primarily for server usage.only application i can think of for home usage is building a media server which is then accessed by multiple people simultaneously over lan/wifi to watch HD movies which may be a common scenario abroad but not here.

 

[ArjunKiller]

So ditching out RAID, what would be my motherboard and cbinet now that fits best within my budget of 30k?

i5 - 10k
RAM - 1.2k
HD 6850 -9.2k
PSU - 3k

So around 24k for this.

Cash left 6k. Have to decide on a good cabby and mobo now.

 

[RiGOD]

The cheapest Mobo with USB 3.0 and SATA III is MSI H67MA-E35 (B3). It has mixed reviews. So let someone comment on its build quality and stuff. Intel DH67CL has 4 RAM slots BTW.

You can get the Zebronics Bijli w/o PSU for around 1.2k.

 

[ArjunKiller]

Couldn't find any review of that board.

 

[whitestar_999]

H67/H61 mobos don't have a lot of reviews.most reviews are of z68/p67 mobos(or in other words overclockable) as it is overclocking which really stresses the components & where the component quality matters most.at stock speeds/non-overclocked situations usually any mobo from a known brand will do fine.it all comes down to personal preference & after sales support.

 

[ArjunKiller]

I won't be overclocking the CPU obviously as the multiplier is locked. GPu, maybe after a year or so and even that slightly, no voltage increase I guess MSI is good then.

Component Make Price Processor Intel Core i5 2400 10000
Motherboard MSI H67MA-E35 (B3) 4815
RAM G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT(4Gx1) 1193
Graphic Card MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC 9500
PSU Corsair CX500V2 3000
Case Any 1000
Total 29600

I guess this config is ok?

 

[RiGOD]

Read the user reviews here.

 

[ArjunKiller]

Reviews are mixed but mostly positive. I can live with that beeping

 

[RiGOD]

Reviews are mixed but mostly positive. I can live with that beeping

After BIOS update it will make just a single beep I guess. But let some experts comment on the build quality, warranty etc. I guess everyone will suggest Intel DH67CL.

 

[ArjunKiller]

I can't extend above 30k. So if you suggest Intel, budget will rise. Could you alter any options from the above table I made ?