PC Buying Guide 2011- Q4

[$$Lionking$$]

I like the sabretooth series a lot.... i will buy 1 someday...!!!

 

[Cilus]

Build quality wise Sabertooth is very good, it is comparable with the ASUS ROG boards. But it is costlier too...14.2K in most of the sites. Don't make what I've suggested as a baseline version...I just wanna know your opinion about the inclusion of Bulldozer in PC Buying guide list.
At a sub 10K price point 990FX-GD65 is really attractive. Obviously for higher end rigs, Triple GPU setup like mine, lots of overclocking, 990FXA-GD80, 990FXA-UD5 or 990FXA-Sabertooth will be our choice.
Now just share the opinion about the inclusion of BD....I don't like voting option.
Share your opinions with your points.

 

[zacfx05]

^^ya should include amd fx config too.. especially because Microsoft have already released some patch and it showing 14% performance gain. Microsoft confirmed they will add a patch in the coming service pack which will optimize windows to use the 8 cores properly.and will give performance gain for fx proccy

so yes i guess u ppl should include.


cilus i also suggest u must include a sandy bridge config using Intel Pentium processor it not that bad , at least there should be a option if some user want to choose from the amd and intel config (some are obsessed with a Intel config)

i actually bought a intel G620 for 3060rs. its well below athlon x2 260 price. and they are many sites now recommending ths chip for basic build especially after a price cut.and it consumes less watt and out performs athlon.

plaese read ths article.
Best CPU Processor | Hardware Revolution

 

[Skud]

Build quality wise Sabertooth is very good, it is comparable with the ASUS ROG boards. But it is costlier too...14.2K in most of the sites. Don't make what I've suggested as a baseline version...I just wanna know your opinion about the inclusion of Bulldozer in PC Buying guide list.
At a sub 10K price point 990FX-GD65 is really attractive. Obviously for higher end rigs, Triple GPU setup like mine, lots of overclocking, 990FXA-GD80, 990FXA-UD5 or 990FXA-Sabertooth will be our choice.
Now just share the opinion about the inclusion of BD....I don't like voting option.
Share your opinions with your points.

This. And for those running heavily threaded apps. And for those who is ready to live within the limitations of the BD.

I think BD may be included as an alternative option on specific cases.

 

[$$Lionking$$]

^I don't think bulldozer deserves a mention anywhere...!

its IPC is beyond crap.. and there are only very limited cases like - virtualization / database / multimedia. Although nobody buys a computer to run only 1 type of software!! people do other things too and those things are not threaded for using 8 cores!!!!

If your'e spending 14k on a processor you might as well spend 1k-2k more and get a 2600/2600k!!

@Skud - Triple GPU setups are extremely rare dude!

 

[Skud]

That's why I have mentioned this:-

I think BD may be included as an alternative option on specific cases.

 

[$$Lionking$$]

Skud - Bad alternative.. 2500K is a good alternative to 2600k!!

I just dont understand how is AMD going backwards in performance rather than forward??
and what the heck were their engineers doing for the past 6 years??

You know the benchmarks... 1100T is faster than a higher clocked 6100... to beat that CPU they had to clock 6200 to 3.8GHz..
About 4100/6100 - I dont understand why they exist? 965 beats the 4100.. 1100T beats the 6100. Only 81x0 SKU's perform and that too only in environments where 8 threads can be used - workloads unlikely for any average and even some high end users!!...

I feel K10 is decidedly better than BD... better IPC vs BD and almost as good in mult-ithreaded environments...!!

Out of topic - u going for 2xCFX or 3xCFX?

 

[Skud]

2x.

 

[$$Lionking$$]

2 x 6950!! That's Killer dude!! So are you thinking of eyefinity?!

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

Skud - Bad alternative.. 2500K is a good alternative to 2600k!!

I just dont understand how is AMD going backwards in performance rather than forward??
and what the heck were their engineers doing for the past 6 years??

You know the benchmarks... 1100T is faster than a higher clocked 6100... to beat that CPU they had to clock 6200 to 3.8GHz..
About 4100/6100 - I dont understand why they exist? 965 beats the 4100.. 1100T beats the 6100. Only 81x0 SKU's perform and that too only in environments where 8 threads can be used - workloads unlikely for any average and even some high end users!!...

I feel K10 is decidedly better than BD... better IPC vs BD and almost as good in mult-ithreaded environments...!!

Out of topic - u going for 2xCFX or 3xCFX?

1100t is full 6 core while FX6100 is having 6 cores with shared resources and that too win7 not optimized to use them efficiently.

I know they are different architectures and its wrong to compare like this but FX6100 feels a bit 'handicapped' seeing current situation.

^I don't think bulldozer deserves a mention anywhere...!

its IPC is beyond crap.. and there are only very limited cases like - virtualization / database / multimedia. Although nobody buys a computer to run only 1 type of software!! people do other things too and those things are not threaded for using 8 cores!!!!

If your'e spending 14k on a processor you might as well spend 1k-2k more and get a 2600/2600k!!

@Skud - Triple GPU setups are extremely rare dude!

well microsoft is coming with a patch and as you can see here -
The 1st win7 scheduler benchs are IN + x264HD + WINRAR + file link + ingame batman + crysis 1

its ought to bring performance improvements by utilizing cores more efficiently.
example it will remove stuttering in games and improve fps.

although microsoft pulled the patch for more improvements.
AMD Bulldozer Threading Hotfix Pulled | techPowerUp

so i think it will be nice to wait for patch to release and benches to come before deciding anything.

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/cpu-motherboards/135848-amd-bulldozer-news-discussion-39.html#post1545372

^a nice analysis.

 

[skeletor]

^I don't think bulldozer deserves a mention anywhere...!

Deserves a mention if you are buying for running virtual machines and you need AMD-Vi aka IOMMU aka PCI Passthrough.

Intel love unnecessary confusion. So they have disabled VT-d (PCI Passthrough) on K series processors. And buying i5-2500 doens't make much sense.

FX-8120.....two more cores than Phenom II X6 1090T for Rs. 2000 more? I'd take it.

But that doesn't mean 1090T owners have a reason to upgrade.

 

[Skud]

From Xbit Labs, link provided by Jas earlier:-

As we have expected, disabling one core per module leads to higher overall performance than in case two of the four modules are completely disabled, although in both cases the number of active cores is formally the same. And I have to stress that the performance difference is more than noticeable and may reach 25% in some cases. This is what you could gain if the microarchitectural resources shared between the cores within one processor module will be allocated fully to one single core. Unfortunately, they never implemented this approach that is why quad-core (and six-core AMD FX processors have the same exact internal organization as their elder brothers, i.e. contain pairs of cores.

Hopefully, the FX6200 will throw some light on this. We can wait until then.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

@cilus
what about waiting for patch and HD7000 before updating guide?

 

[vickybat]

Guys check out the following llano config:

Component | Make | Price Processor |AMD LLANO A3650 A-Series APU |6.7k
Motherboard |Asus F1A55-M LX PLUS |4.4k
RAM |G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT(4Gx1)|1.4k
HDD |Seagate 500GB 7200.12|4.2K
DVD Writer |ASUS 24X Sata Black DVD|1.1K
PSU |FSP SAGA II 500w|2.2k
Case |NZXT GAMMA|2k
Monitor |Benq G2220HDL|6.8K
Keyboard |Logitech Media Keyboard MK200|0.7K
UPS |APC 600VA|1.8K
Speakers |Logitech Z313|1.6K
| Total |33K

I think the above config is a capable multimedia pc and also has can use a second gpu and run in hybrid cf mode. I feel the pc is balanced for multimedia ,htpc usage & relatively mild performance computing as well. We will again update llano config once the k series apu's start to land on indian shores. Share your opinions guys.

 

[Skud]

No idea about the mobo, bust the rest looks fine. I think we can even include a better speakers.

GSkill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 8gb @ 2800 from Prime ABGB. Is the price good? With free shipping going on I might get one.

Buy Gskill RAM in India | Gkill RAM Specification | Gaming RAM

 

[d6bmg]

@vickybat: 250GB HDD for HTPC is a bit small. You should add 500GB HDD as an optional upgrade inside 35K.

 

[Cilus]

Guys, great news. I think I found a very good budget AM3+ based mobo based on 880G chipset.
Here is BIOSTAR A880GZ Ver. 6.x @ 3.6K. Check here: Flipkart: Biostar A880GZ Motherboard: Motherboard

This board is based on AMD 880G chipset and support for 125W TDP CPU. The latest BIOS has been released for Bulldozer and available from download in the official site: A880GZ :: Motherboard :: BIOSTAR

As a result we're getting HD 4250 Graphics and Full Hyper Transport 5.2G (HT 3.1) bus, resulting the full utilization of AM3 and AM3+ CPUs. The 760G does have some limitations with the latest AM3+ and AM3 socket.

Another good thing is that the motherboard comes with 4 SATA 6 Gbps port, great for adding SSD and SATA 6 Gbps HDDs.

So, please share your opinion regarding it.

 

[whitestar_999]

a good find @cilus especially for those who plan to use onboard graphics only for multimedia tasks.

 

[d6bmg]

@Clius: great find!!
I think we are getting a biostar fanboy in you.
JK.

Can you find good any reviews of it?

 

[The Sorcerer]

I had about 5 Biostar boards that I swapped for a GBT counterpart. BS boards ended up in a trash can few days ago . If Biostar makes a near ok board for stock usage and when it sells, they decrease the quality dramatically. On top of it, their quality control is a hit or miss. Much better off spending a bit more and getting a decent board overall.