# AMD Why not?



## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

Hey PC builders, So i'm looking to build my own pc in the next month or so and i want to be sure to get the right rig with the right parts etc.. 
so i'll drop the link of the PCPartPickerList: AMD FX-8350, MSI Radeon R9 390, Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) - System Build - PCPartPicker Canada

Basicly. AMD fx8350 Cpu, its an 8core 4ghz
Cooled by a Corair h100i 
Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming
MSI Radeon R9 390 Gaming 8gb
16Gb Kingston Hyper X Black (2x8)
Storage: 512gb samsung SSD and 2x1tb WD HDD in raid1
EVGA Supernova 650w Gold
Fractal design r4
BlueRay Reader
Win10 home

Two question with this. 
First of all For the Ram. I am Better to get 4x4gb to get 16 or 2x8gb? i'm not planing to upgrade to 32gb, so in a certain way getting 4x4 would make more sense if a stick fail i still have 12... yet its expensive. around 50$ more to get 4x4. 
Second. Storage wise? does it make sense? the raid 1 is because i've had alot of badluck with Failure of HDD.

So in the end is it pretty good overall?

(not planing to do 4k, overclocking, 16gb of ram is a bit overkill but 8is not enough and i find 12gb odd)

:thumb:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

I'd swap the liquid cooler out for an air cooler. You'll pay a lot for the liquid cooler where air does the same job for less.

You do not need thermal paste, a CPU cooler will come with some.



> First of all For the Ram. I am Better to get 4x4gb to get 16 or 2x8gb? i'm not planing to upgrade to 32gb, so in a certain way getting 4x4 would make more sense if a stick fail i still have 12... yet its expensive. around 50$ more to get 4x4.


2 x 8GB is a much better option.



> Second. Storage wise? does it make sense? the raid 1 is because i've had alot of badluck with Failure of HDD.


This should all be fine.



> So in the end is it pretty good overall?


For the most part yes, its solid all around. I'd personally change out some brands, but you have all quality parts.


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## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

First of all. Thank for the reply
Liquid vs Air-Cooled. Might be kinda dumb, but i dont really like Aircooler, Liquid cooler make such a great look. 

Thermal paste i know i dont need it, but its a spare one, because there's none even close pc shop where i live so if i have to remove something i want to be able to put new one on. so its not really part of the build.

And what brand would you change? and why? i want to have the best build possible and i want opinions on it. (Ssd brand might change right before, will depend on the current deals)


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

You do have the best quality parts, you should be fine.

To answer your question, I personally like Gigabyte boards because of their features.


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## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

oh ok. well i found out for what i wanted based with review, quality, color sheme, needed and price the msi 970 was probably the best motherboard for this


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

Storage: Drives fail. RAID 1 justs provides twice as many points of failure. Use single drives instead of a RAID setup. To protect your data,get a large cap external drive, (or subscribe to a cloud service) and work up a good backup solution.

Memory: 2 x 8 

Case: Go with the R5. Identical to the R4, but with a few minor updates to correct some niggly issues.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

I like everything you did except I agree on the air cooler vs liquid and would myself use 2nd hard drive for backup internally rather than add external and do backups with software. The likelihood of 2 drives going south internally is slim to none whereas external drives die daily. I also would much rather see Crucial or GSkill ram as Micron is among the best today and I have no clue who Kingston is using and Hyper-X can be tricky.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

> Hyper-X can be tricky


It's been flawless on my part. Also, I believe Kingston makes their own.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

No they don't. The only real manufacturers of memory chips I believe are:
Elpida, Samsung, Nanya, Micron, Winbond and Hynix.


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## MPR (Aug 28, 2010)

Three companies hold 95% of the DRAM chip market share.

Samsung 40%
Micron Group (including Elpida, formerly NEC/Hitachi) 28%
SK Hynix 27%

Winbond and Nanya are the largest of the remaining 5%.

Kingston is the #1 memory module supplier but it can't be with only the chips it produces. 

Sources:

Kingston remains world’s No. 1 memory module supplier | KitGuru

Micron Could Pop 50% on Rising Memory Sales - Barron's

Leading Global DRAM Market: Combined DRAM Market Share of Samsung, SK Reached 70% in Q4 Last Year | BusinessKorea


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## Citizen1 (Nov 11, 2015)

gcavan said:


> Storage: Drives fail. RAID 1 justs provides twice as many points of failure. Use single drives instead of a RAID setup.


You probably wanted to say that about RAID 0, not RAID 1
RAID 1 is a mirror, so if one drive fails, You can replace it with new one and data remains. But I agree You need RAID 1 + extra backup (cloud or external), for those situations like virus encrypts all data or physical damage or theft.




gcavan said:


> Case: Go with the R5. Identical to the R4, but with a few minor updates to correct some niggly issues.


I would go R5


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

gcavan said:


> Storage: Drives fail. RAID 1 justs provides twice as many points of failure. Use single drives instead of a RAID setup.


Agreed. However, it might be in the OP's interest to look at purchasing 3 slightly smaller drives in a RAID 5 configuration. If speed is desired, you get the striping of RAID 0, along with parity. There would be a considerable speed boost at the cost of a small amount of storage, but then there would also be a built in backup until a failed drive could be swapped. :wink:

3x 400GB drives would yield 800GB at the same speed as RAID 0, and a single drive would failover. 

4x 320GB drives yields 960GB at 3x speed, with a single failover.


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## hogbreath (Oct 22, 2015)

This may be contraversal but i'd loose the AMD processor!

I've always thought that the Windows OS is based around the Intel architecture and Intel owns intellectual rights on certain design features windows uses, therefore AMD has to emulate these features.

I may be wrong and if so i'm sure someone will put me right!

And its just my opinion


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## Warlord711 (Apr 26, 2014)

My opinion:

I would buy Intel CPU because they are superior ! Dont look for GHz - we are not in the year 2000.

Use Nvidia GPU, especially if you use Win 10 - AMD got crappy drivers for Win 10. 

Liquid cooler are just super expensive extended air cooler - at the end you need a pump+radiator+fan to cool down - so its only cosmetic stuff - better take the money to change CPU+GPU to the above.


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

I tend to agree, but it's been my experience that when the OP says they want to build AMD, they look at this as a distraction from their intent, and it derails the thread. 

There are a rash of threads where this occurs, and it's really more beneficial just to tackle the OP's request, and not bother trying to show them the light. 

I haven't seen anything in the AMD market since Athlon XP, but this isn't our buld, we're just trying to help make the most of the OP's choices!:grin:


Warlord711 said:


> My opinion:
> 
> I would buy Intel CPU because they are superior ! Dont look for GHz - we are not in the year 2000.
> 
> ...


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## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

alright. let's say Intel? Find a Better Cpu, better MotherboardAnd something better than a msi r9 390 8g. For lets say the 100$ more i would cut from the H100.

Current Price are (canadian market )
Cpu 215$
Mobo 130$
Gpu 450$. 
total 795$

I've really been thru all this and i've not seen something better and less expensive than that. Not impossible tho i dont know each Intel cpu i've only checked few mainstream one, but if we compare a bit. We get this? (might not be acurate with Gpu but i tried to find the closest for Price and performance) 

Intel Core i5-4690K 310$
MSI Z97-GAMING 5 170$
MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB 480$
Total 960$

Thats a whopping 160$ difference. It could maybe be worth it? to switch over intel and nvidia, but i dont think i could get a Better Gpu for the same amount or less.


(also i heard Nvidia was having hard time with win10 not Amd?)


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## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

And BTW for Storage i'm going for a Raid5 of 3x1tb WD blue.

Aaaannd Fractal Design R5 over r4. I could check both irl this week and the r5 is waaaay superior

(edited partlist: AMD FX-8350, MSI Radeon R9 390, Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) - System Build - PCPartPicker Canada)


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

diablalex said:


> And BTW for Storage i'm going for a Raid5 of 3x1tb WD blue.
> 
> Aaaannd Fractal Design R5 over r4. I could check both irl this week and the r5 is waaaay superior
> 
> (edited partlist: AMD FX-8350, MSI Radeon R9 390, Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) - System Build - PCPartPicker Canada)


I don't think you'll need the water cooler, air should do fine.

The R9 390 needs more than 650Ws of power. Look for a 750W XFX or Seasonic branded unit instead.

The rest of the system looks fine.


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

Video: I've been using a Radeon HD 5770, after having driver problems with dual 8800GTs in games like Bad Company II and Medal of Honor. I've had zero problems since the 5770. That being said, I can't say, for certain, that that issue continues beyond that vintage or those two cards; even SLI may have factored in, but I also had a problem with the nVidia 470 on a laptop I had for all of 6 months, playing several games. All driver problems.

I say go through the latest "Best graphics Cards For the Money" post on Tom's Hardware, and let that be your guide toward what will be most benefit to your needs and budget. It seems that performance per dollar has a diminishing return at around $150-200, so I don't tend to get all antsy about spending on graphics, and I don't bother shopping too regularly for upgrades, either. 

CPU: The Intel switch is definitely worth it. My i5-2400 still outperforms most AMD processors, even after 4 years. It's kept me from bothering to upgrade for anything but my next SERIOUS build: Dual Xeons.

CPU Cooling: Liquid cooling is fun, and looks cool. If you want a look, do a custom liquid build. If you just want to keep cool, get some Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound, and use the stock i5 cooler. Intel doesn't run terribly hot under demand. 

Cases: In 20 years of computer building, the most exciting thing to happen to cases is having easily accessible HDD/SSD bays. Very cool, but beyond that, it goes back to looks.

PSU: Get something that can pump out wattage without needing a loud fan. I'm using a Corsair Enthusiast that is dead silent and rock solid. Don't skimp on the power supply; consider it as important or moreso than the video card, as the video card will be worthless without STABLE power. 

Storage: Go SSD, even if it means sacrificing space and redundancy. 1x SSD on SATA 3 will outperform 3x HDD on RAID0 any day of the week. SSD reliability is solid, mostly because it's low heat, and I have a lot of respect for the Samsung 8xx series; one 500GB is all you may need for years to come. Toss in a 2TB HDD for all your junk, and keep the SSD below half full. SSD prices are coming down hard, and it's a significant improvement to a significant computing bottleneck.

RAM: I decided this was worth adding. Want to turn your windows install loose? Add more RAM than you would EVER think you'd need. 16-32GBs, and turn the Windows page file OFF. Forever. Don't start editing video, or else it'll turn it back on, but you can the. Say goodbye to fragmentation and drive latency. 



diablalex said:


> alright. let's say Intel? Find a Better Cpu, better MotherboardAnd something better than a msi r9 390 8g. For lets say the 100$ more i would cut from the H100.
> 
> Current Price are (canadian market )
> Cpu 215$
> ...


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## DutchAnon (Jul 2, 2012)

Stick with AMD my own rig listed below.
Also 30yrs plus building from scrach sytems for clients with no money limits.
Intel for Gaming until the gameing frat come up with games what use more than 2-3 core CPU's and Intel Lower their price's.
AMD for virually everything else, Multitasking, and still plays all games at max resolution and fps.
Rig I use daily for the past year not one problem to date.
Even updated to Windows 10 Pro 64bit from developers OS previously Win 8.1 Pro.
Motherboard : Asus Sabertooth 990FX r2.0
Cpu : AMD FX8350 stock @ 4.34GHz
Ram : 32GB Corsair Vengence Platinum
Cooler: Corsair H110i GTX Never seen temp above 40 Degree's even rendering 40GB raw files.
Graphic's Asus R9 380X 4GB X2 Crossfire upgraded 4weeks ago from old 270X Card's
By the way the latest Apple Macbook Pro's are now using a mobile AMD 380X videocard chip 2GB on their logic boards model 2016.
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i Full 860w
SSD: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB Still the best out there and price's fall every week.
HDD: 3x 2000GB SHDD ST200DX001 8GB Flash 7200rpm 12ms/64MB
Case: Corsair 500R room enough.
By the way an intel CPU will loose everytime against an AMD of the same price check out all chart data to confirm.
Example :
AMD AM3+ FX-9590, 4.7MHz(5.0GHz Turbo Boost) not overclocked $280.00
Intel Core i7-6700 4.0MHz (4.2GHz Turboboost) 1151cpu 4 Core $399.00
Intel Core i7-5960 3.0MHz 8Core 2011-3 $1150.00 
Do the Math makes more sense.


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## Frost_Byte (Oct 18, 2015)

DutchAnon said:


> Stick with AMD my own rig listed below.
> Also 30yrs plus building from scrach sytems for clients with no money limits.
> Intel for Gaming until the gameing frat come up with games what use more than 2-3 core CPU's and Intel Lower their price's.
> AMD for virually everything else, Multitasking, and still plays all games at max resolution and fps.
> ...


You are forgetting that a 5 year old I5 2500k outperforms the FX 9590 in games. Substantially in some cases. You are also omitting how cheap one can get any I5 from the past 3 generations when on sale. You are also forgetting that the very I5 2500k I mentioned can be run on air completely stock, and still outperform the FX 9590 or FX 8350 when used with more powerful GPU's. There was never any need to compare the FX 9590 to a I7 6700 in price or performance. An I5 3570k, or I5 4670k for $239.00 will deftly scorch the FX 9590 in games (again using a simple air cooler) and will not bottleneck elite GPU's. 

You directly compared a very hot running FX 9590 that requires a pricey motherboard to run it and also a pricey cooler to keep it in check to a $399.00 processor, and then you jumped straight up to a I7 5960 for $1150.00. 

I suggest you back it down to comparing it to a simple I5 3570k or 4670/4690k for a more comparative price, and where the Intel still completely owns.


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## DutchAnon (Jul 2, 2012)

Frost_Byte, You answer the question in your first sentence. Yes for GAMES but we don't all want a computer costing around $1000+ dollars just to play games for that get a upgraded console.
Multitask an intel with 20Gb raw data whilst playing a video on utube with adobe illustrater open and your website and see how many frames you get then playing the latest games if any. I am talking real world usage here and Intel cannot match AMD on price at all, proving the above i7 5960 to be able to do all the above without stutter or frame loss.
No were in the original post was the computer talked about just for gaming and yes you are right today at this moment purely for gaming intel is the way. But understand that the future of the latest game's is to utilise all core's of the cpu and is why Intel are now catching up with AMD with their 6x Core xeon's but at what price ?


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## Frost_Byte (Oct 18, 2015)

DutchAnon said:


> Frost_Byte, You answer the question in your first sentence. Yes for GAMES but we don't all want a computer costing around $1000+ dollars just to play games for that get a upgraded console.
> Multitask an intel with 20Gb raw data whilst playing a video on utube with adobe illustrater open and your website and see how many frames you get then playing the latest games if any. I am talking real world usage here and Intel cannot match AMD on price at all, proving the above i7 5960 to be able to do all the above without stutter or frame loss.
> No were in the original post was the computer talked about just for gaming and yes you are right today at this moment purely for gaming intel is the way. But understand that the future of the latest game's is to utilise all core's of the cpu and is why Intel are now catching up with AMD with their 6x Core xeon's but at what price ?


 
If you are happy with your FX CPU that is all that matters. I build systems with AMD CPU's too you don't need to tell me what they do I see it in the systems for the past 16+ years I have used them along with Intel. I know the benefits and drawbacks of each. All I can say is enjoy your system that is what matters the most. Both AMD and Intel are very good, and they are good for any purpose really.


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## diablalex (Oct 8, 2015)

Hey. Few week ago from the building day. Some part already received. Now still thinking about the storage. The "current" setup is suposed to be 1 ssd main drive (evo 512) and 3x1tb WD blue in raid 5for storage. But a friend of mine just told me WD Red could be great since it for mass storage and i could do a 3x1tb raid 5 for about 30$ more. I dont k ow much about wd nas red beside i heard they were faster, quiter, colder and more reliable. Any downside or anything about them. :whistling:


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

Enterprise drives are better and last longer but I am not convinced that any of the color labels make the least bit of difference in my opinion otherwise.


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

diablalex said:


> Hey. Few week ago from the building day. Some part already received. Now still thinking about the storage. The "current" setup is suposed to be 1 ssd main drive (evo 512) and 3x1tb WD blue in raid 5for storage. But a friend of mine just told me WD Red could be great since it for mass storage and i could do a 3x1tb raid 5 for about 30$ more. I dont k ow much about wd nas red beside i heard they were faster, quiter, colder and more reliable. Any downside or anything about them. :whistling:


If I had to make a suggestion, on that subject, I'd probably say to get drives with lower RPMs and higher caches. Should actually cost less, and speed will be roughly the same after spinup; way slower than the SSD, but faster than 1 HDD.


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## DutchAnon (Jul 2, 2012)

Again the question is "what are you going to be doing with the new Rig" this is the crux for all budding builders out there and advise can be given when more info is available.
Read all previous post's and still it is not clear what the rig will mainly be doing or what the expectations are when built.
About storage "Why Raid" when your boot drive is a 512 GB Evo" so it cant be speed, 3 x 1TB for the same money out why not a 4TB SHDD with 8GB Flash 5900rpm quiet and 12ms/64Mb meaning only one power supply needed and one sata cable.
Worried about backup's and drive failure's simple first and foremost ghost image when all is as required then backup only important stuff when needed, but do all of it offsite ie not in the rig itself.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

SleeperNinja said:


> If I had to make a suggestion, on that subject, I'd probably say to get drives with lower RPMs and higher caches. Should actually cost less, and speed will be roughly the same after spinup; way slower than the SSD, but faster than 1 HDD.


Really? I would have to totally disagree as I have never seen the slightest difference between 64 meg cache and the original 2 meg cache but I can sure spot the difference between a 5400 rpm drive vs a 7200 rpm drive.


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

Rich-M said:


> Really? I would have to totally disagree as I have never seen the slightest difference between 64 meg cache and the original 2 meg cache but I can sure spot the difference between a 5400 rpm drive vs a 7200 rpm drive.


Thank you for the opposing viewpoint--this is why users come here for answers! 

Of course there are some big differences between 5400 and 7200RPM drives, but it's less in the speed, and more in the amount of generated heat. SSD will be considerably faster, less latent, and infinitely cooler than any mechanical drive, even 3x RAID 15000RPM HDDs. 

So, yes, the 7200 is faster than 5400, but these are trivial storage drives, not speed drives. Even 3x 3800RPM drives in RAID5 will be more than capable of streaming 4K H.264 video, but you'd be dealing with a heck of a lot of latency. The point is that 3x 7200RPM mechanical HDDs can generate a significant amount of heat. The 64mb cache will be better for periods of sustained usage, and way better than smaller caches in write speeds. Really, these drives are less speed crucial than the SSD, or else the OP would be investing in more solid state storage.


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## SleeperNinja (Dec 23, 2008)

DutchAnon said:


> Again the question is "what are you going to be doing with the new Rig" this is the crux for all budding builders out there and advise can be given when more info is available.
> Read all previous post's and still it is not clear what the rig will mainly be doing or what the expectations are when built.
> About storage "Why Raid" when your boot drive is a 512 GB Evo" so it cant be speed, 3 x 1TB for the same money out why not a 4TB SHDD with 8GB Flash 5900rpm quiet and 12ms/64Mb meaning only one power supply needed and one sata cable.
> Worried about backup's and drive failure's simple first and foremost ghost image when all is as required then backup only important stuff when needed, but do all of it offsite ie not in the rig itself.


Actually, this is a fantastic suggestion. A single 4TB SHDD would be a tad slower the first time you pull a file, but repeated usage of the same files would see a drastic speed increase. If it's going to be things like sparsely used video files, it'll just be a matter of a second or so of latency to start, then it'll be transparent, anyway. Your favorite game will run like it's on an SDD, because it'll be running on the regular from the solid state portion of the drive. One cable, one heat source, and most hard drives are pretty stable for years before there's any concern. Maybe put the savings toward a hard drive cooler?


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