re: Okay, so now I'm serious about building a PC...

7870 ghz is not on sale anymore, if I were you finch I would grab that 7870 myst I linked while you still can.

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and if he's building a computer on his own this to me is a no brainer.

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To you it may be but plugging parts into pre-determined slots is not the same as true OC'ing. It is absolutely beyond some people.

Plus, some people just like to run stock unless they absolutely have to OC.

I run stock all of the time because I haven't played a game yet that requires me to OC. I have the ultimate OC board too. I have the 990FX Extreme9 and my CPU is on an H70 for now but I still have no need to push beyond stock or the easy boost 4.2.

Arma II is the only game that gives me problems but even OC'ing can't make up for the horrible graphic coding in that game.

Everything that stout originally posted except with the 7870 myst is what you should go with for that budget. But even with that setup you're still probably not going to play bf4 at a average 60fps on ultra. Even though no one has been able to bench the game and much less play it I can tell you that much. Its going to be way more graphically intense then bf3 because of the amount of structural damage that's going to be in the game. Those explosions stress the cards quite a bit and adding that to 64 players will make it tough. That's why I'm buying a second card, actually.

Edit because I want to mention this. If you wanted to save 60 bucks, then get the fx 6350. Its the same processor as the 8350 just minus one module(two cores) which makes it a six core. From the benchmarks(around 400 points behind the 8350 in 3dmark11 physics test) and potential it has when it comes to over clocking (guys are easily pushing it past 5.0ghz with low voltage). Its a monster at the 140 price point. I would take that 60 dollars and put it towards stepping up to a 7950 for the GPU. That machine would be a awesome for that budget.

minor fall off from the 8350 that would probably not be too noticeable.

LINK

pretty much all of their cpus are unlocked.

I'm liking amd more and more, especially since I only game anyway. Saying that I would consider saving the money with that CPU and getting a 7950 or 760. They perform in the same range.

If I was buying toget I would probably get the 8350 but I have the 3570k and there is nothing wrong with it. It will last me a while, especially since cpu's haven't been making big strides in gaming lately other than integrated graphics. We will have to see what the next gen brings us now that new consoles have more capabilities.

why?

Your friend is clueless.

There are massive sales on great AMD cards now in preparation for the new line that is supposed to drop in October. Nvidia just released a new line as well. It will be a long time before those cards are as cheap as the current AMD cards are.

Your performance for dollar spent will be better buying an AMD card on sale now vs waiting until BF4 drops in November. The Nvidia cards will only be 4 months old then and AMD cards will be just 1 month old. It's pretty safe to say that neither of them will have steep discounts at that time.

stout. doing work in the OT kid/cop thread right now.