Advice please! - planning on buying a new PC - moderate gaming only

[#1]

Planned config:

Quote

Processor (CPU) AMD A10-6800K Quad Core APU (4.4GHz) & Radeon™ HD 8670D Graphics Motherboard Gigabyte F2A68HM-HD2 FM2+ (mATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s) Memory (RAM) 4GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 4GB) Graphics Card Integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000 / R7 Series Graphics 1st Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

The intent is to play low/medium intensity non-interactive games on a Linux machine, including a few Windows games via a Windows API.
It's not for me - so I'll try and find out a bit more game level intensity.
I really want to know if that graphics card is up to the job of driving a HD screen.
Thanks...

[#2]

I'm surprised to see you're considering both an AMD processor and a Radeon card, when it comes down to power and polygons I thought that the best combination was Intel and Nvidia. I use Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs for number crunching and in my experience nothing can touch them.

[#3]

I've used AMD processors for many years - I'm not really a game player myself.
They are excellent for high CPU usage applications.
But I do normally use NVIDIA video cards.
It's just that the Radeon is integrated with the motherboard. 
Trying to save money. 
My main  machine has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 - would that be a better bet?

[#4]

Sadly with way games are going more ram at least 8 gig, 4gig was enough when I built my current pc 7 years ago, but it badly struggles with todays games.  As for the GPU no onboard GPU's is my advice, as it is that gpu if its a full video card is going to be slow for any gaming as its very under powered.  Other thing to consider is the amount of video ram the GPU card has, at least 2 gig but more the better.
As for the HDD a SSD ideally or a 10k spindle if you can, 7.2k spindle will do, but if the games played require lots of HDD access that will cripple ingame performance
When a gamer says light gaming, you really need to find out what types of game.  Chess/patience etc that build would do, but its bare minimum spec for games currently and will be underpowered by 6 months old.

[#5]

Thanks Gus,
I'll consider 8GB - and definitely a 1 or 2GB nvidia GPU.
No SSD - I want a proper big 7.2k disk.
I don't really want to put Windows on it - but if I do it's definitely going to be a Linux dual boot.
Apparently, light gaming counts as SkyRim plus some ancient arcade style gaming,
together with running some stuff in Nintendo emulators etc.
My son says that SkyRim was just about acceptable on a 2GB 2-core AMD Linux PC.
This PC has kicked the bucket, due to old age (and an internal electrical fire).

[#6]

Most games require 8 gig of ram these days, i have 16 in mine altho id be lucky if i used 10.

[#7]

8GB is ridiculous!

[#8]

ditch the a series processor and get an fx one, go for the 8350 if you want the best bang for buck price point, and then either an nvida or amd card with at least 2 gig (preferable 4 or more) of vram, it'll need at least 8gig of system ram (regardless of what os you run) most current pc games run to 5 gig ram + up to 100 gig of page file (and that's the ones without memory leaks) due to the high res of all those HD frame details, actually things will run a lot smoother if its got 16gig of ram and there will be less intensity on the HDD, but you don't need ot go for anything so fancy as 1600 ram, plain basic 1200 will do the job better unless your planning to oc the cpu to make use of the higher speed possibilities (since everything runs at 1200 unless you oc the system now that the dram controller is part of the cpu). 16 gig of Kingston value 1200 is cheaper than 8 gig of 1600/
and i'd get a 990fx series mobo (anthing that doesn't have built in graphics) the sabertooth 990 was going cheap a couple of months back haven't looked recently as were the r9-270 and 280 gfx cards getting one will be half the price of the NVidia card as well
if you don't put an ssd into the system its really going to suffer in terms of map calls and you will find lots of stuttering in big fight scenes or even just spinning round

[#9]

For £500 squid you could get a system on Ebay that will do light gaming ( even play todays games ) and still be more than powerfull for everyday use..
I barely go above 20%  ( non gaming ) on my I5 - 3570k (Which is still now a decent processor @ 4.5Ghz)
My system along with its i5, has 4 x 1tb hdds for ( game files - raid 0 ) with a read speed of around 220Mb +, Cant really say i notice any slow down with maps loading,  Yes ssd's are a alot quicker to load  but then once loaded up theres no differnce in speed what so ever, + once that maps been loaded and map rotates etc come to that same map again it pretty much instantly loads up.
Yes Games now Use up alot more memory + having more memory on your Gfx card is always the better route.  Non of these old 32mb cards anymore, or cards sitting on the Pci bus plodding along at 66mhz.
+ with the intel onboard Vga, u can use intel quick sync, which is pretty good for streaming, Handbrake  conversions, Gaming, films, etc.. Dont think ive read a bad review about QS.

[#10]

Skyrim isn't really light gaming though, I run at about 60fps with all the settings maxed out on an asus gtx570 2gb oc card with a phenomii x6 1055t cpu  oc'd to 3ghz with 32gb of 2133 ddr3 ram  and 2 x 1TB 7200rpm hdd's and that system would crash to below 20fps in the big fight scenes or completely freeze up if I tried spinning round too fast whilst the dragon was attacking the ground nearby
played it on my newer system fx8350 @4ghz (stock) with 8gb ddr3 ram and the r9-279x 2gb (stock) with a 250GB ssd and 2x 2tb 7200 hdd's its running 100+ fps normally and keeping over 45 even in the most demanding scenes (that used to stutter out the old rig) removed the ssd (because I shorted it out) and ran with a 250GB 7200 primary for a bit, skyrim was getting 60>70 fps normally and dropping below 35 on the high intensity stuff, all this was running with everything at max, dropping everything to minimum and there was zero slowdown but half the visual clues were also missing and the game looked like garbage

[#11]

Why not try these guys http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk Pick either for performance or price and then add the things u would like and see what u can afford, ive used them in the past and found them to be very good.

[#12]

Just bought a PC from the above.
They can sell you a PC with no OS supplied, so you are not locked into Windows.
Tech advice seems quite decent - especially with regard to choice of video card.

[#13]

yep there not bad those guys ... so come on show the specs!

[#14]

Actually, I've bought two of their desktops, one Linux & one Windows 8.1
Linux:-

Quote

System:    Host: hector Kernel: 3.16.0-4-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.4) Desktop: Cinnamon 2.6.7 (Gtk 3.14.5+4)           Distro: LinuxMint 2 betsy Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M5A97 LE R2.0 v: Rev 1.xx Bios: American Megatrends v: 2501 date: 04/09/2014 CPU:       Quad core AMD FX-4350 (-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 33711           Clock Speeds: 1: 1400 MHz 2: 2800 MHz 3: 1400 MHz 4: 1400 MHz Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 730] bus-ID: 01:00.0           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz           GLX Renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 340.65 Direct Rendering: Yes Audio:     Card-1 NVIDIA Device 0e0f driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1 Sound: ALSA v: k3.16.0-4-amd64           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000 bus-ID: 02:00.0           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 78:24:af:d7:38:fe Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2000.4GB (36.2% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST1000DM003 size: 1000.2GB           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ST1000DM003 size: 1000.2GB Partition: ID-1: / size: 20G used: 6.9G (38%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2           ID-2: /home size: 148G used: 15G (11%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.29GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 26.0C mobo: 21.0C gpu: 0.0:30C           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 2213 fan-2: 1366 fan-3: 0 Info:      Processes: 202 Uptime: 1:10 Memory: 1053.1/7905.2MB Init: SysVinit runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.9.2           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.301) inxi: 2.1.28

Windows PC:- (attached)...

[#15]

@foxy
maybe a daft question but why all the partitions on the drive ?
is it a strange thing with .nix that you need them like that or is it just old habits ?
I ask because i was under the impression that partitioning off drives far from lengthening the lifespan actually shortened it as the wear pattern is distorted across the platters (and this effect is worse with ssd's) at least that's what I've read on various tech websites.