Help! Desktop Part-picking

[TheLG]

jagerman1980, you have very valid points, but for what Lowco will be doing, which is more than just gaming, an i7 would benefit over an i5, and for gaming purposes a 780 will be sufficient

[jagerman1980]

Yeah a 780 is probably sufficient especially when getting the best bang for your buck. I have no clue if the i7 will benefit her, I just know most games the i5 is all you really need. I personally run an AMD processor because of the significant cost savings, but a budget of 2k I would go with intel. I also didn't mention but the only mouse I like for gaming is the Razer Naga and I only can use half the buttons on the side, but for MMOs the buttons make doing skills so much more efficient for me.

[H3ll0J3ll0]

the reason it dropped was that nvidia dropped nearly all their high-end cards by 150$ in january to match the really cheap amd cards thats why it has dropped and i dont think it will drop much more. But none of us have the abillity to see in the future so we will jsut have to wait and see.

[Ashardis]

I personally run an AMD processor because of the significant cost savings, but a budget of 2k I would go with intel.

What cost savings are these? Right now here in Denmark an AMD 8350 costs ~1299DKKR or ~USD $241.35. An Intel i5-4670K is DKKR 1619 or $301.
So.. that's ~$60 here in Denmark, the US prices are apparently pretty similar (around $200). While $60 isn't nothing, when you're talking $500 GPU's.. then it kindda pales.

On the performance part, I don't want to start an AMD vs Intel war here - I will just link this : http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php ... cmp[]=1780

You see that the AMD CPU overall is ~16% better when all cores are used, but if you compare the individual core capablity the Intel beats AMD by almost 50%.

For most games out now, they rarely use more than 2 cores/threads for the game itself. Then the OS can load up tasks for 1-2 cores/threads.. Hopefully with the shift to Mantle/DirectX12 (around mid'15) games will take more advantage of more cores, but atm this is not the case. Some games use CPU more than others - BF4/MMO's use a LOT of CPU, others are more dependant on GPU for performance.

[H3ll0J3ll0]

ashardis i dont know but in sweden there is about 600 sek in cost differnce which is about 100$ and if you only have about 800$ budget 100$ is quite much plus the motherboards are also cheaper.

[JesterTV42]

the i7 processor is unique and possesses the ability to split its 4 cores in 4 individual quad core processors. which would be better suited for a stream/ gaming build. (which is why most streamers opt for it in their builds over a i5) i personally have an i5 because i only game, not stream. also i switched from amd to intel last month because they run cooler and quieter. for lowco's build i believe the i7 is worth the extra $ over a slightly better graphics card. the GTX780 is a phenomenal card and like others said the Ti is not worth the extra ~$200 since we could see another price drop in the near future

[lowco2525]

Thank you SO much for all the help guys! Seriously, could not do this without everyone's input. I am going to be ordering the parts very soon! And yes I need the computer to handle gaming + streaming. My budget is not a fine trimmed $2k, meaning if there is something that would improve performance but pushes it a bit over $2k I am willing to go past it.