TE PC Buying Guide T1 2013

#ALPHA17

How about a Trinity based alternative in the HTPC section or as Entry-level gaming rig?
I am particularly interested in your suggestions for the motherboard.

#Dark star 's review of the A10-5800K has got me really interested in it, and he had some good things to say about the Asus F2A85 V-Pro and some things that make me reconsider it. For example, the gimmicky 3rd PCIe slot + high pricing; Maybe there is some good FM2 board out there which doesn't charge a premium for a 3rd PCIe slot and other such "features" that cannot be used or are simply not required.
 
@axis.meister, I had requested @Dark Star for the prices of the motherboards / components because most e-retailers do not show the Trinity components in stock.

If you could provide me appropriate links, I would be grateful. TIA.
 
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@axis.meister, I had requested @Dark Star for the prices of the motherboards / components because most e-retailers do not show the Trinity components in stock.

If you could provide me appropriate links, I would be grateful. TIA
#ALPHA17

How about a Trinity based alternative in the HTPC section or as Entry-level gaming rig?
I am particularly interested in your suggestions for the motherboard.

#Dark star 's review of the A10-5800K has got me really interested in it, and he had some good things to say about the Asus F2A85 V-Pro and some things that make me reconsider it. For example, the gimmicky 3rd PCIe slot + high pricing; Maybe there is some good FM2 board out there which doesn't charge a premium for a 3rd PCIe slot and other such "features" that cannot be used or are simply not required.

Let me clarify few things - Trinity comes with 24PCIE lanes - 4 lanes are used for FCH communication thus reducing the overall available lane to 20.

The maximum configuration you can have in multiple gpu is x8-x8 or x8-x8-x4. There isn't much vendors can do about it, most of the high end board stuff a useless third PCIE slot which ended up with x4 bandwidth.

Asrock and MSI top of the line offering are priced inline around ~8k +/- 200 bucks. ASUS has priced their board a bit higher, The M-Pro variant available for 8400 while the VPro retails for insanely high 10k+ tag.

No matter which brand you choose, the third PCIE slot will be useless but then again you won't be doing TriFire or even Crossfire (2 dedicated card) with this platform.

One thing that I really liked about Asus is their power regulatory features and the software bundle they provide. Its unmatched! If you want a platform based around Trinity I'd suggest M-Pro variant which is spitting image of V-Pro minus the third PCIE and "some" software features that are not worth extra ~2k more.

A quick note on future compatibility - Richland for sure. Kaveri is sketchy, recent developer docs revealed that Kaveri will comes with both PCIE 2.0/3.0 along with GDDR5(maybe optional) along with 2400+ DDR3 support. It maybe a drop in replacement considering the PCIE2.0 but can't confirm it right now.
 
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Yikes. What happened to DDR3 RAM prices!
Transcend and Corsair 1333MHz 4GB is being listed for 1.8k in deltapage. Flipkart list Transcend 4GB DDR3 for ~2k. Though there is still a Gskill stick for Rs.1570. Why such a sudden sharp increase in the pricing?
http://www.flipkart.com/computers/computer-components/rams/pr?p[]=facets.capacity%5B%5D=4+GB&p[]=sort=price_asc&sid=6bo,g0i,s5u&layout=grid#jumpTo=153|40
http://www.deltapage.com/list/index.html

No clue, I noticed a spike in RAM prices online, have to visit Nehru Place and call a verdict whether prices have gone up or this is some scam.
 
Asrock and MSI top of the line offering are priced inline around ~8k +/- 200 bucks. ASUS has priced their board a bit higher, The M-Pro variant available for 8400 while the VPro retails for insanely high 10k+ tag.

No matter which brand you choose, the third PCIE slot will be useless but then again you won't be doing TriFire or even Crossfire (2 dedicated card) with this platform.

One thing that I really liked about Asus is their power regulatory features and the software bundle they provide. Its unmatched! If you want a platform based around Trinity I'd suggest M-Pro variant which is spitting image of V-Pro minus the third PCIE and "some" software features that are not worth extra ~2k more.
*just quoting the relevant part*

So basically the M-Pro is a better common sense alternative to the V-Pro, right? (I do like the heatpipe on the V-Pro though:( )
Also what about the F2A85M against the M-Pro, it is listed on Flipkart at 5.6K against the 8.6K for M-Pro; so what am I missing out on in the extra 3K and is it really worth it?
The basic usage scenario that I am looking at here with the A10-5800K is a HTPC/entry-level gaming machine; therefore not interested in 2x/3x-Crossfire.

Are any of the alternatives from MSI and ASrock better suited to such usage? ASrock Extreme6 @8275 and MSI FM2A85XA-G65 @8.8K on Flipkart.

PS: Tables still not showing correctly after cache clearing, tried both on Chrome v24.xx and Comodo Dragon v25.xx
 
^^ The non Pro i.e. A85M also looks pretty good. I haven't gone through it completely but it does looks good on paper- there is no VRM heatsink but shouldn't be a bother since you are using it for HTPC>

The low price tag will help you stuff more memory and lower the TCO of the system.
 
^^ The non Pro i.e. A85M also looks pretty good. I haven't gone through it completely but it does looks good on paper- there is no VRM heatsink but shouldn't be a bother since you are using it for HTPC>

The low price tag will help you stuff more memory and lower the TCO of the system.
It is not so much the TCO of the system, but the utter waste of features I would not ever use that bothers me. Of course spending less matters, but things like Crossfire are useless for me, since I am an occasional gamer at best.
Thermal performance and power management is something I wouldn't want to compromise on. Do you see any other notable features in the Pro over the M that would warrant the 3K premium?
 
^^ The only feature that matter is Digi+VRM which is present in both board minus the heatsink at VRM. Anything else is gimmick.

Also you get the EPU (Energy Unit) with the M variant which shaves handful of energy. So I'll say get the M variant. Rest of the concrete specs like SATA, Meme remains the same.
 
Hi,
This section is very useful to gather the information regarding the PC buying advice. I am in the plan to buy a PC but i am confused regarding the specification etc. Now I get a clear idea..
 
Is it just me or the OP has huge amount of whitespaces between the builds?

OT: This is an excellent list, though I feel parts are really expensive in India. I read somewhere that its better to build a moderately priced PC and then spend the same amount on components in a couple of years. I got a gaming laptop (Asus G74sx) with a GTX 560m for $1k in Nov 2011 and it still supports most games at native 1080p res with medium to high settings. I think we will only see truly next gen games with the advent of supposedly next-gen consoles.
 
Can anyone help me in buying a graphics card i play only FIFA 13 online so currently I m using Asus Nvidia geforce GT 630 4gb ddr 3 using it for last 2 months but I m not happy with nvidia card and thinking to switch back to ATI... So i have seen 2 cards one radeon 7770 and the other is 7850....please tell me which one should I buy... I will play only fifa 13 and next fifa 14 so nothing else apart from fifa
 
Can anyone help me in buying a graphics card i play only FIFA 13 online so currently I m using Asus Nvidia geforce GT 630 4gb ddr 3 using it for last 2 months but I m not happy with nvidia card and thinking to switch back to ATI... So i have seen 2 cards one radeon 7770 and the other is 7850....please tell me which one should I buy... I will play only fifa 13 and next fifa 14 so nothing else apart from fifa
I'd think the 7850 is from a more recent series so makes sense to get it.
 
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