Posts by graniteharbor85

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Paul Perez87

What resolution are you running on your monitor?

Honestly... R7 260 Honestly, that GPU would be such a massive mismatch for this setup—we're talking about an HD 5670, which is pretty weak compared to what you've got. The rest of the rig is actually super solid for gaming, so there's really no need to scrap the whole thing right now. If I were you, I’d just hold onto it through the end of next year, save up some extra cash, and wait for those big holiday sales around Christmas and New Year's. Once you grab an i5 paired with a GTX 960/970, you'll be set for a good few years—you'll finally be able to crank everything up to max settings without a sweat.

It’s basically a toss-up between grabbing a used Logitech Formula Force EX or just settling for the Logitech Driving Force GT—there isn't much of a middle ground here, especially if you're looking at the secondhand market. Personally? I’d steer clear of that old DFGT.

Keep an eye on the marketplaces over at RacingJunk or similar forums—you should definitely try to snag that DFGT if you can. Honestly, its force feedback is surprisingly close to the G25 in terms of feel and build quality. The only real downside is the pedals (they're tiny and don't have much resistance...), but you can always fix that later by picking up some used G25 pedals and hooking them up to the DFGT with a converter.

Oh, please—he just showed up to grab a quick snack and troll a bit. If you check out his other thread where he was talking smack about Intel, you’ll see exactly what kind of guy he is 😁

Look, we all know how this works 😉 For AM3 + Giga and ASUS are easily the top tier—just take a look at the 990 FXA-UD3 and you'll see everything it brings to the table, plus all those extra features, or maybe check out the 970 UD3/UD3P floating around $267 on
forums.
The only ones I’d even consider putting above them—and that's only if someone is being super picky about having a red/black or blue/black color scheme for their build—would be the Killerica or the GD-65, but let's be honest, those specific looks are pretty rare 😁

What’s even the best choice? Honestly, this stuff has been repeated a million times already, but for some reason, people just won't learn.

I had a Gigica running at 4.5 GHz (8320) myself, but I always make it a point to mention that you shouldn't push for higher overclocking—just stick to turbo speeds or maybe 4.2 GHz (FX 8350). Most people asking for advice don't actually get how overclocking works—they don't think about case airflow, CPU coolers, or any other basic essentials. Plus, if you just disable turbo and the safety features, then manually set it to that clock speed I mentioned, you can also do a nice undervolt to drop both power draw and heat.

If we're talking high-end gear, I think ASRock and MSI are really the only ones worth considering (like Killerica or the 990FX-GD65).

Alexander Moore67

Timothy Kim60 already laid it all out for you, and honestly—I've gotta back him up on this one. The Gigabyte 970 A-DS3P carries the exact same issues as the Pro3; the only real difference is that the EX version comes with a heatsink. Just a heads-up though—maybe do a little more digging before jumping in if you haven't actually tested them yet. You don't want to end up giving bad advice to someone just looking for a solid recommendation.

😵 Man, you guys are really something else...

What exactly are you struggling to understand here?

Are you even paying attention to which ASRock board we're actually talking about in the previous post? I didn't mention overclocking because that specific board isn't exactly known for being an OC beast—even if it wasn't going out of production.

I guess I need to spell everything out for you—I already said the Gigabyte isn't great for overclocking, and my point was reacting to feralcanyon73, who was criticizing that board specifically because of the FX 8320. If you're running an FX 6300 instead, since it pulls less power and doesn't stress the motherboard nearly as much, hitting a decent OC of around 4.5GHz is totally doable—provided, of course, you have a solid cooler like a Themis, a Hyper 212, or a Prolimatech Basic 65.

Just try finding me a new 990 FX EX 4 for $17 more than what the Gigabyte costs 🤦

Your comment doesn't really hit the mark here—the guy is looking for all-new gear, yet you're out here trying to pitch used MBO parts that are basically impossible to find these days.

If you're working with a tighter budget and don't care about overclocking, a Gigabyte board paired with an ASUS M5A97 R2 is easily your best and most affordable bet for AM3+.

James Gomez2

Alright, here's the breakdown:

AMD FX 6300
LC CC 95
Gigabyte 970A-DS3P
Kingston 2+4 GB 1600 MHz
MSI AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB DDR5 OC
Fortron Hyper 600W 80+
Zalman mATX USB 3.0

= $1090 including shipping and assembly.

- I dropped the price just like you asked—without touching the performance at all.
- I'm not totally sure what resolution you're running, but let's say you're on 1080p (which can be pretty demanding): that R7 260 is actually on a great sale right now, and paired with the recommended FX chip and plenty of RAM, it'll handle most newer games on medium/high settings just fine.
- Plus, keeping the cost low like this gives you some breathing room to upgrade other parts later (motherboard, PSU, RAM, case)—because honestly, it’s not really worth shelling out extra cash for a slightly better 260X. Sure, you could squeeze in an R7 265 or even an AMD Radeon R9 270 if you pushed it, but I think this is the smarter move for you.
- With this kind of setup, you're good to go right out of the gate, and down the road, you've got a clear path to swap in a much beefier GPU, or even jump up to an AMD FX 8300 and a matching card—basically, it's a solid foundation for long-term use with easy little upgrades.
- Eventually, all you'll need to do is toss in a 120 GB SSD—something like an Intel HD Graphics 520 or a Samsung EVO—and you're golden.
- You can just hang onto the HDD you already have.

Adam Moore3

Your motherboard is ATX, but the case is Micro-ATX—besides that, there's no heatsink, the voltage regulation is pretty weak (watch out for overvoltage issues), and it won't cut it if you try to run a heavier AMD FX 8300 (those 125W models).

Maybe you could also mention how you're planning to pay—that way we can figure out where the purchase actually makes sense—and if you could throw in some better recommendations while you're at it, that would be awesome!

Totally worth the $33 budget if you just want it done: the AS ROCK H81M HDS + LC CC 120 combo is hands down the cheapest way to go—and honestly, one of the best—if you're aiming for something like 4.5GHz.

Signature for Kimberly Gomez34.

Dennis Carter3

You're talking nonsense again—that MBO doesn't even have a second PCI-e slot.

It’s not even about having a "stronger" processor—it’s just faster because the single-thread performance is better and there's more cache. But you're forgetting one thing—you're down two cores here, and the absolute limit for this setup is an R7 250 DDR5. Anything beyond that and you're stuck with a tiny Pentium BN, which is going to be super noticeable. If he wants to actually play stuff, he really needs at least a G3258, especially if he's pairing it with an R7 260 via overclocking.

The $600 price point is also hitting that BN paired with a 260, but it won't hold up nearly as well as a Pentium—especially once he runs into a game that actually benefits from those extra cores. Honestly, if he's feeling adventurous, he could easily bump that Athlon up to 3GHz without much trouble, regardless of using the stock cooler or that Srotex case, since it pulls almost no power and doesn't need high voltage.😉

Then maybe suggest something else instead of telling him he has to deal with that "jet engine" noise at home—plus those CPU/iGPU temps hitting 70/90°C are way too hot for his liking 😉

Robert Rodriguez2

Man, you just don't get that the stock cooler isn't gonna cut it for an APU like that. 🙂

silversurfer30

If you're looking at the absolute max you could pull for this setup, it’d look something like this:

X4 600E
ASUS M5A78L-M LX3
PATRIOT 4GB 1600 MHZ
MSI R7 260 1GB DDR5 OC
TOSHIBA 3.5" 500 GB SATA 3
EVGA 500W
Cooler Master Midi ATX

= $740 including shipping and assembly.

Even though we're talking about a budget power supply here, the whole build is super low-draw—so honestly, given the price point, there isn't really a better way to go. I've run setups just like this with a 250, 260, 260X, or even a GTX 750 Ti, and they handle builds in this range without breaking a sweat—so you should be totally fine.

Speccy, Aida.

Prolimatech is definitely the better way to go—plus, since it’s more compact, you won't have any trouble fitting it in.

Alright, let's start with this:

- Grab yourself a decent power supply—maybe an EVGA 400 W or an EVGA Cx series.
- If you aren't running an aftermarket cooler yet, definitely get one—the stock ones just don't cut it for a 5600k—try something like an LC CC 95 or a SPIRE KEPLER R2.0.
- Swap out those 2x4 GB 1866 MHz sticks for something faster—higher RAM speeds actually give a nice little boost to integrated graphics performance.
- Try linking your integrated graphics with the HD 6670 via Crossfire using your BIOS settings and drivers.
- If you pull all that off, you should see a pretty noticeable jump in performance. But, look—since dual GPU modes on an Intel APU aren't exactly perfect and aren't optimized for every single game, if you're still looking for more, just grab a dedicated GTX 750 Ti, a 265, or even hunt down a used HD 7790/HD 7850.

If you’re talking about the VX series, honestly, just hang onto it regardless of how old it is—just pop the case open and let it breathe a bit. Is it running slow or what? If you're still rocking an old SATA HDD, my best advice is to ditch it and jump straight to an SSD immediately.

FX 8320
N/A
GIGABYTE 970A-DS3P
KINGSTON FURY 8GB 1866 MHZ
INTEL 520 120 GB SSD SATA 3
GIGABYTE R9 280 3GB WF 3X OC
ZALMAN Z3 MIDI ATX USB 3.0

= $1590.