[pecenipicek]

If you apply too much paste and need to clean it, makeup removal pads are very effective as they contain the alcohol used for cleaning electronics!

Isopropanol/Isopropyl alcohol, to be more precise. Definitely avoid acetone.

[Gee1337]

That's the stuff...  I just couldn't remember the name, but i know my wife's makeup removal pads contain it. I think she gets them from Boots and I think that they were actually nail varnish remover pads... but they did the job brilliantly!

[pecenipicek]

That's the stuff...  I just couldn't remember the name, but i know my wife's makeup removal pads contain it. I think she gets them from Boots and I think that they were actually nail varnish remover pads... but they did the job brilliantly!

if its varnish remover, its most likely acetone, which is a fair bit stronger than isopropanol. which may or may not damage the motherboard/the cpu board. if you are extremely careful when wiping it, taking care none of it leaks down, great. if not, avoid it. isopropanol is strong enough to get rid of the remnant paste residue.

[Jeff Vader]

Surely any CPU + stock cooler combo comes with instructions of how, where and how much thermal paste to apply, anyway. It's not exactly rocket science, so all you really need is to watch a few video tutorials on the subject (about your specific CPU and cooler wouldn't hurt) and think what you're doing enough that you're not putting things in backwards. It certainly doesn't require any esoteric knowledge or prior familiarity, it's enough to carefully follow instructions while applying common sense.

The stock cooler on my Phenom II came with a preapplied layer of goo. No need to spread it yourself. But daym that stuff petrified in a year. Damn near broke my CPU when I wanted to change to a better cooler and pried the old one out.

[Gee1337]

That's the stuff...  I just couldn't remember the name, but i know my wife's makeup removal pads contain it. I think she gets them from Boots and I think that they were actually nail varnish remover pads... but they did the job brilliantly!

if its varnish remover, its most likely acetone, which is a fair bit stronger than isopropanol. which may or may not damage the motherboard/the cpu board. if you are extremely careful when wiping it, taking care none of it leaks down, great. if not, avoid it. isopropanol is strong enough to get rid of the remnant paste residue.

With it being on a pad... there is no worry of leakage. But the pad I used was definitely laced with isopropanol because I checked the ingredients before I used it on my CPU.

[T-Man]

Thanks everyone for the comments and massive apologies it's taken me so long to respond (bit shameful of me in fact ); new job has been draining my days.

Do agree on self-builds being interesting if you can afford them my current PC was one, and we usually do build our own when we get them (use a UK site called SCAN a lot that does some cool deals on parts). I got a bit excited at that Dell one as it was ticking most of my boxes for less than i'd expected (and still on the fence about whether to go for it or not in the end; would even get free delivery for it), but perhaps as many of you say a much better job could be done for the same price by self-building. Only real paranoia is a part of it not working out in the end as it's going to be most of my savings gone getting it. Never had huge issues in the past though so fingers crossed.

Hmm. Passmark says it's about comparable to a Radeon 7770 or GTX 460, which would make it a lower mid-end kind of card. Especially for that price/performance/wattage ratio, that's a pretty good deal; You should be able to get at least Console-grade performance out of it in most games, especially considering the rather beefy CPU that system comes with.

Huge thanks for the info on that GTX card mate; know very little about how the market is at the moment beyond the basics so didn't really know where to start with comparing components/prices. Am glad that Dell is sounding at least decent as an option; can also use it as a good point of reference if I do decide to go with a self-build instead in the end.

That said, one thing to keep an eye on (and I couldn't find it at a glance) is the kind of PSU that system comes with. My guess is something in the 300 to 400 Watt range, this is going to be a bottleneck should you choose to upgrade the GPU.

Good point I hadn't actually considered PSUs and given I want this to be easy to upgrade I probably should be looking into them (Apparently this Dell one comes with a 460w PSU by a Delta Electronics; same Tomshardware thread mention that's not strong enough for some later Nvidia cards so potential bottleneck as you say).

What would be good to know to help you with a build is:-
1) Budget (most important)
2) How fast you want it
3) Do you need just a box or do you need other things like a monitor, keyboard and mouse etc...
4) Multi-tasking or single threading
5) How long do you want this build to last?
6) Will you be muli-screening?
7) Will you be downloading and needing lots of storage?

To answer your questions mate (and sorry again it's taken me so long);

1) Budget?: Perfect scenario would be within £1K mark, though I could go higher given time. Upper limit i'd say would be about £1.5K. Am a believer in 'in you get what you pay for' so prefer to go for best quality rather than cheapest price (within reason of course; my heart is still recovering after reading how much NVIDIA Quadros can cost ).
2) How fast?: Hoping for Higher-end speed with beefy memory (prefrably good i7 - have used Intels a lot in previous PCs - and at least 16GB RAM) and a powerful graphics card with some dedicated memory (about 4GB? Always had NVIDIAs so probably one of those); I hope for it to be able to run things like Maya LT, Unreal 4, FS-Open and Modded Minecraft without any stuttering or slowdown.
3) What do you need?: Likely just the SU/box; is going to be alongside my old PC so already have monitor/keyboard/mouse etc and checked their all compatible with new systems.
4) Multi-tasking?: Definitely multi-tasking preferred; have heard single can sometimes go faster but i've had programs not work because of my old motherboard being a single core.
5) How long?: As long as it can really; hoping to make it an easily upgradable work rig I can add or replace components in as needed (avoiding OEM Windows for this very reason).
6) Multi-screening?: Not at the moment but may switch it to this in the future so compatabilty would be apprechiated.
7) Lots of Storage?: Not a major amount; a 2 TB drive will easily do me (plus a smaller SSD we were thinking of having dedicated to it's Windows and supporting programs; heard that's a popular trick). Household already has some external disks for storage (we're all computer addicts) and I'd probably grab another one if downloading becomes a bigger thing.

If you can get comfortable with applying thermal paste, building your own PC is absolutely the way to go. I've done it twice. Always worth it.

Heh heh aye recall it is a bit fiddly; it's definitely a bit you need to build up the confidence for, but then it's essentially a matter of knowing how much and where. Have always heard another funny one is actually pressing the processor chip into it's cradle to engage the lock; apparently a lot of people panic that they're pressing too hard on it no matter how many times they do it.

[Mars]

The CPU should literally just drop in if you're doing it right.  Unless Intel does it differently now? Current gen AMDs still work this way at any rate.

[Gee1337]

No problems in replying T-Man... I know all too well about real life pressures! So to counter answer the questions:-

1) Budget: If you can push out to that £1000 mark, there is no real need to break this, unless you go for that high(ish) end build I posted.

2) How fast you want it?: I did not ask this question correctly which has led to a mis-interpretation. My fault, so my apologies. The question was meant to be in relation to "How fast you actually want to get the computer in terms of... can you hold off for a while before you build or do you want it straight away?"

3) What peripherals?: Good to know that it is only the box needed. I would also recommend to see what you can salvage from an older build.

4) Multi-tasking or singlethreading?: You answered multi-tasking here, so I reckon that an AMD build would be better for you (more on this below).

5) How long do you want this build to last?: This means that you can mix the build up with some lower end parts with higher end, but swap them out at a later date for easy upgradeability (more on this below)

6) Will you be multi-screening?: If you do not want to multi-screen, then get a ard with 2GB onboard RAM as this will be plenty for most applications and games. It will even do dual screens fine. But if you add more than two screens, then you do want to be looking at the 4GB region. Also, 4GB onboard RAM will help to futureproof the card for games with larger textures, however, this will only futureproof for so long as new technologies appear.

7) Storage: I have an SHDD. Not as fast as SSD but it does the job for me. So the drives I suggested earlier should be fine for your needs.



The More Below Bit:-

I would recommend the AMD FX8370 if you are looking into multi-tasking anduse an ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0. This pair will cost about £250. It is what I currently use. Now for raw FPS and stupid levels of performance on single-threaded applications like games, it will not perform as well as an i7. However, they are more than adequate for gaming needs.

The beauty about this AMD chip is that it can get some insane levels of overclocking and currently holds he world record at something silly like 8GHz, but needed stupid amounts of cooling. The cores aren't as strong as Intels, but because there are more of them, it does mean that it can handle multiple applications better than Intels. The mobo will give you stable overclocks as well. If you do overclock, make sure you spend a bit on aftermarket cooling.

These two parts substituted for the i7 setup will work perfectly fine with the rest of the components I suggested in my previous post. Also, because they are less expensive than the i7 setup, it will also keep some cash back for the 3rd Quarter of 2016 when proper benchmarking can be done between Intel's Skylake architecture and AMD's ZEN architecture, allowing for a two part upgrade... although by this point and if you decide to go down this route, you might (?) be forced onto DDR4 RAM. If you did not want to upgrade straight away when the new architectures arrive, then this AMD build should easily last at least two years... but most likely more before you forced into an upgrade again.

IF you decide to go for the AMD setup, DO NOT go higher than the 8370, as you will need have to spend extra on cooling because of the higher TDP, which makes the chip run hotter. You also spend more if you select something higher than the 8370 and this is where AMD begins to use its "bang per buck" advantage over Intel.

Please note that I base this post on a lot of research and my own experiences, however, make sure you take note of what other people say as they will have different experiences to myself.

I hope you find this post useful, and good luck. If you post a part list, like I did with Mongoose, I will tell you what I THINK, you should change.

[The E]

At this point, going for an AMD FX CPU is a really bad idea. Yes, they're cheaper than Intel kit, but it really does not matter. Intel completely outclasses AMD on both single- and multithreaded performance (Except in a few synthetic scenarios), and unlike AMD, they're not on the verge of collapse right now.

[Gee1337]

To say that AMD are on the verge of collapse is total poppycock and simply untrue. If they were on the verge of collapse, it wouldn't be a bad thing because someone like Samsung would just buy them up, which I actually hope will happen given the size of the dies which Samsung have already been playing around with!

We still have Xmas to go and most consoles are powered by AMD chips. Their GPU market is not going to disappear in the click of a finger either! I read an article on AMD projected forecasts and how "unrealistic" they were meant to be, but there were so many holes in that article it would put a seive to shame.

Price does matter when building on a budget. Of course the much higher priced Intel chips will outclass the AMD, but I should think so given you pay £100 more, but just because you pay £100 does not mean you get £100 more performance. As for the multi-threading side, that depends on how heavy the multi-tasking is as an FX 8XXX series that is overclocked would perform as well as a Xenon 1230 v3 if doing extremely heavy multi-threaded tasks like rendering and simulations. Then there is the multi-tasking side which is how many programs can be opened at the same time, which is not the same as one multi-threaded application. Don't disregard the FX series ability to overclock!

Anyway, what I was putting out to T-Man is that he could go with those cheaper parts with AMD to start off with and do a CPU and MOBO upgrade in 12 to 18 months or so, when he could splash a bit more cash and choose whether to go for Skylake or Xen based on true benchmarks, when they appear! If T-Man does not want to overclock or do an upgrade then I will say to him, "Spend a bit more and go for an Intel!"

[pecenipicek]

£1k is a ridiculous amount of money for a machine. You can get a very ****ing high-end machine. It is NOT a budget purchase.
AMD is bad. Bulldozer flopped hard and they never recovered. AMD's gpu's (in the lower end of the market, however) are flaky as hell as well. Intel+nvidia and you are good to ****in go.


also, here's a nice little benchmark of I7-860, a almost 6 year old Intel CPU vs a 10 month old AMD FX-8370 cpu.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/326/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8370_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-860.html

For clarity, i have the i7-860. it requires neither overclocking nor ridiculous clock frequencies and does massive amounts of stuff without drama.
Take your fanboyism out and face the reality, AMD ****ed up horribly and has exited the CPU race with intel on the high-end.

[Klaustrophobia]

"AMD is about to collapse, Intel outclasses them on everything" - exaggerated post (amd collapsing) with slight fanboyish overtones.

"AMD's price/performance is still generally better than Intel's, and they are in fact not on the verge of collapse due to other markets" - reasonable and valid points.

"Take your fanboyism out and face the reality, AMD ****ed up horribly and has exited the CPU race with intel on the high-end." - fanboy rant about fanboyism.
 

[Gee1337]

Bulldozer did flop hard. I will never disagree with that. However, the FX8370 is piledriver which is a lot better than bulldozer, even though it comes from the same family.

I never said his budget was "low budget" or that it is a "budget build". I'm not trying to steer T-Man one way or the other... the advice I was giving T-Man was to consider other options he might not have thought of based on his needs and what his real world applications will be.

I prefer AMD chips because of the general price/performance ratio. I don't have lots of money to spend on high-end CPUs. With the money I save from that initial purchase, I can then put towards a better GPU which is essential for gaming rather than having to pay £100 less. How you can call me a fanboy is beyond given ALL my previous posts in this thread and also Mongoose's thread.

AMD are not in the "high end" CPU market at the moment... no doubt about that. However, with Zen (got the spelling right this time haha), they could be by Q3 next year depending on how that architecture performs, considering it will be using SMT and 14nm dies!

[CP5670]

AMD CPUs are not worth considering for games because of their poor single-threaded performance, which is still the limiting factor in the vast majority of games and is way behind Intel at this point. If you're on a budget, even the cheap Pentium G3258 will destroy them in a lot of games with a typical overclock. They're good for tasks like rendering or compute that can make full use of all cores.

AMD video cards are a different matter, and are more than competitive in the market. The regular Fury and 290X are great choices.

[Gee1337]

Okay... here is a new element to be brought into the mix.

DirectX 12

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-why-directx-12-is-a-gamechanger

This article shows that the FX8350 (£139) is going to be competitive with an i5 4690k (£178) in terms of performance. The FX 8370 is about £150. The FX 8370 already beats the i5 4690 on price per performance... so when DirectX 12 is released, I wonder what will happen then?

As more games become written for DirectX 12, AMD is not out of the gaming market and the CPUs perform just fine (okay not as well as on an Intel) on DirectX 11.

I believe it to be a bit premature to just say that AMDs are not worth considering for gaming considering Windows 10 is being released imminently, with DirectX 12 at its core.

On the gaming front, Intels will perform better than AMDs on games written for DirectX 11. For DirectX 12, they will be more comparable.

My advice to T-Man as a result of this is... if you can, wait a while before commiting to parts until more DirectX 12 games hit the market and more benchmarking can be done, not only to get better comparisons but also because it could drive down the price of an Intel if you choose to go for one!

[Klaustrophobia]

Just remember how long it took DX11 to really matter.  Due in part to the fact that MS didn't go past 9 on XP.  Which is pretty much the same as what they're doing now with not releasing DX12 on windows 7.

[Gee1337]

Absolutely Klaustriphobia. I think the article I posted even said as much!

It really annoys me that I'm going to have to install Windows 10 to reap the benefits, as Win 7 is the best to this date (in my opinion). Well... arguably I could say XP but you have to hack the crap out of it to get the benefits and it could theoretically be done with 7 as well. But that's how the market works, although, saying that, Windows 10 will be free for a lot of people. So apart from the hassle of reinstalling the OS, it kinda becomes a moot point.

Time will tell how long it will actually take to make the transition, no doubt about that. But i don't think it will be as long as DirectX 11. "Ashes of the Singularity" is already released on alpha, which is a DirectX 12 game. IIRC, more are expected towards the end of the year!

[Phantom Hoover]

"AMD bad" - fanboy

"AMD good" - reasonable and valid

ok

[Mars]

AMD is alright per dollar in the CPU market, and currently a little ahead in the GPU market in terms of that juicy "upper mid-range" as far as I can tell. I'm sticking it out to see where the Nano releases at and what happens to the market when it releases, but right now the R9 390X (290X) is pretty damn competitive with the 980. I wouldn't invest in AMD shares right now, their time may be limited, but their equipment isn't all bad.

If I had straight $1500 to spend on a machine though, yeah Intel/Nvidia all the way though.

[Fury]

Gee1337, I am sorry but could you please stop with the poor advice regarding AMD FX CPUs. Unless you of course want OP to get a system that is outdated before he even buys it.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=90027.msg1789813#msg1789813