Valkyrie-Favor wrote:CPU. Should I get something with less processing elements, but higher individual performance? I was hoping to future proof it a little, now that games will be designed for two 8-core consoles. Is that a good idea? Think it will be sufficient for most modern games?
Power supply. Despite the price, I read the Corsair Builder was a good PSU with fairly constant voltage output. My maximum draw should be ~374W so I have some wiggle room. Is this a great deal or am I getting what I pay for?
Most current games require or recommend a dual core, with some recommending a quad core (and able to take advantage of it). That said, per-core performance is still usually the bigger deal today. While I don't doubt things will continue to utilize more CPU cores...it's more a question of whether they'll be fully utilizing them by the time whatever you build is behind the curve anyway or not.
The FX-6300 is a solid bang for your buck CPU right now, but, Intel still rules per-core performance. That'd really be your main thing I think - I'd recommend getting at least four physical cores, and on the Intel side that'd mean jumping a price bracket or two.
Another thing to keep in mind if reading some build/recommendation threads is that they might assume overclocking.
Also, not sure if you based it on this or not, but your proposed build is quite similar to the Tom's Hardware $650 build from September (
here), so you could get an idea of performance from that article.
As always, if you have a
Microcenter nearby, they often have in-store pricing on select CPUs that's very good.
I would buy a 500W PSU, it's really not something you want to skimp on. I mean, that's kinda true for most any part...but doubly so for the PSU.
