Recently Intel launched its first consumer grade octa core processor the Intel i7 5960X based on the Haswell-E architecture devastating and demolishing every competitor in the class and segment including its own processors and the AMD top line FX 9590.
No doubt the new Intel processor is extraordinary performance wise but its ridiculously expensive and considering it's exclusive support for the expensive DDR4 memory and X99 chipset its not a worthy deal at this point of time especially if you are a gamer or designer.
So today I've decided to give all you guys a taste of extreme AMD power and its bang on performance which will include its FX 9590 the world's first processor to hit the 5Ghz mark for the highest clock frequency till date.
Keep in mind that this configuration is for consumer grade and will consist of parts and components that are worthy of extreme gaming, designing and rendering. The beast and world's fastest desktop GPU the AMD/ATI R9 295x2 8GB DDR5 will not be used as not only it is a non-gaming grade graphic card but also has a dual GPU. Also the parts are not the best on the price tag but give you the best performance available by saving where ever I can and investing it where it was most needed.
Processor: AMD FX 9590 4.7Ghz
My plan was to use AMD’s fastest desktop processor available, so the FX-9590 was a lock from the get-go. The 220-watt processor is a beast in the power department, however, which required some careful build planning.
Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming
Using the FX-9590 meant finding a board with support for 220W socket AM3+ processors. AMD hasn’t updated its core logic chipsets in quite a while, however, and we didn’t want an aging board with outdated technology. Thankfully, MSI recently released a new socket AM3+ motherboard—the MSI 970 Gaming—that’s loaded up with 7.1 channel audio, a Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN controller, and USB 3.0.
Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120XL liquid cooler
The FX-9590 will push the limits of this motherboard’s VRM, but I'm not planning to overclock the PC and I’ll install plenty of cooling to keep the CPU and motherboard temperatures in check. To keep the CPU cool while riding along in the motherboard, I opted for the Cooler Master Seidon 120XL liquid cooler. AMD once sold a liquid-cooled FX-9590 bundle, and this was the cooler in the package.
Graphic Card: Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X TRI-X OC
Thanks to some recent price cuts, my GPU selection for this build couldn’t have been any easier. Sticking with the AMD theme, I opted for a Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X TRI-X OC 4 GB. This card is powered by AMD’s Radeon R9 290X “Hawaii” GPU and is outfitted with a huge triple-fan cooling solution. The cooler allows the GPU to operate at higher speeds than reference R9 290X cards, and it’s quieter, too. The only AMD-based graphics card that’s more powerful is the Radeon R9 295X2 but then its something that you'll not need any given day.
Storage: Transcend 128 GB SSD + Seagate Barracuda 1 TB
Transcend SSDs are available for fairly competitive prices. Their overall performance is good too, so I picked up a 128GB model. To complement the SSD, I snagged a 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM hard drive and threw in a cheap LG DVD-R optical drive on the off chance I’d need to use a CD or DVD at some point.
RAM: Corsair’s Vengeance Pro DDR3-1866 16GB
I had initially planned to use AMD-branded memory in this build as well, but when I saw Corsair’s Vengeance Pro DDR3-1866 16GB kit, my mind changed instantly. The kit consists of a pair of 8GB DDR3-1866 DIMMs, which would be a good match for the FX-9590. They even sport black-and-red heat spreaders that go perfectly with the MSI 970 Gaming’s color scheme. Corsair is also one of the most trusted names in system memory, so the price for the kit was no problem.
Cabinet: Corsair Graphite 780T
I also
turned to Corsair to house the rig. The company recently
updated the Graphite line with a newer 780T model with features better
suited to today’s hardware, I was intrigued. The Corsair Graphite 780T
isn’t cheap, but it’s absolutely worth the asking price.
The case is spacious, with plenty of mounting locations for both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch internal drives. Even better, the windowed case sports a tool-less design and a trio of quiet fans. And hey, it looks good, too. About the only things missing from this case are a switch to turn off its integrated lighting, and a hiding spot to store all of the spare screws and connectors it includes.
PSU: Corsair RM750 750 Watts
As for the power supply, the Corsair RM750 750 Watts was a good fit. We planned to use only one GPU in the rig, so its 750W capacity was fine, and we also liked that it's fully modular and operates silently under low loads.
For those of you keeping track, the complete parts breakdown for the system is as follows:
Though you don’t necessarily have to put Windows on the system, I also accounted for an OEM copy of Windows 8.1 here. If you’ve already got a Windows license available or plan to use an alternative free OS, knock $100 from that total price.
At about Rs. 129500, this system isn’t exactly cheap—despite costing about half as much as the latest Intel based build—but it does represent one of the most powerful, single-GPU all-AMD systems you can build today.
I used a handful of readily available benchmarks to quantify the performance of our AMD FX 9590-based rig.
In the
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme benchmark, our system put up a very strong
score of 4,995, which was higher than 63 percent of the systems in
Futuremark’s database. In the Unigine Heaven benchmark (v4.0), with
Ultra quality settings at a resolution of 2560x1600 with 4X
anti-aliasing and maximum tessellation enabled, the system scored 845
(with an average frame rate of 33.5 FPS)—another strong showing for a
single-GPU setup. In the heavily threaded Cinebench R15 benchmark, the
system put up 94.44 frames per second in the OpenGL test and scored a
decent 698 points in the multi-threaded CPU test. In terms of overall
system performance, our AMD FX-9590 build scored 5,547 PCMarks with the
latest build of PCMark 7, and its storage score was a speedy 5,296.
Benchmarks tell part of this system’s story, but the user experience matters, too. Quite frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by this build’s performance. This rig can easily handle any game thrown at it today or in the coming two to three years at ultra high settings at 1080p resolutions.
Dollar for dollar, there’s still a strong argument to be made for AMD processors. Although the FX-9590 is a power-hungry, relatively inefficient CPU, its high frequencies give this PC some major oomph. This all-AMD rig would make any single-display PC gamer happy—and it costs a mere fraction of what the latest Intel based builds will cost today.
So guys this was all for all the AMD fan boys out there and for all those who like to keep an eye for meaty configurations. Feel free to leave a comment or question, I'm open to any additions that you think are necessary to be made in this article.
No doubt the new Intel processor is extraordinary performance wise but its ridiculously expensive and considering it's exclusive support for the expensive DDR4 memory and X99 chipset its not a worthy deal at this point of time especially if you are a gamer or designer.So today I've decided to give all you guys a taste of extreme AMD power and its bang on performance which will include its FX 9590 the world's first processor to hit the 5Ghz mark for the highest clock frequency till date.
Keep in mind that this configuration is for consumer grade and will consist of parts and components that are worthy of extreme gaming, designing and rendering. The beast and world's fastest desktop GPU the AMD/ATI R9 295x2 8GB DDR5 will not be used as not only it is a non-gaming grade graphic card but also has a dual GPU. Also the parts are not the best on the price tag but give you the best performance available by saving where ever I can and investing it where it was most needed.
Part Picking
Processor: AMD FX 9590 4.7Ghz
My plan was to use AMD’s fastest desktop processor available, so the FX-9590 was a lock from the get-go. The 220-watt processor is a beast in the power department, however, which required some careful build planning.
Using the FX-9590 meant finding a board with support for 220W socket AM3+ processors. AMD hasn’t updated its core logic chipsets in quite a while, however, and we didn’t want an aging board with outdated technology. Thankfully, MSI recently released a new socket AM3+ motherboard—the MSI 970 Gaming—that’s loaded up with 7.1 channel audio, a Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN controller, and USB 3.0.
Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120XL liquid cooler
The FX-9590 will push the limits of this motherboard’s VRM, but I'm not planning to overclock the PC and I’ll install plenty of cooling to keep the CPU and motherboard temperatures in check. To keep the CPU cool while riding along in the motherboard, I opted for the Cooler Master Seidon 120XL liquid cooler. AMD once sold a liquid-cooled FX-9590 bundle, and this was the cooler in the package.
Graphic Card: Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X TRI-X OC
Thanks to some recent price cuts, my GPU selection for this build couldn’t have been any easier. Sticking with the AMD theme, I opted for a Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X TRI-X OC 4 GB. This card is powered by AMD’s Radeon R9 290X “Hawaii” GPU and is outfitted with a huge triple-fan cooling solution. The cooler allows the GPU to operate at higher speeds than reference R9 290X cards, and it’s quieter, too. The only AMD-based graphics card that’s more powerful is the Radeon R9 295X2 but then its something that you'll not need any given day.
Transcend SSDs are available for fairly competitive prices. Their overall performance is good too, so I picked up a 128GB model. To complement the SSD, I snagged a 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM hard drive and threw in a cheap LG DVD-R optical drive on the off chance I’d need to use a CD or DVD at some point.
RAM: Corsair’s Vengeance Pro DDR3-1866 16GB
I had initially planned to use AMD-branded memory in this build as well, but when I saw Corsair’s Vengeance Pro DDR3-1866 16GB kit, my mind changed instantly. The kit consists of a pair of 8GB DDR3-1866 DIMMs, which would be a good match for the FX-9590. They even sport black-and-red heat spreaders that go perfectly with the MSI 970 Gaming’s color scheme. Corsair is also one of the most trusted names in system memory, so the price for the kit was no problem.
Cabinet: Corsair Graphite 780T
I also
turned to Corsair to house the rig. The company recently
updated the Graphite line with a newer 780T model with features better
suited to today’s hardware, I was intrigued. The Corsair Graphite 780T
isn’t cheap, but it’s absolutely worth the asking price. The case is spacious, with plenty of mounting locations for both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch internal drives. Even better, the windowed case sports a tool-less design and a trio of quiet fans. And hey, it looks good, too. About the only things missing from this case are a switch to turn off its integrated lighting, and a hiding spot to store all of the spare screws and connectors it includes.
PSU: Corsair RM750 750 Watts
As for the power supply, the Corsair RM750 750 Watts was a good fit. We planned to use only one GPU in the rig, so its 750W capacity was fine, and we also liked that it's fully modular and operates silently under low loads.
For those of you keeping track, the complete parts breakdown for the system is as follows:
- CPU: AMD FX-9590 - Rs.22899
- Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming AM3+ - Rs. 7799
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB DDR3-1866 - Rs. 13340
- Graphics card: Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X TRI-X OC 4 GB - Rs.46450
- Storage: Transcend 128 GB SSD - Rs. 4299
- Storage: Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD 1TB - Rs. 3880
- Optical drive: LG SATA DVD-R - Rs. 949
- Chassis: Corsair Graphite Series 780T - Rs. 14000
- Power supply: Corsair RM750 750 Watts PSU - Rs. 9000
- CPU cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120XL - Rs. 6902
- Operating system: Windows 8.1 OEM - $99
Though you don’t necessarily have to put Windows on the system, I also accounted for an OEM copy of Windows 8.1 here. If you’ve already got a Windows license available or plan to use an alternative free OS, knock $100 from that total price.
At about Rs. 129500, this system isn’t exactly cheap—despite costing about half as much as the latest Intel based build—but it does represent one of the most powerful, single-GPU all-AMD systems you can build today.
The Tests and benchmarks
In the
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme benchmark, our system put up a very strong
score of 4,995, which was higher than 63 percent of the systems in
Futuremark’s database. In the Unigine Heaven benchmark (v4.0), with
Ultra quality settings at a resolution of 2560x1600 with 4X
anti-aliasing and maximum tessellation enabled, the system scored 845
(with an average frame rate of 33.5 FPS)—another strong showing for a
single-GPU setup. In the heavily threaded Cinebench R15 benchmark, the
system put up 94.44 frames per second in the OpenGL test and scored a
decent 698 points in the multi-threaded CPU test. In terms of overall
system performance, our AMD FX-9590 build scored 5,547 PCMarks with the
latest build of PCMark 7, and its storage score was a speedy 5,296.Benchmarks tell part of this system’s story, but the user experience matters, too. Quite frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by this build’s performance. This rig can easily handle any game thrown at it today or in the coming two to three years at ultra high settings at 1080p resolutions.
Dollar for dollar, there’s still a strong argument to be made for AMD processors. Although the FX-9590 is a power-hungry, relatively inefficient CPU, its high frequencies give this PC some major oomph. This all-AMD rig would make any single-display PC gamer happy—and it costs a mere fraction of what the latest Intel based builds will cost today.
So guys this was all for all the AMD fan boys out there and for all those who like to keep an eye for meaty configurations. Feel free to leave a comment or question, I'm open to any additions that you think are necessary to be made in this article.
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