AMD FX 4350 or 6300 for Gaming?

[john5220]

So I got access to a friend of mine who has a credit card and will order these stuff for me online, this is good news for me guys.

So now it comes down to stock no OC FX 8350 vs FX 6300 + CPU Cooler + overclocking mainboard vs core i3 3150 vs "G3258 + OC Mainboard + CPU Cooler"

I have to check how much heat and current these 8350 uses. 125W sounds scary.

 

[AtenRa]

i3 supports 4 threads, and OP says he will not likely overclock. Yes, I might give a nod to the 8320E if OP planned to invest a little more in a nicer motherboard, aftermarket cooler, slightly bigger power supply, and crank it up to 4.4, but stock vs stock? It's a tossup.

OP said he will not OC the FX8320E because of the 95W TDP Heat-sink. Turning off Turbo in BIOS, he will be able to OC with the 95W TDP Heat-Sink close to 4GHz using lower voltage than default. You can always buy a better cooler down the road and OC to 4.6GHz later on. This is a very cheap upgrade without the need to buy a platform or even a new CPU, you only buy a new cooler and OC the CPU.
Same applies to FX6300, it can easily OC to 3.8-4.0GHz with the default heat-sink.

In 4/5 games, the i3 loses to an FX-8350.

You can also see how close to the Core i5 4670K the 4.4GHz 8-Core FX is in those games. This is why the FX8320E when OCed is the far better choice over the Core i3.
I would also say that in DX-12 games the 4.4GHz 8-Core FX will be close to Core i7.

For those that promote the Core i3 + upgrade path later on,there is a third alternative. Go with the FM2+ Motherboard and the Athlon 860K. OC to 4.3GHz and you have almost the same performance as the Core i3 but at half the price.
In two years (2017) you can sell the platform + CPU and upgrade to a new platform + CPU. At the time, AMD ZEN will be out (both CPUs and APUs) and new Intel platforms and CPUs.

 

[Yuriman]

This should give you some idea on the FX-8350's and 6300's power consumption:

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2014/november/fx-8350_power_to_performance

Handbrake winds up being the worst case scenario for the FX-8350 because it flat out redlines the CPU. Peak power and average power are practically the same, and consumption increases by almost 100W. I’m keen to point out that an aggressive overclock on Devil’s Canyon can raise power consumption by as much as 70W or more, to say nothing of the nearly 200W overclocking Haswell-E can gain. Render times have an extremely steady decline as clock speeds increase, though. You can pretty much just pick a point on the curve you want to hit.

And here: http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2014/november/fx-6300_power_to_performance

Handbrake, on the other hand, will use every last core and clock it can get its hands on. Overclocking the FX-6300 from its stock speeds all the way up to 4.8GHz introduces massive performance gains; at 4.8GHz, our benchmark takes roughly 2/3 the amount of time it takes to run at stock. Because Handbrake is the most CPU-dependent task in the suite, it also drives up power consumption considerably. Even then, power only increases about 80W for the blistering overclock.

Note that these are full-system power consumption figures, not CPU-only.


At stock, their FX-83xx system draws around 210w, and while overclocked to 4.4ghz it's closer to 250w. So, a 40w increase for ~10% extra performance. To hit 4.6ghz (+15% clockspeed), their power consumption jumped up 90w over stock.

At stock, their FX-63xx system draws around 150w, and while overclocked to 4.4ghz it's closer to 190w. So again, a 40w increase.

For comparison, my entire i5 system draws under 110w while overclocked to 4ghz. When looking at the CPU alone, I have around a 60w difference between idle and load. Admittedly, this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but it gives you a rough idea.

 

[john5220]

^ @AtenRa I have a 760K Athlon non OC but runs at 4.1ghz in turbo boost and the performance in games is Horrible. Might be because of no L3 cache who knows.

It performs more like the bulldozer FX 4100

 

[john5220]

thanks yuri man much appreciated. I am looking at this site here aswell

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/grand-theft-auto-v-test-gpu.html

gonna spend a whole day browsing so I can have an idea of intel vs amd performance. Seeing that I have a PC with a 760K athlon which performs miserably I don't think I would want to even consider a 860k

I am building a new system and selling my old one.

 

[AtenRa]

^ @AtenRa I have a 760K Athlon non OC but runs at 4.1ghz in turbo boost and the performance in games is Horrible. Might be because of no L3 cache who knows.

It performs more like the bulldozer FX 4100

760K is a piledriver, 860K is Steamroller and its faster. Also, what GPU do you have and what games ??
From my testing at 4.3GHz the Steamroller is very close to Core i3 Haswell in games (see the tests in my signature).

 

[john5220]

760K is a piledriver, 860K is Steamroller and its faster. Also, what GPU do you have and what games ??
From my testing at 4.3GHz the Steamroller is very close to Core i3 Haswell in games (see the tests in my signature).

Hmm I seeee. So do you think at this point its worth me scrapping my 760K?

I know the 860K is faster but the question is HOW much faster than the 760K?

From whatever benchmarks I can see its only 2 FPS more. And in some benchmars the FX 4300 is way faster due to L3 cache.

 

[Yuriman]

760K is a piledriver, 860K is Steamroller and its faster. Also, what GPU do you have and what games ??
From my testing at 4.3GHz the Steamroller is very close to Core i3 Haswell in games (see the tests in my signature).

Could you post some charts? As I understand it, Steamroller doesn't have much of an advantage in single-threaded tasks over Piledriver, but has a smaller module penalty, improving multithreaded performance.

Just a guess, but if some of OP's games are running slow on an FM2(+) chip, it's likely that they're starved for single-threaded performance. DayZ, for example.

 

[john5220]

Yes my 760K athlon gets 15 FPS in DayZ. And my brother's i3 4150 gets 35 FPS.

Its more than 100% boost in performance. I will never bother with a FM2+ chip I think from all these benchmarks the intel really is the way to go for me. One assumes by the time DayZ comes out of Early Access and gets optimization it would run better than AMD. But thats a big gamble.

I know a G3258 @ 4.5 GHZ would be awesome for DayZ, its one of the things I had wanted to do for quite some time. So I can learn how to OC and get my feet wet with the G3258 plus cpu cooler zalman or something. One of the things about intel is you really feel safe due to its upgrade path. haswell has some lovely chips for future upgrade.

Do you guys think the i3 skylake would yield a huge advantage over the haswell refresh?

 

[AtenRa]

Hmm I seeee. So do you think at this point its worth me scrapping my 760K?

I know the 860K is faster but the question is HOW much faster than the 760K?

From whatever benchmarks I can see its only 2 FPS more. And in some benchmars the FX 4300 is way faster due to L3 cache.

No, no point going from 760K to 860K.

Either go for the FX6300-8320E or for the Core i3

 

[john5220]

One of my great mistakes in life was buying the 1333mhz kingston value ram and then realizing the HUGE advantage you would have for games like DayZ and Arma 3 if I had gone 2100mhz or something.

You would never expect ram speed to perform so massive in those kind of games. I am tinking maybe its not to late I could buy new RAM and sell my current 1333 yeah?

 

[Yuriman]

Yes my 760K athlon gets 15 FPS in DayZ. And my brother's i3 4150 gets 35 FPS.

Its more than 100% boost in performance. I will never bother with a FM2+ chip I think from all these benchmarks the intel really is the way to go for me. One assumes by the time DayZ comes out of Early Access and gets optimization it would run better than AMD. But thats a big gamble.

I know a G3258 @ 4.5 GHZ would be awesome for DayZ, its one of the things I had wanted to do for quite some time. So I can learn how to OC and get my feet wet with the G3258 plus cpu cooler zalman or something. One of the things about intel is you really feel safe due to its upgrade path. haswell has some lovely chips for future upgrade.

Do you guys think the i3 skylake would yield a huge advantage over the haswell refresh?

Signs point to 0-15%, probably averaging 5-7.5%, not accounting for a possible small clockspeed bump with Skylake. Power consumption may also come down some more; we might see ~35w i3's instead of 54w, though this is purely my own speculation.

Speaking just for DayZ, an FX-8350 will not perform appreciably faster than your 760K, since they're built on the same uarch and have approximately similar clockspeeds.

 

[Yuriman]

Intel chips have much more efficient memory controllers than AMD's (they get a lot more performance from the same RAM), and an i3 is unlikely to see much, or any performance improvement with faster RAM. 1333 should be fine.

 

[AtenRa]

Could you post some charts? As I understand it, Steamroller doesn't have much of an advantage in single-threaded tasks over Piledriver, but has a smaller module penalty, improving multithreaded performance.

Just a guess, but if some of OP's games are running slow on an FM2(+) chip, it's likely that they're starved for single-threaded performance. DayZ, for example.

For dayZ he may be better with the Core i3.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Then up the budget. You don't build a gaming box every day. Cheap out and get an ancient platform with an ancient CPU. If you are wanting to save go H81 and an i5 4590 with 8GB RAM. An i3 is an odd halfway house. For an office box sure, for anything else I'd pass.

Not everyone has the luxury of spending $200 on a CPU. I have yet to find a game that isn't silky smooth at 1080p with a $99 FX-6300. That extra hundred bucks can be used to beef up the graphics card -- which is probably more important to the gaming experience than a CPU, anyways.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

^ @AtenRa I have a 760K Athlon non OC but runs at 4.1ghz in turbo boost and the performance in games is Horrible. Might be because of no L3 cache who knows.

It performs more like the bulldozer FX 4100

Well, it's been my experience that the 760k is a decent amount faster than the FX-4100 (excluding a couple ancient cache-friendly games). Zambezi was very sluggish for single threaded despite the cache. The Richland 760k was a bit better. The 860k performs roughly like an Intel Haswell dual core for single threaded stuff.

I'd say you have a driver issue if your 760k isn't noticeably faster than an FX-4100.

 

[john5220]

Intel chips have much more efficient memory controllers than AMD's (they get a lot more performance from the same RAM), and an i3 is unlikely to see much, or any performance improvement with faster RAM. 1333 should be fine.

Ooh I see so those benchmarks are probably just showing ram speed performance because its very high clocked i7 intels me thinks?

Well if this is the case I will go with 4150 i3 or G3258 plus CPU cooler and better MB and just keep my ram I would save a nice piece of cash. You save $50 US with the G3258 over the 4150.

I also love the fact that intel chips have no pins to bend so its much safer buying used intel CPU later down the years 4 years to come etc I might get a 6 core i7 used on the cheaps wo knows.

hmm so thats a better mainboard Z97 instead of the $50 cheaper haswells.

hey I also understand the stock CPU cooler for the G3258 can run the chip at 4GHZ. Because its the copper base i7 cooler that it comes with?

 

[Yuriman]

Ooh I see so those benchmarks are probably just showing ram speed performance because its very high clocked i7 intels me thinks?

Well if this is the case I will go with 4150 i3 or G3258 plus CPU cooler and better MB and just keep my ram I would save a nice piece of cash. You save $50 US with the G3258 over the 4150.

hmm so thats a better mainboard Z97 instead of the $50 cheaper haswells.

hey I also understand the stock CPU cooler for the G3258 can run the chip at 4GHZ. Because its the copper base i7 cooler that it comes with?

I personally wouldn't go with the Pentium. An i3 is a more well-rounded chip, not being the fastest in single-threaded stuff, but also not being the slowest in multi-threaded stuff. You'll be back in the same situation you're in now (only in reverse) - decent performance in most things, but bad performance in those games that are well threaded. Pentiums are certainly cheap, though...

You can overclock a Pentium on some (most?) ~$60 H81 motherboards, making Z97 unnecessary. You can't overclock an i7 with those boards, but a 4790K usually won't have much overclocking headroom anyway. If I bought one, I'd probably just run it stock.

As I understand it, yes, a Pentium will come with the nicer copper-based Intel stock cooler, and it will have some overclocking headroom without the need for spending more on a power supply, motherboard, or cooler.

 

[john5220]

Could you guys recommend me a sub $90 US 1150 Motherboard that may likely last about 10 years? most my mainboards in the past lasted this much time.

this benchmark is interesting

 

[Yuriman]

This $47 H81 motherboard has solid-state caps, which are probably the biggest factor when considering longevity, and USB3 (which is not present in all cheap Intel boards).

Here's an offering from MSI for around the same price.

The only real downside with these cheap boards is that they only have two RAM slots.

This MSI board for ~$70 is specifically designed with longevity and low power usage in mind, and has 4 RAM slots.

This $75 ASRock Z97 board also looks to have excellent build quality, and will give you the option of overclocking a K-series chip, should you choose to.

ASRock, Asus and Gigabyte (and probably MSI also) are all safe choices. I would be reluctant to buy an ECS or Biostar board.

 

[AtenRa]

I also love the fact that intel chips have no pins to bend so its much safer

Statistically from RMAs there are far more broken Intel socket pins than broken AMD CPU pins (Taken account of the volume difference between the two). It is also the reason why Intel specifically asks for Socket guards to be placed on the Motherboard socket when motherboards are RMAed.

 

[john5220]

Ok thanks I will stick to ASRock, ASUS and Gigabyte

ASRock seems to offer better value for money than ASUS for some reason. They are the same company right?

 

[john5220]

Should I be worried about buying this board if I decided on a G3258 to OC? seeing that this has no heat sink on the VRM? this bard would be best if I was going i3 am right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130798

 

[TeknoBug]

You're still going with the G3258 when most of us said no?

 

[john5220]

You're still going with the G3258 when most of us said no?

ok you are right, I just realized the MSI board is at a good price so I am going with the 4150 i3 for now.

in about 5 years or 6 years from now I will upgrade the i3 with a 4790 i7 non k by then the i7 will be cheap and will really justify 8 threaded CPU for games.

Well its settled guys I am going with this board that Yuri Man told me to

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130798

Look at this beauty. Claims to be
TÜV Certified.



hmm some sort of German quality rating, seems like a board which will last me more than 10 years. I also use a very good Rosewill 750W gold rated PSU so it provides tons of protection for my boards.