AMD vs. Intel for budget gaming rig: Pros and Cons?

[CrayolaAutumn]

Having never built a rig before, I'm interested in various people's opinions on which processors are best for gaming, and which CPUs go best with which GPUs. I'm thinking AMD, but if there are any arguments to be made for other brands, I'm happy to hear anybody out.

Some background:

Interested in being able to play (specifically) Dark Souls and DSII at high settings and FPS at about 1280x800 resolution or better.

I have set myself an upper limit of $650 for all the necessary parts for the computer.

I am very unfamiliar with the different classifications of CPUs and how powerful they are, so a little advice as far as that is concerned would be most helpful.

 

[erunion]

what does 650 include? Operating system and monitor?

 

[erunion]

My basic recommendation is to get a 1150 board and a cheap CPU, either Pentium or i3, plus a cheap-ish GPU, like GT750.

 

[SPBHM]

I don't think saving money on the CPU, when Intel offers a lot of performance for an OK price with the i5s is a good choice, some games will heavily favor Intel under some conditions, while others will be more comparable,

i5 4590 + cheap H81 board is very affordable and fast, and there is enough room to buy a nice VGA, also chances are, you are going to need a VGA upgrade before a new CPU anyway.


also 800P is going to limit more the benefits of a faster VGA, and the CPU difference can become more obivous

 

[Jovec]

I'm not sure that it matters at $650. At that price point you'll be almost always be GPU limited regardless.

 

[CrayolaAutumn]

Really I just want to make sure my GPU and my CPU are compatible. I can adjust my price a bit if it means making sure that my machine's parts are all communicating properly. As an example, I've been looking at an AMD A10-7850K processor on an ASUS motherboard, and I have no idea what kind of GPU would go well with that.

 

[cbn]

Really I just want to make sure my GPU and my CPU are compatible. I can adjust my price a bit if it means making sure that my machine's parts are all communicating properly. As an example, I've been looking at an AMD A10-7850K processor on an ASUS motherboard, and I have no idea what kind of GPU would go well with that.

If you are looking at AMD consider getting the Athlon x4 750K or 760K if planning on using a discrete video card. (The cpus I mentioned are trinity and Richland based quad core processors without the iGPU and go for around $80 to $90)

Also I would put the unlocked and overclockable Pentium 3258 on your short list of affordable gaming cpus as well. (You will need an Z87 (that has BIOS support) or a Z97 motherboard for overclocking though.)

 

[SPBHM]

Really I just want to make sure my GPU and my CPU are compatible. I can adjust my price a bit if it means making sure that my machine's parts are all communicating properly. As an example, I've been looking at an AMD A10-7850K processor on an ASUS motherboard, and I have no idea what kind of GPU would go well with that.

if you are not going to use the integrated graphics the 7850k is a very bad choice, it's not really faster than the cheapest i3 for gaming, but it's price like some core i5s...

and if you really want to use the IGP to save money, go with the 5800K or 6800K, 7850K money is enough for much nicer solutions like 750/760K + 7770.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Do you, or would you consider overclocking?

 

[Maximilian]

1150 and any i5 chip
or buy a used 1155 setup, anything i5/i7 2xxx or i5/i7 3xxx would be fine

Dont let the whole "dead end platform" put you off, you can get chips that will game 90% as well as the latest haswell stuff for peanuts sometimes.

 

[bononos]

Having never built a rig before, I'm interested in various people's opinions on which processors are best for gaming, and which CPUs go best with which GPUs. I'm thinking AMD, but if there are any arguments to be made for other brands, I'm happy to hear anybody out.

Some background:

Interested in being able to play (specifically) Dark Souls and DSII at high settings and FPS at about 1280x800 resolution or better.
.......

AMD APUs are useful for old games which have low requirements without a requirement to be upgradable on a low budget. But newer games might be ok depending on how much you can tolerate since low fps maybe ok for some people on a budget. The 7850k igp performs about 20-30% lower than the Nvidia 250.
For $650 I think you can do better with an Haswell i3+270 if you don't need to also buy a monitor+OS. Even a cheaper 750ti for gaming would blow the APU away.

 

[Sable]

Intel i3 or i5, AMD R9 270X or 280X, 8GB ram, reasonable motherboard ~ $100, case ~ $50-$80, PSU ~ $70. Should be able to configure something like that for around $650-$700.

I've gone a bit all out here

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XgMfhM

So $90 over your budget.

If you scale back to an Intel Core i3-4150 and a 270X

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9tGBTW

$620

No OS and no monitor included so if they're part of your budget then you need to scale back a lot and you will be in APU territory.

 

[NTMBK]

Get an Athlon 750k.

 

[MeldarthX]

First; what kind of games are you going to be playing? Second; screen size does that 650 include a screen or not?

Most will blow off gaming on an apu with ever used one. I can say 6600k at 1440 by 900 works; not just works but works well; with most settings on med to high. This includes WoT; Guildwars 2; Champions Online - Aion; LFD2 - LoL; DOTA 2. This is without OC yet; really depends on what you want.

7850 is even better........but you can look at 7700k nearly the performance; and better when OC...both faster than Nvidia 250 *not sure why someone said this*

You can build a decent budget gaming system with either AMD or Intel - just depending on what you're looking at. Screen size and if the screen is included in the budget or not is details that need to be looked at

 

[loccothan]

FX x8 8320 or x6 8350
MOBO Asus Sabertooth 990FX r1 or r2
8GB 1866 CL9 Corsair or RipJaws
Radeon R270x or R280 3GB DX 11.2 & Mantle
PSU up to 700W (silver or Gold)
OC to 4.5GHz and you are ready for anything

 

[monkeydelmagico]

read this: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121

Fix your post in General Hardware following the guidance above: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=36417872&highlight=#post36417872

You will absolutely get the best build your money can buy.

 

[TeknoBug]

The cheap AMD chips like the Athlon X4 750/760K and FX 43xx/63xx aren't satisfying enough for a budget build- you'd end up wanting to go with an 83xx- and if that's the case, an i3 or lower end i5 (I have an i5 3550) does a better job than even the FX 8320/8350 because most games are heavily single threaded and Intel does a better job at handling that. Of course if this was 3 years ago, I'd have suggested the Phenom II X6's (still got my 1090T kicking around). For GPU, a GTX750Ti, GTX660, R7 265 or R9 270, heck even a 4GB version R9 270X isn't a bad idea, no lower than those.

I have an Athlon 760K clocked at 4.5GHz and I basically never use it, its performance is subpar, my i5 3550 is clocked at 3.9GHz (using an ASRock or Asus Z77 board allows you to go past 3.7GHz, and can do 4GHz with BCLK 102.74) and it flies in most games and proglrams and doesn't really run hot.

 

[bullzz]

I wud say start with Pentium 3258

 

[erunion]

The cheap AMD chips like the Athlon X4 750/760K and FX 43xx/63xx aren't satisfying enough for a budget build- you'd end up wanting to go with an 83xx- and if that's the case, an i3 or lower end i5 (I have an i5 3550) does a better job than even the FX 8320/8350 because most games are heavily single threaded and Intel does a better job at handling that. .

I had a similar thought. He should get a Pentium or i3, if that's the best his budget allows. They also have the same problem of not being satisfying enough, but being on 1150 means he'll have a cheap upgrade path to i5 when/if the upgrade bug hits.

I really don't see any better value than that route.

 

[Erenhardt]

Get intel so that amd goes bankrupt and you will no longer have to make the choice again :twisted: