AMD vs INTEL

[jackswallen]

i am building a 850-950 gaming rig and i was wondering which CPU to really go for. I am quite nooby to PC stuff so i was just wondering which is best for what. Most likely used for gaming but nothing really next gen like bf4 or cod AW. I would run games like GW2 and CS:GO

thanks in advance! -Jack

 

[TheCorman]

Go Intel - Core i5 range. At this point AMD's offerings just don't amount to much on the gaming front. You should easily be able to build a Core i5 system with a good GPU for your budget. AMD still has a place in the market - on the lower end, but for gaming I wouldn't recommend going the AMD route.

 

[Ajay]

Hmm, we need a popcorn icon...

 

[AtenRa]

I would run games like GW2 and CS:GO

thanks in advance! -Jack

Get a Pentium G3258, OC to 4.5GHz and enjoy. No need to spend more on the CPU for those games

 

[Yuriman]

In that budget range, an i5 is probably your best bet. As AtenRa says, though, the games listed don't benefit from more than two very fast cores. I'd opt for a quad (or at least any i3) for a better general-purpose PC though.

 

[crashtech]

Worry about the CPU less, and the GPU more. The GPU is more significant to image quality and frame rate in a gaming machine than the CPU.

Posting a build thread in General Hardware would probably be your best bet. Your budget is between the low-end and midrange builds, and could go a number of ways depending on what is most important to you. Filling out the questionnaire and posting a thread will generate much useful info, and perhaps a contentious debate or two.

 

[jackswallen]

In that budget range, an i5 is probably your best bet. As AtenRa says, though, the games listed don't benefit from more than two very fast cores. I'd opt for a quad (or at least any i3) for a better general-purpose PC though.

thanks man

 

[jackswallen]

Get a Pentium G3258, OC to 4.5GHz and enjoy. No need to spend more on the CPU for those games

very nooby to PC stuff. i would be to afraid to OC because i feel like i would burn out my CPU or mess my whole system up

 

[monstercameron]

dude get an ssd! this should be priority!

 

[Yuriman]

Worry about the CPU less, and the GPU more. The GPU is more significant to image quality and frame rate in a gaming machine than the CPU.

Posting a build thread in General Hardware would probably be your best bet. Your budget is between the low-end and midrange builds, and could go a number of ways depending on what is most important to you. Filling out the questionnaire and posting a thread will generate much useful info, and perhaps a contentious debate or two.

For GW2, the fastest 2 cores you can get are essential. There are places where my 4.6GHz i5 bottlenecks my HD7850 (a relatively low end GPU) down to less then 40% GPU utilization, and framerates are in the low 30's. I upgraded my wife's computer from a 3GHZ Intel Q6600 quad core to a Haswell i3, and nearly doubled her framerates with the same low-end video card.

@OP, you should make a thread in General hardware for the whole build, as crashtest suggested.

EDIT:

 

[crashtech]

He already has one there, I just looked.

 

[escrow4]

The thread title should be adjusted before things *ahem* get out of hand.

My vote goes to a locked 4690 and an H97 board for a solid basic build. Slap it together, hit Go, and no need to worry about overclocking. I also vote for an SSD and suggest an aftermarket heatsink to keep things colder as the stock heatsink is pfffft.

 

[Enigmoid]

I would avoid "vs" in the title.

For GW2 the engine seems to scale to more than 2 threads.

Its quite old by illustrates that simply put an i5 is the best bet. For this game. Neither games mentioned particularily need a lot of GPU so a 7850 equivalent should be plenty.

 

[bbhaag]

I'm happy with my PhenomII x4 965. It encodes fairly quickly, archives a 1gb file in Winrar fast enough, and seems to be a good match for my GTX560 ti for the little gaming I do.
I do like my sons i5-2500k too. He games more than I do and I see a difference when I use his computer. It's a nice cpu that is fast.

I would say buy the best cpu you can afford at the time you're building it.

 

[Roland00Address]

Hmm, we need a popcorn icon...

Seconded


My advice, is get an ssd. If necessary cut corners elsewhere by getting an i3 or a pentium instead of an i5 to spend the $90 or so dollars for an ssd.

i5 haswell is great but so is i3 haswell.

Get a quality power supply

Get a case you like

Spend how much you want onto a video card. Looks like a gtx 680 only pulls 40 fps at 1080p on the best settings and 73.3 for the gtx 980. I do not know the game but I bet there is a setting you can change or two that will not drop the video quality much but performed better

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Guild-Wars-2-Benchmarked.81604.0.html

 

[erunion]

i5-4590 should work with that budget.

Do you live near a microcenter?

 

[ninaholic37]

I didn't know Sandy Bridge-E had 12 cores. :hmm:

 

[Spungo]

i am building a 850-950 gaming rig

Intel. I'm a strong AMD supporter and most of my stuff is AMD, but I would go with Intel for games. Games are still mostly single threaded, or at least they feel single threaded. Going from 4 cores to 8 cores does absolutely nothing for most games, but increasing the speed of those cores by 20% or 30% has a very large effect.

I would go full retard with the CPU. Back in 2006 I bought a Core 2 Duo 6600. It was top of the line without getting one of those "extreme" processors. That CPU did 4 years worth of gaming, and I think that's pretty good. Would it really save money if I had cheaped out on some crappy CPU that needs to be upgraded after only 2 years? Probably not. In 2010 I got an AMD Phenom II 1055 which was AMD's second best processor at the time. 4 years later and I'm still using it. It works great. It might even last another year or two. That's tremendous value.

Look at the people who bought the original i7 920. That thing is 6 years old and it still crushes modern games. The i7 920 (when overclocked) might even be faster than the Phenom 1055 I'm using. You'll never get that kind of value if you're buying junk processors every few years that can just barely handle modern games.

This is how today's processors will perform in 2 years:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1063
The people who bought the i5 or the i7 won't have a problem. The people who bought a Pentium will be pricing out a new CPU/mobo/RAM, ultimately spending more money in the long run.

 

[Erenhardt]

I will avoid the whole VS thing and point out something else.
How the hardware tiers change depending on location!? i5 for budged?! i5 is considered a high-end CPU. Budget CPU is pentium here! Get real! Its not a budget when I have to give half of my pay-check.

One can consider i3 and fx6300 a budget+ CPUs. Both have their up and downsides. Basically, if you overclock go with fx. If not i3 is great performer in every task.

But intel made a choice a bit harder with pentium aniversary edition which can be overclocked. Its a killer chip if you get a potent sample. Amazing for all small (unomptimized due to low budget) indie games that run on 2 cores (sometimes not even that).

 

[Lepton87]

I will avoid the whole VS thing and point out something else.
How the hardware tiers change depending on location!? i5 for budged?! i5 is considered a high-end CPU. Budget CPU is pentium here! Get real! Its not a budget when I have to give half of my pay-check.

One can consider i3 and fx6300 a budget+ CPUs. Both have their up and downsides. Basically, if you overclock go with fx. If not i3 is great performer in every task.

But intel made a choice a bit harder with pentium aniversary edition which can be overclocked. Its a killer chip if you get a potent sample. Amazing for all small (unomptimized due to low budget) indie games that run on 2 cores (sometimes not even that).

I consider only INTEL 2011-3 platform high-end right now.

 

[NTMBK]

Bah, misleading thread title. I came in here expecting a good flamewar, but instead I just found rational discussion

 

[AtenRa]

Bah, misleading thread title. I came in here expecting a good flamewar, but instead I just found rational discussion

We can change that if you like

 

[showb1z]

How the hardware tiers change depending on location!? i5 for budged?! i5 is considered a high-end CPU. Budget CPU is pentium here! Get real! Its not a budget when I have to give half of my pay-check.

950 (dollars I assume) is not exactly a budget build. No reason he shouldn't go for an i5 if that's what he's willing to spend. A quad core is pretty much a minimum in many games now.

 

[davie jambo]

i5 4690k is the CPU to get these days

Would not buy an AMD cpu at the moment , none of them make any sense when compared against intel cpus

 

[Jimzz]

If building from the ground up (no current board or left over parts) then as said get the newest Gen i5 quad.
If you have a microcenter near you they have deals on the CPU/Board combo's. That's how I got mine.

AMD just updated their game selection (Civ Beyond Earth) and lowered the price of the 290.

And get a 256gb SSD drive.