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Cheap i3 or FX?

mojothehut

mojothehut

Senior member
Hey guys
Im building a rig for a friend to play mostly World of Warcraft and a few other mmo's. I was all set to roll with an i3 3220 ($130) when I found a deal on an FX 6300 Vishera for like $119 🙄

Which chip do you think will generally play games better? Games on the level of Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2, Skyrim, WoW...
I should note he wont be doing any overclocking at all.
The system will have 8gb of ram and an Nvidia 650 Ti Boost.
 
Consider something like a Pentium G2020. The i3 at $130 isn't that much cheaper than the i5 quad-core at $180 but isn't that much faster than the Pentium G2020 at $65...
 
If he's fine with the power draw difference I'd go with the FX6300. The i3 3220 will actually be on par or faster in some current games but it's my opinion that recommending same budget dual cores over quad+ died with the e8000 series.
 
Hmm okay kind of leaning towards the FX then,
He won't care about power usage, but will have about a 450watt psu, if that matters at all.

I assume the i3 will also run cooler?
 
The FX6300 can be better deal if you buy from microcenter, and use the $40 savings on a motherboard. But with just an $11 difference as listed in OP, the i3 will work better for the games you listed.
 
mojothehut said:
Hey guys
Im building a rig for a friend to play mostly World of Warcraft and a few other mmo's. I was all set to roll with an i3 3220 ($130) when I found a deal on an FX 6300 Vishera for like $119 🙄

Which chip do you think will generally play games better? Games on the level of Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2, Skyrim, WoW...
I should note he wont be doing any overclocking at all.
The system will have 8gb of ram and an Nvidia 650 Ti Boost.
Click to expand...

Depends on the game. As someone else said, WoW strongly favors intel if that is to be his main game. They trade blows in other games, each winning some.

For a 650Ti boost, not a bad gpu, but sort of mid range, I think either of those cpus would be more than adequate. FX is a bit cheaper, i3 will use less power, and at only 10.00 cheaper, over the life of the machine, the FX might lose that initial price advantage in extra power use.
 
Cool thanks for the info, yea I guess WoW will really be his main game, with a side of Guildwars 2. So I'll go with the i3 and roll the dice for Intel having the advantage in that game.
As for the 650ti, it was the best buy in his budget, he wanted to keep it under $170.
 
I'd drop down to a Pentium G2020 Ivybridge or jump up to a rebated Tigerdirect or discounted Microcenter Intel Quad.

The i3s are just odd ducks for gaming imo.
 
Vesku said:
I'd drop down to a Pentium G2020 Ivybridge or jump up to a rebated Tigerdirect or discounted Microcenter Intel Quad.

The i3s are just odd ducks for gaming imo.
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I would never recommend anything Dual core for gaming. At least with the i3 he will get HT.
 
Puppies04 said:
Apart from the main one the OP mentions.
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Meh, building a rig around a 6? year old game that peaked a while ago is a dumb idea IMO. i5 or bust if going intel, i3's and the dual cores without HT will be useless long before any quad/hexacore, its the Exxxx vs Qxxxx debate all over again.
 
Maximilian said:
Meh, building a rig around a 6? year old game that peaked a while ago is a dumb idea IMO. i5 or bust if going intel, i3's and the dual cores without HT will be useless long before any quad/hexacore, its the Exxxx vs Qxxxx debate all over again.
Click to expand...

I agree with this logic. Building a light gaming rig purely for the short term by aiming for an 'ok for today' processor (ie. dual-core) is just throwing money away.

I would ask the OP how long he wants this machine to be a practical gaming choice for. I'm hardly up with the latest games, but if I had gone for a dual-core when I was aiming for Starcraft 2 a few years ago, I would have been stuffed when I then wanted to play say XCOM or Batman Arkham Asylum/City. I'm not much of a gamer IMO, I buy maybe 6 games per decade (not necessarily newly released ones, I picked up Batman AA on budget).
 
at the moment I would recommend buying an i5 3350P,
it's more expensive than the 6300, but it performs better for gaming, uses less power (it's less likely to need additional cooling or a better motherboard).
3350P + b75 board would be good.

between i3 for $130 or 6300 for $120 I think the 6300 is probably a better choice, as long as you don't use more money for MB+cooling.
 
i3 because by the time it's obsolete, the FX 6300 will be as well. And in the meantime the i3's stronger IPC and better thermals and wattage make it more attractive.
 
blastingcap said:
i3 because by the time it's obsolete, the FX 6300 will be as well. And in the meantime the i3's stronger IPC and better thermals and wattage make it more attractive.
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With PS4/XBox3 being x86, code bases and compiled code are basically going to be very similar. As much as a particular crowd here hates to admit it primary dev target is consoles. With that in mind an FX-6300 is a closer match to the console CPU's then an i3. I would never go the pentium the lack of AVX will make a difference once the new consoles are released ( current games are rarely compiled with it).

FX-6300 vs i5 is a different story we are starting to see a cross over where more threads= win but there are still just as many if not more where "IPC" = win. If he intends to have have rig for a few years ( say 3) i would be 51% on FX-6300 side, 49% on an I5.
 
grimpr said:
FX 6300, it has the muscle meat and bones of a Core i7 920 and packs a punch, best bang for the buck, forget the Dualcores they are relegated to ms office status.

http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/699?vs=47
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Yes sir, the FX 6300 can compete with a 3 year old CPU. But in World of Warcraft, even the humble Pentium G620 gets more frames while costing $66. If dual core's are "ms office status," I shudder to think what an FX 6300 would be--museum status?

For something single threaded, go Intel every time. I think the Pentium G2120 suits your purposes better and for far less than the two chips you mentioned in the OP.
 
Yes it does compete with a Core i7 920 and does wonderfully at that and with a great price at it, makes coffee and mops the floor with Core i3s simple as that. Dualcores are dead for gaming, time to move on.
 
mojothehut said:
yea I guess WoW will really be his main game, with a side of Guildwars 2.
Click to expand...
Intel, without question. The points raised about a dual-core are still valid, though. In the future, for other games, this may turn out to be a limit. However, AMD is not an option given these games. If you can raise the budget to fit an i5, do that. Otherwise i3.
 
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