Cheap i3 or FX?

[inf64]

I'm afraid the user who buys dual core+SMT IB/SB will feel the raft of 2013/2014 game engines. Whenever the game will use more than 2 threads the fps will be way subpar to any FX even FX4xxx. But hey, people buy specific CPUs for way weirder reasons let alone to play one or 2 specific games (older games).

 

[aigomorla]

I'm afraid the user who buys dual core+SMT IB/SB will feel the raft of 2013/2014 game engines. Whenever the game will use more than 2 threads the fps will be way subpar to any FX even FX4xxx. But hey, people buy specific CPUs for way weirder reasons let alone to play one or 2 specific games (older games).

he will see a bigger FPS cut when using a mid tier video card vs a high-low tier video card.

When building a gaming rig.. i dedicate 33%-50% of the budget on the GPU portion.
And try to piece the rest out with the remaining.

OP go with the system that will net u the greatest video card.
Look at the performance difference between the two video cards.
If the Net on the higher videocard is greater then the difference between the cpu (which 90% of the time it is) your video card is PRIMARY in the budget.

 

[SPBHM]

I'm afraid the user who buys dual core+SMT IB/SB will feel the raft of 2013/2014 game engines. Whenever the game will use more than 2 threads the fps will be way subpar to any FX even FX4xxx. But hey, people buy specific CPUs for way weirder reasons let alone to play one or 2 specific games (older games).

this is not always the case, there are plenty of games loading more than 2 cores with good performance on the i3, like BF3 (but the i5 is much faster)

anyway, talking about some of the games the OP mentions,
WoW seems to be OK for the 6300 and the i3, mass effect 3 is probably even less of a problem,
Skyrim should be faster on the i3 but not by much (but look at the i5)

witcher 2, I have no idea about the FX performance, the i3 cannot keep over 25FPS on the worst parts of the game from what I experienced here.

 

[blastingcap]

Yeah i get it you hate AMD

Dual core anything is a fail these days, i cant be bothered to argue with closed minded types like yourself but as i said before and ill say it again Exxxx vs Qxxxx all over again. We all know who was right in the end there

Exxxx was a good deal for gamers. Most games simply did not use more than 2 or even 1 core.. heck even today it's the rare game that can saturate more than 2 cores (running 3 cores at 30% and 1 core at 95% doesn't count). With the money you saved by going Exxxx instead of Qxxxx, you had more left in the bank for your next upgrade, compared to the guy who got a Qxxxx.

In this instance the cost difference between the i3 and FX is smaller, and there are other issues like gamedevs and next-gen consoles likely forcing devs to be more multithreaded, but it's still not a slam dunk decision, particularly factoring in power draw since operating costs will be lower with an Intel solution. For gaming, an i3 ought to be enough for a few years, until devs really understand and optimize for the next-gen consoles, by which point both the i3 and FX6300 will probably be obsoleted... the small advantage here or there that the FX6300 will not be relevant because both will be slow compared to next-next-gen CPUs.

On the other hand, you can find some cheap AMD mobos these days, so perhaps the total system cost between the two becomes so small or zero that one might as well get the FX6300. The i3 will still cost less to operate due to lower wattage, though, something that I'm acutely aware of after crunching numbers to figure out operating costs for an Intel vs AMD based NAS.

 

[grimpr]

+1

When your friend goes though steam and looks at 2013 catalog.. especially metro: last light... and asks "can my system run this?"
You can smile and say YES... watch him thank you again sincerely.

Thats a nice and hot title thats coming next month, judging from the specs alone, someone will need a quadcore Core i5 to be able to run this game decently and a Core i7 to run it optimally...

Recommended

Windows: XP (32-Bit), Vista, 7 or 8

CPU: 2.6 GHz Quad Core e.g. Intel Core i5

RAM: 4GB

Direct X: 11

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 580/660 Ti (or AMD equivalent e.g. 7870) or higher

Optimum

Windows: Vista, 7 or 8

CPU: 3.4 GHz Multi-Core e.g. Intel Core i7

RAM: 8GB

Direct X: 11

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 690 / NVIDIA Titan

http://www.pcgamesn.com/metro-last-light-pc-system-requirements-decreed-deep-silver

 

[aigomorla]

Thats a nice and hot title thats coming next month, judging from the specs alone, someone will need a quadcore Core i5 to be able to run this game decently and a Core i7 to run it optimally...

i am fairly sure he will get acceptable and playable FPS if he offset the cpu load with a higher quality GPU.

Ultimately im pretty sure the game will be more GPU senstive then CPU Sensitive... meaning GPU performance will have a bigger margin of change.

Now if he wanted to run something massively insane with over 10000AI's controlling it... well... i dont think even the AMD could survive that kind of barage.


Finally OP when you got like 20+ people.. like a raid mashing all the skills at once... nothing is gonna save you from that.
Anyone that tells u they can get 60fps+ in a spam fest like that is BSing you or tied directly to the server via LAN on top tier enthusiast grade hardware liquid cooled...
Theres several things which play with FPS once u got that many things being spam'd, as well as network overhead.

 

[Leyawiin]

WoW is Intel friendly as is Skyrim. Not by just a little either. Probably 20% better FPS with the i3 in those two.

 

[inf64]

he will see a bigger FPS cut when using a mid tier video card vs a high-low tier video card.

When building a gaming rig.. i dedicate 33%-50% of the budget on the GPU portion.
And try to piece the rest out with the remaining.

OP go with the system that will net u the greatest video card.
Look at the performance difference between the two video cards.
If the Net on the higher videocard is greater then the difference between the cpu (which 90% of the time it is) your video card is PRIMARY in the budget.

Yes GPU is more important we all know that, but your GPU can do only so much when your CPU is slow or lacking resources (read: cores). This trend of getting engines to support more threads has already began. Imagine what will happen when nextgen console "ports"(if you can call them like that) start hitting PC market. What was optimized for 6+ cores in PS4/Xbox720 will definitely run way better on any i5+/FX63xx+ (maybe even FX43xx+) versus i3. It's just how things will progress, it's inevitable thing called progress .

@ SPBHM

I'm aware i3 is not that bad at the moment. But e8400 was not bad back in the day when people were deciding which one to buy: faster clocked dual core like e8xxx/e7xxx/e5xxx or just C2Q. Guess which users got more gaming mileage from their rigs? Definitely NOT the dual core guys. They got SOLed. Similar fate will befall i3 users in a year or two. Good thing is that they can upgrade at least, to an i5 or i7 which should further drop in price as new cores/platforms become dominant on desktop. In the meantime they are left at the mercy of game developers and their speed of porting ps4/xbox games to PC.

 

[galego]

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.

The FX 6300 and the i3 3220 are on the same tie on the Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart. The i3 may play WoW a bit better but an FX 6300 with a 650 Ti can play it decently with everything maxed including shadows.

But this is all regarding stock speeds. OC changes everything and you obtain a much better chip than the i3:

The Intel chip is locked down for marketing reasons – so it doesn’t cannibalise any i5 sales – but the AMD chip can be clocked to within an inch of its life. With little effort, I was able to squeeze a stable 5GHz overclock out of this mid-range chip – and a 1.5GHz clockspeed boost is nothing to be sniffed at.

With that sort of performance it’s actually encroaching on the territory of the i5-3570K, and all for around £70 less than the Intel chip. Now, I’m not recommending anyone rethink their purchase of an i5 for their rig build, but if you’re on a tight budget for your PC then working a little magic with the overclocking wand could save you some pennies.

Source:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/22/a...-cpu-overclock-offers-5ghz-at-a-budget-price/

There is another possible advantage for the FX 6300. The FX uses AM3+ mobo, which allows for upgrading in future. Whereas you could not upgrade from the i3 to Haswell.

 

[parvadomus]

It is funny how people try to make an i3 better at something, and being the difference only marginal. With a litte OC you can kill the i3 on every game out there.
What about these:

Spoiler

And about power consumption, cmon, games are not prime95 or whatever crap reviews use for testing, its a more lighter workload. And most of the time the CPU just sits idle, you would need years to get a marginal difference in $ from electricity bill.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I agree on the power consumption thing, but I'd have to point out the key fact that the OP's friend is unwilling to overclock and is basically playing only WoW (heavily single-threaded and Intel optimized) and possibly Guild Wars 2 (where an i3 or even a Pentium does just fine).

If you guys are worried that much about cores, I would go for an Althon II or Phenom II (between $70 and $100 for four cores) over a FX-6300 because the saved $20-50 could be put into GPU.

Let's be honest: if it's the core count rather than the IPC that'll matter in the future, either of those CPU choices will be fine, and offer a good upgrade path, while enabling the OP to get a 7850 for his/her friend. Friends don't get friends a crappy little 650ti when a 2GB 7850 is an option.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeah i get it you hate AMD

Dual core anything is a fail these days, i cant be bothered to argue with closed minded types like yourself but as i said before and ill say it again Exxxx vs Qxxxx all over again. We all know who was right in the end there

You call someone else closed minded but make the over-generalization that dual cores are a "fail". That is simply not true. For the vast majority of users who do not game, the lowest end dual core is more than adequate.

Even for gaming in the particular games the OP mentioned a hyperthreaded dual core is more that adequate. Even in newer games, an i3 will trail in some games, perhaps 3 or 4 shooters, but it will still be playable.

Would a dual core be my choice, even a hyperthreaded one-- no, if I was interested in gaming. But you do a disservice to the OP by claiming that a dual core is inadequate for gaming, especially in the games mentioned in this thread. Especially with a 650ti, an i3 will be a perfectly good solution. Personally I would go nothing less than a low end i5 for gaming, even if it meant waiting a bit to save up the price difference, but either the i3 or FX6300 will be more than adequate.

 

[SPBHM]

It is funny how people try to make an i3 better at something, and being the difference only marginal. With a litte OC you can kill the i3 on every game out there.
What about these:

And about power consumption, cmon, games are not prime95 or whatever crap reviews use for testing, its a more lighter workload. And most of the time the CPU just sits idle, you would need years to get a marginal difference in $ from electricity bill.

It is funny how people try to make an i3 worse at something, it's always good to look for tests in more than one source, on the same games you posted the results can be quite different depending on the what's going on in the game, or a few settings, the BF3 test you posted compared to the more updated one is quite interesting, from the same source...

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield 3 End Game/test/bf3 EG PROZ.jpg

http://media.bestofmicro.com/9/G/364516/original/CPU-scaling.png

http://media.bestofmicro.com/O/M/375430/original/Crysis3-CPU.png

I think the i3 would prove good enough for the games he mentions overall, as would the 6300, and considering the price and potential for higher MT performance the 6300 would make a lot of sense, it would be my choice if I was limited only to these options, the i3 should be cheaper right now.

about overclocking, I've seen a lot of people buying a 6300 + cooler + better MB which could easily pay for a clearly superior CPU (i5) with worse cooling and cheaper MB (again, lower power usage is good for the MB)

so it's always interesting to compare the price difference considering the entire PC,

 

[GaiaHunter]

It is funny how people try to make an i3 worse at something, it's always good to look for tests in more than one source, on the same games you posted the results can be quite different depending on the what's going on in the game, or a few settings, the BF3 test you posted compared to the more updated one is quite interesting, from the same source...

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Battlefield 3 End Game/test/bf3 EG PROZ.jpg

http://media.bestofmicro.com/9/G/364516/original/CPU-scaling.png

http://media.bestofmicro.com/O/M/375430/original/Crysis3-CPU.png

I think the i3 would prove good enough for the games he mentions overall, as would the 6300, and considering the price and potential for higher MT performance the 6300 would make a lot of sense, it would be my choice if I was limited only to these options, the i3 should be cheaper right now.

about overclocking, I've seen a lot of people buying a 6300 + cooler + better MB which could easily pay for a clearly superior CPU (i5) with worse cooling and cheaper MB (again, lower power usage is good for the MB)

so it's always interesting to compare the price difference considering the entire PC,

You can find really good AM3+ motherboards with the 970 chipset and even the 990 for about the same as any z77.

And any xigmatek gaia or any coolmaster 212 will cool an overclocked FX 6300@4.5/4.6 no sweat.

 

[SPBHM]

You can find really good AM3+ motherboards with the 970 chipset and even the 990 for about the same as any z77.

And any xigmatek gaia or any coolmaster 212 will cool an overclocked FX 6300@4.5/4.6 no sweat.

on newegg 6300 + cooler = 160-170
i5 3350P = 180

the i5 uses a lot less power, even compared to the overclocked 6300 the i5 is going to look pretty good in most games, while using less than half the power (compared to the oced 6300)

with the i5 I see 0 problems on buying some $50 b75 motherboard (with sata 6, usb 3.0, pcie 3.0), only the lack of OC, if you want some OC (around 500, perfect for the stock cooler) you would need a z75/z77 MB, but for a low cost pc it would perhaps make sense to save money here...


I've seen a lot of people expending a lot of time trying to get this sort of "no sweat" 4.5GHz out of piledriver even with high end cooler/MB.

 

[GaiaHunter]

on newegg 6300 + cooler = 160-170
i5 3350P = 180

the i5 uses a lot less power, even compared to the overclocked 6300 the i5 is going to look pretty good in most games, while using less than half the power (compared to the oced 6300)

with the i5 I see 0 problems on buying some $50 b75 motherboard (with sata 6, usb 3.0, pcie 3.0), only the lack of OC, if you want some OC (around 500, perfect for the stock cooler) you would need a z75/z77 MB, but for a low cost pc it would perhaps make sense to save money here...


I've seen a lot of people expending a lot of time trying to get this sort of "no sweat" 4.5GHz out of piledriver even with high end cooler/MB.

A xigmatek gaia or cm 212+ have no problem keeping a FX6300 at 4.5 GHz cool.

I know this since I have a FX 6100 and a FX 6300 at 4.4 Ghz and 4.6 GHz.

So what I've said is that a cheap cooler will cool them no problem, which isn't unexpected since they also cooled Phenom II that consume more.

Not that is hard for FX6x00 to reach 4.4-4.6 GHz.

Additionally a cooler has other benefits like lower noise and it is reusable.

I know there is a school of thought that say $50 isn't much in a $1000-$1500 complete build, but I do complete builds much rarely than CPU+MB or GPU swaps.

 

[AtenRa]

I know there is a school of thought that say $50 isn't much in a complete build

Its enough to go from HD7750 to HD7790 or from HD7790 to HD7850 and so on. Also its enough to consider an SSD

 

[frozentundra123456]

You can find really good AM3+ motherboards with the 970 chipset and even the 990 for about the same as any z77.

And any xigmatek gaia or any coolmaster 212 will cool an overclocked FX 6300@4.5/4.6 no sweat.

Again, the OP stated in the very first post that there would be no overclocking.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Again, the OP stated in the very first post that there would be no overclocking.

He also said he was considering either an i3 or a fx 6300.

People brought the i5 to the table.

If he knew how easy and how risk free overclocking is, maybe he would change his opinion.

And if he isn't overclocking he can run stock cooler and cheaper mobo.

 

[Sleepingforest]

He also said he was considering either an i3 or a fx 6300.

Right, but if he's considering the FX 6300, you have to take it's performance at stock, because the OP's friend is unwilling to overclock.

For the price of a newer AM3+ motherboard and a cooler, he could go from a 650ti to a 7850, which is a much larger improvement.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Right, but if he's considering the FX 6300, you have to take it's performance at stock, because the OP's friend is unwilling to overclock.

For the price of a newer AM3+ motherboard and a cooler, he could go from a 650ti to a 7850, which is a much larger improvement.

Without overclocking, stock cooler and cheap am3+ motherboard aren't more expensive than either an i3 or i5.

 

[desura]

Eh, I recall in another thread on intel vs AMD someone stated that when you take power consumption into account, AMD loses pretty badly.

Since power costs money, any savings you get at time of purchase is quickly lost due to higher electric consumption.

Like, I think Idontcare said that his AMD 8350 system costs about $100 /yr more to run than his i7 system.

The fx6300 vs the ivy i3 would likely be just as drastic.

But, eh, I would like to run an AMD 6300 just because I'm still an AMD fanboi deep down.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Eh, I recall in another thread on intel vs AMD someone stated that when you take power consumption into account, AMD loses pretty badly.

Since power costs money, any savings you get at time of purchase is quickly lost due to higher electric consumption.

Like, I think Idontcare said that his AMD 8350 system costs about $100 /yr more to run than his i7 system.

The fx6300 vs the ivy i3 would likely be just as drastic.

But, eh, I would like to run an AMD 6300 just because I'm still an AMD fanboi deep down.

If you running it loaded 24/7.

And if you take in account his AC.

Then it depends if you live in a cool place or a hot place.

When I was in my student flat that was absurdly hot in the summer, the heat from the PC was noticeable.

But when I'm in the UK, with two PC running in room all day long, it feels nice.

 

[cytg111]

I'd go with the i3 .. singlethreaded performance is still the performance metric to this day, and you get HT to boot.
An i3 rig will easily carry you forward another 5 years of gaming.

edit : and you can find cherry picked benchmarks from either side, choose the product that best fits your needs, ie. wow, etc.

 

[desura]

If you running it loaded 24/7.

And if you take in account his AC.

Then it depends if you live in a cool place or a hot place.

When I was in my student flat that was absurdly hot in the summer, the heat from the PC was noticeable.

But when I'm in the UK, with two PC running in room all day long, it feels nice.

Good pt.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/328387-28-intel-power-consumption

dude crunched math, found like 11 bucks difference in a year, assuming full load for 40 hrs/wk (which is a lot of gaming)

Still, another factor you have to account for is like the bigger and more expensive PSU you're going to have to shell out for to account for the increased power draw