Your choices for best gamer CPUs in the $75, $100 and $125 categories

[jhu]

Is $50 really that much of a financial burden if you're going for a new build anyway?

 

[cbn]

I tend to agree... I've been running ModernWarfare on my lightly OC'd G3258 with my GTX560Ti 448... which I thought would be a pretty well matched combination... and the performance isn't something I would build into my machine.

What Modern Warfare game are you playing on your 3.8 Ghz G3258?

 

[cbn]

You spend $100 now and in less than a year you'll be kicking yourself wondering why you didn't spend an extra $120 on an i5.

I'm not so certain a person really needs to spend $220 on a cpu. ($100 buys a good CPU)

Take for example the Crysis 3 Welcome to the Jungle level (which is a really tough level), even a stock clocked FX-6300 is able to play that at 57.6 FPS:

 

[cbn]

Is $50 really that much of a financial burden if you're going for a new build anyway?

I think his point was the money was better spend elsewhere. (Not that an extra $50 was too much to spend).

I tend to agree because I view the current Haswell Core i3 in some ways as a side grade to my OC G3258. (And even when I saw Haswell Core i3 drop to as low as $69 via special Fry's promotions I was not even remotely tempted to buy it). Quite honestly, it would take a value priced unlocked Core i3 for me to upgrade.

For example, currently I am having zero problems with my 4.5 Ghz G3258 in BF 4 64 player (with R7 250X @1080p low) and even the chart below shows a 4.7 Ghz G3258 beating a 3.6 Ghz Core i3 -4160:

 

[Charlie98]

What Modern Warfare game are you playing on your 3.8 Ghz G3258?

Both 1 and 2, single player.

 

[crashtech]

The caveat with the G3258 is that not all of them overclock well.

I will quote you instead of futilely repeating myself.

 

[Charlie98]

I will quote you instead of futilely repeating myself.

The caveat to that is possible limitations because of the mobo selection, it certainly affected mine.

 

[cbn]

Both 1 and 2, single player.

That is really surprising considering how old those games are.

Are you sure there is not something wrong with the system besides the cpu? I ask that because requirements for MW2 (released 2009) list Pentium 4 and single core socket 939 3200+ as the minimum processors.

 

[cbn]

Looking back at the Anandtech review of Piledriver, here were the idle power consumption differences between some Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge processors and some Vishera processors:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/6

I'd have to imagine the idle power delta between Vishera and a Haswell i3 would be larger, but for a dedicated machine meant to play games and/or do heavy tasks I wonder how much of a practical difference it is? I guess partly depends on the duration the machine is in use as well as the duration of doing heavy tasks vs. non-heavy tasks? (Something to think about going forward)

 

[escrow4]

I'm not so certain a person really needs to spend $220 on a cpu. ($100 buys a good CPU)

Take for example the Crysis 3 Welcome to the Jungle level (which is a really tough level), even a stock clocked FX-6300 is able to play that at 57.6 FPS:

Take the level after (all grass and those invisible aliens) there will be heavy dips, FX is way inconsistent when it comes to performance. I had Saint's Row IV on a 6300, it was 60FPS one scene, dips to 40 after. You could feel the hitching. Crysis 3 aside, take something like Inquisition or Watch Dogs or the upcoming GTA V - a $120 saving now won't be such a good idea in games that load up the threads. Its a false economy.

 

[cbn]

And here were some power consumption numbers under load:

 

[TurtleCrusher]

And here were some power consumption numbers under load:

During typical usage of what people do most, when is 8 threads completely loaded?

If you're going to compare gaming benchmarks, especially games that only use a couple cores, then compare power consumption of 100% load... Get out of here lol. Compare 4 loaded threads of a 3770k and an 8350 in terms of power consumption and get back to us.

FWIW, the 95w FX 8310 (3.4Ghz/4Ghz) has hit $85 shipped at tigerdirect multiple times. That chucks a wrench in every power consumption/performance comparison. It matches the FX4300 in this graph but with much better performance.

 

[cbn]

During typical usage of what people do most, when is 8 threads completely loaded?

Yes, for gaming I don't expect power consumption to be that high on Vishera.

 

[cbn]

FWIW, the 95w FX 8310 (3.4Ghz/4Ghz) has hit $85 shipped at tigerdirect multiple times.

Yes, I have mentioned some sale prices in the OP.

P.S. That $85 price was with the non product specific $20 off $100 TD discount tacked on. (Although I admit it was quite handy since the FX-8310 was $105 by itself and did not need an additional item or filler item to qualify for the discount).

 

[cbn]

Aside from a simple comparison of processor prices, I have been wondering how viable the FX-8300 vs. Haswell Core i3 processor comparison is when factoring in the total system?

Some factors to consider:

An AM3+ motherboard with 970 chipset will be $15 more than the lower end H81s.

Idle power consumption will be higher on the AM3+.

Single thread performance will be greater on Core i3.

PCIe will be limited to 2.0 on the AM3+ (Although H81 is also limited to PCIe 2.0 for the video card)

Load power will favor i3, but then it has much less multi-threaded performance than a FX-8300.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Unless you purchase the absolute highest end GPU, PCI-Express 2 vs 3 means literally nothing. If you did buy a card that would be bottlenecked by PCIe 2, you didn't buy an i3 and less likely to buy an FX

Many of the 760G boards support FX up to 125W, making the 8310/8320 total cost even lower with overclocking headroom. They are also hitting very similar prices to H81 budget boards. I've got the TA-970, but any compatible 760G would've been A-ok for what I do.

If 13w more idle power consumption is significant, I wonder what kind of GPU should be paired with these hypothetical systems. Surely if 13w is that important, we'd value GPU power consumption even more. Oddly we hear nothing about that on these forums.

 

[SPBHM]

many, but most 760G boards only support (poorly) 95W CPUs, also 760G (well, the southbridge they use) doesn't have sata III ports (not a huge deal, but it's worth mentioning) while h81 does.

buying ultra cheap boards without worrying about power usage or outdated chipsets is nice, and it's definitely how it works with 1150,

 

[cbn]

many, but most 760G boards only support (poorly) 95W CPUs

Here is the cheapest 760G AM3+ board I could find:

http://www.amazon.com/M5A78L-M-LX-PL.../dp/B005WUUFBW

$36.99 after $10 rebate with free shipping.

According to the ASUS website it does support 125 watt CPUs:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LM_LX_PLUS/HelpDesk_CPU/

EDIT: The ECS A960M-M4 (1.0) (rated to handle 125 watt TDP processors) found in the link from post #45 was actually cheaper at $23.74 plus $3.99 shipping, but was out of stock at the time.

also 760G (well, the southbridge they use) doesn't have sata III ports (not a huge deal, but it's worth mentioning) while h81 does.

Yep, that and it also doesn't have usb 3.0.

With that mentioned, it does have six SATA 3 Gbps ports (while the H81 only has four SATA ports total, two of which are SATA 6 gbps)

 

[R0H1T]

The caveat with the G3258 is that not all of them overclock well.

Yup, mine is a dud that's barely stable @ 4.5GHz though the H97 based mobo may have something to do with it :|

 

[cbn]

Here is the list of 760G motherboards AM3+ boards at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&Pagesize=30

There are 11 total (three are sold out at this time).

One supports CPUs up to 140 watts (ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3)
Eight support CPUs up to 125 watts
Two support CPUS up to 95 watts (ASRock 960GC-GS, GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P(rev 5.1))

 

[SPBHM]

Yup, mine is a dud that's barely stable @ 4.5GHz though the H97 based mobo may have something to do with it :|

4.5GHz sounds good, I've heard some have trouble hitting 4GHz


as for the 760G boards, it looks like they have more models claiming 125W support than I thought, but, considering how much power the AM3+ chips can use under some conditions, I would at least try to add some cooling to the VRMs.

 

[R0H1T]

Another list of super cheap AMD boards & pretty much all of'em have AM3+ support ~ https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...il-in%20Rebate

Anyway if it's about power consumption & IPC then I'd pick pretty much anything from Intel in 100$ or above price range, otherwise AMD has good value offerings all the way till ~150$ of course the only downer being their (relatively) high power consumption.

 

[RussianSensation]

I think his point was the money was better spend elsewhere. (Not that an extra $50 was too much to spend).

I tend to agree because I view the current Haswell Core i3 in some ways as a side grade to my OC G3258. (And even when I saw Haswell Core i3 drop to as low as $69 via special Fry's promotions I was not even remotely tempted to buy it). Quite honestly, it would take a value priced unlocked Core i3 for me to upgrade.

For example, currently I am having zero problems with my 4.5 Ghz G3258 in BF 4 64 player (with R7 250X @1080p low) and even the chart below shows a 4.7 Ghz G3258 beating a 3.6 Ghz Core i3 -4160:

Of course you have no problems with the 3258 because you are 99% GPU limited in every modern game. I mean R9 260X is choking on every modern title without turning things down to low/medium and running well below 1080p. Add a powerful graphics card and try a modern game like Watch Dogs, Crysis 3, Metro, Ryse Son of Rome an an FX8000 @ 4.7-4.8Ghz will leave the 4.5Ghz 3258 for dead:

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/ryse-son-of-rome-test-gpu.html
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/watch-dogs-bad-blood-test-gpu.html

Linus tested 3258 max overclocked in Crysis 3 with a GTX970 -- the game was completely unplayable. While 3258OC is great for games that don't take advantage of more than 2-3 threads, I would rather get the FX8000 that often goes on sale to $100-120 or just do what escrow said and buy the i5. A modern I5 lasts 4-5 years. $120 extra over 5 years to ensure excellent performance in nearly every PC game is well with it. Obviously for someone who can only afford $60 CPU and $75 GPUs, well the 3258 is a great choice. However, this CPU won't last 4-5 years like the i5 will, forcing the gamer to upgrade prematurely. In the end you end up spending more since sooner or later you have to get an i5 or some well-threaded AMD chip. By 2016-2017, you can't expect good performance in next gen PC games on a 3258.

 

[cbn]

While 3258OC is great for games that don't take advantage of more than 2-3 threads, I would rather get the FX8000 that often goes on sale to $100-120 or just do what escrow said and buy the i5.

A $124.99 FX-8300 vs. $69.99 G3258? The processors are not even in the same price category.

Instead, I'd rather hear your opinion on whether you would choose a $119.99 Haswell Core i3 or a $124.99 FX-8300?

And as far as a i5 goes, of course a much more expensive processor is going to be a lot faster.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

The 3258 is supposedly problematic in some of the newest games at max detail. The FX cpu's run those somewhat decently but are problematic in several other titles.

If you want to run all games well you have to strech the budget and get an i5, i5-4460 with an elcheapo board won't be that expensive anyway.