Advice on buying a new CPU?

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fierfly

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Jul 23, 2013
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I would like to spend £200 upgrading my CPU. I should like a processor that would be strong for gaming, and therefore my first instinct would be to go to intel. However, as much as I'd love one, an i7 is far too much out of my price range, and so I turned to the i5's. Although I could see many within my budget, the fact that I'd have to buy a new motherboard sends the price way over what I can afford.

Therefore I turned to AMD, and found the FX8350 was only £150, and therefore I could afford a new (cheap) motherboard to go with it. However, I know that AMD is not seen as being a brand that makes particularly good processors, and so I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that much money on something that wouldn't give as dramatic a performance increase - especially compared to the high end of intel's CPU's.

So, I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts were on the matter.
 
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KareemGT
Go for the FX-8350 with a motherboard under the budget , the FX-8350 is great in gaming ,( personal Experience )

the FX-8350 is way better than most of i5/i7 processors in multithreaded applications/Game ( such as battlefield 3 )

the FX-8350 would be a better future proof since it's 8 cores processors and the upcoming games will start optimizing for 8 cores technology

check the benchmark of the FX-8350 vs i5-3570k in battlefield 3 ( battlefield 3 optimized to work using 8 cores )

http://www.hizliresimyukle.com/images/2013/06/13/BHkUo.jpg

however , the i5-3570k is better in most games but only by 5~10 frames per second which means you will not gonna Notice the difference at all .
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suddenstop

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Jul 22, 2007
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Go intel - unfortunately no question here. get a cheap motherboard, and an i3 3220, or an i5. You can easily get an i5 for your needs. Also get a cheap mobo - you should get close to amd mobo prices, no need for hyper expensive one.
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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Go for the FX-8350 with a motherboard under the budget , the FX-8350 is great in gaming ,( personal Experience )

the FX-8350 is way better than most of i5/i7 processors in multithreaded applications/Game ( such as battlefield 3 )

the FX-8350 would be a better future proof since it's 8 cores processors and the upcoming games will start optimizing for 8 cores technology

check the benchmark of the FX-8350 vs i5-3570k in battlefield 3 ( battlefield 3 optimized to work using 8 cores )

http://www.hizliresimyukle.com/images/2013/06/13/BHkUo.jpg

however , the i5-3570k is better in most games but only by 5~10 frames per second which means you will not gonna Notice the difference at all .
 
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John Bauer-1363825

John Bauer-1363825

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Jul 16, 2013
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Unfortunately when it comes to budgets Intel isn't great with prices, an FX-8350 can compete with a i7-3770, with a fraction of the price. It loves sucking power, however.

Some benchmarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVGwj1_Qno
 
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goonbar79

goonbar79

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Dec 31, 2008
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AMD and Intel has "different" processors. Intel has better per core performance per dollar AND better performance per power consumption, while AMD has more cores per dollar. Generally speaking, FX-8350 is comparable to 3570K, price or performance wise. 8350 beats 3570K in highly threaded apps and games while 3570K will beat 8350 in lower threaded (4 threads or less) apps and games. 3770K is NOT the rival for 8350, because 3770K does what 3570K does + equals 8350 in multithreaded apps, which explains the $100+ price difference. So the choice is clearly up to the user. The consensus is that "currently" most games still utilize 4 cores, so the advantages goes to Intel, for now.

I personally think that you should get whichever processor that you can get at a better discount / deal, because the final price will make the most difference at decision making.
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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ya buddy , you are right , the price is the most important thing , but you are wrong about the FX-8350 is not compared to the i7-3770k , the FX-8350 is way better if we gonna talk about the price .

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6396/51137.png
http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/2055/cinebench-results.jpg
http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/2055/3dmark-11-performance.jpg

what am trying to say : that little bit extra performance doesn't worth the Extra 125 $ .
 
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goonbar79

goonbar79

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Your links only show a piece of the performance comparison pie. Please read the entire review and the final commends of every review of AMD Vishera, and they all say the same thing every time, that Vishera chips "have great value BUT they lack single core performance & they suck power much more than Intel's rival chips." This becomes redundant after a while.

3770K compared to FX-8350 (overall):
@ stock is about 44% faster using 4 threads or less, 14% faster using 8 threads or more.
OC''d 20% higher for both (4.2ghz vs 4.8ghz) the difference is about the same, BUT power consumption hit is worse for 8350.

The $100+ price difference CAN BE justified, because AMD has NO alternative to 3770K's overall superior performance in the $300 price range. All they can do is release the same chip with whopping 220watt TDP, claiming it to be highest clock cpu ever. That won't change the fact that AMD chips lack competition as far as per core performance & power consumption.

As a simple example, if you run a program which is low threaded (simple, one dimensional task), but want to do it in the shortest time possible. 3570K or 3770K will take 40 min to complete where as FX8350 will take 1 hr. Simple as that. I am taking about "overall" performance wise, not job specific, as different features give different results. But overall, that is what you get, and that is why AMD is still behind Intel as far as cpu performance is concerned. (I AM NOT an AMD hater). That is why what kind of tasks you do is more important than anything else, and that should be the deciding factor.
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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Dude , am not saying that the FX-8350 is better than intel processors , the i5-3570k is better than the AMD FX-8350 and the i7-3770k too for sure . am just saying the best upgrade for him would be the FX-8350 because it's cheaper than both intel's processors and it's not weak it's great for it price , think about it buddy , you will spend 190 dollars to get 60 FPS on a game or you will go for something around 300 dollars to get 80 FPS ?? which one would you choose if do you think the price is important , for me , i will go for the cheaper for sure .
Intel's processor are greater than AMD's , but AMD's processor are better for value . that's the point which i was trying to show you it ... am not AMD fan or an intel fan , am BEST choice fan , i don't care which brand / company , i go always for the price/performance .
 
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goonbar79

goonbar79

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You are absolutely right. AMD IS better value than Intel. My initial comment was to clarify that these are different, not necessarily that one is better than the other. If I were to build ANY low-mid budget system, I would go AMD all the way. I just want to inform others about the pros/cons to help with the decison making process because I noticed some people are giving wrong advises based on incorrect data.

About the price, I agree with you for the most part. This is because AMD cpu has high power consumption, and depending on your usage frequency, tasks conducted, & electricity cost, going Intel now COULD be a better route, because it will save you money in the long run.
 
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