Yet another AMD vs Intel Question

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

MrHatty

Honorable
Aug 16, 2013
19
0
10,510
I'm plotting the next overhaul of my current gaming rig. As it stands I run an AMD Ph.ii B60 (oc'd at 3.6ghz), a MSI 880GM-E35, 8gb Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz DDR3, Nvidia GTX 460 SC 1gb, and a Western Digital 640gb HDD.

The mobo and cpu are going, and I have up to $300 to spend. Keep in mind, this is a gaming rig, the main games being Flight Simulator X, iRacing, and Planetside 2. There will be gameplay videos for youtube and such, but gaming and general net browsing will be this system's primary function.

I've narrowed my seach dowb between AMD's FX-8350 and Intel's i5 3470, both of which I've found at $200 and boards that keep me in budget are easy to find. The great question is...which cpu to go with?
 
Solution
inzone
Sort by date Sort by votes
8350rocks

8350rocks

Distinguished
Mar 14, 2013
6,235
0
18,460
I would say the 8350, you can overclock it to get better performance, more cores means less recording resources consumed when you're gaming + recording. Plus, the steamroller CPUs coming next year are supposed to be supported on AM3+ since AMD committed to that socket through 2015.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrHatty

Honorable
Aug 16, 2013
19
0
10,510

Normally I would jump on the AMD (I'm more familiar with how it works and how it behaves) but I though there was an artie on here that I read where the 8350 wasn't a true 8 core and that it was AMD's take on hyperthreading.

And here is where I get lost because I've read some articles that say hyperthreading is good for games, and others that say its bad. So when I saw the i5 going for the same price, as well as looking at different gameplay videos of the two cpu's in action, that's what has made me consider it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
inzone

inzone

Champion
Mar 12, 2011
14,971
1
51,960
If you decide on Intel then I would go with the 3570k since it is an unlocked CPU and will give you that extra boost if needed when gaming.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 $220

At Newegg it's $220, however at Amazon the Intel i5-4670k is $219 so you may want to go with the Haswell for $219 and get a Z87 chipset motherboard.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-4670K-Quad-Core-Desktop-Processor/dp/B00CO8TBOW/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1376675039&sr=1-2&keywords=Intel+i5-3570k

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131981 $140

I know that it's $60 over budget but if you could swing it then you would have a good top quality core to your computer for a few years at least.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrHatty

Honorable
Aug 16, 2013
19
0
10,510

I was looking at the K series, but at this tine $300 is the hard limit. Also I'm pretty ignorant when it cones to oc'ing (squeezing just .2 ghz out of my B60 was frustrating) and I only oc'd my current rig just to make Planetside 2 BARELY playabe. This next build I don't plan on oc'ing.

If I understood oc'ing more, I'd be grinding my B60 into dust but she needs to last a few more days/weeks before getting the new stuff.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
inzone

inzone

Champion
Mar 12, 2011
14,971
1
51,960


When you have an Intel CPU that has Hyperthreading and the four cores become eight threads then you need a game that will take advantage of more than four cores or a game that will use the four cares and the other four threads will fill in for any programs running in the background.
I don't know of any games that would use more than the four cores and maybe some will be coming out in a year or two so for now it's what you will be playing plus running in the background that you would need more than four cores.
The same goes for the 8350 which is an eight core and which ever way you want to look at it there are still eight processing threads in the 8350 whether it be actual separate physical cores or some kind of Hyperthreading it's still eight processing cores.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
8350rocks

8350rocks

Distinguished
Mar 14, 2013
6,235
0
18,460


The 8350 has 8 integer cores and 4 Flex FPUs.

What this basically means is that the 8350 has 2 cores for normal processing per module. Those 2 cores share 1 Floating Point Unit (which does things like physics calculations).

So, it does have 8 "real" cores...

Hyper Threading is not 8 real cores at all. It's 4 cores, and each core has an extra register stack. What that basically does is to allow the cores to hold another thread on the side when the core is idle. So, while you can technically process and extra 4 threads on a HTT enabled i7, you're taking resources from a current core to do it.

In the AMD setup (called Cluster Multithreading or CMT), each core has separate resources except for the shared floating point units.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
inzone

inzone

Champion
Mar 12, 2011
14,971
1
51,960
I'm not a pro at overclocking either but when you have an unlocked multiplier the bios on some of these boards will give you a set of preset overclocks and it's a matter of selecting the overclock that you want and save and exit.
However since the $300 is a hard limit then you don't have that option.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrHatty

Honorable
Aug 16, 2013
19
0
10,510
Alright, as it stands the 8350 is the winner, but I have one final concern.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of you would want to punch me repeatedly in the face, but I'm still in the stone age with an x64 Windows Vista OS (as with the new HDD, new OS comes with xmas money). Will Vista be able to recognize and utilize the full potential of the 8350?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MEC-777

MEC-777

Honorable
Jun 27, 2013
342
0
10,860
Out of the original choices, 8350 hands-down.

Closer comparable CPU's would be 8350 vs 4670k. In that case, for your specific needs and budget, again, the 8350 is still your best option for several reasons.

The 4670k, a stellar CPU no doubt, is a little pricier and to make use of over clocking, you'd need a Z87 chip set motherboard, which even the least expensive of those are more than AMD boards with roughly the same level of features and overclocking ability.

Even if Windows Vista isn't totally optimized for the 8350, you'll be upgrading soon anyways. ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom