Intel (i4670k) vs AMD (8320/8350)

Ok, so there are a lot of differences between AMD and Intel. Intel usually will outperform AMD CPUs in most lower end applications, but not noticeably. And Intel CPUs dominate the market share so you will have a larger selection of motherboards to select from when doing your build. AMD CPUs have more cores for less and they are very overclocking friendly, but a lot of applications don't use more than 2 cores, and on a core to core basis AMD loses.

Most of the benchmarks you will see for a $1k or less build probably only has one GPU and in that AMD and Intel are usually about the same, but with multiple GPUs Intel pulls ahead by a few percents but not really something to be worried about. For most of the builds that I put together and/or recommend I usually go with an AMD CPU when the price matters or the build is a budget-ish gaming build. But for server work or productivity and gaming I would usually go with an Intel CPU.

Actually it's pretty simple if you compare the 8350 AMD vs the 4670K in a clock for clock scenario - the 8350 wins at rendering video, and that's it - anything else the 4670K wins

No problem On the mobos, from the builds I've done, it appears to me that Asus has the best handle on the Z87 and Haswell, after about 20 builds on assorted Asus, Rock and GB mobos, I decided on the Hero for own personal build, my secondary and Tertiary choices would be the Gryphon and then the Asus Pro for a mid level mobo.

As far as MSI goes, they aren't bad mobos....with a big IF...being IF you get one that makes it through the first 60 days or so...I have a couple things with MSI...their lack of even decent QC, too many DOA and various failures within 30-60 days, and I blame their QC as there is no normalproblem cycle - I get more calls on their mobos than any other 2 manufacturers put together, and it varies, Port failures (USB, ethernet, SATA, video), bad DRAM slots, etc, if it was one thing, say DRAM sockets, you write it off as they got a bad shipment of them, but their problems are all over the boards. The second is their complete lack of honesty with customers, they'll have known problems, but when customers call, it's always they try and blame the problem on DRAM or another component, etc. and this has happened numerous times....I'm not the only one who has noticed their continued decline (sales dropping every year going back to about 2008), I network with a number of builder and IT folks and most all shy away from building on them, there's just too good a chance of a build going sour and having to go through the RMA process, tearing down the system, providing a loaner system while the RMA goes through, rebuilding (hoping it's a good mobo this time), etc. Had this happen a few times back with the P67 mobos and Sandy Bridge

As far as Intel vs AMD for the upcoming years, I stay with Intel, it will be some time before 6-8 core CPUs will be REQUIRED, if any doubts towards that there's always the X79 and SB-E with the 6 core Intel CPUs, but the big buzz is how the new game console is going to the 8 core AMD - and that has everyone sayinghow games are going to go 6-8 core, yet the reallity is AMD offered up the CPUs for next to nothing - no sane business would turn that down, it got AMD tons of publicity as well as the console maker - and how many 8 core required games are there? People need to understand that AMD is a publicity hound, anything to get themselves in the news, look at the 9590 CPU, released for what $1K, and released with absolutely no reviews - none were every sent out for review, Why? because if any reviews, nobody would have bought one - whose going to pay a grand for a high freq CPU that gets outperformed by one that cost a third of the price (4770K, even 3770K) at a stock 3.4 and get's hugely embarrassed by a i& K model that has been OCed. Now today, we've been waiting for Steamroller for quite some time, which again has been put off, and excavator, which should be all the talk right now is still out in the ether. Kiveri, which is to have Steamroller Cores is the temp thing coming up that will be on the new FM2+ socket is real near, prob before Xmas, but again, what about Steamroller itself, latest seems , it won't be on AM3+, so if not then what?

I would go with AMD for you case but you could go with the 8350 and then maybe OC a little or you could get that 9370 and it comes OCed a bit and with an all in one liquid cooler for about $90 more, which is almost the cost of the cooler. And with either CPU I would probably go with either the MSI 990FXA GD80 or the GIGABYTE GA-990FXA UD5. They are both feature pack and they both go on sale a reasonable amount, I would probably go with what ever one was cheaper at the time of buying.


Also a quick note at the end. The reason I would go with AMD over Intel on this build is for the multitasking and the video streaming.

And another edit. Even though games will be optimized for 8-cores that doesn't mean they will use more of you CPU but it means that they will use your CPU more evenly. Instead of only using 4 of your cores at 30% they will use all 8 at 15%. You won't actually see much of a difference unless you already had a game that was maxing out 4 of your core to start with.

If you would state pure gaming - I would suggest I5, but since you put a special emphasis on multitasking, video editing, streaming and other multicore friendly demands, then I say FX-8350 is the thing - having 8 weaksauce cores in this case it better than having 4 awesome cores.

ASRock broke away from Asus years ago and have been on their own since, think 2007/8 and steadily climbing the ranks, they passed MSI to become third in sales (agin think) it wa 2009/10 and have great mobos, where with Haswell I think Asus has the best handle on things, ASRock was my choice with Ivy Bridge, and the mobo I picked then, the Rock's Z77 Extreme 4 went on to become the best selling and best rated mobo, they stand as my #2 with Haswell builds and GB is third again.

INtel won't pull support for the Ivy Bridge until Broadwell hit's the desktop (if it does, that's in the air, looking at 1st quarter of 15 for that now, if then, may just jump straight to Skylake...I love the IB CPUs and often recommend them, even here where it's considered taboo, since Haswell is 'newer' - people think Haswell is 'futureproofing' as they expect Braodwell, but agin most aren't really looking ahead, by the time Broadwell or Skylake appear, just as with IB it will bring a new chipset (even if in socket 1150) and then theirs DDR4 will be mainstream by then so whatever comes next will be a CPU/mobo switch (and this time actually CPU/MOBO AND DRAM

it is not that they can't keep up with intel, this is the way it's meant to be, FX is far better comparing to any i5, it takes time to tell you that 8 cores matter, or on the intel side 4 cores and 4 threads matters, those who criticize single threaded performance of FX series lack provisional visions, yet in single threaded apps fx does an ok job, just play any game on ultra and yet when more processing is needed it provides you with that like crysis 3 that fx outperforms i7 3770k...some guys say in rome tottal wars 2 fx cpus give 44 fps average
and 18minimum, but they never say that i7 3770k gives 19fps minimum and 46fps maximum, 2 frame really!? and yet they consider this as a victory...or they say in this single threaded game fx gives 65 fps, i5 gives 90 fps...in real world terms can you really say the difference!? my opinion either i7 3770k or fx 8350, we either agree that in one year games will be as good as crysis 3 or not if we do look here: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Crysis-3-PC-235317/Tests/Crysis-3-Test-CPU-Benchmark-1056578/ for those who don't agree and think crysis 3 is 3 years ahead of us look at one of 2014 tittles requirements: http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=4546&game=Watch%20Dogs t says ultra settings either fx 8350 or i7 3770 k...that shows how multi threading matters in a year from now

Night Owl

also in alot of new programs we have have witnessed to superiority of cpus, and none of today games have shown the real power of this beats, hopefully watch dogs will be the first, just look here to see fx 8350 for example outperfroms i5s since these games are multi-threaded, yet they all use 6th cores of fx 8350, if 7th and 8th cores started working, no one would stop this cpu, in crysis 3 forexample, only 20% of 7th and 8th cores were loaded, so even crysis 3 is not the ultimate power of these 8 core beasts
1: http://www.techspot.com/review/601-black-ops-2-performance/page5.html
2: http://www.techspot.com/review/591-medal-of-honor-warfighter-benchmarks/page6.html
3: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1598/pg6/amd-fx-8350-processor-review-battlefield-3.html

my recommendation for you rig:
CPU: FX8350 200$
MOBO:ASUS M5A99FX PRO: 145$
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB 77$
PSU:CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W:140$
GPU: R9-290X $550 (you should wait for this part until October 31)

that is 114$ past your budget, but r9-290 will also be available 31 october, it beats gtx 780, and it should be about 100$ cheaper than r9-290x ( based on speculations)