FX 8320 vs FX 6300

Whatever you do..... don't get a "worse" motherboard for any reason. You want to best mobo you can get.

I would rather have a FX 6300 + 990FX series mobo than a FX 8320 + 970 series mobo.

Or you could look at it like this... The FX 6300 + a $30 aftermarket cooler is far better than a FX 8320 with it's stock cooler.

i don't think the 6 core will bottleneck the gtx760... and they are very close to the 8 cores when being run at the same MHZ.. theres a bigger difference between 4 and 6 cores than 6 and 8...
that being said i have the 970a-UD3P and i would recommend this board instead because of the 8+2 power phase... or the EVO...
see what works for you if you can't fit all in the budget - but i think i would actually compromise the CPU rather than GPU because usually gpu makes a bigger difference in games

also this 970 board overclocks my fx-6350 just fine ... i don't see a need to go for 990fx chipset unless you intend to run SLI in the future (970a only supports crossfire) ... i can't comment on overclocking the 4+1 power phase board tho... might work just fine, might not...

Well,

I have a system running an AMD FX-8350 as well as a system running an AMD FX-6300. Both systems run @ 4.5GHz. The FX-8350 runs on a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 while the FX-6300 runs on a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 (the lowest grade Motherboard I would buy personally but also of an incredible build quality). Both systems are powered by a 750W XFX Pro Series Black Edition power supply (re-branded 80+ Gold Seasonic).

Graphics card wise both systems are powered by Dual Radeon CFx Graphics cards. The FX-8350 is powered by dual Radeon HD 7870XTs in CFx while the FX-6300 is powered by dual Radeon HD 7870s in CFx.

I've played quite a few games on both rigs and I must say that overall both systems offer relatively the same degree of performance when gaming.

This is not going to be the case, however, once Mantle drops. We're likely going to see Intel getting a run for their money vs AMD CPUs when Mantle drops. This is mostly due to the parallelism which Mantle will expose (vs. DirectX 11's rather Serial functionality). GPUs will be fed in a parallel fashion by the CPU as well as allowing the CPU to accept parallel instructions tasks with ease for things like AI, sound reproduction, Physics etc (not possible with DirectX beyond 3 cores really).

In that case the AMD FX-8350s 8 cores will come in handy vs the FX-6300s 6 cores but only in games running on Mantle. Check out what Mantle can do here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWyf8Hyjbg

If you play Battlefield 4 and are looking forward towards the new Thief game, Star Citizen or anything from John Carmack coming up you may want to get an AMD Radeon card as opposed to an nVIDIA Graphics card due to Mantle support.

It also makes sense to go AMD GPU with an AMD CPU due to the use of Mantle seeing as Mantle will expose the true potential of your AMD hardware (both GPU and CPU). More info on Mantle here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API)

Many people will scoff at the idea of Mantle succeeding but I must stress that I am generally supportive of winning ideas. The industry has been waiting for a Direct to metal (or closer to Metal) solution such as Mantle. Devs are generally very enthusiastic about the idea as well.

Mantle also free's us from Microsoft and Windows. Which opens the door for the Steam OS and a Steambox. This is really where the industry is heading. Towards more compact PCs (iTX really) built around a gaming oriented OS (Steam OS). Mantle just makes sense.

Some are wary of nVIDIA or Intel supporting Mantle but I think that with AMD providing the hardware for the Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo WiiU... AMD is actually at the driving seat of the gaming industry right now. Either nVIDIA adopts Mantle or they suffer the consequences (think of 3Dfx's reluctance to accept 32-bit color while the industry was heading towards 32-bit for example).

and just to add to the previous post - the 970a-ud3p is almost the same as the 990fx-ud3 apart from the extra features that come with the chipset... and its also a much newer model... altho the 990fx has new revisions that make it just as new (and fixes vrm overheating issues the older ones had)

I would not recommend overclocking AT ALL on the stock cooler.

I concur.

Heck even a Hyper 212+ could not handle an AMD FX-6300 overclocked to 4.5GHz at full CPU load (100%). At some point into the benchmark the CPU would begin to throttle.

I tried with two different FX-6300s and got the same results. The Hyper 212+ is much better than the AMD stock cooler (especially the rather crappy one that comes with the FX-6300). So definitely do not overclock on the AMD stock cooler. You'll get weird slowdowns while gaming (due to the throttling of the CPU) if you do.

As for AMD Mantle, it is coming to Star Citizen (a HUGE upcoming title) as well as Thief and around 3 other popular game Engines. Crytek are testing Mantle as we speak (see here right from their own mouths: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHdqmzSU-bo).

Quick info here: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Star-Citizen-Eidos-Montreal-Oxide-Games-Support-AMD-Mantle-60499.html

Are you using one of the earlier revisions of 990FXA-UD3 by any chance?
almost sounds like you might be experiencing the vrm overheating/something on the board throttling - issues...
i actually can overclock my fx-6350 to 4.53 ghz with AMD stock cooler (the same that comes with the 8 cores / fx6300 cooler is much worse) but i would never do that in a closed case in normal room temperatures... only open window in winter-type of scenario, and it seems advisable to aim a fan at the motherboard since the air around cpu and vrm heatsink can get pretty hot...
and also the stock cooler is pretty damn loud and annoying - you might want to replace it even if you do not overclock,
but the point i'm trying to make is - i don't seem to have these slowdowns on the 970a-ud3p -
this is why i am advising this board or the EVO instead of the DS3P...
the 8 core will perform better in games - but only very slightly... the difference could be worth it for me but not if i had to sacrifice the gpu... and to me taking the 6 core and the cheaper 970chipset board was what justified going for amd in general... if you take the 8 core witha real expensive mobo you are stepping very close o intel prices and then that whole argument starts....

I've got the latest revision of the board but I am running in an enclosed case (a silent case with sound insulation). When I monitor the CPU temps they keep climbing as the ambient air within the case gets warmer. This occurs until the CPU begins to throttle. Of course I am putting 100% load on the CPU (a real 100% load not running Crysis for 30mins or something like that).

My solution was simple... I bought a Scythe Susanoo CPU Cooler. Issue is no longer present.

yep .. to be honest i don't look at the 212 plus or evo as a real proper cooling solution for these cpu's
just a good option if you want to do some oc on a budget... i really want to stick a noctua nh-d14 or some similar but cheaper cooler on mine when i can afford it...

I hear ya. Some of the all-in-one watercooled solutions are nice as well