Athlon X4 860K or Broadwell i3?

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Diffin

Diffin

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May 16, 2014
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Right now, I'm on an Athlon X4 750K at 4.3GHz. I do mostly programming and only play very light games e.g. Team Fortress 2. The reason I want to upgrade is because I tend to also play Dolphin and use Visual Studio, which are both incredibly CPU intensive (the former more-so than the latter) and I'd really like to get the best experience I can with what I do. At first I thought about getting an FM2+ mobo and sticking with my 750K until I save up enough for an 860K, but especially for what I'm doing, I crave dat juicy single-threaded performance. At the same time, though, I'd like to have a little bit of flexibility, so I might not last long with a G3258 before I realize that I'd picked the wrong CPU for my needs. I'm kind of 16 years old and right now, so an i5, regardless of generation, is way out of the question. So, should I get myself an FM2+ mobo and 860K this Christmas? Or should I hold off and jump ship to Intel? Any input is greatly appreciated!
 
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Agreed on the Intel platform. I really don't think anything in the Athlon family will be a massive, paradigm-shifting difference that justifies its cost. I'd say its even worth waiting to save up the extra for a cheap Core i5 if that's possible, but the Core i3 is the next-best choice.

Edit: If you go with a Core i3 now on an H97 or Z97 motherboard, a future Broadwell Core i5 would be a possible future upgrade. I wouldn't bet money on Broadwell working with H81/Z87/etc. though. Maybe, maybe not.
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bmacsys

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Jul 4, 2013
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Despite the ipc being about 7% higher on the 860K vs the 760K it is slower because of the lower base clock. Add to the fact AMD moved to bulk silicon it overclocks worse than the 760K.
 
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Braden Fontaine

Braden Fontaine

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Aug 17, 2014
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slapped the 860k in today and running Valley and Firestrike, it never got above mid 40's under the Hyper 212 EVO cooler. so far it seems like a solid chip, but i never had any previous Athlons to compare it to :/
 
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Lukey_AMD

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May 29, 2014
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Ive checked the few websites I could find, which have comparisons (some look very wrong) but I found one which were comparing the differences in games. And.. its not worth upgrading. I have the 750k too, and the 860k isnt really better at all (for my uses anyway) uses a little less power, but thats it. In quite a few games the FPS obtainable with the 750k are massively more, and some games favour the 860k. (BF4 better with 750k etc). I would hold out until you can find better results from the new CPU. Right now it doesnt seem like its worth it, I only built my pc few months ago, and my CPU is fine for what it does. Maybe different in your case, so might be worth either saving a little and get an i5, or just wait it out and continue using your 750k, its only a year old..
 
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bmacsys

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How can you say the "750K gets massively more frames"? There aren't even any gaming benchmarks available for the 860K yet. Are you a fortune teller? The 750K is a Trinity part and it gets readily beaten by the Richland parts let alone a Kaveri part. Games don't flip flop to 750K, 860K. They are from the same family of processors. The part with the highest ipc will come out on top every time clockspeed being equal.
 
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oxiide

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Agreed on the Intel platform. I really don't think anything in the Athlon family will be a massive, paradigm-shifting difference that justifies its cost. I'd say its even worth waiting to save up the extra for a cheap Core i5 if that's possible, but the Core i3 is the next-best choice.

Edit: If you go with a Core i3 now on an H97 or Z97 motherboard, a future Broadwell Core i5 would be a possible future upgrade. I wouldn't bet money on Broadwell working with H81/Z87/etc. though. Maybe, maybe not.
 
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Brunostako

Brunostako

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Dec 16, 2013
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Also agreed.

If you can save for the cheaper Haswell core i5, you won't need an upgrade in at least 2-3 years, more time if it's a 4-core (not 2 core with hyper threading).
The motherboards aren't very expensive these days, one with the H81 chipset is cheap, but one with H87 or H97 would be better.
 
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