How much does CPU affect gaming

darknis

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If I have an r7 260x paired with a FX 6300, will I see a noticeable FPS gain when paired with (just for example) a FX 8350 (Or drop vice versa)
 
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Excluding games that use more than 4 Cores efficiently There will be only 1-3FPS of a difference between a FX 43XX vs FX 63XX. The same goes with FX 63XX vs FX 83XX. In your situation a 260X isn't fast enough where the FX 63XX would bottleneck the GPU. Even with a GTX 980 which is the fastest single gpu currently will perform the same in Far Cry 4 even if you use a 6350 or a 8350. Now if you were to compare the FX series to Intel's CPU there would be a big difference.

surihtanil

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No because the 6300 with turbo is 4.1ghz which basically same speed as 8350. I vote no you won't see any difference. If you're thinking about upgrading for gaming I wouldn't do it. Get a SSD if anything then maybe upgrade your GPU if you want more performance out of games.
 

leeb2013

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The 8350 has 2 more cores, so with games which utilise more than 6 corrs and with the right gpu (ie ehich isn't the bottleneck) you would see improvement. However as your gpu is low end, it will be the limitation, hence you should upgrade this first
 
Same story, all the FX processors have similar if not identical single core performance. Unless the game can use more than 4 threads the 6300 would not really benefit over the 4300 at the same clock speeds.

FX vs FX processors isnt really important, FX vs i3/i5 is more in depth.
 

slyu9213

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Excluding games that use more than 4 Cores efficiently There will be only 1-3FPS of a difference between a FX 43XX vs FX 63XX. The same goes with FX 63XX vs FX 83XX. In your situation a 260X isn't fast enough where the FX 63XX would bottleneck the GPU. Even with a GTX 980 which is the fastest single gpu currently will perform the same in Far Cry 4 even if you use a 6350 or a 8350. Now if you were to compare the FX series to Intel's CPU there would be a big difference.
 
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Poprin

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I don't agree that you will see a big difference using an Intel CPU at all. I think benchmarks would have you believe that is the case but it's not. Unless you are a competitive gamer / using a 144hz 1080p + monitor or running an SLI / crossfire rig with the aim of obscene FPS on a high res screen I don't think you can beat an FX6300 for gaming. They are cheap as chips and easy to overclock, you never really NEED an i5 for gaming in most people's cases. It just happens to be arguably the best chip for the job and if you can afford it great.
 

slyu9213

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Here's the deal I don't own a FX 6350 but if it's average FPS is not 60 with a top of the line graphics card than I think of that as bottlenecking. Everyone's monitor should be be at least 60hz so 60FPS will be a postive. Even worse the AMD CPUs tend to have a lower minimum FPS which is one reason why the avg FPS would be lower than an Intel. If you want the smoothest FPS Intel is still the winner. It's those drops from 50-60FPS to 30 or maybe 29FPS that makes me irratated (that an stuttering). The thing is a person does not need to be a competetive gamer to play at 60FPS+. I don't want 144FPS I just wan't as close to 60FPS like monitor or 75FPS if I select a higher refresh rate. From personal experience 30FPS vs 60FPS is pretty big so that's why I gave my opnion (and numbers from other sources.)
 

Poprin

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OK but my point is what makes you believe that an FX6350 is incapable of maintaining 60fps with a high end graphics card?

I agree that 60fps should be the target to aim for and frame rates of 30-40fps is only really acceptable for casual non action games. Also big fps drops are a no-no. However, gaming on the whole is not hugely CPU intensive (there are exceptions to this of course). I have yet to see significant evidence of this fabled bottlenecking on any modern hardware unless we are talking seriously high end... as I mentioned before. I think we are still stuck in the dual core core2duo and Athlon days sometimes. Yes these CPU's will effect your performance but since we have started playing with 3.0ghz + performance and 4 cores (or even hyperthreading with i3) for most people they will not experience CPU bottlenecking @ 60fps. You are more likely to be bottlenecked by running say an FX6350 on some totally pants 760g chipset (why do they still sell this tat?) and your VRM's are overheating and literally throttling your performance. Most AMD motherboards struggle to handle the power draw of the FX chips. This is again why I think the 95w TDP FX6300 is the sweet spot for 60fps 1080p gaming.

I can also say this because I have an i7-2600 @ 4.2ghz and my girlfriends FX6300 @ 4.0ghz right next to mine performs almost exactly the same (we have matching monitors).

Am I trying to argue that bottlenecking doesn't exist period or that AMD's perform the same as Intel. No I am not, but in response to the OP and his question about a CPU change I am saying that there is a reason why the FX6300 always is on the best CPU's for your money thread right here on Tom's and it isn't because it can't handle 1080p gaming.
 

slyu9213

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Yes yes I understand. After looking at benchmarks again I can see that the FX 6350 can maintain 60FPS or more paired with a GTX 980. Maybe it's because I like to rank each tier of video cards down one compared to normal tiers. I believe I said that CPUs don't hold affect gaming that much with the current generation of processors. FX 4350-FX 8350 has a tiny bit of difference in average FPS @stock speeds, and there is even less difference between an i5 and i7. Now an i3 and i5 has a slightly bigger separation but once gain it's not severe.

What I am saying is that the FX 6350 is one of the best budget CPUs currently at a low price and the ability to work with high-end video cards but it still isn't on par with the Intel processors. Not everyone's usage and gaming needs will be the same, FX 6350 will be suffice for many people but it doesn't change the fact that Intel processors are getting better numbers whether its 10FPS or 20FPS of a difference. When an i7 clocked at 2.5GHz gets a higher average FPS than an FX 6350 at 3.9GHz in most every game that shows that Intel is doing something right, AMD is doing something wrong, or both. Sadly Intel doesn't sell 2.5GHz i5/i7 processors for very low prices because those would be using less power but providing higher performance than 6350/8350.

All of this won't really matter in games that are more video card dependent is what I like honestly.