Good am3 CPU for gaming

Josh_97

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I was thinking about getting a fx 6300 but are the 2 extra cores necessary can I get just as good fps with phenom ii x4 955 I have a r9 270
 
Solution
The FX 6300 would be better for games than the 860k because of the L3 cache, and it's overclockable too.

It's a decent upgrade from a Core 2 Quad, especially for multi threaded applications.
The FX-6300 is very mediocre unless you overclock it significantly, which requires a descent motherboard and cooling. If you bought those you could have bought a Haswell i5 and a cheap H97 board, run it on the stock cooler with no overclocking and have better performance anyway.

The only AMD CPU for gaming that is competitve in its pricerange is the Athlon 860K which competes against the Pentium and i3, and the 860K is faster for gaming out of the box than an FX-6300 due to higher frequency and 15% improved instructions per clock.

Phenom IIs are still half descent for gaming though. If you already have a 955 I wouldn't bother changing it.
 

Josh_97

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I dont have a phenom ii x4 955 I meant would there be a difference between the fx 6300,right now I have a Intel core 2 quad I'm a budget type of person not looking for 300$ CPUs so maybe the 860k is the way to go I mean I pretty sure a fx 6300 would be a big jump from a Intel core 2 quad
 

Creme

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The FX 6300 would be better for games than the 860k because of the L3 cache, and it's overclockable too.

It's a decent upgrade from a Core 2 Quad, especially for multi threaded applications.
 
Solution

CTurbo

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The FX 6300 would be better for games than the 860k because of the L3 cache, and it's overclockable too.

It's a decent upgrade from a Core 2 Quad, especially for multi threaded applications.

The Athlon 860k is also overclockable and has a much better single core performance than the FX6300. The FX has more cache but it's cache is SLOW so I don't really see it as an advantage.
 


The FX Bulldozers and Piledrivers have major L3 cache problems. The L3 is missed often due to the architecture and when it does get hit it has latency so poor that it is no better than DDR3.

The 860K is also overclockable. The 860K also has a 15% higher IPC which makes it perform better for gaming than the FX-6300. The 860K also has improved L2 cache as part of the Steamroller revision, as well as a more powerful memory controller.

In order to overclock an FX-6300 to descent gaming performance (4.5GHz), you will need an aftermarket cooler and motherboard with solid VRMs. This pushes costs much higher than the 860K which works fast enough for gaming at stock frequencies on a low end motherboard and stock cooling.

The 860K supports PCIE 3.0 compared to legacy PCIE 2.0 on the AM3+ platform.

The 860K has the Northbridge on the CPU die now and no more Hypertransport. FX still has chipset northbridge on the motherboard and has to deal with hyper transport bottlenecks, another legacy baggage that Intel hasn't had for over 5 years.
 

CTurbo

Pizza Monster
Moderator
The FX Bulldozers and Piledrivers have major L3 cache problems. The L3 is missed often due to the architecture and when it does get hit it has latency so poor that it is no better than DDR3.

The 860K is also overclockable. The 860K also has a 15% higher IPC which makes it perform better for gaming than the FX-6300. The 860K also has improved L2 cache as part of the Steamroller revision, as well as a more powerful memory controller.

In order to overclock an FX-6300 to descent gaming performance (4.5GHz), you will need an aftermarket cooler and motherboard with solid VRMs. This pushes costs much higher than the 860K which works fast enough for gaming at stock frequencies on a low end motherboard and stock cooling.

The 860K supports PCIE 3.0 compared to legacy PCIE 2.0 on the AM3+ platform.

The 860K has the Northbridge on the CPU die now and no more Hypertransport. FX still has chipset northbridge on the motherboard and has to deal with hyper transport bottlenecks, another legacy baggage that Intel hasn't had for over 5 years.


Yep, and to sum all of this up, the FX6300 is old and not the best choice.
 


Show me the PC benchmarks running GTA5.

Every day we get a fool that posts some crap about GTA5 running on PC when it's not even released yet and there are no performance reviews. /triple facepalm.
 


I got your back, brother. My bullshit alarm showed a CODE RED when I logged in.
 

Josh_97

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If I'm getting decent fps on my old CPU that is completely obsolete I'm sure I'll be fine with a fx 6300 your machine may need pricey intel i3s and i5s but I don't need that alls I want is a steady 30fps on high settings and every other place I look says the fx 6300 is perfectly capable of that I can get the 860k but I thought that's fm2 not am3
 

Josh_97

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Everytime I come for opinions people are always thinking I want the best of the best I'm a BUDGET person that's why I've been using the Intel core 2 quad 2.5ghz because that's all I could afford now I want do a budget upgrade yes after I get my last certificate and finish up college if and when i become a networking/data base analysts technician of course I would have the newest i7 but when you barely make more then 100$ this is all I can afford how Better can I explain it
 

CTurbo

Pizza Monster
Moderator
I don't know why you are assuming i3s are so expensive.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tQpm23
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tQpm23/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($104.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($68.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $173.73

vs

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8CHMvK
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8CHMvK/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($94.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($74.97 @ OutletPC)
Total: $199.84

vs

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HbtdMp
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HbtdMp/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($73.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $156.96




The Athlon 860k is the clear winner here in value or if money is the biggest concern. The i3 offers the most performance for ~$20 more than the Athlon.
The FX is the oldest, hottest, loudest, most expensive, and flat out the worst in games.
 


I specialize in the lower-cost stuff. I live in Alabama and everyone here is broke, lol.