Intel i3-4330 or AMD FX 6300?

Ranjith Shenoy · May 16, 2015

I actually want go with an Intel CPU but the issue with money makes me lean towards an AMD one. If I choose Intel, I want to stick to the Haswell series. With the Haswell i want to choose an i5 because I want a quad-core CPU. But this throws my budget out of the window because I need a decent MB too with this. So if I go with an i3 with hyperthreading, I fear the modern games that need 4 cores will not work on the i3. After all this dilemma, I turn back to the FX 6300. I would really appreciate it if someone would point me in the right direction because I can't upgrade again for atleast 2 years. So I don't want to be stuck in between. And please consider that the budget for the CPU+MB is about ~$200(16000 INR) and I'll be using this PC for gaming(most of the modern titles) and encoding with little of Photoshop and Premier Pro. Currently I own a Biostar h61mlv3 with a G2020.

profoundnoah · May 16, 2015

Ranjith Shenoy :

Well this is quite easy, I would recommend going for the FX 6300 purely because it is a 6 core and you wont be spending as much money in the future. A decent MOBO would be the GA-970A UD3P http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga970aud3p

Ranjith Shenoy · May 16, 2015

profoundnoah :

Ranjith Shenoy :

Well this is quite easy, I would recommend going for the FX 6300 purely because it is a 6 core and you wont be spending as much money in the future. A decent MOBO would be the GA-970A UD3P http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga970aud3p

What worries me is that AM3+ is almost obsolete. I'm not bothered about an upgrade but the old technology is a concern

Cryio · May 21, 2015

It would actually advise to buy the FX8300 instead of the 6300 because for not much more (maximum 15-20 $) you'd get 8 unlocked cores instead of 6.

LookItsRain · May 21, 2015

i3 will beat any fx processor in gaming, i have an i3 and a r9 270x, the r9 270x is the bottleneck in every single game out of my 143 games in steam.

st3v30 · May 21, 2015

LookItsRain :

So you say r9 270x is holding your i3 back?? if GPU is 100% and cpu not then there is no bottleneck but if CPU is at 100% and GPU not then there is bottleneck in games.
Try some more cpu demanding games and you will see how much does your i3 hold back r9 270x

LookItsRain · May 21, 2015

st3v30 :

I have quite a few games that are considered cpu demanding, r9 270x is still the bottleneck, people dont give i3s enough credit.

Creme · May 22, 2015

Unless you're doing stuff like rendering video, a highly clocked i3 will almost always beat the FX in games.

If you plan on overclocking the FX, then I would recommend that, because you will have sufficient single threaded performance and the extra cores will help with multithreaded tasks and DX12. But keep in mind you will be spending more on the motherboard than you would for the intel (even the lowly h81 will allow overclocking) because it has to cope with the increased voltage and heat output of the AMD.

I think a cheap motherboard and an i3 will suffice for gaming, but if you stream/record or do video work, the value of the FX-6300 or 8320/8320E is great, even with the more expensive motherboard.

jaguarskx · May 22, 2015

I just want to point out that both socket 1150 and socket AM3+ are going to be obsolete. When Intel launches the Skylake generation CPUs they will be using a different socket. When AMD releases the Zen CPU in 2016 it will also be using a different socket.

Overall, the Core i3-3xxx / Core i3-4xxx and the FX-6350 are more or less roughly the same in terms of gaming performance based on the benchmarks below, though the edge does go to the Core i3. While a Core i3 cannot be overclocked, the FX-6350 (the FX-6300 too) can be so that benchmark results will equal the Core i3 or better. But don't forget you need more money to buy a heatsink before overclocking. If there are no plans to upgrade the CPU later on with the same motherboard later on, then go either way. If you plan on upgrading the CPU when you get more money later on, then get the Core i3 because the Core i5 can definitely provide better performance than the FX-8350 or FX9590.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/page6.html
Unfortunately, benchmarks are only provided for 2560x1600 resolution.

http://www.techspot.com/review/979-battlefield-hardline-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/962-evolve-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/956-dying-light-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/903-alien-isolation-benchmarks/page5.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/878-metro-redux-benchmarks/page4.html