So I'm in the market for a new system. My existing system is old and needs more RAM and at this point it'd take a new motherboard to do that so at this point I may as well spend a bit more and get into a more modern system. So I've arranged a four way cage match for your enjoyment.
I am a gamer but typically always at lowest settings and solid playable framerates are the only really important thing here rather than niggly FPS counting. I'm a constant multi-takser, always ALWAYS playing things in windows and running something else on my second monitor. I'm not even vaguely interested in changing that; my new chip MUST be able to handle that because a step back at all in this area would be a major downgrade even if I can get a few extra FPS.
Without further ado - The contenders
The Dual Core Wonder - Pentium G3258
This was my immediate instinct for building a cheap system. My computer only seldom uses multi-threaded anything and this chip has serious bang for the buck in single threaded workloads. It's cheap it's got OC overhead and I already have a solid aftermarket cooler to save on that. Clearly a strong contender.
The Bulldozer - AMD FX-4300
It's a bulldozer chip but let's not hold that against it. It's trading raw performance for multiple cores. I'm replacing a four core chip, so it'd be nice to get at least that in my new chip too. Like I said, multitasking matters to me and things are seldom bottlenecked by my CPU at the moment so perhaps this is a better choice my actual day to day life.
The other guy - Athlon X4 860K.
I actually forgot this chip exists. The FM2 chips just never struck me as being all that exciting. Anyway this is another 4 cored chip with decent clock speeds and some overclocking room too. I have absolutely no idea how this stacks up against Bulldozer but this chip is in my price range and the idea of having an Athlon branded chip again makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
The Wildcard - My existing Core 2 Quad q8200.
Why am I putting it up in this comparison? Because honestly I've gotten by fine with this chip for years. It's only very recently that I've felt it's holding me back what so ever. I'm definitely over-due an upgrade (particularly from DDR2) but this chip is the baseline for comparison.
The new chips have to justify their cost against my Q8200 and at least make an argument that I'll see a tangible improvement in my day to day life. If they can't do that then I'll most likely be aiming for a more expensive build at a later date.
I leave the rest up to you guys.
FIGHT!
I am a gamer but typically always at lowest settings and solid playable framerates are the only really important thing here rather than niggly FPS counting. I'm a constant multi-takser, always ALWAYS playing things in windows and running something else on my second monitor. I'm not even vaguely interested in changing that; my new chip MUST be able to handle that because a step back at all in this area would be a major downgrade even if I can get a few extra FPS.
Without further ado - The contenders
The Dual Core Wonder - Pentium G3258
This was my immediate instinct for building a cheap system. My computer only seldom uses multi-threaded anything and this chip has serious bang for the buck in single threaded workloads. It's cheap it's got OC overhead and I already have a solid aftermarket cooler to save on that. Clearly a strong contender.
The Bulldozer - AMD FX-4300
It's a bulldozer chip but let's not hold that against it. It's trading raw performance for multiple cores. I'm replacing a four core chip, so it'd be nice to get at least that in my new chip too. Like I said, multitasking matters to me and things are seldom bottlenecked by my CPU at the moment so perhaps this is a better choice my actual day to day life.
The other guy - Athlon X4 860K.
I actually forgot this chip exists. The FM2 chips just never struck me as being all that exciting. Anyway this is another 4 cored chip with decent clock speeds and some overclocking room too. I have absolutely no idea how this stacks up against Bulldozer but this chip is in my price range and the idea of having an Athlon branded chip again makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
The Wildcard - My existing Core 2 Quad q8200.
Why am I putting it up in this comparison? Because honestly I've gotten by fine with this chip for years. It's only very recently that I've felt it's holding me back what so ever. I'm definitely over-due an upgrade (particularly from DDR2) but this chip is the baseline for comparison.
The new chips have to justify their cost against my Q8200 and at least make an argument that I'll see a tangible improvement in my day to day life. If they can't do that then I'll most likely be aiming for a more expensive build at a later date.
I leave the rest up to you guys.
FIGHT!
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