Best quad core CPU under $200

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 4, 2016

So my PC is currently running an FX 6300 and a GTX 950. I have noticed that the CPU is bottlenecking the entire system. So I have decided to upgrade but I do not know what to upgrade to. So I have decided to take to the forums for some help. Also if you can also include a compatible motherboard in the $50 to $70 price range in your answer that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the help.

Sergeant_Sneaky · Jun 4, 2016

I would personally choose the Skylake i5 6500 (It's slightly over $200, the 6400 is a bit cheaper if you need to stay under the budget) and a cheap socket 1151 motherboard like the GIGABYTE GA-H110M-S2H.

geofelt · Jun 4, 2016

The answer will depend on the types of games YOU play.

Most games are dependent on the performance of a single master core.
I might suggest a $126 i3-6100 and any lga1151 motherboard. The single core passmark rating is 2102.
It is dual core with two added hyperthreads.

Your FX-6300 is actually triple core with some very good hyperthreads.
It has a single thread rating of 1408.

ASROCK has announced non "K" overclocking on some new motherboard.
You might look into that.

Here are some tests you can make.

) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

The best <$ 200 quad might be the i5-6400@2.7.
Note that the i3-6100 clock is 3.7 so it pays to know what you actually need.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 4, 2016

If i knew it was a triple core CPU then I probably would not have bought it. I play many FPS games such as Heroes and Generals and Battlefield 4 and Bad Company 2. I also play city builders like Cities Skylines. I am planning on buying the Rainbow Six Siege starter pack when it goes on sale. Also the problem with me getting a Skylake CPU is that I will not be able to keep my RAM from the 6300 as the RAM is DDR3. By the way I currently do not have any sort of overclock on the CPU.

synphul · Jun 4, 2016

If you want to keep your ddr3 ram there's nothing wrong with haswell i3's or i5's. The 4590 is a pretty solid i5 within your budget. i3's do well for what they are but despite having slightly higher core speeds in some cases they're dual core, not quad core cpu's. It's a toss up, in some games there's little difference, in others like witcher 3 the i3 will drop fps all over the place compared to an i5. To be expected comparing a $100 cpu to a $200 cpu.

The fx 6xxx is not a triple core cpu, it's a 6 core. It also doesn't use hyper threading, hyper threading is an intel technology that allows the cpu cores to process consecutive threads to keep the cpu core busier rather than waiting for a stalled thread to finish. The fx has 6 actual processing cores however they share a number of resources like cache and floating point processing units. In the end it's easier to compare real world results rather than get caught up in the details, end results are what will ultimately matter. Just thought I'd help clarify about the fx.

Some game benchmarks

http://www.hardwarepal.com/best-cpu-gaming-9-processors-8-games-tested/

For games like cities skylines, rainbow siege six etc a decent dual core like the i3 will do fairly well. Bf4 does better with a quad core like the i5.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 6, 2016

Is this a good deal? http://www.microcenter.com/product/432161/Core_i5-4590_33GHz_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor Core i5 4590 for $159.99. If it is then can someone recommend a motherboard for it.

Ecky · Jun 6, 2016

That's a great deal.

You can use that CPU in any socket 1150 board. H81 chipset will be a great basic board, but will only have 2 RAM slots. H97- and Z97-based boards will have 4 RAM slots, and probably some other features like more USB ports, but will cost a bit more. I tend to prefer ASRock because they're a great compromise between cost and reliability, but MSI, Asus and Gigabyte are all good brands too.

SoNic67 · Jun 6, 2016

geofelt :

That's a fallacy that I keep seeing around here. I don't know where is coming from, last game that was single core it was launched around 10 years ago.

The game engines are made to work well on consoles, because that's the money shot. Since PS3/XBOX 360 generation (that had multiple CPU cores), all the games tried to use all those cores for obvious reasons.

Games today have as minimum a 4-6 thread capability and most scale even higher, to 8 cores. Why? Because PS4 has TWO 4 core CPU's and Xbox One has the same AMD Jaguar APU with dual quad CPU's.
That's 8 pure cores, no HT! Sure, they are AMD, and only 1.75GHz, but anyway multi-threaded. All the games ported on PC first have to work well on that 8 core CPU.
Don't even try to say that the main core do anything else on a console. PS4 includes a secondary ARM processor (with separate 256 MiB of RAM) to assist with background functions and OS features. That's a luxury that PC doesn't have, it almost needs a full core just for that.

My suggestion - a six core Xeon CPU with a compatible motherboard.

captaincharisma · Jun 6, 2016

if all games still worked on one core only, the system requirements of games would be a lot lower even on recommended specs

Ecky · Jun 6, 2016

Although most games can make use of additional hardware threads, the distribution of load is not even. Most game engines (even in games ported from consoles!) lean heavily on 1-3 threads.

XBox One port:

SoNic67 · Jun 6, 2016

If you had just one core, it would be maxed out long time ago. The four or even six cores are used as good as possible considering that there are tasks that cannot be paralleled perfectly - but having more cores always helps.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 7, 2016

Also if I decide not to upgrade now, in about how long will my FX 6300 be obsolete?

Ecky · Jun 7, 2016

Really depends. There are some older games which already struggle greatly on an FX-6300, especially MMOs and RTS, and many who play these games primarily have already ditched their FX CPUs. Most new console ports run alright, because they're designed to run on 6-core CPUs, and the current generation consoles aren't going anywhere any time soon, so I imagine most new console ports will continue to run alright; You can probably expect dips into 30's and 40's with averages at 50+ for the most part. Future RTS and MMOs will be a mixed bag, depending on their game engine. Some will run poorly, some will run well.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 7, 2016

Ecky :

I don't really play MMO's or RTS. I based my pc build around what it took to run cities skylines. The recommended CPU for that on the AMD side is the FX 6300. However there is always room for improvement. What will better suit my needs (usually play FPS ie bf4 city builders, planning on starting to play CSGO) the six core Xeon (stated earlier) or the i5 4590?

Ecky · Jun 7, 2016

Probably the i5 4590, unless you overclock the snot out of the Xeon. The i5 will have a single-threaded performance advantage over even an overclocked 1366 Xeon, and most games won't take advantage of the extra threads the Xeon has, but the Xeon can close much of the gap when overclocked. It will, of course, require a hefty cooler, a big power supply, and dump a ton of heat, but it will have a large multi-threaded performance advantage.

SoNic67 · Jun 7, 2016

What performance it has in single thread doesn't matter, none of the CPU's will be maxed out on a single thread. That's visible even for the i3 above. The games ARE multithreaded, and even if the threads are not equal (they cannot be), splitting the load on multiple cores always helps. My 'lame' not-OC Xenon CPU never reaches even 60% on any core in Fallout 4 - at ultra settings, 1920x1080. At it's cost on eBay was 1/2 of a new i5-4590.
If there is one core that can do the task, that gets loaded. If not, the other cores gets work too. Look again at the graphs - i3 gets loaded equally on the 2 cores/4threads while the mighty i7 has one core loaded (not even HT) and the rest almost idle.

So why hype about that?

Ecky · Jun 7, 2016

How much was the 1366 motherboard?

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 7, 2016

About $150. Sadly that plus $90 is more that the i5 4590 with a good ASRock H97 board(remember that I am going looking at the micro center price for the i5 which is $159.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 11, 2016

So I have been reading about the new AMD X4 880k Athlon CPU. I found an ASRock FATALITY motherboard in the FM2+ socket with the A88x chipset. Would this duo out perform the FX6300?

Ecky · Jun 11, 2016

No, it's a regression in performance. The i5 6500 is about 60-75% faster per clock than the Athlon x4. The FX-6300 is very slightly slower per clock (0-10%) but has 50% more cores than the 880K and probably overclocks better.

There is no real upgrade from AMD for you; it's pretty much i3 or i5.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 11, 2016

Now I would like this to be put out there, I am in no way going to upgrade to an i3, sorry i3 fans. The cheapest i5 duo for me is $220(h97 board with i5 4590).

Ecky · Jun 11, 2016

Then there is no upgrade for you under $200.

The i3 is very significantly faster than an FX-6300 in games though, and just about tied in multithreaded programs such as rendering and encoding.

EDIT: From an FX-6300 to an i3 6100, you'd essentially be moving from a 3-module (6 thread) CPU to a 2-core (4-thread) CPU whose cores are in the range of 60-75% faster, so it would be an overall upgrade. The performance gains would be more from having a strong core for the master 1-2 threads that games use, and there would be no regression in multithreaded performance.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 11, 2016

How much do you think I can sell the FX and it's AMD 970 chipset motherboard on ebay for?

Ecky · Jun 11, 2016

Looks like FX-6300 are going for $85-90, and the motherboard will probably net you in the area of $50.

bluejaysfan12 · Jun 11, 2016

Would I be able to sell them for $150-$160 in a bundle? The motherboard retails for $90 new and the FX retails for $90 too. Also both of these have only been used for four months.

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