Cpu for low end gaming pc

[bige420]

Alright, i'm working on a lower end build for my brother, hes got about a $500-$550 budget. I'm quite sure i'm going to be getting him a HD 4770 for the video card, and at first I planned on getting him a E5300, but then I noticed that the Athlon X2 7850 was around the same price, and I'm just wondering which one he would get better performance out of. He probably wouldnt be doing any overclocking unless I did it for him, so stock performance is probably more important.

 

[joefriday]

Anandtech.com has the article for you.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3554&p=9

 

[bige420]

Alright, after reading that i'm really split on the decision. The E5300 is better in mostly everything, except for gaming, and even then its not far behind. But I could always bump up the multiplier on the 7850 to give some more performance. Do you think i would see a difference in normal applications between the two, like surfing the internet and just general quickness of the computer?

 

[gkay09]

Well I doubt you would see any significant difference in those 2 CPUs in the real world apps...
Get any of those CPUs if you are planning to run at stock speeds...But am inclined to suggest the AMD because it would give you an option to upgrade to a newer Phenom part later as those CPUs are backwards compatible...
Get the intel if you want to overclock as E5300 would overclock well compared to the 7850...

 

[ainarssems]

Yep. E5300 for overclocking, 7850 for better future upgradability.

 

[Ciuy]

get 7850, e5300 and its kind, their socket is dead.
AM2 lives on with am3 compatibility