AMD FX 6100 vs Intel Core i3 or i5?

[ichilton]

Hi,

I'm going to order some parts to make a new home machine.

For both Windows and Linux (dual boot) - general applications and a load of virtualization.

Looking at the prices around, i've narrowed it down to the following:

- AMD Bulldozer FX 6100 (3.3Ghz, 6 cores, 15mb cache)

- Core i3 2130 (3.4Ghz, 2 cores, 3mb cache)

- Core i5 2500 (3.3ghz, 4 cores, 6mb cache)

The i3 seems to mostly outperform the FX6100 in the benchmarks i've seen, and uses less power so will save on "running costs" but with a motherboard with 4x RAM slots and PCI slots, is going to cost me £39 (GBP) more than the AMD.

The i5 is obviously better again but is going to cost me £44 (GBP) more than the i3 (£83 more than the AMD).

What would people recommend?

Is the i3 worth £39 more? - is the i5 worth another £44 on top of that?

How does the performance and power consumption compare in the real world?

The boards I was looking at are the Asus P8268-U LX for the Intel's or the M5A78L-M/USB3 for the AMD.

I'm going to get 8GB DDR3 initially but with the aim of upgrading to 16GB when I can afford it, hence wanting the 4 RAM slots.

Any advice from those with experience would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ian

 

[xtreme5]

if those are your options i recommend you to go with i5 it's much better option..

 

[ichilton]

Thanks - I ordered an i5 2500

Ian

 

[wizyy]

I have 6 pc's with I5 2400, 4GB DDR3 and Radeon 6870 in my cybercafe. Those run very well.
Recently I needed more PC's, but I wanted to go with a bit lower priced setups and I bought 6 pc's with AMD FX-6100, 4GB DDR3 and Radeon 6870.

Let me tell you one thing.

Games that are most popular in my cybercafe - League of Legends and Blur - run BETTER on AMD FX 6100 than on Intel I5 2400.

For example, League of Legends on the same exact settings runs up to 165fps on AMD and only up to 130fps on Intel.
Blur does not have fps indicator in-game but it's evident to anyone looking that on max setting frame rate is going below 30fps on Intel, and on AMD it's running smoothly. I don't really have time to benchmark all games with FRAPS and whatnot, but this is coming from first-hand experience. Battlefield 3 is running pretty much the same on both setups.

Therefore, if you are a gamer and value your money, consider carefully all those benchmarks and the games they run in those benchmarks. Different games "like" different CPU brands more

All in all, I'm pretty sure I will stick with AMD in the future.