FX or i5 (Again)?

[Austiin]

So I've finalized my two options:

FX-4100 on M5A97
8GB RAM 1600
HD 6870 1GB GDDR5
CX500 PSU

or

i5-2400
8GB RAM 1600
HD 6770 1GB GDDR5
CX500 PSU

It's around the same price for both builds, with the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, so which one is better for BF3, Skyrim, and Fallout?

 

[shell shocke]

could you lower your 6870 to a 6850 and then with that cash get a 2400? or no if not go with the 2nd one, I'd go with 2nd one IMO

 

[Austiin]

could you lower your 6870 to a 6850 and then with that cash get a 2400? or no if not go with the 2nd one, I'd go with 2nd one IMO

No, Intel motherboards sell for a lot more than AMD boards, so downgrading the 6870 to a 6850 won't make much of a price difference. And why the second build, is it better for gaming even though it has the worse of the two video cards?

 

[kajabla]

The first one is definitely better for gaming now; the issue is upgrading.

If you get a good CPU (Microcenter has the 2500K for $180!), you won't have to upgrade it the next one or two times you up your graphics hardware. If you go 2120 (I'd choose that for the first build), you'll have better performance now but have to upgrade your CPU sooner.

 

[Tavo_Nova]

well first if your just gaming go with the i5 and 2nd, if your doing programs, still go with the i5, imo i don't see any good upgrade with the FX-4100 at least, if it was a 6 core i would have understand you putting it there if you use any programs that utilize it.

 

[a4mula]

Just drop to the i3-2120. It's still going to outperform the 4100. With it you could make the move to the 6850/6870. As far as am3 boards being cheaper than 1155 boards, that's not entirely true. You don't need a Z68 board for the non-K processors. H61 boards can be had for $60. H67 which supports SATA 6gb/s can be had for about the same.

 

[mfj1985]

Just drop to the i3-2120. It's still going to outperform the 4100. With it you could make the move to the 6850/6870. As far as am3 boards being cheaper than 1155 boards, that's not entirely true. You don't need a Z68 board for the non-K processors. H61 boards can be had for $60. H67 which supports SATA 6gb/s can be had for about the same.

+1

 

[Austiin]

Just drop to the i3-2120. It's still going to outperform the 4100. With it you could make the move to the 6850/6870. As far as am3 boards being cheaper than 1155 boards, that's not entirely true. You don't need a Z68 board for the non-K processors. H61 boards can be had for $60. H67 which supports SATA 6gb/s can be had for about the same.

I've already considered an i3, but I've read that games will start utilizing a third or fourth core in the near future, so wouldn't the i3, being a dual core, need to be upgraded to at least an i5 if I won't be upgrading for a long time? That's the reason why I lowered the 6870 to a 6790; to create a price gap for an i5.

 

[mfj1985]

Graphic card is way more important than processor for gaming i3 + 6870 > i5 + 6790 even in game that can use all 4 cores. The graphic cards in question arent strong enough to bottleneck either cpu.

 

[Austiin]

I'm considering the i3-2120 again, but does anyone know if games will start listing quad cores as a system requirement in order to run a game at highest settings and at optimal frames per second in the next 4 to 5 years? I'm concerned that it's not "future proof" enough as I'm not going to be upgrading in a very long time after I build this.

 

[mfj1985]

Even if they do end up having quadcore as req in 5 years, the AMD one would be way too weak anyway. get i5 2500k if u can afford else i3

 

[a4mula]

I'm considering the i3-2120 again, but does anyone know if games will start listing quad cores as a system requirement in order to run a game at highest settings and at optimal frames per second in the next 4 to 5 years? I'm concerned that it's not "future proof" enough as I'm not going to be upgrading in a very long time after I build this.

Short of some new development in coding, it's unlikely. The very nature of parallel processing means that there's not a whole lot that you can code that takes advantage of multiple cores.

As it stands today the main rendering loop is one thread. You can then make a separate thread for audio. Then you have a thread that does your AI/pathfinding. This is the atypical coding setup for the past 10 years.

The problem is that coding is very serial by nature. Do this, wait for that, if this than that.

It's tough to break these serial tasks into parallel processes because z can't be completed until y is known. Well, unfortunately y won't be known until run-time, when the user pushes a button or the AI determines it's strategy based on what's happening.

There are plenty of articles out there that show the difficulties of parallel processing and converting serial based coding into multiple threads. Maybe a new programming language, or a new concept in coding will come along that will open the flood gates, but it's been being worked on for almost 50 years now and still hasn't happened.

 

[Austiin]

Best answer selected by Austiin.