Phenom x4 965 vs intel i3 3220 Gaming

i would get the phenom with a am3+ board since the 965 is selling for $85 at newegg right now
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Honestly the budget/price difference doesn't bother me, I just want best performance. Do you know how big of a difference it is between the phenom and the i3?

Go Phenom II x4. It handles well in Battlefield 3:
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-perfor...
Although the 965 model is not included, you still can see where it would fit in. I'd guess the 3220 would perform almost the same, or an insignificant difference.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-4170-core-i3-322...

If budget doesn't bother you too much, then why not bump up to a i5-3350p or i5-3470 ?

the i3 does better in most games but the phenom can be overclocked to match/come close to its performance. In real life the difference will be minimal if not non-detectable. And it is definitely not worth a $40+ premium

Also, I have another question which was kind of bothering me alot.. Will the Phenom II X4 965 bottleneck a HD 7870?

Not really it won't
A 965 is still a very capable CPU

no it wont bottleneck. thats a mid-range graphics card.

also if money isnt a problem, then why not spend a bit more on a i5?

and at the $130 range the fx 6300 is great. games like battlefield 3 actually utilizes the extra cores.

I heard that the Fx 6xxx series is just 3cores/6threads. If they're 6 physical cores, i'd get them for sure 100%.

Thank you, I was really worried about this.

Hey guys, this is the build I'm getting http://pcpartpicker.com/p/EIWE
Is my power supply good enough? on pcpartpicker it says estimated 394W but I plan to overclock a bit.
Also, do you think there are any incompatibilities or anything with this build?

Thx

Everything looks fine. Just don't forget to get a better cooler if you want to overclock the 965. And I
think you should overclock it to get more for your money. It is easy to do and can be done safely with
a little reading beforehand.
This is a good one for $24.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

If price doesnt bother you, and you want to overclock, I would get a FX-6300. The only reason to grab a Phenom II X4 965 is if your on a $100 CPU budget, or you want to wait for Steamroller, and save the extra $50 or so dollars, and get a better CPU down the line.

Also, I would get this Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

You seem to want 1866, so I found that.

Typically the FX-6300 is around $45 more than the 965BE. The Phenom II X4 965BE has been an awesome CPU for years. Also, the OP is trying to stay in a budget given choices he/she made. I think his choices have been great for the value.

I would go with the i3-3220, it has a lower power consumption and it's a better cpu, usually it's 120$(in ncix us), it's more ~30$ than the x4 but it's worth, you don't need to spend much on a motherboard, the asrock B75M-DGS in newegg will do for just 58$.
You need a good motherboard for overclocking the x4 965 be, the lower am3+ motherboard are terrible with low power phases, low quality mosfets and no vrm cooling, so you need a decent board with the 970 chipset and within ~80$, and a cooler(20$-30$), when you do the maths, the i3 is cheaper.
So in this case i'd go with the i3-3220.

Here's some useful benchmark :



And this : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-fr...

^+1

also, you haven't answered (I don't think) why you can't spend the extra say $50/60 on an i5? I'd say it's well worth it.. and at least with the intel platform you have an upgrade path that poses a significant improvement.

I just watched a video by teksyndicate showing that the FX 8350 is better than an i5 3570k !!    

http://teksyndicate.com/videos/amd-fx-8350-vs-intel-357...

I'm actually gonna go for an 8350 because of that

also that picture the guy posted above is probably misleading.. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-rev...

$85 CPU to $200 CPU! That's a big change. At that price I'd get a i5-3470. Why AMD at that price?

The 3570k outperforms the 8350 in most comparisons.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/697?vs=701

Thanks for providing teksyndicate link. Good site.

The only games that I have seen AMD beat Intel in is Deus Ex, and Crysis 3, where it actually beat the i7 3770k. The problem with buying a cheap Intel motherboard, is that you get a chipset other then z77. Z77 is your key to overclocking, so if you would like a k series processor after buying your i3, then you would need a new mobo.

1) Depends on which CPU, i3 i5 FX.... I believe their is a case for AMD CPUs.
2) Z77 Overclocks. H77 does not.
3) i3 CPUs do not overclock well at all. You can, but it is not worth it. If you want to overclock you need at least a 3570k,
which costs $225. However, you can overclock a $125 AMD CPU. This is a big difference and why AMD is the best at
budget builds.(in my opinion)

I couldn't of said it any better  

It's not misleading because the toms hardware is a single player benchmark, you need to look for the BF3 MP, which much more cpu demanding than single player, and that benchmark was a mp cpu bench(the one i linked), and no, the FX-8350 doesn't beat the i5-3570k, it's curious because that's the only place were it says it beats the i5 when all the reviews shows otherwise, the misleading part is the teksyndicate benchmarks, it's clearly biased.
That being said, it will all depend on what gpu you'll have, don't spend too much on a cpu if you can't afford a good card, the i3 beats the x4 965 even with it overclocked, and the point of the i3 is it doesn't need an aftermarket cooler or to be overclocked(it cannot be) or a mid end board, a b75 will do and it will have a much lower power consumption.
For the X4 965 you need a decent motherboard around 80$ for overclock and the aftermarket cooler.

Ok, so I bumped down some other stuff in my build to get a better CPU/GPU, and these are my 2 options..
FX 8320 with HD 7870, or i5 3570k with HD 7850?

I would get the i5-3350p for 170$ : http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=75435&promoid=1302 + h77 motherboard : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
For just ~240$.

or the FX-8320 : http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=76933&promoid=1302
+ motherboard with the 970 chipset : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
For 258$.

And that will leave a margin for the 7870, in both, if you can afford the 7870 tahiti le with either of those two, it's a good option, either the intel or amd side, if you can't, you can always get the FX-6300...

If you want to reach Ultra levels in games at 1080p then you should grab a 7870. I know it's not cheap but you need a little more than a 7850 to run at max settings.

The teksyndicate video is interesting, but there is a wealth of information that points more to the i5 being better. I'd feel more confident in a i5. Like djangoringo said, the multiplayer BF is more demanding than single player, and it is hard to accurately benchmark this. Teksyndicate didn't explain enough details how they obtained scores.

For more budget build: i5-3470 + H77
For more performance: i5-3570k + Z77 + CoolerMaster Evo
The price difference is probably ~$70-85

The thing that is making me going to the AMD side is that the steamroller is going to be on AM3+, and possibly more after that.
Haswell is going to be released on an lga1150 (Idk if its LGA 1150, but It's different then the current one).

On teksyndicates video, the thing that made me think a little is how the 3570k with a gtx 670 on Far Cry 3 only got 30 fps.. While the 8350 got like 50+fps... Hmm.... I'm starting to think it's all bull.. I see in your sig that you have a 660 ti and an i5-2500k. Have you tried Far Cry 3 with that computer?

Haswell is expected in June, but when will people get their hands on one ..guessing July. Yes, it will be 1150. In the mean time, Ivy bridge is still great.

I have played Far Cry 3 and I get way higher than 30fps. I run it on Ultra but I think I turned down AA a bit and used VSync (beyond 60fps who cares..my monitor can't go higher). None the less, I ran Fraps and it looks like a low of 30fps and a high of 70fps. The average is probably 45-50 range. It is very playable. FC3 is very heavy on GPU. On a side note, my GPU usually never exceeds 64C in BF3, but in FC3 my GPU reaches 74C. The game is more GPU dependent. Why did they report such low values? I don't know. I would have expected them to have done better than my setup.

I finally made up my mind, im going for the 8320- but I have a question (hopefully you can answer it).
Do I need a 990FX chipset to use the 83xx series? What does the 990FX do that the 970 chipset doesn't?

The 8320 will be a good CPU. Sometimes there is too much debate at which is better when both choices are considered good in the first place.

For one GPU the 970 is better. If you wanted to Crossfire and have a second GPU then the 990FX is better.
Just buy a 970.

BTW, if you live near a Microcenter, you can get a 8320+ 970 Extreme 4 = $220. Awesome deal!
http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.as...

Are u going to overclock if u go 8320? a good board is a gigabyte 970a ud3, has 8+2 power phase for around $105

Most places have the 8350 for only $20 more than the 8320

Either GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 or the ASUS M5A97 r2.0 . The Asus would leave me $10 extra    

I'll probably go for the gigabyte though for the extra power phase.

And Yes I will overclock, that is exactly why I chose the 8320 over the 8350. Gonna try 4.3-4.5 ghz with an aftermarket cooler of course.

Thx

No question. Definitely the GA-970A-UD3. Much better overclock (8+4 vs 4+1) and has everything the Asus has.

I think the Asus mobo has 4+2 power phase. BUT I just went on newegg and 70% of most recent reviews are people complaining about open boxes and broken parts   I know someone who overclocked their FX 6300 on an Asrock mobo with a 4+1 power phase to 4.6 ghz. I'm probably going for the ASUS mobo because of the reviews on the Gigabyte mobo  

Don't use Newegg feedback for reviews. Just use it as a general gauge of satisfaction. And according to the numbers, 76% of Gigabyte owners gave it 4+ eggs. Of the Asus owners, only 62% gave it 4+ rating.

The Asus is cheaper for a reason. It is not as feature rich as the Gigabyte.

I think we're looking at different motherboards    
Canadian new egg - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681...
US new egg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

80% of the ratings are 4+ eggs  

Went back and checked. There are 2 Asus boards that are the same except for their "Item #" n "Model #"on US website.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit...

I would get this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Msi boards are getting some praise right now for their prices, and build quality, it also has CF/SLI option, and 6 SATA 3 ports. I also assume that it is a 4+1 power phase, but you should still be able to hit like 4.3-4.5Ghz.