Quest for a Balanced Machine

[Dagoliroberto]

So guys the dillema right now is the following: I have the opportunity to buy an i5 2400 processor and a shitty PCWare IPMH61R3 for 380 units of money (reais, but it's more simple this way). I could also get myself an i5 3570k processor and a mid end Asrock Pro4 Z77 motherboard for 1000 units of money. I'm sure the second option would perform much better, and I could even overclock it decently since I already own a Corsair A70 cooler. BUT, the price difference between these 2 is really, really big. The 620 units of money I save if I get myself the 2400 could be saved up to get me a much better video card in the future (I own a Twin Frozr III GTX 570 right now). I plan on getting a GTX 780 later, whose performance will probably be similar to the Geforce Titan. Will gaming performance be so affected by the processor difference?

 

[kiezz]

it won't effect your gaming as much as you'd think heres a comparison of the 2 processors http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/363?vs=701 the thing is the 3570k will pull ahead when it is overclocked but the thing is with a good gpu and the 2400 you could max games with 60 fps with the 3570k overclocked and the good gpu you can max games with a lot higher fps, for better gaming performance an i5 2400 with a gtx 780 will be better than an i5 3570k with a gtx 570, I can't comment on the pcware mobo ive never seen them before

 

[ericjohn004]

Get yourself the 3570k AND the good graphics card in a year or so. Why do you have to skimp on one? Your 570 graphics card is plenty enough for now so if you need a CPU upgrade get the 3570k. I wouldn't get anything that's not overclockable, I can make my 3570k a lot more powerful than a 3770k as far as single core performance and even multi threaded.

To me, the most important part of a PC is the CPU, unless all you ever do is game. So your not wasting your money by going with a 3570k. It's per core performance is second to none, literally. Stick with the 570 at least until the 700 series comes out and even then you may not need an upgrade. IDK why your contemplating an upgrade, it's not like the 570 is that old, and it's certainly powerful. But I don't really see the need to completely MAX certain games out. With my 660 Ti I get every game looking great and I'm sure a 570 will do the same.

BTW, what CPU do you have now?

 

[ericjohn004]

A great budget PC that's better than the one you listed is the FX6300. It only costs 129.99 USD and it's a pretty good all around PC if you really must spend lower than 200$ for the 3570k

 

[Dagoliroberto]

Right now I own a Phenom II X4 965 and an ECS A790GXM-AD3 Motherboard. I'm not happy about how it has been performing lately, especially on Battlefield 3 Multiplayer. It also runs really hot, reaching 61 degrees celsius at stock with my A70 cooler (the max temperature of it being 65).

 

[kiezz]

That seems very hot for stock settings are the ambient room temperatures high? The 965 is still capable enough especially when overclocked If its black edition although you won't be able to unless you get the temperature down, the single core performance of the 965 and the fx 6300 are very similar http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=699 it only pulls ahead a small bit in multi threaded because of the extra threads, there will be an improvement but not a massive one for the price spent if you count a new mobo and cpu, i think you should try sorting out the temperature of your current cpu and overclock it to 4ghz it should get you by nicely until the next round of cpu's come out and maybe a chance to save up a bit more

 

[Dagoliroberto]

I really don't wanna spend any more money on my CPU. Also, even with a H100 or so I'd probably get around 55 degrees celsius at max load, so why even bother... I guess I'll either wait a bit more for the Haswell 4570K or just get the i5 2400 now and save myself a good load o' money. I'm really trying to avoid AMD's FX processors since they're not single core focused. Sorry for wasting your time, guys :/

 

[Dagoliroberto]

Just to make sure... An i5 2400 does perform better than a FX 6300 @4.2GHz on GAMES, right?

 

[kiezz]

no they'd be very similar and there would be no reason you couldn't reach 4.5ghz with decent cooling on the 6300, the 6300 is around 10% better than an 965 if both at stock the 2400 is around 20% better than the 965 at stock, now you can't overclock the 2400 so can't gain any extra performance the 6300 can easily gain that extra 10% it needs to match the 2400 more than likely even more and the 965 can gain 10% leaving it just 10% behind, some games are cpu intensive and particulary single core intensive so intel cpu's will win that battle but games are turning towards being more gpu intensive with direct x11 and they will start relying on multiple threads more