AMD or Intel. mid-range gaming pc

[Layarion]

Phenom II 1090t hexacore 3.2Ghz
Asus Crosshair Formula iv
G.skill Sniper SSD 120GB SATA II
WD 500GB 7,200 HDD
8GB of G.Skill Sniper 1333
Crossfire setup of 1GB Radeon HD 6870
Blu-Ray reader/cd thing
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W
HAF-X

the above was my first pc built ever, i built it in 2011 and now i want to get a new CPU and motherboard. after experiencing this built i feel that getting a 6core cpu was a major mistake, so i think this time i will get a 4core cpu and try to get more performance on the clock rate.

i want to note that this build makes me want to experience intel cpu's because i feel sluggish on this machine even as i type it's not performing as i thought it would. the computer has been recently wiped so it's not malware or anything. i also intend on increasing my ram for RAMdisk because i now have a use for one.

why i posted here:
i'm leaning towards intel, however i just want the best cpu i can get for snappy websurfing and general thigns and best performance for games.

here are two cpu's im seriously looking at:

AMD FX-4350 Vishera 4.2GHz ($129)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113326

Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz ($239)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899

i'm also wondering if i should get a 4.1ghz A10 processor, or get a core i3.

to me it seems the FX would whip the i5's butt, but i heard it's the IPC that counts? maybe it's not what it seems. i don't know if i'll overclock yet, but lets assume i wont, if i did however nothing extreme just an affordable liquid cooling all in one system for the cpu maybe.

would it be a mistake to get a haswell? maybe i should just get a 3rd gen?

 

[BSim500]

An FX-4350 is more like an i3 than an i5:-
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/screenshots/original/2013/05/Test-FX-6350-FX-4350-Skyrim.png
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/screenshots/original/2013/05/Test-FX-6350-FX-4350-Anno.png

If that's the low-end budget you're aiming for a better Intel comparison would be vs an i3-3220 / i3-4330. IPC does still count hugely because it scales far more than extra cores. On heavily multi-threaded games Intel i5 & AMD FX-8350 are almost even but on lesser well threaded games, Intel's are much faster:-
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5

A10's are slower all round. 3rd-gen i5-3570K is still a good choice for many with a base clock of 3.4Ghz they also have a minimum +1GHz OC overhead with a cheap air cooler like the 212 EVO. They also use about 100w less electricity for the same performance.

 

[8350rocks]

I would say go with the FX 8350 for $179 and be done with it.

 

[MEC-777]

Phenom II 1090t hexacore 3.2Ghz
Asus Crosshair Formula iv
G.skill Sniper SSD 120GB SATA II
WD 500GB 7,200 HDD
8GB of G.Skill Sniper 1333
Crossfire setup of 1GB Radeon HD 6870
Blu-Ray reader/cd thing
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W
HAF-X

the above was my first pc built ever, i built it in 2011 and now i want to get a new CPU and motherboard. after experiencing this built i feel that getting a 6core cpu was a major mistake, so i think this time i will get a 4core cpu and try to get more performance on the clock rate.

i want to note that this build makes me want to experience intel cpu's because i feel sluggish on this machine even as i type it's not performing as i thought it would. the computer has been recently wiped so it's not malware or anything. i also intend on increasing my ram for RAMdisk because i now have a use for one.

why i posted here:
i'm leaning towards intel, however i just want the best cpu i can get for snappy websurfing and general thigns and best performance for games.

here are two cpu's im seriously looking at:

AMD FX-4350 Vishera 4.2GHz ($129)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113326

Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz ($239)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899

i'm also wondering if i should get a 4.1ghz A10 processor, or get a core i3.

to me it seems the FX would whip the i5's butt, but i heard it's the IPC that counts? maybe it's not what it seems. i don't know if i'll overclock yet, but lets assume i wont, if i did however nothing extreme just an affordable liquid cooling all in one system for the cpu maybe.

would it be a mistake to get a haswell? maybe i should just get a 3rd gen?

The FX-4350 and i5-4670k are drastically different. The i5 will absolutely smoke the FX-4350. The only FX CPU that can compete with the i5-4670k is the FX-8350.

If you're at all serious about gaming performance and will be running discreet graphics card(s), then don't bother with any of the APU's (A10's).

As the others have mentioned, the FX-4350 and A10 APU's are more on par with core i3's.

What is your total budget and what all components are you looking to upgrade?

 

[logainofhades]

Honestly, your CPU is still fairly decent. A good cooler and an overclock would help. With that SSD, it should feel snappier than if you were using the HDD. That HDD is a bottleneck and will make things seem sluggish if you are trying to access files and programs from it. No CPU really is going to offer much improvement for you there. For games, I would upgrade the GPU to at least a GTX 760 or an HD 7950.

 

[Layarion]

I would say go with the FX 8350 for $179 and be done with it.

i did a comparison at cpu-world and it says the intel is 53% faster in single threaded task, i play several single threaded games so this is a major concern to me. it seems i will be getting an intel cpu

 

[Layarion]

Phenom II 1090t hexacore 3.2Ghz
Asus Crosshair Formula iv
G.skill Sniper SSD 120GB SATA II
WD 500GB 7,200 HDD
8GB of G.Skill Sniper 1333
Crossfire setup of 1GB Radeon HD 6870
Blu-Ray reader/cd thing
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W
HAF-X

the above was my first pc built ever, i built it in 2011 and now i want to get a new CPU and motherboard. after experiencing this built i feel that getting a 6core cpu was a major mistake, so i think this time i will get a 4core cpu and try to get more performance on the clock rate.

i want to note that this build makes me want to experience intel cpu's because i feel sluggish on this machine even as i type it's not performing as i thought it would. the computer has been recently wiped so it's not malware or anything. i also intend on increasing my ram for RAMdisk because i now have a use for one.

why i posted here:
i'm leaning towards intel, however i just want the best cpu i can get for snappy websurfing and general thigns and best performance for games.

here are two cpu's im seriously looking at:

AMD FX-4350 Vishera 4.2GHz ($129)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113326

Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz ($239)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899

i'm also wondering if i should get a 4.1ghz A10 processor, or get a core i3.

to me it seems the FX would whip the i5's butt, but i heard it's the IPC that counts? maybe it's not what it seems. i don't know if i'll overclock yet, but lets assume i wont, if i did however nothing extreme just an affordable liquid cooling all in one system for the cpu maybe.

would it be a mistake to get a haswell? maybe i should just get a 3rd gen?

The FX-4350 and i5-4670k are drastically different. The i5 will absolutely smoke the FX-4350. The only FX CPU that can compete with the i5-4670k is the FX-8350.

If you're at all serious about gaming performance and will be running discreet graphics card(s), then don't bother with any of the APU's (A10's).

As the others have mentioned, the FX-4350 and A10 APU's are more on par with core i3's.

What is your total budget and what all components are you looking to upgrade?

my budget is $1640, i'm not looking to spend it all - but for the right reasons I might. i plan on upgrading from a multi gpu setup to a high end single gpu setup such as a GTX770 because crossfire did not have the performance gain i thought it would and wish i could rewind two years. which also means i need a new motherboard for the cpu.

then i want 16gb or 32 gigs of ram for a RAMdisk. not 100% sure i will do that, but ram is much less of a commitment - so easy to upgrade.

i looked up the 8350 fx on cpu-world and it's single threaded performance is lacking. it seems i will get an intel after all. i still wonder if i should go sandy, ivy, or haswell

 

[Layarion]

Honestly, your CPU is still fairly decent. A good cooler and an overclock would help. With that SSD, it should feel snappier than if you were using the HDD. That HDD is a bottleneck and will make things seem sluggish if you are trying to access files and programs from it. No CPU really is going to offer much improvement for you there. For games, I would upgrade the GPU to at least a GTX 760 or an HD 7950.

i wanted to upgrade the GPU, but those are PCIe 3.0, my motherboard is 2.0 so wouldn't that be counter productive?

i have windows and everyday things on my SSD, and just a select few games. the ssd needs to be serviced for poor garbage collection, but with my OS on there i just haven't got up to seeing how to do that yet. something I've just been avoiding even though write speeds are half of what they should be now.

wold it have been bette to put windows on the hdd and common programs/games on the SDD to put less stress on the bandwidth of the ssd?

 

[logainofhades]

There is not a single GPU graphics solution out there that will saturate a PCI-E 2.0 slot. Not even an HD 7970 or GTX 680 is affected.

 

[8350rocks]

Get an i5 4670k an i5 4670k oc to 4ghz is equivalent to an fx8350 at 4.4ghz. in multithreaded performance. Haswell has 2.1x ipc over piledriver. AMD have old platform and memory bandwidth hence why intel cpus feel like rockets setting off when its multitasking while amd cpu with old memory controller feel like 5 year old machines. An fx8350 for example is equivalent to a 7 year old 2.4ghz core 2 duo on single threaded performance. Nowadays a haswell at 1.8ghz is similar to an fx8350 at single threaded performance.

...

"Which brings me to my next point kids...don't smoke crack!"

 

[No2rdame]

I would say go with the FX 8350 for $179 and be done with it.

i did a comparison at cpu-world and it says the intel is 53% faster in single threaded task, i play several single threaded games so this is a major concern to me. it seems i will be getting an intel cpu

If you bought the 8350 you would still save $60 over the Intel chip you mentioned and you could apply that extra cash toward an SSD, which would speed things up considerably. Of course, for gaming you should consider an upgraded GPU as was previously suggested.

I don't think for what you want to accomplish just changing out to an Intel chip will really do that much compared to adding other components.

 

[Layarion]

I would say go with the FX 8350 for $179 and be done with it.

i did a comparison at cpu-world and it says the intel is 53% faster in single threaded task, i play several single threaded games so this is a major concern to me. it seems i will be getting an intel cpu

If you bought the 8350 you would still save $60 over the Intel chip you mentioned and you could apply that extra cash toward an SSD, which would speed things up considerably. Of course, for gaming you should consider an upgraded GPU as was previously suggested.

I don't think for what you want to accomplish just changing out to an Intel chip will really do that much compared to adding other components.

i have a 120gb ssd, but even so - that wouldn't improve performance on single threaded games like ROTMG. which is a flash game, so a harddrive wont help me there. it is a flashgame that came out before flash supported gpus or multi threads. it is an MMO that i enjoy and getting an extra boost would make me happy.

if the results cpu world posted are accurate, then really i don't want to pick anything else.

 

[Layarion]

There is not a single GPU graphics solution out there that will saturate a PCI-E 2.0 slot. Not even an HD 7970 or GTX 680 is affected.

if that's true, then that's fantastic! ill look into this and maybe get that GTX770 after all. seems to be true, thanks!

i still hate my non-gaming performance though, so i think i'll replace the cpu anyway. however now i can enjoy a new card now, and get the cpu later.

 

[Layarion]

i ordered an msi gtx 770 for 399, ill update the cpu and motherboard later. now for the wait of delivery /sigh and in the end I'm going with Intel this time

 

[MEC-777]

Since you're not upgrading from a previous generation Intel, then might as well go with the latest platform and go with Haswell.

You're budget is more than enough to get to top-tier components. Enjoy!