Super Budget PC need help deciding between older CPUs

[BigO99]

So, I'm building a PC for a friend who can't quite afford one and games on his old and hot laptop. Being a younger guy I wasn't around for a few of my options hehe so I'm looking for advice.

-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 $30 paired with GIGABYTE GA-G41MT-S2PT $50

-Phenom II is the X2 555 $10 paired with ASUS M4A87TD $50

-Anything anyone else would recommend that is anywhere from 50-80 dollars.

*Will be paired with a R9 370 I had laying around and 8GB of DDR3 Ram I also had laying around*

Thank you so much to anyone that takes the time to reply to such a unique situation.

 

[Supernova1138]

Of those two choices, I'd probably take the QX6700 due to higher core count if the Phenom II is the X2 555. If the Phenom II is the X4 955, get that as it is a bit more modern and clocked higher out of the box. There is no X2 955, so I don't know whether what you're looking at is a dual core or quad core.

I'd strongly recommend just having him save up some more money to get something more modern though, like the Pentium G4560, which retails for $65 and will absolutely smoke either of those two really outdated CPUs. The only drawback to the Pentium is you'd have to get DDR4 RAM with it.

 

[need4speeds]

The G4560 matches the i3, it's 2 cores with HT. It's single core speed is great but the real quad cores still keep up with the i3 when it's a multi threaded app or game.

-Kabylake only works with windows 10 or linux so it's a big fail for a retro gaming system that is likely to run windows XP or 7 dual boot. (Or reuse a existing OS to save money.)

Most boards that have ACC can unlock 1 or 2 cores with the PhenomII X2 555. A crossfire board would be good since later on a 2nd 370 would double your gaming speed in games that support crossfire.

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/1174544
A6-3650@3.56ghz/HD-7850. This should be very close to a PhenomII X4 955@3.6ghz/370 (close to a HD-7850).
(This benchmark does not support crossfire so my 2nd HD-7850 at the time sat idle)

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6700-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-955/m3748vs2935
Q6700 vs. X4-955.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6700-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X2-555/m3748vsm2917
Q6700 vs. X2-555.

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/3166815
My latest with A6-3650\GTX970.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/18577975

Then Sandybridge came out...
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-980/619vsm5445
Kabylake G4560.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4560-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-980/3892vsm5445
..Bulldozers sure are big slow moving machines..
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-FX-8120-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-980/m173vsm5445

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-920-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-980/1981vsm5445
i7-920 vs. X4-980. (assuming the i7-920 is on a locked oem board and the 955 overclocks to a 980)

 

[need4speeds]

I found it. It should be close to a OC X4-955\370 crossfire combo.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8579325
7,000points HD-7850 crossfire vs. 8915 with a GTX970.

The recommended mid-range gaming PC is a Intel Core i5-4590 Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 at 9271 points. Yes this means that every game runs fast and smooth at 1080p at mostly maxed out settings.