Picking A Sub-$200 Gaming CPU: FX, An APU, Or A Pentium?

Another showcase of how disappointing the FX processor is in gaming terms.

the fx-8120 outperformed by the i3-2100

Given how well my 2500K (and every other 2500K) overclocks, 4.3 is a good every day top turbo bin for 4 cores, and the performance increase vs. power consumption is fantastic. I don't want to add to the chorus of negativity to Bulldozer, but the Phenom II x6 should be kicked down to 32nm soon -- I just can't really think of any reason that someone should by Bulldozer over Intel or an X6. For those that can make use of it's particular strengths, it's price is certainly reasonable. And there is a lot to like about AMD motherboards too. The Phenom might be venerable, but it's not terrible and it's a lot more honest than Bulldozer.

Does anybody else still think of Pentium 4s and the other flops that Intel created when they see "Pentium?"

So, is Pentium processors any good? Cause I think I want to upgrade my aging PC to that.

yea... personally i like numbers, like (name) (number) and that tells me all i need to know about the chip, i dont like (name) (letter-number) and than i have to look crap to figure out what it is, though the whole i series bugs me because of that.




if i had the money, id go i7, i woundt consider anything lower than that.
if i dont have the money, i would only consider the phenom II x4 or x6 line, as i prefer real cores, and the lowest real 4 core intel is over 200$ and the phenoms are 100-150ish.

granted i would wait for pilerdriver.

Now I feel I made the right choice with my Phenom X6 1100T @4Ghz, DDR3 1752Mhz CL9 CR2

this really confirms what I've been thinking about the Intel "Pentium" models flying under the radar in the budget market.

The i3-2100 is actually down to $110 on Newegg right now, but at $125 it made the Pentium models an absolute steal. You were paying nearly $40 more for .2 Ghz faster and hyper-threading compared to the G850 between $85-90. A $110 i3-2100 not only addresses this difference much better, but basically kills almost every AMD CPU above that price point, while the Pentium's kill the AMD CPU's below it.

The Phenom 2 x6's (which now appear to be all out of stock) for selective use, and maybe the FX4100 is really all AMD has left that's semi-viable anymore. IT's not looking good for AMD that's for sure. :\

A pentium outperforming an 8 core fx 8120. What.

thanks a lot for this article. cleared up a lot of things for me.
it was great to see ph ii x4 955 outperform fx in gaming. imo it's the best gaming cpu from amd. fx4100's (and the rest of fx) overclocked (under)performance was sad.
but core i3 2100 and sandy bridge pentiums...damn...
i think intel sorta turned around the old 'pentium vs fx' (for gaming) with sandy bridge pentium vs bulldozer fx.
amd must do better with piledriver and trinity. need more competition in cpu arena...

You guys have got to stop looking at AMD's A-series CPUs as mere CPUs,
you can't recommend them on a CPU-only basis....
They were built to have discrete graphics on die, which means you have to recommend them on a system performance/price basis.

@compton

There isn't, and won't ever be, a 32nm die shrink to the Phenom IIs.
Bulldozer is IT, and that's all there is to it.

Maybe Piledriver will have some improvements, but they just won't be enough. Even if they could get IPC parity with the old Phenom IIs they still get run over by Pentiums and the i3-2100.

It will be interesting to see how Trinity performs but I'd be surprised if it wasn't just Bulldozer bolted on to a better GPU; IPC improvements might be there but I doubt they'll be as good as the Phenom IIs. The fall FX releases might get them to parity.


I'd like to see what performance the Ivy Bridge i3 will have; or if Intel will (unlikely) release a K-series for it- thus ensuring that sub-200-dollar overclocking is shelved for at least another 2 years if not indefinitely.

Just a shame most of those AMD chips are not available in the stores anymore.

And no 960T? Thats about the only non FX/Llano chip left available in any numbers. That and the 2.8GHz hex core.

Glad to see my little beast i3 2100 topping the charts just under the i5's, fehhh, i made the right choice not to opt the fx cpu , meanwhile, hey, fx 4100 is not that bad at all seeing its price point, decent enough.

am i the only one noticing that they are testing 100$cpu + 500$ gpu VS 100$apu + 500$ gpu?

I do understand the reasoning behind using a HD 7970 to show off the big gap between intel and amd and to limit bottlenecks, but is it really necessary? I mean when you're on a tight budget you are going to run into one bottleneck or the other, no matter what you do so why not just use a generic $200 video card to begin with. It's not like amd will steal intel's thunder. You have to be a fanatic not to admint that intel has the faster processor no matter the price range so let the boys be boys and compete in a low level arena.

PS: Also as a side note, my own i5 2400 allows me to "overclock" (31 to 38) with no base clock increase, through a limited multiplier on the UD4 motherboard and so if Asus has this ability which i assume it does, could have posted overclocked numbers for those parts too.

Very interesting article! Upgraded to a Z68 board and bought me a cheap used i3-2100 while I wait for Ivy bridge, but I'm thoroughly impressed by the cpu, and so far is has been quite enough for me, so might not even have to upgrade for a while!

I completely agree. I've been wanting to build a somewhat light gaming machine based on these APUs but I haven't really found anyone that tests them all as they are. Instead they throw in a discrete card and scream intel is better. Though that is true with discrete graphics, I want to know how it does with the GPU on die because I know the APUs will destroy the intel CPUs when it comes to all around performance based on integrated graphics.

But I do still like this article, it was very well done.

Bought a SB Pentium like Porta to wait for IB but so good gonna upgrade the graphics card instead.

It does also prove the point though that in GPU bound games, none of these offerings really are a bottleneck (except the A4 which doesn't even belong here). Reality is though that most games out at this point are still not really optimized for multithreading. Games take years to develop, so that isn't too surprising. When some of these engines were first started, quad cores weren't even out. More games in the future should be using multi cores.

What disappoints me is actually the weak overclocks I've seen so far on the unlocked Llano. 3.6 vs 4.0 on the 955 mainly accounts for the .3 difference between them, but considering it's a lower TDP part, I'd think that Llano could be pushed a bit further than Phenom IIs. Anyway, the Llanos are brought into this because they're the only Stars based chips on a process similiar to SB chips, meaning they can actually compete on a wattage basis. Bulldozer was supposed to be the 32nm CPU part, but...well that didn't turn out as expected. It's pretty clear though that Llano performs as well as an Athlon II using less energy, so they could have likely had the same results from a Phenom II on a 32nm process.

Anyway, Ivy isn't going to be a major improvement in CPU performance, it's a wattage reduction/better IGP upgrade. Piledriver has a lot of room for improvement, so hopefully they manage to fix everything wrong so far and get a solution that runs well. If AMD drops out of the market, we won't be discussing sub 200 processors much longer.

I'd like to see some GPU scaling with CPU too. As a side note, I was sad to see the G530 not up there. It's only $50 and should be hanging with the more expensive and soon to be extinct Athlon II's. To me that is the only CPU in the Intel range that puts enough $$$ between it and an i5-2500K to really be worth looking at.