AMD FX-4170 Vs. Intel Core i3-3220: Which ~$125 CPU Should You Buy?
AMD has the clock rate on its side. But Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture boasts superior IPC throughput. We pit the 4.2 GHz FX-4170 against Intel's new 3.3 GHz Core i3-3220 in an effort to determine which CPU is the better buy for $125.
Benchmark Results: Synthetics
Particularly when we use 3DMark 11's Extreme preset, the overall suite score is almost entirely dependent on graphics performance, and so the benchmark turns back near-identical results.
The Physics subtest, however, is very much processor-bound. Because the Core i5 shows up to this fight with four x86 cores, the threaded metric hands it a decisive win. The two quad-threaded models are more evenly matched.
SiSoftware's Sandra diagnostic puts the FX-4170 and Core i3-3220 fairly close together in several measurements as well. The one exception is Sandra's Multi-Media Int x16 iSSE4.1 test, where four integer clusters help facilitate theoretical performance close to what a Core i5 is able to achieve.
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Prev Page Test System And Benchmarks Next Page Benchmark Results: Audio And Video ConversionDon Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.