Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
for the money the i3 kicks ass and AMD always has problems in games with their cpu/gpu so I stay away from them
He's not the one whos the idiot, ...
Frostbite 3 AMD optimized, Crysis 3 AMD optimized, 6300 beating 3220 hands down everywhere, silly 2 core processor has been dead in the water ever since it was announced that new consoles will have amd processors. Planetside 2 AMD and multi-core optimized.
Stop doing this, stop baiting and tricking people into wasting money on Intel, when those people want good cost to perfomance ratio. If you're being payed by Intel to do this, can't you let one hard working guy get a better machine for less money for once.
Haven't you helped Intel scam and trick enough people already ?
Enough is Enough, AMD is coming back in full force and Nvidia and Intel are gonna take the backseat once more, ...
Don't worry, the guy lost all credibility when he called Quiz an idiot.. truly a facepalm moment
That comes to $630.63, including sales tax, but before shipping and rebates. I'm not sure what shipping is, nor how you feel about rebates. If you need to bring that price tag down some, then get a cheaper video card:
Personally, I'd lean toward spending more on the processor and less on the video card up front, as a video card is much easier to upgrade later, but you strike me as the sort of person who knows up front that you're never going to upgrade.
Everything above seems to be quite golden, except for the CPU/Motherboard. AM3 Mobo = Future FX-Series Processors Piledriver/Ex/Beyond will use an AM3 socket board. If you choose wisely you can eventually upgrade to a better processor down the road with AM3. Intel CPU's are known to be quite pricey, which is why AMD is the way to go if you're on a budget. The best FX-Series processor is the 8350 which has the power of a Intel-i5.
Just in case you want to upgrade - Future Proof yourself with an AM3+ Motherboard 970+
I actually own a 4100 FX-Series Processor, and I'm able to run every single game very well. The processor he has listed is slightly better than the one I own. The bigger your screen/resolution the better the graphics card you will need, to keep that FPS up.
DO NOT SKIMP OUT on a graphics card - anything FX-4100 and above will do you excellent! or the FM2/Amd Athlon....
Keep in mind - I did NOT calculate the prices together - Nor the Taxes!
When I started on the build, I went with an FX-6350 together with an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard. But then once it got time to add the video card at the end, the fastest I could pick and stay strictly within budget was a Radeon HD 7750. For personal use, I'd actually sooner go that route, as it's easy to upgrade a video card later. But the original poster doesn't seem likely to upgrade his computer later if he's relying on an employer to pay for it and not willing to go a penny over the stated budget. I decided that it was better to put more money into the video card at the expense of giving up a CPU upgrade path that wouldn't have been used anyway.
As for an optical drive, if that's the only thing you're taking out of an old computer, then the old computer is likely worth more intact.
Haha, I will let you be the judge. My current computer is a Gateway with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 ghz processor, 2 GB of 533 MHz RAM, a 235w PSU, and an NVidia 520 GT graphics card, all running good old Windows Vista 32-bit.
If someone would like to buy that let me know :-)
Anyway, a lot of replies to my thread, thanks. Some conflicting info making it hard for a noob like me though. (two fast cores vs 4-6 slower ones? etc.) I think I'll tough it out for a little while and try to catch individual components on really good sales?
for the money the i3 kicks ass and AMD always has problems in games with their cpu/gpu so I stay away from them
The relevant AMD competitor to the Core i3-3220 is the AMD FX-6350 together with an AMD 970 chipset motherboard. That gets you a comparable quality motherboard and essentially the same total CPU+motherboard price tag.
A Core i3-3220 will tend to beat an FX-6350 in single-threaded programs, but not by much. In programs that scale well to many cores, the FX-6350 will win in a complete slaughter. Programs that need a lot of CPU power tend to fit the latter category rather than the former.
Your link doesn't list an FX-6350, but it does list an FX-6300, which is a lower clocked version of the same thing. And the FX-6300 beats the Core i3-3220 in every single game on your link.
If you want to build a solid gaming setup i wouldnt settle for anything less than a GTX 660Ti or the AMD equivalent.
On AMD video cards i will caution you, their hardware is fantastic, but they have the worst drivers on the freaking planet. In 20 years of building PC's i've had over a dozen different AMD cards, and between me and about a dozen other computer geek friends who build our own, i can count on one hand the number of AMD cards we havent had stupid problems with.
Personally i won't buy AMD cards anymore for gaming. I've bought a couple as HTPC cards that have worked ok, but even with those i've had stupid annoying driver issues (settings that won't save, or revert back to default randomly, etc).
For processors, dual core vs quad is pretty meaningless for games. Pretty much nothing (even most professional apps) have trouble utilizing more than 2 processors threads with any real aplomb. The most important thing for gaming is at least 2 cores, and the fastest cores you can get with at least 2.
I.E. A dual core I5 at 2.4ghz would be better for gaming than a quad core i5 at 2.1ghz.
Maybe in 5 or 10 years this will change, but for now no games properly utilize multiple cores.
AMD has the worst video drivers? Have you ever tried Intel video drivers? Up until perhaps a year or so ago, I don't think anyone outside of Intel marketing had anything nice to say about Intel's video drivers.
It's interesting that you've been buying AMD video cards for 20 years when AMD didn't have much to do with graphics until 2006, and putting an AMD brand name on video cards didn't happen until late 2010.
As for the number of CPU cores available, if a game isn't threaded, you can only use one, and a second core doesn't necessarily buy you much. And if the programmers are aware that they should thread there game, why would they stop at two cores rather than putting as many cores to good use as they can? If you're CPU bound, games aren't hard to thread to push several CPU cores.
As for an optical drive, if that's the only thing you're taking out of an old computer, then the old computer is likely worth more intact.
Haha, I will let you be the judge. My current computer is a Gateway with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 ghz processor, 2 GB of 533 MHz RAM, a 235w PSU, and an NVidia 520 GT graphics card, all running good old Windows Vista 32-bit.
If someone would like to buy that let me know :-)
Anyway, a lot of replies to my thread, thanks. Some conflicting info making it hard for a noob like me though. (two fast cores vs 4-6 slower ones? etc.) I think I'll tough it out for a little while and try to catch individual components on really good sales?
To me, just having another functional computer available as a backup in case something happens to my main computer is worth something. You probably could pull the optical drive out of the old computer if you need to, but it's only $16 for a new one.
And it's not so much a question of two fast cores versus 6 slow ones. The "fast" cores are barely faster than the "slow" ones, to the degree that even in purely single-threaded programs, the 6-core CPU will still sometimes win. And that's even if you exclude corner cases that will make heavy use of AES-NI or FMA. The CPU I linked has four cores rather than 6, but it is also a lot cheaper.
Originally posted by waynejr2 I sometimes wonder when something like this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-mini-itx-gaming-pc,3513.html comes out and then a thread gets started like this if there is a cause->effect thing going on. In any case, perhaps some useful information in the link.
I'm not a fan of Tom's Hardware's builds. They put way too much emphasis on benchmark performance and not nearly enough on reliability.
Though you can justify a Core i3 for a Mini ITX build much better due to its reduced power consumption. But that's not what the original poster is looking for.
If you want to build a solid gaming setup i wouldnt settle for anything less than a GTX 660Ti or the AMD equivalent.
On AMD video cards i will caution you, their hardware is fantastic, but they have the worst drivers on the freaking planet. In 20 years of building PC's i've had over a dozen different AMD cards, and between me and about a dozen other computer geek friends who build our own, i can count on one hand the number of AMD cards we havent had stupid problems with.
Personally i won't buy AMD cards anymore for gaming. I've bought a couple as HTPC cards that have worked ok, but even with those i've had stupid annoying driver issues (settings that won't save, or revert back to default randomly, etc).
For processors, dual core vs quad is pretty meaningless for games. Pretty much nothing (even most professional apps) have trouble utilizing more than 2 processors threads with any real aplomb. The most important thing for gaming is at least 2 cores, and the fastest cores you can get with at least 2.
I.E. A dual core I5 at 2.4ghz would be better for gaming than a quad core i5 at 2.1ghz.
Maybe in 5 or 10 years this will change, but for now no games properly utilize multiple cores.
Sind windows 7 launched and DX11 came to live with 5870 amd videocard i made switch from nvidia to AMD and im realy glad i did.
Not only are the cards superb videocards ive not have any trouble with drivers and these days they can EASLY COMPETE with nvidia drivers.
Reply @ Quizzical or really anyone who can answer the question I guess.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8140617&CatId=1946 was the processor suggested for $90, but for $110 I could get a FX-6100 which scored a lot better on benchmark websites from what I see. Or for $150 I could get a FX-8320 which blew away these others on the same benchmarks. So my question is, my budget aside for a moment, are those other 2 processors much better values and performance for gaming? Or are the benchmarks not really relevant and the $90 is just as good?
Reply @ Quizzical or really anyone who can answer the question I guess.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8140617&CatId=1946 was the processor suggested for $90, but for $110 I could get a FX-6100 which scored a lot better on benchmark websites from what I see. Or for $150 I could get a FX-8320 which blew away these others on the same benchmarks. So my question is, my budget aside for a moment, are those other 2 processors much better values and performance for gaming? Or are the benchmarks not really relevant and the $90 is just as good?
The 8350 is currently the leading flagship processor for AMD CPU's - A 8320 is slightly under clocked but can easily match up to the overclocking levels of a 8350. If you overclock a AMD FX-8350 FX-Series Eight-Core Processor Edition from 4GHZ to 4.6GHZ it can match the speeds of an i5. The 8320 is $45 cheaper running on stock speeds of 3.5GHZ~ It HAS the capability to reach the AMD-FX-8350's speed if you OVERCLOCK it.
I like to compare and give you a fair vision on how powerful the FX-Series currently are - Currently owning and actively using a 4100-FX-Series Codenamed: Bulldozer Processor running at 3.6/3.8GHZ Turbo can handle the following games with very acceptable FPS: Age of Wushu, Americas Army 3, APB Reloaded, ARMA2/&3/Bioshock Infinite/Blacklight Retribution/C9/Chivarly Medieval Warfare/Company of Heroes 2/Dead Island Riptide/Don't Starve/Dragons Prophet, Dungeon Defenders, Euro Truck Simulator/Hawken/I am alive/Killing Floor/Mafia II/Minecraft/Planetside 2/Heroes&Generals/Project Zomboid/Red Orchestra 2/Savage 2/Shogun 2/Smite/Terraria/Tomb Raider/Final Fantasy: XIV/World of Tanks/World War II/World of Warcraft/ World of Airplanes. ETC. on very good FPS.
Basically what I'm getting at is the 4100 Bulldozer can handle EVERYTHING with little to no problems, and the bulldozer is the first of the FX-Series too. Released in 2011 - Piledriver aka. 4130 2012. Excavator incoming October/Nov/Dec and Beyond. [Exciting] The future for FX-AM3 Socket Motherboards is bright. Quizzical is basically claiming you're a total noob, which he did with me at one time too! Until I researched things up, and overtime became an FPS/Benchmark junkie. now I'm a total geek when it comes to computers. While at the moment you clearly are a total noob, anything 4100 and above will do you JUST dandy. Although always go for the newer model as its of course going to be better.
8320 is an amazing processor for the price, while it's not an i7 destroyer of worlds.- It will be able to handle the future of games for the next 2-years guaranteed. Iv had the 4100 Bulldozer since early 2011 [2-Years] and it still runs games like a champ. like...planetside 2 -wink- ;D
All Round - You can skimp out on a CPU~ the 970G AM3-Socket Motherboard is required for a 8320+ it costs a little more than the 760G but if you decide to take on the OCTA-8320 you will need a 970G to use up all its horsepower confirmed. Those G motherboards are also good at overclocking, and its way easier to overclock a processor than you can imagine, by opening the BIOS and pushing UP on your keyboard from 3.5GHZ to 3.8GHZ - and boom. Overclocked like a boss.
Here is a FFXIV: A Realm Reborn - Benchmark Score - While it may not seem relevant information - Its a benchmark none the less. ~ FFXIV is CPU bound - but check it out.
Below is on a Bulldozer: FX-4100 - 8GB of 1600Mhz Ram - 7870-Tahiti - 32" TV Monitor/1920x1080 Resolution
As you can see it can run the most trending game on very high~ cause of the good graphics card, while the CPU still holds its own.
Below is a random post on the same place I submitted my score: A FX-8350
His Message: - While his graphic card is better than mine~ The Overclocked 4.0GHZ to 4.8GHZ has shown it can be very powerful matching a i5 and beyond.
AMD 8350 Overclocked to 4.8 , XFX DD HD7970 Overclocked single GPU
I know the above may be slightly meaningless to you - but hitting 8,000+ score on the FFXIV: Benchmark is not an easy task~ I could only reach 6000 at best after overclocking my 4100 from 3.6/3.8 to 4.3Ghz. - He did have the 7970 which helped but remember the benchmark is CPU-bound.
You will receive more FPS with a 4100 Good FPS 6100 Great FPS 8300 Amazing FPS -
Do what you think is right! - I'm sure you will be fine - even if you do skimp out and go for a 4130 - It can handle games! xD make sure to get a better AMD-Card if you have a large monitor/resolution.~ cause it DOES matter and will affect your FPS if you use a 17" Monitor vs a 32"inch 1920x1080P - Although you could always just turn down the resolution for more FPS.
So the motherboard I linked won't work well with an FX-8320?
Edit: One other question, I have like half a dozen old (VERY old) PC cases in my garage. Will these cases work with new boards or did the basic design change in the past 8-10 years?
The 760G will not work well at all with a 8320 - It's reported that the Ghz drops from 3.5GHZ to 2.9GHZ since the 760G motherboard cannot handle it basically.
970G+ is the way to go! or perhaps something a little cheaper...like this bundle
6100/A960D-Biostar Motherboard/4GB Ram - If you have a 7+ year outdated towers - than it most likely will matter as you won't be able to fit all of these 'newer' parts into it. - It's also a good idea to buy a newer tower for better air space, keep the parts inside at a lower temp. = Future Proof
The Above Bundle is outdated too however^ - Always an option to be had
Edit: Once you start having a final selection set from all of the links provided on this thread - piece them together and the price - and make sure you hit under $630 I fear if you go for a 970/8320 you may go over your current budget.
Reply @ Quizzical or really anyone who can answer the question I guess.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8140617&CatId=1946 was the processor suggested for $90, but for $110 I could get a FX-6100 which scored a lot better on benchmark websites from what I see. Or for $150 I could get a FX-8320 which blew away these others on the same benchmarks. So my question is, my budget aside for a moment, are those other 2 processors much better values and performance for gaming? Or are the benchmarks not really relevant and the $90 is just as good?
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at. Comparing an Athlon II X4 750K to an FX-6100 is basically a question of four faster cores versus six slower cores. Benchmarks that scale well to six cores will favor the latter, but a lot of games won't. The FX-6100 is quite a power hog, too, and that will put more stress on your system elsewhere than the Athlon II X4 750K. (For what it's worth, the 750K is basically Trinity with the graphics disabled; it has modern Piledriver cores, not the older Stars cores of the original Athlon II chips from 2009.)
It looks like you've figured out that FX-series processors need a socket AM3+ motherboard, rather than the FM2 that I linked. But I'd avoid the motherboard that you linked, as it's junk. It might work just fine for you, but it might not, and you don't want to have to replace the whole system outright because of a dodgy motherboard. Biostar is a cheap junk brand, and the 760G chipset is very, very old, so that using it with FX-series processors isn't even supported by AMD. Biostar says it will work, and they're at least sometimes right, but I wouldn't want to rely on such promises from a cheap junk brand.
Basically what I'm getting at is the 4100 Bulldozer can handle EVERYTHING with little to no problems, and the bulldozer is the first of the FX-Series too. Released in 2011 - Piledriver aka. 4130 2012. Excavator incoming October/Nov/Dec and Beyond. [Exciting] The future for FX-AM3 Socket Motherboards is bright. Quizzical is basically claiming you're a total noob, which he did with me at one time too! Until I researched things up, and overtime became an FPS/Benchmark junkie. now I'm a total geek when it comes to computers. While at the moment you clearly are a total noob, anything 4100 and above will do you JUST dandy. Although always go for the newer model as its of course going to be better.
The FX-*3** chips are Piledriver cores, which is AMD's latest. AMD is going to launch Kaveri with Steamroller cores late this year, but that will likely need a new socket. It may have a socket FM2 version, but certainly not socket AM3+.
I previously expected AMD to make an 8-12 core chip based on Piledriver cores, but AMD recently announced a 2014 server roadmap that doesn't have such a chip on it, so they might not. Regardless, if such a chip does ever exist, it will probably use DDR4 memory, and that also means a new CPU socket.
Remember that the die in Vishera, AMD's current high end (FX-8350, etc.), is first and foremost a server chip. Unfortunately, it's not a very good server chip, which is why AMD's server market share has fallen into the single digits. AMD seems to be focusing more on microservers and leveraging their GPU, so it's unclear whether they'll continue to try to make high-end server chips in the future. If they don't, then such chips won't make their way to desktops, either.
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at.
Is there a website that shows cpu benchmarks related to gaming? I've been looking at the Passmark ones but I have no idea what they are measuring. I don't care how many digits of Pi my PC will compute for example, just the FPS while gaming haha
Basically what I'm getting at is the 4100 Bulldozer can handle EVERYTHING with little to no problems, and the bulldozer is the first of the FX-Series too. Released in 2011 - Piledriver aka. 4130 2012. Excavator incoming October/Nov/Dec and Beyond. [Exciting] The future for FX-AM3 Socket Motherboards is bright.
The FX-*3** chips are Piledriver cores, which is AMD's latest. AMD is going to launch Kaveri with Steamroller cores late this year, but that will likely need a new socket. It may have a socket FM2 version, but certainly not socket AM3+.
I previously expected AMD to make an 8-12 core chip based on Piledriver cores, but AMD recently announced a 2014 server roadmap that doesn't have such a chip on it, so they might not. Regardless, if such a chip does ever exist, it will probably use DDR4 memory, and that also means a new CPU socket.
Remember that the die in Vishera, AMD's current high end (FX-8350, etc.), is first and foremost a server chip. Unfortunately, it's not a very good server chip, which is why AMD's server market share has fallen into the single digits. AMD seems to be focusing more on microservers and leveraging their GPU, so it's unclear whether they'll continue to try to make high-end server chips in the future. If they don't, then such chips won't make their way to desktops, either.
I just woke up when I wrote everything above, and hoped nobody would notice my mistake for the FX-Lineups [bulldozer piledriver steamroller excavator] in order of release. I had no idea that AM3+ is on its way to becoming obsolete, I suppose that sort of puts a thorn on the 'Future is Bright for AM3+ Sockets.'
Kaveri is also new to me, i actually learned about it this morning from one of your posts. I have zero interest in the Kaveri as its not apart of the bulldozer piledriver steamroller excavator lineup. - Just overclock the 8320/8350 close to 5Ghz and you're good to go until steamroller rolls on over. While the 760G board is slightly old and withering from this good earth, I'm currently using one right now at this very moment. [[[It's holding a Bulldozer FX-4100/7870-Le/8GB-1600mhz]]] The 760G can also handle a FX-6100. My 760G has been holding up quite well going on 2-Years now.
Only speaking from my experience, with my 760G/FX-4100 that Iv been using for 2-years for gaming, id expect to have another good year or so with this processor. I would be disappointed if AMD releases steamroller with a new socket other than AM3+ - But than again I'm already disappointed that steamroller won't hit the market in october like the previous rollouts. Although if I think about it now, Id have to upgrade my 760G into a 970G at the very least since Ican only handle up to a FX-6100 currently.
I'm keeping a close eye on the somewhat bloody battle between Intel/AMD and CPU/GPU's of 'the future' However Ill sadly admit that I don't exactly have as deep as an insight as you have towards all of this. I only know what will work, and the 760G as old as it may be, is quite cheap and still works.
I will also admit that I do not keep an eye on the future Motherboards&Power supplys or Ram or Potato Towers or Shoe Boxs.
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at.
Is there a website that shows cpu benchmarks related to gaming? I've been looking at the Passmark ones but I have no idea what they are measuring. I don't care how many digits of Pi my PC will compute for example, just the FPS while gaming haha
Tomshardware does alot of testing with various old and new CPU/GPUS for select games to gauge the FPS in games like Crysis 3/Batman Arkham/Dirt: Showdown/etc. http://www.tomshardware.com/t/cpus/articles/ - Look around for reviews or just type on google with the hardware in mind and add tomshardware review to open the page right up.
Youtube is another great place to find benchmarks for the hardware you're looking into buying! ^
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at.
Is there a website that shows cpu benchmarks related to gaming? I've been looking at the Passmark ones but I have no idea what they are measuring. I don't care how many digits of Pi my PC will compute for example, just the FPS while gaming haha
While there are many web sites that show some CPU benchmarks in games, I'm not aware of any that do it well. Part of the reason is that it's hard to do, as the results will vary wildly from one game to the next.
When benchmarking CPU performance, there are basically two extreme cases: programs that can only use one core at all, and programs that scale well to arbitrarily many cores. While a lot of programs do fit into one of those extreme categories, modern games usually don't. In order to predict how well a processor will run games, you kind of have to interpolate the results based on how well you expect games to scale to several CPU cores.
But there's also the problem that tech sites that benchmark games tend to focus on video cards, not processors. When benchmarking video cards, you want games that can push a video card really hard, so that your results don't consist of getting 80 frames per second no matter what card you use, because that's all that the CPU can handle and all of the video cards you're testing can deliver more than that. So tech sites tend to focus on games that push a video card very hard and don't push a CPU that hard.
Furthermore, one way to push video cards hard is to be inefficient in your code, so badly-coded games tend to get way too much attention from benchmarking sites, and such games aren't necessarily representative of what you'll want to play. Performance in Civilization V isn't remotely representative of performance in any other game in existence, but some tech sites use it as a benchmark precisely because it manages to perform poorly on powerful hardware. Metro 2033 is as much a synthetic benchmark as a real game, but gets used by tech sites a lot precisely for that reason.
Then when it comes time to benchmark processors, the sites often use the same games as they use for benchmarking video cards. That saves them time, as they're familiar with procedures for benchmarking those particular games, rather than needing to come up with a bunch of other games to benchmark. But this often means that you have a meaningful video card bottleneck, so that you can't isolate CPU performance very well.
It doesn't help that the people who benchmark hardware tend to be fairly clueless about what goes on inside of game engines, and have no idea how to set graphical settings to get a good gauge of what the CPU is doing. If you're trying to benchmark a CPU, then there's really no good reason whatsoever to turn on anti-aliasing or any sort of post-processing effects, as those don't touch the CPU but just put a bunch of extra load on the video card to create a bottleneck elsewhere. But that doesn't stop tech sites from doing so and cranking out completely worthless data like this:
On top of that, there's the issue that even if you could flawlessly benchmark today's games, that doesn't necessarily predict how tomorrow's games will run. Game programmers have been getting steadily better at making games scale well to more CPU cores and offloading more work from the CPU onto the video card. Some of that was enabled by hardware advances, some by tools and APIs getting better, and some by programmers eventually figuring out what they should have been doing years earlier. But it's highly probable that an average game that launches in 2015 will tend to scale well to more cores than an average game that launched in 2010. For tech sites, the problem is that you can't benchmark the games that will launch in 2015 today because they don't exist yet.
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at.
Is there a website that shows cpu benchmarks related to gaming? I've been looking at the Passmark ones but I have no idea what they are measuring. I don't care how many digits of Pi my PC will compute for example, just the FPS while gaming haha
Tomshardware does alot of testing with various old and new CPU/GPUS for select games to gauge the FPS in games like Crysis 3/Batman Arkham/Dirt: Showdown/etc. http://www.tomshardware.com/t/cpus/articles/ - Look around for reviews or just type on google with the hardware in mind and add tomshardware review to open the page right up.
Youtube is another great place to find benchmarks for the hardware you're looking into buying! ^
I use to own that FX 4100 and for $100 it was the best cpu I had ever owned. The best part about it is how easy it is to overclock. I took it from 3.6 to 4.4 on air with no problems at all so what are you waiting for? If I had my water cooler then I probably would have hit the 4.6 that I wanted.
Only speaking from my experience, with my 760G/FX-4100 that Iv been using for 2-years for gaming, id expect to have another good year or so with this processor. I would be disappointed if AMD releases steamroller with a new socket other than AM3+ - But than again I'm already disappointed that steamroller won't hit the market in october like the previous rollouts. Although if I think about it now, Id have to upgrade my 760G into a 970G at the very least since Ican only handle up to a FX-6100 currently.
Using an FX-series processor on an older chipset rather than an AMD 900 series is not supported by AMD, so it will be hit and miss. That doesn't mean "won't work at all"; it might mean "works except that certain features are disabled". It can easily vary by chipset; some of the 900 series chipsets are essentially identical to 800 series counterparts, so it wouldn't take much work on the motherboard manufacturer's behalf to make it work flawlessly. And it can certainly vary by motherboard or by vendor; what Asus did to try to make an FX-series processor work on a 760G motherboard doesn't necessarily match what Biostar did.
As for a new socket, it's coming, and it's just a matter of when. Remember that neither AMD nor Intel makes chips primarily targeted at desktops anymore. The last of those was probably Thuban (Phenom II X6) in 2010. Rather, they make chips primarily intended for laptops (AMD A-series, any Intel chips that don't have a version with more than four cores) or servers (AMD FX-series, Intel whatever-E) and then release a version of them for desktops, too. If AMD isn't going to make a server chip based on Steamroller cores, then there might not be a high end desktop chip, either.
Furthermore, the shift from DDR3 memory to DDR4 is coming soon, and that will force a new socket for everyone. This is particularly salient in high end desktop chips; what's the point of adding more CPU cores if you don't have the memory bandwidth to feed them?
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Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1239961&CatId=7341
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7632398&CatId=7248
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1164738&CatId=4534
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6531504&CatId=1509
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7622525&CatId=139
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2316882&CatId=7387
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4278583&CatId=1483
$638
Don't worry, the guy lost all credibility when he called Quiz an idiot.. truly a facepalm moment
Thank you for your response. I am also using a GTS 450 on an older rig.
The GTX 550 is going to be on another rig that I got really cheap.
I do hope to place a better cpu and graphic card in the rig later on.
This is what I got for $248.00. Thought it was a deal.
>Rosewill ATX micro case and 400 watt power supply
>Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Intel Z68 Micro ATX LGA 1155 Mother board
>Intel Core i3 2100 3.1 GHz
>4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
>DVD RW Drive
>500 GB Velociraptor HDD
>EVGA GTX 550 Ti(Fermi) 1GB 192bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0x16 Video Card SLI Ready
> Mother board is unlocked and can be over clocked
Also Got a 27" Asus Monitor for $175.00 Had 1 stuck pixel so I got it at that price.
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
When I started on the build, I went with an FX-6350 together with an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard. But then once it got time to add the video card at the end, the fastest I could pick and stay strictly within budget was a Radeon HD 7750. For personal use, I'd actually sooner go that route, as it's easy to upgrade a video card later. But the original poster doesn't seem likely to upgrade his computer later if he's relying on an employer to pay for it and not willing to go a penny over the stated budget. I decided that it was better to put more money into the video card at the expense of giving up a CPU upgrade path that wouldn't have been used anyway.
Haha, I will let you be the judge. My current computer is a Gateway with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 ghz processor, 2 GB of 533 MHz RAM, a 235w PSU, and an NVidia 520 GT graphics card, all running good old Windows Vista 32-bit.
If someone would like to buy that let me know :-)
Anyway, a lot of replies to my thread, thanks. Some conflicting info making it hard for a noob like me though. (two fast cores vs 4-6 slower ones? etc.) I think I'll tough it out for a little while and try to catch individual components on really good sales?
If you're looking at buying it new, don't. Well, unless you can get it for something unusually cheap like $50.
The relevant AMD competitor to the Core i3-3220 is the AMD FX-6350 together with an AMD 970 chipset motherboard. That gets you a comparable quality motherboard and essentially the same total CPU+motherboard price tag.
A Core i3-3220 will tend to beat an FX-6350 in single-threaded programs, but not by much. In programs that scale well to many cores, the FX-6350 will win in a complete slaughter. Programs that need a lot of CPU power tend to fit the latter category rather than the former.
Your link doesn't list an FX-6350, but it does list an FX-6300, which is a lower clocked version of the same thing. And the FX-6300 beats the Core i3-3220 in every single game on your link.
AMD has the worst video drivers? Have you ever tried Intel video drivers? Up until perhaps a year or so ago, I don't think anyone outside of Intel marketing had anything nice to say about Intel's video drivers.
It's interesting that you've been buying AMD video cards for 20 years when AMD didn't have much to do with graphics until 2006, and putting an AMD brand name on video cards didn't happen until late 2010.
As for the number of CPU cores available, if a game isn't threaded, you can only use one, and a second core doesn't necessarily buy you much. And if the programmers are aware that they should thread there game, why would they stop at two cores rather than putting as many cores to good use as they can? If you're CPU bound, games aren't hard to thread to push several CPU cores.
To me, just having another functional computer available as a backup in case something happens to my main computer is worth something. You probably could pull the optical drive out of the old computer if you need to, but it's only $16 for a new one.
And it's not so much a question of two fast cores versus 6 slow ones. The "fast" cores are barely faster than the "slow" ones, to the degree that even in purely single-threaded programs, the 6-core CPU will still sometimes win. And that's even if you exclude corner cases that will make heavy use of AES-NI or FMA. The CPU I linked has four cores rather than 6, but it is also a lot cheaper.
I'm not a fan of Tom's Hardware's builds. They put way too much emphasis on benchmark performance and not nearly enough on reliability.
Though you can justify a Core i3 for a Mini ITX build much better due to its reduced power consumption. But that's not what the original poster is looking for.
This.
Sind windows 7 launched and DX11 came to live with 5870 amd videocard i made switch from nvidia to AMD and im realy glad i did.
Not only are the cards superb videocards ive not have any trouble with drivers and these days they can EASLY COMPETE with nvidia drivers.
So your statement for todays AMDdrivers is FALSE.
Reply @ Quizzical or really anyone who can answer the question I guess.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8140617&CatId=1946 was the processor suggested for $90, but for $110 I could get a FX-6100 which scored a lot better on benchmark websites from what I see. Or for $150 I could get a FX-8320 which blew away these others on the same benchmarks. So my question is, my budget aside for a moment, are those other 2 processors much better values and performance for gaming? Or are the benchmarks not really relevant and the $90 is just as good?
And if I were to go with the $150 processor, is http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7736064&CatId=7375 an ok motherboard to pair it with?
The 8350 is currently the leading flagship processor for AMD CPU's - A 8320 is slightly under clocked but can easily match up to the overclocking levels of a 8350. If you overclock a AMD FX-8350 FX-Series Eight-Core Processor Edition from 4GHZ to 4.6GHZ it can match the speeds of an i5. The 8320 is $45 cheaper running on stock speeds of 3.5GHZ~ It HAS the capability to reach the AMD-FX-8350's speed if you OVERCLOCK it.
I like to compare and give you a fair vision on how powerful the FX-Series currently are - Currently owning and actively using a 4100-FX-Series Codenamed: Bulldozer Processor running at 3.6/3.8GHZ Turbo can handle the following games with very acceptable FPS: Age of Wushu, Americas Army 3, APB Reloaded, ARMA2/&3/Bioshock Infinite/Blacklight Retribution/C9/Chivarly Medieval Warfare/Company of Heroes 2/Dead Island Riptide/Don't Starve/Dragons Prophet, Dungeon Defenders, Euro Truck Simulator/Hawken/I am alive/Killing Floor/Mafia II/Minecraft/Planetside 2/Heroes&Generals/Project Zomboid/Red Orchestra 2/Savage 2/Shogun 2/Smite/Terraria/Tomb Raider/Final Fantasy: XIV/World of Tanks/World War II/World of Warcraft/ World of Airplanes. ETC. on very good FPS.
Basically what I'm getting at is the 4100 Bulldozer can handle EVERYTHING with little to no problems, and the bulldozer is the first of the FX-Series too. Released in 2011 - Piledriver aka. 4130 2012. Excavator incoming October/Nov/Dec and Beyond. [Exciting] The future for FX-AM3 Socket Motherboards is bright. Quizzical is basically claiming you're a total noob, which he did with me at one time too! Until I researched things up, and overtime became an FPS/Benchmark junkie. now I'm a total geek when it comes to computers. While at the moment you clearly are a total noob, anything 4100 and above will do you JUST dandy. Although always go for the newer model as its of course going to be better.
8320 is an amazing processor for the price, while it's not an i7 destroyer of worlds.- It will be able to handle the future of games for the next 2-years guaranteed. Iv had the 4100 Bulldozer since early 2011 [2-Years] and it still runs games like a champ. like...planetside 2 -wink- ;D
All Round - You can skimp out on a CPU~ the 970G AM3-Socket Motherboard is required for a 8320+ it costs a little more than the 760G but if you decide to take on the OCTA-8320 you will need a 970G to use up all its horsepower confirmed. Those G motherboards are also good at overclocking, and its way easier to overclock a processor than you can imagine, by opening the BIOS and pushing UP on your keyboard from 3.5GHZ to 3.8GHZ - and boom. Overclocked like a boss.
Here is a FFXIV: A Realm Reborn - Benchmark Score - While it may not seem relevant information - Its a benchmark none the less. ~ FFXIV is CPU bound - but check it out.
Below is on a Bulldozer: FX-4100 - 8GB of 1600Mhz Ram - 7870-Tahiti - 32" TV Monitor/1920x1080 Resolution
As you can see it can run the most trending game on very high~ cause of the good graphics card, while the CPU still holds its own.
Below is a random post on the same place I submitted my score: A FX-8350
His Message: - While his graphic card is better than mine~ The Overclocked 4.0GHZ to 4.8GHZ has shown it can be very powerful matching a i5 and beyond.
AMD 8350 Overclocked to 4.8 , XFX DD HD7970 Overclocked single GPU
I know the above may be slightly meaningless to you - but hitting 8,000+ score on the FFXIV: Benchmark is not an easy task~ I could only reach 6000 at best after overclocking my 4100 from 3.6/3.8 to 4.3Ghz. - He did have the 7970 which helped but remember the benchmark is CPU-bound.
You will receive more FPS with a 4100 Good FPS 6100 Great FPS 8300 Amazing FPS -
Do what you think is right! - I'm sure you will be fine - even if you do skimp out and go for a 4130 - It can handle games! xD make sure to get a better AMD-Card if you have a large monitor/resolution.~ cause it DOES matter and will affect your FPS if you use a 17" Monitor vs a 32"inch 1920x1080P - Although you could always just turn down the resolution for more FPS.
Good luck - Hope this answered your question!
So the motherboard I linked won't work well with an FX-8320?
Edit: One other question, I have like half a dozen old (VERY old) PC cases in my garage. Will these cases work with new boards or did the basic design change in the past 8-10 years?
The 760G will not work well at all with a 8320 - It's reported that the Ghz drops from 3.5GHZ to 2.9GHZ since the 760G motherboard cannot handle it basically.
970G+ is the way to go! or perhaps something a little cheaper...like this bundle
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7909969&csid=_22
6100/A960D-Biostar Motherboard/4GB Ram - If you have a 7+ year outdated towers - than it most likely will matter as you won't be able to fit all of these 'newer' parts into it. - It's also a good idea to buy a newer tower for better air space, keep the parts inside at a lower temp. = Future Proof
The Above Bundle is outdated too however^ - Always an option to be had
Edit: Once you start having a final selection set from all of the links provided on this thread - piece them together and the price - and make sure you hit under $630 I fear if you go for a 970/8320 you may go over your current budget.
A lot depends on what benchmarks you're looking at. Comparing an Athlon II X4 750K to an FX-6100 is basically a question of four faster cores versus six slower cores. Benchmarks that scale well to six cores will favor the latter, but a lot of games won't. The FX-6100 is quite a power hog, too, and that will put more stress on your system elsewhere than the Athlon II X4 750K. (For what it's worth, the 750K is basically Trinity with the graphics disabled; it has modern Piledriver cores, not the older Stars cores of the original Athlon II chips from 2009.)
It looks like you've figured out that FX-series processors need a socket AM3+ motherboard, rather than the FM2 that I linked. But I'd avoid the motherboard that you linked, as it's junk. It might work just fine for you, but it might not, and you don't want to have to replace the whole system outright because of a dodgy motherboard. Biostar is a cheap junk brand, and the 760G chipset is very, very old, so that using it with FX-series processors isn't even supported by AMD. Biostar says it will work, and they're at least sometimes right, but I wouldn't want to rely on such promises from a cheap junk brand.
The FX-*3** chips are Piledriver cores, which is AMD's latest. AMD is going to launch Kaveri with Steamroller cores late this year, but that will likely need a new socket. It may have a socket FM2 version, but certainly not socket AM3+.
I previously expected AMD to make an 8-12 core chip based on Piledriver cores, but AMD recently announced a 2014 server roadmap that doesn't have such a chip on it, so they might not. Regardless, if such a chip does ever exist, it will probably use DDR4 memory, and that also means a new CPU socket.
Remember that the die in Vishera, AMD's current high end (FX-8350, etc.), is first and foremost a server chip. Unfortunately, it's not a very good server chip, which is why AMD's server market share has fallen into the single digits. AMD seems to be focusing more on microservers and leveraging their GPU, so it's unclear whether they'll continue to try to make high-end server chips in the future. If they don't, then such chips won't make their way to desktops, either.
Is there a website that shows cpu benchmarks related to gaming? I've been looking at the Passmark ones but I have no idea what they are measuring. I don't care how many digits of Pi my PC will compute for example, just the FPS while gaming haha
I just woke up when I wrote everything above, and hoped nobody would notice my mistake for the FX-Lineups [bulldozer piledriver steamroller excavator] in order of release. I had no idea that AM3+ is on its way to becoming obsolete, I suppose that sort of puts a thorn on the 'Future is Bright for AM3+ Sockets.'
Kaveri is also new to me, i actually learned about it this morning from one of your posts. I have zero interest in the Kaveri as its not apart of the bulldozer piledriver steamroller excavator lineup. - Just overclock the 8320/8350 close to 5Ghz and you're good to go until steamroller rolls on over. While the 760G board is slightly old and withering from this good earth, I'm currently using one right now at this very moment. [[[It's holding a Bulldozer FX-4100/7870-Le/8GB-1600mhz]]] The 760G can also handle a FX-6100. My 760G has been holding up quite well going on 2-Years now.
Only speaking from my experience, with my 760G/FX-4100 that Iv been using for 2-years for gaming, id expect to have another good year or so with this processor. I would be disappointed if AMD releases steamroller with a new socket other than AM3+ - But than again I'm already disappointed that steamroller won't hit the market in october like the previous rollouts. Although if I think about it now, Id have to upgrade my 760G into a 970G at the very least since Ican only handle up to a FX-6100 currently.
I'm keeping a close eye on the somewhat bloody battle between Intel/AMD and CPU/GPU's of 'the future' However Ill sadly admit that I don't exactly have as deep as an insight as you have towards all of this. I only know what will work, and the 760G as old as it may be, is quite cheap and still works.
I will also admit that I do not keep an eye on the future Motherboards&Power supplys or Ram or Potato Towers or Shoe Boxs.
Tomshardware does alot of testing with various old and new CPU/GPUS for select games to gauge the FPS in games like Crysis 3/Batman Arkham/Dirt: Showdown/etc. http://www.tomshardware.com/t/cpus/articles/ - Look around for reviews or just type on google with the hardware in mind and add tomshardware review to open the page right up.
Youtube is another great place to find benchmarks for the hardware you're looking into buying! ^
While there are many web sites that show some CPU benchmarks in games, I'm not aware of any that do it well. Part of the reason is that it's hard to do, as the results will vary wildly from one game to the next.
When benchmarking CPU performance, there are basically two extreme cases: programs that can only use one core at all, and programs that scale well to arbitrarily many cores. While a lot of programs do fit into one of those extreme categories, modern games usually don't. In order to predict how well a processor will run games, you kind of have to interpolate the results based on how well you expect games to scale to several CPU cores.
But there's also the problem that tech sites that benchmark games tend to focus on video cards, not processors. When benchmarking video cards, you want games that can push a video card really hard, so that your results don't consist of getting 80 frames per second no matter what card you use, because that's all that the CPU can handle and all of the video cards you're testing can deliver more than that. So tech sites tend to focus on games that push a video card very hard and don't push a CPU that hard.
Furthermore, one way to push video cards hard is to be inefficient in your code, so badly-coded games tend to get way too much attention from benchmarking sites, and such games aren't necessarily representative of what you'll want to play. Performance in Civilization V isn't remotely representative of performance in any other game in existence, but some tech sites use it as a benchmark precisely because it manages to perform poorly on powerful hardware. Metro 2033 is as much a synthetic benchmark as a real game, but gets used by tech sites a lot precisely for that reason.
Then when it comes time to benchmark processors, the sites often use the same games as they use for benchmarking video cards. That saves them time, as they're familiar with procedures for benchmarking those particular games, rather than needing to come up with a bunch of other games to benchmark. But this often means that you have a meaningful video card bottleneck, so that you can't isolate CPU performance very well.
It doesn't help that the people who benchmark hardware tend to be fairly clueless about what goes on inside of game engines, and have no idea how to set graphical settings to get a good gauge of what the CPU is doing. If you're trying to benchmark a CPU, then there's really no good reason whatsoever to turn on anti-aliasing or any sort of post-processing effects, as those don't touch the CPU but just put a bunch of extra load on the video card to create a bottleneck elsewhere. But that doesn't stop tech sites from doing so and cranking out completely worthless data like this:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6934/54522.png
On top of that, there's the issue that even if you could flawlessly benchmark today's games, that doesn't necessarily predict how tomorrow's games will run. Game programmers have been getting steadily better at making games scale well to more CPU cores and offloading more work from the CPU onto the video card. Some of that was enabled by hardware advances, some by tools and APIs getting better, and some by programmers eventually figuring out what they should have been doing years earlier. But it's highly probable that an average game that launches in 2015 will tend to scale well to more cores than an average game that launched in 2010. For tech sites, the problem is that you can't benchmark the games that will launch in 2015 today because they don't exist yet.
I use to own that FX 4100 and for $100 it was the best cpu I had ever owned. The best part about it is how easy it is to overclock. I took it from 3.6 to 4.4 on air with no problems at all so what are you waiting for? If I had my water cooler then I probably would have hit the 4.6 that I wanted.
Using an FX-series processor on an older chipset rather than an AMD 900 series is not supported by AMD, so it will be hit and miss. That doesn't mean "won't work at all"; it might mean "works except that certain features are disabled". It can easily vary by chipset; some of the 900 series chipsets are essentially identical to 800 series counterparts, so it wouldn't take much work on the motherboard manufacturer's behalf to make it work flawlessly. And it can certainly vary by motherboard or by vendor; what Asus did to try to make an FX-series processor work on a 760G motherboard doesn't necessarily match what Biostar did.
As for a new socket, it's coming, and it's just a matter of when. Remember that neither AMD nor Intel makes chips primarily targeted at desktops anymore. The last of those was probably Thuban (Phenom II X6) in 2010. Rather, they make chips primarily intended for laptops (AMD A-series, any Intel chips that don't have a version with more than four cores) or servers (AMD FX-series, Intel whatever-E) and then release a version of them for desktops, too. If AMD isn't going to make a server chip based on Steamroller cores, then there might not be a high end desktop chip, either.
Furthermore, the shift from DDR3 memory to DDR4 is coming soon, and that will force a new socket for everyone. This is particularly salient in high end desktop chips; what's the point of adding more CPU cores if you don't have the memory bandwidth to feed them?