Did I goof on my CPU choice for this build?

[mazeroth]

I'm building a budget PC gaming machine for a guy I work with's 10 year old son with medical problems (has had multiple heart surgeries since birth). He plays a lot of XBox 360 and Wii games. He just got a $100 Steam card and was wanting to start PC gaming and then his 7 year old Dell died, which had on-board graphics, so I figured I'd drop a few hundred dollars at the local Micro Center and build him something WAY better as a gift. He will be reusing his 22" Dell 1680x1050 monitor.

I have a brand new R9 270 that was going to go into my HTPC but decided I really didn't need it and will be throwing that in this build. Micro Center had some great Intel CPU+Mobo combos back in the day but lately they've been subpar. I decided to stick with AMD this time and had my sights on an FX-6300 + Mobo for $99 after discounts.

Once I got there, my buddy who works there said, no, don't get the FX-6300. You'd be better off with the FX-4350. He said the FX-6300 had 3 physical and 3 logical cores, while the FX-4350 was better for gaming having 4 true physical cores. Believing him, I bought the FX-4350 (which is also factory clocked higher at 4.2 vs the 3.5 of the FX-6300, and it has a much bigger HSF). Now after doing some reading it looks like he was wrong. I do like how the 4350 is clocked 700 mhz higher factory and has the better HSF but as the years progress maybe it would have been better to get the 6300 with the 6 cores.

Just looking for some input from you guys if I should go back and return the 4350 for the 6300 (same price) or just build it as-is.

Thanks for any input! It's greatly appreciated!

Build list for those who care:

AMD FX-4350
ASRock 970M Pro3
MSI Twin Frozor R9 270 OC (paid $70AR 8 months ago on a killer deal)
8GB Ballistix (2x4GB) DDR3-1600
250GB Crucial BX100 SSD
Thermaltake Commander MS-I Case Snow Edition (White)
Cooler Master 120mm Blue LED Fans
Corsair CX430 Power Supply ($16 AR)
Samsung 24x DVD Writer

Total build cost is $374. Pretty dang nice for the price, I think!

 

[Yuriman]

I would take a 6300 over a 4350 any day of the week, stock or overclocked. Even with the clockspeed advantage of the 4350, it might be slower in tasks that only utilize 4 cores, because FX CPUs have to share resources between core pairs (modules). An FX-4350 has two modules, while the 6300 has three. If you're using four cores on the FX-4350, all four of them will will have something like a 20% performance penalty due to shared resources, while an FX-6300 will only have the penalty on two cores. If you overclock, the FX-6300 should be able to close the clockspeed gap too.

Personally, I'd have gone with an i3 if you could have gotten it for around the same price, but I don't know how much you paid and I expect the FX chips were probably significantly cheaper. An i3 has nearly the same throughput as a (stock) FX-6300, but has a much more favorable distribution for games. If you choose to overclock the 6300, it comes out looking better though.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I vote for the FX6300 as well. The 6300 and the 4350 both have the "shared module" design, the FX4350 does not have four "true cores". It has 2 modules, while the 6300 has 3. If you can return/exchange the FX4350 for an FX6300 I definitely would do so. I dont know how good the bundled motherboard is, but that FX6300 plus motherboard for 99.00 at MC is a killer deal. As Yuriman also said, all else being equal, I would probably prefer an i3, but the combo deals at MC are great for some AMD and higher line intel, but not very great for the i3. For a younger child, I think an FX6300 should serve you well for a few years. Very good price in the video card as well.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I would go with the 6300.

 

[AtenRa]

With the R9 270 you will not see any difference going from the FX4350 to FX6300.

If you planing to upgrade the GPU later then better get the FX8230E and OC to 4.4GHz.

 

[Yuriman]

With the R9 270 you will not see any difference going from the FX4350 to FX6300.

If you planing to upgrade the GPU later then better get the FX8230E and OC to 4.4GHz.

:hmm:

Yes, the OP could hypothetically hide any CPU bottlenecks by raising graphical setting until the GPU is the bottleneck. The FX-6300 will be CPU limited in fewer games though.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Another vote for the FX-6300.

It reduces the TDP to 95 W (from FX4350's 125 W), potentially giving less fan noise. The full 6 cores, pulls quite a large punch, for its relatively low price.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

The FX-6300 is the best way to go. At stock clock, it runs cooler than the FX-4350.... Just a better balanced chip.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I also would vote for the 8320e rather than the 6300, though either way, that 970-pro3 is going to punish you with its 4+1 power phase design. You might be able to push an 8320e to 4.5-4.6 GHz or you might not.

I estimate that you will see similar clockspeed limitations on a 6300. You might be able to push 100 mhz higher, but not much more than that.

 

[waltchan]

Micro Center may have some leftover FX-6350. Regardless, it sounds like to me the manager want to get rid all of them due to low sales and hard to sell at $99.99.

 

[waltchan]

It's just me, but I can only afford $45 FX-4100 or FX-4130 Bulldozer at this moment. The Visheras, I think, are overpriced (including $99.99 FX-6300 with free board), and depreciation will kick in harshly once Zen is released. Heck, I even sold my FX-4300 for $75 shipped, and I still think it's still too expensive compare to FM2 A8 and Athlon II X4 Propus.

 

[LTC8K6]

You'd be better off with the FX-4350. He said the FX-6300 had 3 physical and 3 logical cores, while the FX-4350 was better for gaming having 4 true physical cores.

Those claims are incorrect, imo.

There is really no contest these days. Out of those two, the 6300 is the better choice.

 

[CHADBOGA]

You need smarter friends.

 

[TeknoBug]

\
Once I got there, my buddy who works there said, no, don't get the FX-6300. You'd be better off with the FX-4350. He said the FX-6300 had 3 physical and 3 logical cores, while the FX-4350 was better for gaming having 4 true physical cores.

Absolutely incorrect. Also Windows sees FX 43xx as 2 core with 4 modules.

You'd probably be better off with the Athlon X4 860K instead, which does have 4 true cores and faster performance than the FX 4350.

 

[Yuriman]

Absolutely incorrect. Also Windows sees FX 43xx as 2 core with 4 modules.

You'd probably be better off with the Athlon X4 860K instead, which does have 4 true cores and faster performance than the FX 4350.

Incorrect.

Both the FX-4350 and Athlon X4 860K are 2-module/4-core designs. The 860K is an updated architecture, and has a smaller penalty when both cores in a module are fully loaded.

Both really do have 4 cores, by the common definition, but Windows treats them as unequals much in the same way it treats Intel's logical cores (hyperthreading) to improve performance.

 

[sm625]

If running stock, the 4350 is going to be faster at most things. You're going to run into a bottleneck with that video card more often than with your cpu core count.

 

[Sonikku]

The right answer was i3.

 

[Leyawiin]

For what purpose and whom its being built for he'll notice little or no difference between the two CPUs, especially with a lower midrange GPU. If you paired it with a high end GPU either of those CPUs would bottleneck it. I had an FX-6300 (sold it last fall). Out of curiosity I disable one module and left the overclock at 4.5 Ghz. I couldn't tell any difference in my games when paired with a GTX 770.

 

[LTC8K6]

The 95 watt 6 thread FX-6300 is clearly the winner overall imo, when pitted against the 125 watt 4 thread FX-4350, despite the 4350's clock speed advantage.

Even with a single thread, the 4350 doesn't have a big lead, and as soon as you get to multi thread, the 6300 pulls away.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1273?vs=699

 

[nenforcer]

What he has now is world's apart from his 7 year old Dell with integrated graphics. You should be commended. You can't really go wrong for a low budget build for a 10 year old.
My nieces, the oldest of which is 11, has had a AMD Phenom ][ X4 860T with 4MB DDR2 for the past year. What you've built is an upgrade from that. The most intense game she plays is minecraft.

 

[mazeroth]

First off, thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate it.

Seeing as Micro Center is quite a drive from my house, and after reading and researching, I just went ahead and built the computer with the 4350 and let me tell you, this thing is just fine for what he's using it for. It never gets near 100% utilization on the games I've installed and I don't think it's going to be a bottleneck anytime soon. You have to figure this thing is probably 20x faster than the Xbox 360 he's used to. Add to that the speed of an SSD and I think we'll have a PC convert in the making!

I've built tons of gaming PC's in my many years and never once got into the LED lighting craze. I always thought it was kind of stupid. Well, after seeing this storm trooper looking case, and knowing a 10 year old would probably dig some blue LED's, I went ahead with two blue case fans. Wow, this thing looks AWESOME! So cool I almost want to keep it LoL! But yeah, I think he'll love it.

 

[waltchan]

Seeing as Micro Center is quite a drive from my house, and after reading and researching, I just went ahead and built the computer with the 4350 and let me tell you, this thing is just fine for what he's using it for. It never gets near 100% utilization on the games I've installed and I don't think it's going to be a bottleneck anytime soon. You have to figure this thing is probably 20x faster than the Xbox 360 he's used to. Add to that the speed of an SSD and I think we'll have a PC convert in the making!

FX-4350 has the most powerful and fastest single-thread speed you can find for AM3+. At 125W, this one can be overclocked up to 4.80 GHz turbo max easily, and if you disable one module, 5.00 GHz is achievable. FX-6300 95W, unfortunately, goes nowhere near FX-4350's top clock speed.

 

[AtenRa]

:hmm:

Yes, the OP could hypothetically hide any CPU bottlenecks by raising graphical setting until the GPU is the bottleneck. The FX-6300 will be CPU limited in fewer games though.

Latest games with 2x+ the GPU performance cards from his R7 270. The performance differences between the Quad Core FX4350 vs the Six Core FX6300 are negligible in most of the newest games. You will have to OC the FX6300 to 4GHz and above to start to see any substantial gains vs the FX4350 and that when paired with a very powerful GPU.
Not to mention in older games or in games with low threads scaling the FX4350 will be faster like in World of Tanks. But at the end as i have said you will be GPU limited first with the R9 270 than CPU limited with the FX4350.
My recommendation, better change the Motherboard and get a better one than change the CPU.

ps: FX4350 is faster than FX4300

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, after seeing this storm trooper looking case, and knowing a 10 year old would probably dig some blue LED's, I went ahead with two blue case fans. Wow, this thing looks AWESOME! So cool I almost want to keep it LoL! But yeah, I think he'll love it.

That's a pretty swanky-looking case.

1) Where did you get it?
2) How much?
3) Got a link?

 

[mazeroth]

Thermaltake Commander MS-I Case Snow Edition (from first post). Got it for $35 AR from Micro Center. It's an ok case to work with. Has the build quality of less expensive cases. You're just paying more for the look, which was my plan.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133196