i3-3220 or fx-6100 or a10-5800k

[minitron]

and cost more

Obviously. That's why there's the i3.

We were talking about matching up processors with a more powerful GPU in the future then he might as well skip AMD altogether.

And costs much more,which he cannot afford. 6100 stock is at 3.3Ghz,measly clock for Bulldozer. It can run at 4.4Ghz with slight vcore bump. If you think 4.4Ghz 6T Bulldozer is "bad" in games than you need reality check. It might have worse SLI scaling for sure,but with single higher end GPU ,any game will be smooth in high detail/AA setting.

As the PD/BD reviews have shown, that's just not true. AMD CPUs will still bottleneck single GPUs in CPU-dependent scenarios. Not even with the ultra-high end; something as low as a HD 5870 is bottlenecked by AMD in games such as WOW.

The i5 does not cost much more (if at all) than an overclocked AMD setup once you include the cost of the HSF and electrical consumption.

 

[inf64]

Oh the "future GPU" story all over again. We have been over this before when Nehalem was fighting Deneb and X6,look what happened now. Both Deneb and X6 are running newest games with newest GPUs without much problems. But this "argument" keeps popping up again and again and again. It's so funny .

 

[minitron]

Oh the "future GPU" story all over again. We have been over this before when Nehalem was fighting Deneb and X6,look what happened now. Both Deneb and X6 are running newest games with newest GPUs without much problems. But this "argument" keeps popping up again and again and again. It's so funny .

The X6 is signficantly better than the FX-6100; Phenom II is better than PD/BD.

 

[inf64]

No it is not (pretty much even with PD being better in games with MUCH higher clocking headroom),but I don't want to make this more offtopic then it is. You might recommend the subpar i3 all day long,it's your choice willingly fooling other users .

@ OP

Just reevaluate what you will be using your PC for. If it makes sense to you to buy dual core CPU @ 100+$ in 2013 then do it.

 

[minitron]

No it is not,but I don't want to make this more offtopic then it is. You might recommend the subpar i3 all day long,it's your choice willingly fooling other users .

@ OP

Just reevaluate what you will be using your PC for. If it makes sense to you to buy dual core CPU @ 100+$ in 2013 then do it.

Just remember the dual-core beats AMD FX-8xxx CPUs in many scenarios.

 

[inf64]

Yeah and it does come close in those poor lowly threaded apps/games to even 200+$ SB/IB,so what's your point? Should people just buy i3 all of a sudden? No they should not.

 

[minitron]

Yeah and it does come close in those poor lowly threaded apps/games to even 200+$ SB/IB,so what's your point? Should people just buy i3 all of a sudden? No they should not.

They sure as hell shouldn't buy any AMD CPU for gaming if they are building a new setup.

No it is not (pretty much even with PD being better in games with MUCH higher clocking headroom),but I don't want to make this more offtopic then it is. You might recommend the subpar i3 all day long,it's your choice willingly fooling other users .

@ OP

Just reevaluate what you will be using your PC for. If it makes sense to you to buy dual core CPU @ 100+$ in 2013 then do it.

You linked the FX-6300 chief.

 

[inf64]

Yeah just buy a locked dual core i3 @ 3Ghz and be "good" for a decade,right? Just don't try doing more than 2 things at the same time on your PC,it might feel a bit sluggish. And don't expect the poor 3core optimized console port games in 2013 to be working all that good either.Also forget about AES encryption,3d rendering and high quality video encoding. For anything else,you are set!:thumbsup:

PS Yes I linked 6300 since there is no 6100 there,chief. And 6300 runs at 3.5Ghz @ stock while it can clock much higher than X6.

 

[minitron]

Yeah just buy a locked dual core i3 @ 3Ghz and be "good" for a decade,right? Just don't try doing more than 2 things at the same time on your PC,it might feel a bit sluggish. And don't expect the poor 3core optimized console port games in 2013 to be working all that good either.Also forget about AES encryption,3d rendering and high quality video encoding. For anything else,you are set!:thumbsup:

PS Yes I linked 6300 since there is no 6100 there,chief. And 6300 runs at 3.5Ghz @ stock while it can clock much higher than X6.

AES encryption, 3D rendering and high-quality video encoding are specialized tasks none of which the OP actually mentioned. People who do tons of rendering/encoding are probably doing it for their job in which case they're using an i7/Xeons and skipping AMD.

I don't understand why you think that light multi-tasking such as browsing with multiple tabs and using iTunes would sluggish considering C2Ds and Athlon II X2s can handle those tasks fine.

The vast majority of computers sold today are dual-cores and software optimization reflects that. This trend isn't going to change by next year.

You just didn't find the FX-6100 on Anandbench and were too lazy to use this thing we call "google."

 

[inf64]

i3 is just subpar solution man,if you can't understand this fact at the end of 2012 I have little doubt you will feel the same next year. Just remember to be here in the forums when i3 "gamers" come back and ask why the fps is not great in their multiplayer games.

As for 3d rendering and video encoding being specialized workloads,I disagree. A lot of people are doing video encoding these days and AES encryption is getting popular too. Security is very important nowadays with various threats lurking online. Users need to protect their files the best they can.

 

[minitron]

i3 is just subpar solution man,if you can't understand this fact at the end of 2012 I have little doubt you will feel the same next year. Just remember to be here in the forums when i3 "gamers" come back and ask why the fps is not great in heir multiplayer games.

You're just saying this without any substance or empirical data such as reviews to back it up.

I can claim a i386 is faster than i7-3960X if we didn't use facts.:whiste:

 

[inf64]

Ok I'm done arguing with you. Just remember to be here next year if i3 "gamers" post here on forums. Maybe you will tell them what magic dust they can use to make the MMOA or FPS MP games more playable on their dual core machines.

edit:
@ the OP
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/699?vs=677
Take a look at AT's own results. 6300 vs 3220,one is a winner and it ain't the lowly i3. Under Win8 6300 wins even in two games in the chart,Diablo3 and Skyrim . On top of better stock vs stock performance the 6300 is unlocked and can clock 20% over stock to roughly 4.2Ghz with stock cooling and stock Vcore.

 

[cytg111]

Ok I'm done arguing with you. Just remember to be here next year if i3 "gamers" post here on forums. Maybe you will tell them what magic dust they can use to make the MMOA or FPS MP games more playable on their dual core machines.

edit:
@ the OP
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/699?vs=677
Take a look at AT's own results. 6300 vs 3220,one is a winner and it ain't the lowly i3. Under Win8 6300 wins even in two games in the chart,Diablo3 and Skyrim . On top of better stock vs stock performance the 6300 is unlocked and can clock 20% over stock to roughly 4.2Ghz with stock cooling and stock Vcore.

I must admit that i dont see the i3 faring so badly there .. about neck to neck .. The reason I would go i3 is the upgrade path, in a year or two a cheap i5/i7 will keep that system alive another 3-4 years. Cant say the same for the amd sys.

 

[minitron]

Ok I'm done arguing with you. Just remember to be here next year if i3 "gamers" post here on forums. Maybe you will tell them what magic dust they can use to make the MMOA or FPS MP games more playable on their dual core machines.

edit:
@ the OP
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/699?vs=677
Take a look at AT's own results. 6300 vs 3220,one is a winner and it ain't the lowly i3. Under Win8 6300 wins even in two games in the chart,Diablo3 and Skyrim . On top of better stock vs stock performance the 6300 is unlocked and can clock 20% over stock to roughly 4.2Ghz with stock cooling and stock Vcore.

I would hardly say there is a "winner" in that link.

Funny thing is you spent so much time finding this one link when every Vishera review (and Bench is not a proper review) shows that the best case scenarios AMD CPUs match Intel in games and in worse case scenarios they are significantly slower.

The FX-6300 is ~10% slower than the i3 when it's clocked at 4.1 Ghz with Turbo. I doubt you're getting it much higher than 4.1 Ghz with stock cooling/volts. In fact, I would like to see any evidence you can sufficiently overclock on the stock cooler and volts.

 

[AtenRa]

The X6 is signficantly better than the FX-6100; Phenom II is better than PD/BD.

They sure as hell shouldn't buy any AMD CPU for gaming if they are building a new setup.

FX4300 and FX6300 vs Core i3 3220 (GTX670)
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...57615-amd-vishera-fx-6300-fx-4300-review.html

FX6300 On par with Core i3 3225

FX6300 faster even than 3570K

Core i3 3225 faster than FX6300

FX6300 faster than Core i3 3225

FX6300 on par with Core i3 3225

Not only FX6300 performing on par or better in gaming but it is much faster in Multithreding than Core i3 at the same price point. Its also unlocked and can be OCed to give it even greater performance to price ratio.

 

[inf64]

Don't make me count the wins 6300 has in workloads from AT bench...i3 wins in a couple of ST workloads and ties it in a couple of more lowly threaded ones. In the rest it's 6300 as a clear winner.

Oh and 10% slower in wait for it,yes DX9 game Skyrim. Why I'm not surprised. Those 2 or 3 games that run better on i3 are exception to the rule.And 10% faster in Skyrim,wow what a difference that is! He will surely feel the difference between 55 and 50fps... Oh wait.

 

[Arkaign]

I have to support the 6300 when priced same as i3. I wouldn't recommend overclocking it much, as it gets hot and sucks power just like BD did.

Either way, if at all possible, it's best to go with 2500K and truly be done with all CPU concerns for a while. All of the K chips will hit at least 4Ghz, and most will hit 4.4-4.8 range, which puts them way out of range of everything else.

Not everyone has the money for that, and the 6300 is a fine alternative on a budget. The only other bad part about going AM3+ at this point is we don't know if we're going to be limited in the future. 8300 might be the final CPU. With a Z77 setup you know at least that 3770K is a drop-in option, which is significantly more stout for gaming than 8300. Stock v stock or OC v OC.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I must admit that i dont see the i3 faring so badly there .. about neck to neck .. The reason I would go i3 is the upgrade path, in a year or two a cheap i5/i7 will keep that system alive another 3-4 years. Cant say the same for the amd sys.

I think the OP needs to decide exactly what level of gaming he wants to get into. If he is satisfied with a 7750 at 720p, then any CPU will be more than adequate for that GPU, even a dual core pentium would suffice.

If he wants to do 1080p, get a better graphics card, and be future proof, he should just bite the bullet and save up enough to get an i5. In absolute performance over a wide range of games, and in performance per watt, it is the superior solution.

But dont listen to the contention that an i3 will be obsolete in a year, or be swayed by some multithreaded productivity apps that AMD fans always bring up, which were totally off topic to your post, since you didnt mention any of them. Of the perhaps 20 or so close friends/family that I know who use computers, NONE of them use those apps.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Don't make me count the wins 6300 has in workloads from AT bench...i3 wins in a couple of ST workloads and ties it in a couple of more lowly threaded ones. In the rest it's 6300 as a clear winner.

Oh and 10% slower in wait for it,yes DX9 game Skyrim. Why I'm not surprised. Those 2 or 3 games that run better on i3 are exception to the rule.And 10% faster in Skyrim,wow what a difference that is! He will surely feel the difference between 55 and 50fps... Oh wait.

Well, I dont see any game on that list in which the 6300 is a clear winner. But yea, it is the game designer's fault that AMD has inferior performance in games.

 

[laputan machine]

I think the OP needs to decide exactly what level of gaming he wants to get into. If he is satisfied with a 7750 at 720p, then any CPU will be more than adequate for that GPU, even a dual core pentium would suffice.

If he wants to do 1080p, get a better graphics card, and be future proof, he should just bite the bullet and save up enough to get an i5. In absolute performance over a wide range of games, and in performance per watt, it is the superior solution.

But dont listen to the contention that an i3 will be obsolete in a year, or be swayed by some multithreaded productivity apps that AMD fans always bring up, which were totally off topic to your post, since you didnt mention any of them. Of the perhaps 20 or so close friends/family that I know who use computers, NONE of them use those apps.

The 7750 does 1080p fine, I know it's hard to believe but you don't need a hugely expensive card.

 

[Rvenger]

And costs much more,which he cannot afford. 6100 stock is at 3.3Ghz,measly clock for Bulldozer. It can run at 4.4Ghz with slight vcore bump. If you think 4.4Ghz 6T Bulldozer is "bad" in games than you need reality check. It might have worse SLI scaling for sure,but with single higher end GPU ,any game will be smooth in high detail/AA setting.

This! I picked up an A8-5600k and have it clocked past A10 speeds and gaming is perfectly fine and this chip is snappy.

 

[minitron]

My original point is the i3 will be just as fast as the FX-6300 in gaming while consuming less power and offering a better upgrade path.

Well, I dont see any game on that list in which the 6300 is a clear winner. But yea, it is the game designer's fault that AMD has inferior performance in games.

This is coming from a guy who claims BD was faster than an i7 for gaming...

 

[Rvenger]

A8-5600K - I am actually running this with an HD 6850 (Went with the lowest price 4 core because I am not using IGP) Undervolted and rock stable at 4ghz. Picked this CPU up for $100 shipped. This is on my ITX setup and I am using a $17 Hyper TX3 Heatsink.

 

[frozentundra123456]

A8-5600K - I am actually running this with an HD 6850 (Went with the lowest price 4 core because I am not using IGP) Undervolted and rock stable at 4ghz. Picked this CPU up for $100 shipped. This is on my ITX setup and I am using a $17 Hyper TX3 Heatsink.

Not sure I see the point of getting a APU and disabling the IGP, but if it is working for you that is great. For 100.00 the price is right.

 

[Vesku]

The dual core recommendations really need to stop unless you're recommending an office productivity machine. The Core 2 Quads and Phenom II Quads outlasted the fastest Core 2 Duos. Programs are going to continue to improve their use of multiple threads from here on out.

As for OP, for gaming I'd recommend to save up a bit more for a 2500K/3570K+Z77 combination. Or get FX-6300 if it shows up in your area soonish.