Save up and get an i5 or stick with what I have?

[blake0812]

I recently bought an FX-6300 and replaced my old Phenom II x4. Though now Intel is releasing new CPUs i'm debating whether to get an i5 or stick with the FX? I'm hoping Intel drops the price on existing i5s.

 

[ShintaiDK]

i5s wont drop in price. And you also need new board.

But what are your reasons for the suggested change? Its hard to say if your money is better saved, better spend elsewhere or used on an i5 without knowing.

 

[Yuriman]

Intel doesn't drop prices. The old i5's will disappear and be replaced by new ones at approximately the same price.

What's your use-case? An i5 is a lot faster, but the 6300 is adequate for most games.

 

[jhu]

Budget? Usage pattern?

 

[blake0812]

Intel doesn't drop prices. The old i5's will disappear and be replaced by new ones at approximately the same price.

What's your use-case? An i5 is a lot faster, but the 6300 is adequate for most games.

I just feel as if I didn't really upgrade at all. I've been running Dolphin Emulator and it's still slow so maybe the processor sucks? Most games run great though, GTA4 though doesn't.

Budget? Usage pattern?

Well I usually make around 400$ every pay period (two weeks) but I put half in a savings account and half in my main account. I usually just game.

 

[Yuriman]

I just feel as if I didn't really upgrade at all. I've been running Dolphin Emulator and it's still slow so maybe the processor sucks? Most games run great though, GTA4 though doesn't.

Dolphin will run considerably faster on an i3 or i5, so it would be a worthwhile upgrade, I think.

 

[Denithor]

Look into a used motherboard/cpu either here in the For Sale forum or on eBay/Amazon/Craigslist? I've seen some stupid good deals in the forums here if you dig a bit and aren't in a huge rush.

 

[R0H1T]

I recently bought an FX-6300 and replaced my old Phenom II x4. Though now Intel is releasing new CPUs i'm debating whether to get an i5 or stick with the FX? I'm hoping Intel drops the price on existing i5s.

If you can return it then why not go with a FX-8320E OR the FX-8370E ~ http://www.anandtech.com/show/8429/amd-set-to-announce-new-fx-processors

That depends on your mobo of course but it'll probably support these new(er) FX models with a BIOS update.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, iDunno. My gaming habits are casual at best.

I have an i5, but if I had a FX-6300, I'd probably be okay with it, although I might be tempted to do a mild OC for principle's sake.

Dolphin will run considerably faster on an i3 or i5, so it would be a worthwhile upgrade, I think.

What's the limitation - single-core performance? (Haven't used Dolphin.)

 

[Yuriman]

Yeah, iDunno. My gaming habits are casual at best.

I have an i5, but if I had a FX-6300, I'd probably be okay with it, although I might be tempted to do a mild OC for principle's sake.



What's the limitation - single-core performance? (Haven't used Dolphin.)

Yeah, Dolphin is something like 60% faster on an i3 than an FX-8350. When you don't have enough CPU power, the entire game slows down and audio gets choppy.

 

[Sattern]

It would be better on your finances if you wait because what you have now is perfectly fine.

if you really want an Intel just wait until the new ones release.

 

[Ieat]

Overclocked G3258 is the king of Dolphin. Wait until Newegg has another cpu/mobo for under $100. They've had them consistently about once a week for a while now.

 

[frozentundra123456]

There are no new desktop chips coming out from Intel for at least a year. In any case, I think the op should just stay with the 6300. What he needs is faster single thread performance. Moving up to 8320 would gain very little, while 8350/70 would gain maybe 20%. Probably not worth it unless you can return the 6300 or sell it for close to what you paid.

Moving to Intel would require a new motherboard and CPU. Probably not worth it either unless performance is totally unacceptable with the 6300.

Edit: as leat said if you are solely focused on dolphin, the overclockable Pentium is a good choice.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I recently bought an FX-6300 and replaced my old Phenom II x4. Though now Intel is releasing new CPUs i'm debating whether to get an i5 or stick with the FX? I'm hoping Intel drops the price on existing i5s.

Stick with the FX. It's a pretty decent chip; I'd spend the money elsewhere on the platform if you are not happy with your performance.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I just feel as if I didn't really upgrade at all. I've been running Dolphin Emulator and it's still slow so maybe the processor sucks? Most games run great though, GTA4 though doesn't.




Well I usually make around 400$ every pay period (two weeks) but I put half in a savings account and half in my main account. I usually just game.

Hmm, I didn't see this post earlier -- I need to be more attentive! In that case, can you return your FX 6300 without significant penalty?

If so, if you are able to save $200/2wks for a new system, you should be able to get an i5 4670K ($234 on Newegg) + a decent Z97 board in a few weeks (since I assume you'd recoup the $ from the 6300 and could defer adding the remainder to your savings for one pay period).

 

[Yuriman]

Even an i5 non-K or i3 (with a cheap H chipset board) would be a significant upgrade over an overclocked 6300 for Dolphin. In better threaded programs/games I'd say there's less reason to change.

 

[blake0812]

There are no new desktop chips coming out from Intel for at least a year. In any case, I think the op should just stay with the 6300. What he needs is faster single thread performance. Moving up to 8320 would gain very little, while 8350/70 would gain maybe 20%. Probably not worth it unless you can return the 6300 or sell it for close to what you paid.

Moving to Intel would require a new motherboard and CPU. Probably not worth it either unless performance is totally unacceptable with the 6300.

Edit: as leat said if you are solely focused on dolphin, the overclockable Pentium is a good choice.

The performance is good, I can run Crysis maxed (my phenom II had stuttering problems with it). I'm just not sure if it's because how Dolphin is coded that it's slow or if it's my hardware.

 

[Techhog]

Dolphin is EXTREMELY Intel-biased and only uses 1-2 threads. It needs raw speed.

 

[escrow4]

Stick with the FX. It's a pretty decent chip; I'd spend the money elsewhere on the platform if you are not happy with your performance.

Its rubbish unless your workload is very (VERY) well threaded. Otherwise it fails everywhere else. Its also on an antique of a platform that is already in the cemetery. I remember I had a 6300 when I was playing Saint's Row 4 and the dips were enough to drive you insane.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Its rubbish unless your workload is very (VERY) well threaded. Otherwise it fails everywhere else. Its also on an antique of a platform that is already in the cemetery. I remember I had a 6300 when I was playing Saint's Row 4 and the dips were enough to drive you insane.

It isn't that bad. I have a fx6300 and I also have a 2600k. I use the fx6300 rig just because I have windows 8 loaded on it with a better ssd and the board has usb 3 on it. I built this system to be a htpc but ended up just using it instead. Then again I quit gaming so there is that.

 

[jhu]

Dolphin is EXTREMELY Intel-biased and only uses 1-2 threads. It needs raw speed.

I really doubt that it's Intel biased (ie checks cpuid and deliberately runs slower code path on non-Intel CPUs). It's an open source project, and that's something someone would have noticed and corrected.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I really doubt that it's Intel biased (ie checks cpuid and deliberately runs slower code path on non-Intel CPUs). It's an open source project, and that's something someone would have noticed and corrected.

It may use AVX / AVX2 though, I think.

 

[jhu]

It may use AVX / AVX2 though, I think.

Bulldozer/Piledriver implements AVX. Well, I'll go peruse the code to see if it doea use either one.

 

[Techhog]

I really doubt that it's Intel biased (ie checks cpuid and deliberately runs slower code path on non-Intel CPUs). It's an open source project, and that's something someone would have noticed and corrected.

Either way, it's extremely heavy on single-threaded performance, to the point that I think it takes a 9590 to even come close to a stock 4670K. If Dolphin is something you'll use often and you want to do it full speed 1080p+, you want an Intel CPU.

That said, overclocking does make a difference, so try that first OP.

EDIT: I just want to mention that the FAQ on the Dolphin website says that a stock 8350 is half as fast as a stock 4670K. That's even worse than I thought. There's clearly 0 optimization for AMD here.

 

[jhu]

Either way, it's extremely heavy on single-threaded performance, to the point that I think it takes a 9590 to even come close to a stock 4670K. If Dolphin is something you'll use often and you want to do it full speed 1080p+, you want an Intel CPU.

That said, overclocking does make a difference, so try that first OP.

EDIT: I just want to mention that the FAQ on the Dolphin website says that a stock 8350 is half as fast as a stock 4670K. That's even worse than I thought. There's clearly 0 optimization for AMD here.

It's not that there's 0 optimization for AMD. It's well known that single-thread performance on FX processors lags significantly behind Intel's offerings. Clock for clock, it's at Phenom II levels, which, according to testing I've done, is about 60% of Haswell's performance.

I'm not too familiar with emulation so I don't know how easy it would be to write a better threaded emulator.