FX vs i (amd vs intel if you wan't)

[PapiFiveNine]

You said its for gaming and you are planning on a 6950? Then there will be no problems with either of those 4 listed above.

[SauceBoss]

any one of those CPUs can support the full power of a 6950 in gaming, maybe if you add a second 6950 the 955/2100 will stutter alittle but the 1090t/2310 will handles two of those pretty fine .

[terriern]

ok then I know and I guesse it's the same if I choose an 6970 (there is an eyefinity pack avaible with both 6970 and 6950 that looks nice) thank you for your answers hopfully this will be a computer that I can use for some time atleast

[Sarinaide]

Avoid FX series chips at all cost, they are poor at low thread performance and single core optimization, and only marginally better at high threading to its direct competitor. The 2500k is by no means great but it is made to look great a) because the i7 is not that impressive to what it should have been (intel sandbagging) and b) AMD is just pants.

I can go into the Intel vs AMD debate for the 10000th time if necessary but I hope not to, what I will say is just buy a Intel processor, even a 2400 is just a fine chip all round. Avoid FX and really don't consider Phenom 2's which are really old architectures now.


CPU power and gaming performance a 2500k will give you 10-20FPS difference over the FX 8150 in 90% of games.

[SauceBoss]

sarinade

that is completley rubbish!!
i can give you hundreds of articles showing that the cpu an barely affect gaming , most games can work realy good on an athlon x2 and after that you realy done exprience any problems. there are a few games that learned to utilize all the resources you can give them and there you can see a diffrence between a dualcore athlon and a quad/hexa core phenom but those are rare and most of them wont fully utilize those cpu either.
the main concern for gaming is a gpu and any cpu can handle that, and ofcourse that a 2011 tech can handle it very good,and the fact that the FX series give's lower score in cinebench or handbrake can kiss my ass.

[karlsanada10]

For gaming.

PSU
GPU
CPU
RAM

In my opinion, that's the order. Most games only need 4GB ram. CPU? Well, a Phenom II X4 will still if you are low on budget, going to FX series is a bit retarded, the price:performance ration just tells it, it's not worth it. anyways, some games now need Quad cores, BF3, Witcher, Batman: Arkham City and Deus Ex. They need Quad core so you won't bottleneck your gpu if ever it's strong like 6950/6970, etc. But then it's about architecture too, iSeries sandy bridge will get significant fps increased over Phenom X4. (Not sure about i3 though it still beats Phenom II X4 on gaming.). But the most important if you're gaming, is GPU. You can have i7-2600K but no gpu, rubbish setup unless you only do it for servers only. That would be great.

[Sarinaide]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... ,3120.html

Well you know, everyone has there opinion on whether the CPU affects performance as much or as little as people believe. This is a new article from the experts at TH, they ran identical setups all with HD 7970's and DDR 3 1333 speeds yet on the results the Intels are by and large well ahead of the AMD's. There are a few anomalies such as the i3 2100 matching the bigger i5's and 7's yet significantly still ahead of AMD's flagship chips.

If the GPU's were the sole determination for average/max/min FPS, then the results will be equal. Clearly the GPU's don't do as much as what is led to believe. The other deduction is that where games become CPU bound the Intel chips are just a lot better from lowend to high end over the AMD counterparts (but we knew that a long time ago).

There is no reason to invest in a AMD right now, unless you have a existing AMD platform. Other than that AMD are as expensive as Intel and don't deliver across the board similar numbers. I think Zambezi can by and large be called the Dozing Bull.

------------PSU-----------------

Really? does a PSU affect gaming performance? It affects the quality of components yes not the gaming experience, you have confused build preference with gaming performance I think.

[reaper15058832]

Just because intel is ahead of amd, does not mean their cpu's are crap and should be avoided!!! AMD is mostly cheaper than intel. So for cheaper price with performance that does not totally suck like you make it sound, AMD is thus for budget gamers a very attractive option. Yes the FX series is expensive and yes the intel chips perform better, but it is still not crap!!!

[terriern]

As I was the one starting the thread I must say that right now I will probally go for an Intel processor but let me say this Sarinaide you sound like one of those Intel fan boys wich makes you a bad person to listen to in this because if there was an AMD processor that is better than an Intel you would still say that the Intel is better, I know this for a fact since I myself would never sink so low that I would buy an Xbox when there is Playstation, but now let's put that aside an let me tell you why I will buy an Intel instead an also why I will buy a good CPU.

The reason for that I will buy an Intel CPU is simple it is already confirmed that the AMD fx series can't be to it's full potential on windows 7 and since I've seen some demos on Windows 8 I won't be buying that, about two weeks ago there was an update for windows that made the fx CPU's work about 20% better but still iut isn't the best it can do so there is no reason for buying it, and the reason for that I am buying a good processor even if I know that it doesn't matter that much in games is that I will soon begin to study some animation and that I now more is sitting and studiyng some programming, after I finish this part of school I will if I succced with programming probally begin in university (or similar) for game development because I think it is fun and also because I have one game that I think is missing right now and I would love people to play a game like that, I won't care if it is only three people playing it so long these people get much joy and think it is good I won't care what others think and by this I will need a starting point and that will mean pålaying betas, alphas and other things to learn to detect even the smallest bugs and also playing all sorts of games and test different software so I learn how to do it and if I get a much smother experince everything will go faster and it will be easier for me to focus on what's important right now.

[Sarinaide]

It was true for some time that AMD produced solid budget gaming platforms for significantly less money than Intel, that was true for the P2 X4/X6's, now that they have discontinued that line it is no longer true that AMD can claim that title anymore, by and large the FX chips are badly referenced priced. I would say that if the end user has an existing AM2/AM3 or 3+ setup then yes the FX is a very feasible upgrade path.

I didn't expressly call AMD chips crap, and if I gave the impression then I am sorry for that. This thread the OP wants to accertain the correct position on FX v Core I (sandybridge) and if we are going to lie about how good FX really is, then I would say we are being irresponsible. The hard simple truth is that FX is a good 2-3 generations behind Intel. If we are honest of where FX stands it is by and large on a par with Phenom 2 architecture which is old and antiquated now. I don't condone the position of telling a person to buy a P2 X6 1100T on the basis that you should never upgrade with old discontinued technology.

I don't appreciate the "fanboy" retorts, I used to be a AMD user but since Core2 there was no reason to go back, I buy on the basis of price/performance and right now Intel does that better regardless of just how badly they undercut the consumer. I have not alliegence to any manufacturer, I have used Asus, Gigabyte, Msi, Intel, Amd, Nvidia and ATI/AMD, corsair, Gskill, Kingston, Antec and coolermaster. I don't confine myself to myopic allegience to the cause. They "Avoid" tag associated with the FX line is derived from the experts of tech sites that live and breath benchmarks, you can go from PC Format, NAG, Tomshareware, Anandtech, HardCorp ..... and they are all giving the FX damning reviews.

Just to make the point on the FX bad reference pricing. In my country the FX 8150 goes for around R3300 while the i5 2500K sells at R2200 it is prudent to take the 2500K as it cost less and is more efficient, sure the 2500K is slower at highly threaded applications, for which I don't use. For everything else the R1000 was put towards a PSU and GPU cost. The 2600K goes for around R3400~ so the small added premium or R100~200 is neglible for the virtual domination the i7 has over the the 8150.