AMD A10-6800k or the Intel Core i5-3350P paired with a GTX 750 Ti.

[amonkeynamedfee]

I am making a budget entry level gaming computer for a friend for around $500 but I don't know much about APU's or Intel CPU's. I was wondering if the better option would be to get the APU and use the extra money to make other parts better or grab the Intel i5 with GTX 750 Ti and just have average parts. It will be paired with 8 gb's of RAM but I don't have which specific parts I'm going to buy for it.

 

[rolandzhang3]

Get the i5, never pair an APU with a dedicated card, people only buy an APU to use the integrated Radeon graphics onboard

You'll be much better off with that i5 since you can upgrade to a much better GPU down the line, that i5 shouldn't hold any GPU back including the 780s

 

[baazing]

Get the i5, never pair an APU with a dedicated card, people only buy an APU to use the integrated Radeon graphics onboard

You'll be much better off with that i5 since you can upgrade to a much better GPU down the line, that i5 shouldn't hold any GPU back including the 780s

+1

I would not go with the APU. If anything I'd say to get an FX 6300 but if he isn't overclocking an i3 4130 would probably fit just as well. It slightly outperforms a non overclocked FX 6300. Or just pay the extra money and get the i5 3350p.

 

[amonkeynamedfee]

Get the i5, never pair an APU with a dedicated card, people only buy an APU to use the integrated Radeon graphics onboard

You'll be much better off with that i5 since you can upgrade to a much better GPU down the line, that i5 shouldn't hold any GPU back including the 780s

I don't plan to pair the APU with the GTX 750 Ti. I was going to use the APU with the integrated graphics and use the saved money to increase the quality of the other parts. I have no experience with a APU so I don't know how well it will run games. I plan on getting a aftermarket cooler if I do decide to get the APU as all bad review are on the stock cooler.

 

[amonkeynamedfee]

Get the i5, never pair an APU with a dedicated card, people only buy an APU to use the integrated Radeon graphics onboard

You'll be much better off with that i5 since you can upgrade to a much better GPU down the line, that i5 shouldn't hold any GPU back including the 780s

+1

I would not go with the APU. If anything I'd say to get an FX 6300 but if he isn't overclocking an i3 4130 would probably fit just as well. It slightly outperforms a non overclocked FX 6300. Or just pay the extra money and get the i5 3350p.

I was thinking of grabbing an i3 but the 2 cores kind scare me. Some games say they use all four cores but I'm not entirely sure if they do, would getting 2 cores really be alright for decent FPS in newer game?

 

[rolandzhang3]

If you're going with an APU, you'll need a better motherboard when you want to upgrade to a better CPU since the FM2 and FM2+ sockets are primarily for APUs which are pretty underpowered when you don't consider the decent onboard graphics, the 6800K will hold back most decent gaming GPUs at the moment so it's not very ideal

If you actually do want to save money, the aforementioned FX 6300 is certainly a good choice. If you're pairing with a dedicated GPU and want a CPU on the cheap, the Athlon 750k/760k is essentially a 6700/6800k with the APU removed

The i3 4130 is a very powerful dual core which performs on par with the 6300 in gaming for the most part, certainly not a bad choice, and you can upgrade to a Haswell i5 or i7 down the road if it were necessary

You'll most likely be getting a decent PSU so you could get a better GPU such as the r7 265 (or currently 7850) in the same price range as the 750 Ti which is the primary recommendation now for those using weak power supplies in prebuilt systems

 

[baazing]

It has hyperthreading as well which has started showing performance increases in some modern games and especially so with dual cores.