AMD Athlon II X4 760K for budget gaming?

[Forrestfield]

I've being putting together a (very) budget system for my younger brother. I've sorted a GTX 660 SC 2GB edition and a Cool Master 620W GPU so far for peanuts. But now I've got to pick a CPU. An i5 or i7 is a bit beyond the budget.

So I was thinking about a 760K. With a A88 FM2+ motherboard, to keep open an upgrade path for the future.

His games of choice are Diablo 3, World of Warcraft, Garry's Mod and Terria (Spelling?). He's hoping to play on Medium to High at 1920 * 1080 at 30fps/60fps. Is this manageable with a 760K?

 

[Traciatim]

If you are looking for an upgrade path there is also the Intel Celeron//Pentium line: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%20600436886%20600005539%20600005583%20600005572&IsNodeId=1&name=Pentium%20Dual-Core . . . This would get you an 1150 socket which can upgrade to am i5 or i7 in the future if needed.

Coolermaster generally aren't trusted well with many of their PSUs. You probably only needs a 450 or 500 watt supply, so you could switch out to something higher quality but a similar price.

 

[Forrestfield]

I hadn't even considered the Celeron line. That, however, steers me toward a low end i3 (4330?) though, paired with a B85 chipset board. I should get better performance with that, no?

Yeah, I know. He brought it home from a flee market, so I've got to deal with it. Maybe in the future I'll search for a replacement, for now there's no real money for that.

 

[logainofhades]

Go with an i3 4130 and a B85 pro4. D3 and WoW favor Intel.

 

[Traciatim]

Go with an i3 4130 and a B85 pro4. D3 and WoW favor Intel.

Almost everything favor Intel these days. Only very few specifically designed games favor AMD, and even then it's usually is special cases. AMD has essentially given up on the CPU performance front.

 

[logainofhades]

Blizzard games, in general, heavily favor Intel. My i5 2400 @ 3.5ghz with an HD 5850 performs better than my FX 8320 @4.0ghz with an HD 5850, in WoW.

 

[sapperastro]

For those games, it doesn't matter what you choose. Intel I series, FX piledrivers, or that FM2+ cpu. All will smash those games with that gpu. You won't be able to see a visible difference between them. Choose whichever one you want.

 

[damric]

Especially WoW style games favor intel. D3 doesn't really matter I noticed (my wife never gets slowed with her Athlon II 620 at 2.6GHz).

But Athlon 760K is pretty good if you tune it up to 4.5GHz or so. Anyways here are my generic low budget builds for i3 or Athlon 760K:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: G.Skill AEGIS 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 460 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($97.81 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 1GB Video Card ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Inwin Dragon Slayer MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($41.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $560.73
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-09 13:36 EDT-0400)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($84.74 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($18.15 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88M-HD+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($64.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: AMD Radeon R9 Gamer Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($71.98 @ NCIX US)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 460 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($97.81 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($112.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Cougar Archon ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $560.63
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-09 13:37 EDT-0400)

 

[logainofhades]

For those games, it doesn't matter what you choose. Intel I series, FX piledrivers, or that FM2+ cpu. All will smash those games with that gpu. You won't be able to see a visible difference between them. Choose whichever one you want.

WoW is more CPU dependant and always has been. I know for a fact that there is a difference between them as the FX 8320 system does not perform as well as my i5 2400 system, with the exact same GPU. I took the Sapphire HD 5850 xtremes I had in crossfire, and put one in each system to upgrade them when I bought my HD 7970.

 

[sapperastro]

For those games, it doesn't matter what you choose. Intel I series, FX piledrivers, or that FM2+ cpu. All will smash those games with that gpu. You won't be able to see a visible difference between them. Choose whichever one you want.

WoW is more CPU dependant and always has been. I know for a fact that there is a difference between them as the FX 8320 system does not perform as well as my i5 2400 system, with the exact same GPU. I took the Sapphire HD 5850 xtremes I had in crossfire, and put one in each system to upgrade them when I bought my HD 7970.

Oh I am not saying you are wrong. But what magnitude are we talking about here? 80fps for the 760k vs 100 for the intel? When this sort of thing happens, it doesn't really matter what the difference is, as it isn't noticeable without having an incredible monitor, and even then, can the human eye notice it?

WoW doesn't need great specs to play it smoothly. I had no issues whatsoever with my old out dated creature that packed an Athlon 64 4800+. Therefore, I cannot see how any of the processors mentioned would have any issues whatsoever at playing these games smoothly.

 

[logainofhades]

Well the person using the AMD rig complains of performance drops and the i5 rig user does not. In raids, I have seen the results. The i5 is much smoother than the FX in a raid situation.

 

[damric]

Some of these MMORPGs are so poorly optimized that even if you have a fine tuned i7 you might see dips into the teens.

 

[logainofhades]

Some of these MMORPGs are so poorly optimized that even if you have a fine tuned i7 you might see dips into the teens.

Oh I know, on the newest 40 man + world boss fight, even my system drops into the teens.

 

[WhiteSnake91]

Don't feel bad about going with the Athlon 760k. The Richland I've read up on the past couple of days has an improved memory controller but the average user wouldn't tweak that stuff. A couple users have posted here tweaking it to run with 2400mhz ram and that would probably make it very snappy. My bro paired his a10 5800k with a gtx 660ti and has been able to play everything on 1080p ultra. Not constant 60fps in all titles of course, but honestly, I can't tell much of a difference between his pc build and mine. His gtx 660ti is on par with my hd7950, but my cpu is supposed to be MUCH better than his, but, it doesn't show much in real life usage, contrary all these synthetic benchmarks online.


I finally personally tested it myself playing bf4 64man conquest servers and in operation locker and flood zone, we get the same fps, in shangai he dips down to 35fps at the lowest on all ultra settings, mine goes to about 40-45ish at the lowest I'd estimate.

I was actually shocked due to all the anti AMD bias online... the Athlon x4 760k would serve you fine, my bro's would essentially be the Athlon x4 750k.

It's VERY good considering it's a ~$75 cpu, and my ~$220 i5 cpu that costs 3 times than the Athlon isn't THAT much better than it in real world usage.

 

[Forrestfield]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I've gone with a i5 4440 as part of an upgrade kit. Which put the price of CPU, MOBO and RAM at 50,- more than a Athlon x4 760K (with similar MOBO and RAM.) I might get myself a Athlon x4 760K in the short future though.