AMD FX 6300 vs Intel Core i3 4150 in 2015

[mayankj]

I'm really confused between fx 6300 & core i3. I'll pair it with r9 270x or gtx 960.
core i5 is out of my budget. Should i go for fx 8320? I'm not gonna upgrade it for the next 4-5 years, so please suggest. I'll use this pc for gaming, photoshop and programming.
Please suggest.

 

[madmatt30]

will i3 be able to cope up with the upcoming games for next 3-4 years?

[strike]Yes[/strike] I doubt it unless you have inside information we arent aware of

hyper threading is irrelevant

[strike]haha no it's not.[/strike] yes it is when it comes to api calls from within directx12 coded apps

the i3 stutters and have a hard time being smooth, the fx on the other doesn't have this problem.

Just curious, which i3 are you referring to? the i3 4330-4370 doesn't stutter, hell the i3 4160 HTPC I have doesn't either.

it struggles in gta v,dying light & dragon age inquisition - 3 decently multithreaded games

 

[madmatt30]

I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of dx12, I didn't code it. This however is what I was talking about. "DirectX 12 is going to greatly free up processor utilization, and thus your games can make more draw-calls with your processor." Does the cpu take on more draw calls as you say? Yes. Does dx12 FREE UP the cpu utilization to do so? Yes. Does that not reduce load on the cpu if it FREES the cpu to do more gaming related things?

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/quick-test-directx-12-api-overhead-benchmark,2.html

Funny, on star swarm moving from dx11 to dx12 gains a dual core cpu 34fps, over 100% of the fps it had under dx11. The six core cpu didn't get any better fps than the quad core, and at extreme quality, the quad core got even more fps than the six core.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm/4

Even if a heavily multithreaded weak cpu can be better utilized to process draw calls, wouldn't it stand to reason that a more powerful cpu would process those draw calls even faster? Same as any other workload. There's no magic fix for a weak cpu and by the time any of this is implemented to any real extent even amd will have come out with new hardware officially putting fx to rest. I don't recall a time when old hardware was so much magically better that people sought out downgrades. It is what it is.

youve just answered all your own questions

it gains a dual core 100% performance increase because in dx11 the api calls can only access 1 thread/core
dx12 lets it access the full grunt of 2 cores
Double performance
The entire essence of the dx12 api

If you'd read the article fully you'd have noticed that it states quite clearly that before it hits 4 cores the benchmark is fully gpu bound & the fps are limited by this.
the i3 is hyperthreaded ,you cant fully utilise 100% of all the 4 cores - its not possible ,theyre not physical hardware cores,its clever tech but looking at dx12 it will not improve performance,its incredibly easy to saturate the cores on an i3 while rendering simultaneous video transcodes - Ive done it.
you can argue the fx chips arent real multicores with their 2 modules per core but they essentially are,the hardware is there ,they share some resources but you can still pull 95% performance out of all 6/8 modules simultaneously with no detrimental performance decrease.

A couple of dx12 tests all based around an haswell-e i7 with cores disabled/enabled to simulate other chips is somewhat inaccurate but it shows the essence of what dx12 is about - ask youself why these tests werent done at a lower gpu setting to remove the gpu bottleneck thats there - or even why it wasnt tested on amd cpu's which is really what everyone (apart from intel fanboys) wants to see.

 

[synphul]

I'm hoping dx12 helps amd. They can use all the help they can get with intel's dual core cpu's coming within 1-2fps of their 8 core cpu's. The only difference in the i7's are the extra cache which doesn't make that much difference, ht can be disabled and cores can be disabled. It's fairly accurate considering we don't actually have any full blown dx12 games out yet. I did read the article, thanks for assuming - we all know where assumption leads right?

So you have a wonder chip with 8 threads from amd and you want to pair it with a junk gpu that can't fully benefit from it, why? It makes sense to test it on higher end hardware to see the potential of the technology. How do you figure dx12 isn't increasing performance when I posted a link clearly showing dual core with ht (aka an i3 setup) gaining over 100% fps increase? Is fps not a measure of performance? Is gaining more than twice the fps not an increase? I'm baffled by the logic.

It doesn't matter what percentage of what threads were used, the end result was going from 21.9fps to 55.7fps with only 2 cores enabled moving from dx11 to dx12 using the gtx980. Apparently it wasn't gpu bound or fps wouldn't have increased, correct? Paired with r9 290x, dual core performance went from 7.5fps to 42.9fps. For one, how is that gpu bound and for another, how is 600% performance increase NOT improving performance? Your only logic is to skip into left field with video transcoding which isn't gaming with dx12. No one said the i3 was for video transcoding prowess. It was pointing out the fact that thanks to dx12 weaker performing cpu's such as a dual core ht enabled i3 can gain a substantial amount of performance.

 

[teknobug]

will i3 be able to cope up with the upcoming games for next 3-4 years?

[strike]Yes[/strike] I doubt it unless you have inside information we arent aware of

hyper threading is irrelevant

[strike]haha no it's not.[/strike] yes it is when it comes to api calls from within directx12 coded apps

the i3 stutters and have a hard time being smooth, the fx on the other doesn't have this problem.

Just curious, which i3 are you referring to? the i3 4330-4370 doesn't stutter, hell the i3 4160 HTPC I have doesn't either.

it struggles in gta v,dying light & dragon age inquisition - 3 decently multithreaded games

I was going to mention GTA 5, an i3 4160 keeps up with a 5GHz FX 9590 with that game. Dying light plays fine, and Dragon Age... well that game isn't very optimized for almost any system besides an OC'd FX or i5/i7 like Planetside 2.

 

[madmatt30]

I'm hoping dx12 helps amd. They can use all the help they can get with intel's dual core cpu's coming within 1-2fps of their 8 core cpu's. The only difference in the i7's are the extra cache which doesn't make that much difference, ht can be disabled and cores can be disabled. It's fairly accurate considering we don't actually have any full blown dx12 games out yet. I did read the article, thanks for assuming - we all know where assumption leads right?

So you have a wonder chip with 8 threads from amd and you want to pair it with a junk gpu that can't fully benefit from it, why? It makes sense to test it on higher end hardware to see the potential of the technology. How do you figure dx12 isn't increasing performance when I posted a link clearly showing dual core with ht (aka an i3 setup) gaining over 100% fps increase? Is fps not a measure of performance? Is gaining more than twice the fps not an increase? I'm baffled by the logic.

It doesn't matter what percentage of what threads were used, the end result was going from 21.9fps to 55.7fps with only 2 cores enabled moving from dx11 to dx12 using the gtx980. Apparently it wasn't gpu bound or fps wouldn't have increased, correct? Paired with r9 290x, dual core performance went from 7.5fps to 42.9fps. For one, how is that gpu bound and for another, how is 600% performance increase NOT improving performance? Your only logic is to skip into left field with video transcoding which isn't gaming with dx12. No one said the i3 was for video transcoding prowess. It was pointing out the fact that thanks to dx12 weaker performing cpu's such as a dual core ht enabled i3 can gain a substantial amount of performance.

you certainly havent read it properly then mate,
if you had you would know that the dx11 version of star swarm is prevalently single threaded
dx12 is scaling up to 2 threads before it hits the gpu bottlenack,the ht cores arent even coming into play here otherwise you would be getting 4 x the performance (if the gpu werent bottlenecking)
you can argue all you like,nothing against the i3's but the fact is apart from the lower single core performance ( & not massively so),& ignoring the power draw & lack of upgradablility on an old platform overall the 6300 is a stronger chip - its an unarguable fact.

 

[synphul]

Guess I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Argue all you want, intel is doing more with 2 cores than amd is with 6 in just about everything. Once or twice in all these bench's does the 6 core pass it up and only part of the time does it keep even.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1281?vs=1197

Again, it is what it is. More weakness doesn't create strength where strength is lacking. If it did, amd would continue down the same path instead of scrapping fx for zen. That, is an unarguable fact. If amd thought for one minute they were onto something with current designs, they'd keep going instead of focusing on ipc which is exactly what's allowing intel to pass them up. In all these years, well into 64bit os architecture, 64bit cpu's and multithreaded applications intel still manages to dominate 80-90% of the time with 'just' a 4c/4t cpu. Long after there have been 8c/8t cpu's from amd.

If in fact star swarm were only using 2 threads before it hits the gpu bottleneck, how is a quad core cpu producing higher fps than the dual core? That makes no sense. Bottlenecking is when performance ceases to increase due to limiting factors and we see in the star swarm scenario this is happening between the quad and 6 core cpus, not the dual and quad cores. It's obvious you're not reading it correctly.

 

[DubbleClick]

notice that ht cores make absolutely no difference at all - theyre virtual cores,as soon as the true cores are saturated to 90%+ the ht virtual cores lose 70-80% of their performance.

This is absolutely not true. Not even in the slightest.

Aside of that, saying an i3 won't be up to the task but the fx 6300 will is absolutely stupid, in the best case the fx is about 30% stronger - that is in scenarios being perfectly threaded for 6 cores and a lot of integer math - not a likely scenario.

 

[LookItsRain]

I'm hoping dx12 helps amd. They can use all the help they can get with intel's dual core cpu's coming within 1-2fps of their 8 core cpu's. The only difference in the i7's are the extra cache which doesn't make that much difference, ht can be disabled and cores can be disabled. It's fairly accurate considering we don't actually have any full blown dx12 games out yet. I did read the article, thanks for assuming - we all know where assumption leads right?

So you have a wonder chip with 8 threads from amd and you want to pair it with a junk gpu that can't fully benefit from it, why? It makes sense to test it on higher end hardware to see the potential of the technology. How do you figure dx12 isn't increasing performance when I posted a link clearly showing dual core with ht (aka an i3 setup) gaining over 100% fps increase? Is fps not a measure of performance? Is gaining more than twice the fps not an increase? I'm baffled by the logic.

It doesn't matter what percentage of what threads were used, the end result was going from 21.9fps to 55.7fps with only 2 cores enabled moving from dx11 to dx12 using the gtx980. Apparently it wasn't gpu bound or fps wouldn't have increased, correct? Paired with r9 290x, dual core performance went from 7.5fps to 42.9fps. For one, how is that gpu bound and for another, how is 600% performance increase NOT improving performance? Your only logic is to skip into left field with video transcoding which isn't gaming with dx12. No one said the i3 was for video transcoding prowess. It was pointing out the fact that thanks to dx12 weaker performing cpu's such as a dual core ht enabled i3 can gain a substantial amount of performance.

you certainly havent read it properly then mate,
if you had you would know that the dx11 version of star swarm is prevalently single threaded
dx12 is scaling up to 2 threads before it hits the gpu bottlenack,the ht cores arent even coming into play here otherwise you would be getting 4 x the performance (if the gpu werent bottlenecking)
you can argue all you like,nothing against the i3's but the fact is apart from the lower single core performance ( & not massively so),& ignoring the power draw & lack of upgradablility on an old platform overall the 6300 is a stronger chip - its an unarguable fact.

If the 6300 is the better chip, than why does my i3 system beat my friends 6300 @ 4.2ghz system in all benchmarks and real world testing with the same gpu?

Before you read my sig and notice i have an i3 4370, the difference between the 4370 and 4160 etc is pretty much nothing.

Let alone the power consumption and the heat production of the 6300 vs the i3.

To add, every single game that amd fans hang on to, like gta 5, cities skylines etc still run better on i3s because games still prefer single core performance, you cant properly balance the load between all available cores/threads yet, the first one or two cores will have 90% of the load applied to them.

 

[madmatt30]

I said the 6300 has lower single core performance but is overall a stronger chip.

I'm not biased ,I have a i5 2500 rig,a lenovo mini that runs an i5s ,& just rebuilt an old system with an i3 2120 & paired it with a 280x which performs astonishingly well considering its age in 95% 9of current games.
The question here is i3 vs fx6300 for a rig that will never be upgraded - the 6300 is the better choice IMO.

As stated before - I personally very much doubt that the hyperthreaded cores will benefit from directx12 much if at all.
The i3 is very nearly being fully utilised in the majority of current games on dx11 - I've seen all 4 threads pushed to 80%+ in the majority of games.

On a 6300 or 83** fx chip you will rarely see core usage above 40% on anything past the first 2 cores - to see a game like dying light CPU bound to 45-50fps when your overall usage is well below 50% is nothing to do with lower single core performance - its due to poor CPU utilisation under dx11.

Dx12 'should' theoretically make any dx12 based engine completely multithreaded & scale according to how many cores are available

 

[Montblanchill]

I am not sure where this information is coming from.

DX12 will allow much better scaling up to 6 threads, this is correct, however that does not mean that programmers will all of a sudden stop requiring any amount of serial code all of a sudden. The reliance has been on 1-2 strong threads for a long long time for a reason.

Whilst the scaling to six will allow a lot more resources to be used, and bring the FX chips back into the game somewhat, this does not remove the reliance on strong threads. Only those that make the programs and games can accomplish this, and their desire to do so will be driven by money, in the end.

We will get there, and I believe that the AMD chips will see more benefit from this given their construction and core amounts, however you must consider the modular nature of these chips and as such their inherent difficulties.

DX12 is not going to magically make your very strong cores worse than more but weaker cores, it relies upon a lot more than that. I think it is too early to call out that the 6 core is a better investment than an i3.

 

[DubbleClick]

Dx12 'should' theoretically make any dx12 based engine completely multithreaded & scale according to how many cores are available

Lol, no. Dx12 "does" nothing like that. It doesn't do anything, actually. It's a programming interface to communicate with the gpu - not more, not less. It will not change any background code. If a game doesn't utilise multiple cores with dx11, neither will it with dx12.

 

[teknobug]

Dx12 'should' theoretically make any dx12 based engine completely multithreaded & scale according to how many cores are available

mmmm where are you getting this stuff.

 

[LookItsRain]

I said the 6300 has lower single core performance but is overall a stronger chip.

I'm not biased ,I have a i5 2500 rig,a lenovo mini that runs an i5s ,& just rebuilt an old system with an i3 2120 & paired it with a 280x which performs astonishingly well considering its age in 95% 9of current games.
The question here is i3 vs fx6300 for a rig that will never be upgraded - the 6300 is the better choice IMO.

As stated before - I personally very much doubt that the hyperthreaded cores will benefit from directx12 much if at all.
The i3 is very nearly being fully utilised in the majority of current games on dx11 - I've seen all 4 threads pushed to 80%+ in the majority of games.

On a 6300 or 83** fx chip you will rarely see core usage above 40% on anything past the first 2 cores - to see a game like dying light CPU bound to 45-50fps when your overall usage is well below 50% is nothing to do with lower single core performance - its due to poor CPU utilisation under dx11.

Dx12 'should' theoretically make any dx12 based engine completely multithreaded & scale according to how many cores are available

The same thing was said about dx11 a few years ago.

 

[madmatt30]

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

 

[LookItsRain]

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

1. i3 has better single core performance and will run older games much better while still beating the fx in many of the newer titles, also an i3 can run pcsx2 when an amd fx cant
2. You save time and money by buying an i3, you dont have to invest in a cooler or a more expensive mobo or take the time to overclock.
3. The lga 1150 platform has more features than AM3+, mainly for storage

 

[DubbleClick]

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

1) It shows better results in games. Better average, minimum and maximum fps on average as well as lower frame time.

2) Less power consumption, less heat production and therefore quiter on the stock cooler.

3) IQS.

 

[madmatt30]

I said the 6300 has lower single core performance but is overall a stronger chip.

I'm not biased ,I have a i5 2500 rig,a lenovo mini that runs an i5s ,& just rebuilt an old system with an i3 2120 & paired it with a 280x which performs astonishingly well considering its age in 95% 9of current games.
The question here is i3 vs fx6300 for a rig that will never be upgraded - the 6300 is the better choice IMO.

As stated before - I personally very much doubt that the hyperthreaded cores will benefit from directx12 much if at all.
The i3 is very nearly being fully utilised in the majority of current games on dx11 - I've seen all 4 threads pushed to 80%+ in the majority of games.

On a 6300 or 83** fx chip you will rarely see core usage above 40% on anything past the first 2 cores - to see a game like dying light CPU bound to 45-50fps when your overall usage is well below 50% is nothing to do with lower single core performance - its due to poor CPU utilisation under dx11.

Dx12 'should' theoretically make any dx12 based engine completely multithreaded & scale according to how many cores are available

The same thing was said about dx11 a few years ago.

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

1) It shows better results in games. Better average, minimum and maximum fps on average as well as lower frame time.

2) Less power consumption, less heat production and therefore quiter on the stock cooler.

3) IQS.

very good but not a serious answer which we can all manage

1 - core 3
2 - core 4
3 - core 5
4 - core 6

nice ninja edit


[/quotemsg]

1) It shows better results in games. Better average, minimum and maximum fps on average as well as lower frame time.
Yes but barely noticeable when paired with a midrange gpu
2) Less power consumption - slightly but when an i3 is running 95% on all cores & the 6300 is running at less than 50% total its not as much as you would like to think less heat production - not and therefore quiter on the stock cooler - obviously but thats simply because amd stock coolers are crap

3) IQS. - no idea what that means [/quotemsg]

 

[LookItsRain]

You mean 3 modules, there not six "true" cores.

Anyways
http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/

I can post a few more thousand benchmarks that put the i3 ahead in games, but you wont read them anyways, you own 2 amd systems and will stick to amd until they go bankrupt in a few years.

 

[madmatt30]

You mean 3 modules, there not six "true" cores.

Anyways
http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/

I can post a few more thousand benchmarks that put the i3 ahead in games, but you wont read them anyways, you own 2 amd systems and will stick to amd until they go bankrupt in a few years.

& I also own 3 intel systems - I use the amd's more because they suit me better - theyre plenty good enough for gaming & will also do heavy duty rendering ,either while gaming in the background with virtually no performance loss or with 4 or 5 multithreaded renders while still remaing in a useable state for general desktop use.
BTW - I never stated just for gaming ,I asked for 3 reasons why its a better cpu ,not a better gaming cpu

Im currently typing on an intel based system becaue it runs on a 60w external psu,is silent & is all I need at this moment in time.

 

[DubbleClick]

1) Because the difference isn't huge the worse cpu is suddenly better?

2) An I3 at full load would mean the fx 6300 is at 70% load - if less, it's heavily limiting a single thread.

3) Intel Quick Sync.

 

[LookItsRain]

You mean 3 modules, there not six "true" cores.

Anyways
http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/

I can post a few more thousand benchmarks that put the i3 ahead in games, but you wont read them anyways, you own 2 amd systems and will stick to amd until they go bankrupt in a few years.

& I also own 3 intel systems - I use the amd's more because they suit me better - theyre plenty good enough for gaming & will also do heavy duty rendering ,either while gaming in the background with virtually no performance loss or with 4 or 5 multithreaded renders while still remaing in a useable state for general desktop use.
BTW - I never stated just for gaming ,I asked for 3 reasons why its a better cpu ,not a better gaming cpu

Im currently typing on an intel based system becaue it runs on a 60w external psu,is silent & is all I need at this moment in time.

Then why are you wasting your time here? The OP stated that he was gaming and doing programming and photoshop, not using it to do heavy rendering.
Yes amd works for your needs, but an i3 system is better for the op here.

If someone is relying on a computer for professional rendering work or programming, there budget will be beyond what amd offers anyways.

 

[madmatt30]

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

1. i3 has better single core performance and will run older games much better while still beating the fx in many of the newer titles, also an i3 can run pcsx2 when an amd fx cant - seriously - any game past 2 years old will pretty much run at 60fps+ constantly
pcsx2 cant run on an fx ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNo2v115fZI
not that it would interest most people anyway

2. You save time and money by buying an i3, you dont have to invest in a cooler or a more expensive mobo or take the time to overclock -you dont save anything - it takes the same time to buy an amd setup as an intel setup , a cooler capable of 4.3/4.4ghz costs $15 which is the price difference between the 2 cpu's - you dont need an expensive board to overclock a 6300- $40 for an matx,$60 for a full atx that supports crossfire.

3. The lga 1150 platform has more features than AM3+, mainly for storage

Honestly - if youre buying either of these 2 cpu's for a 5 year no upgradable you're certainly not going to worry about m-sata (which are expensive boards anyway)

 

[LookItsRain]

so back to business because in all honesty i cba to argue with you guys.
going back to the op's original question
for a pc to run for 5 years with a r9 270x or gtx 960 give me 3 absolutely solid unarguable reasons why the i3 is better than the 6300 (& leave the upgrade path alone because he's stated quite clearly there wil be no upgrades to the sysytem once built)

1. i3 has better single core performance and will run older games much better while still beating the fx in many of the newer titles, also an i3 can run pcsx2 when an amd fx cant - seriously - any game past 2 years old will pretty much run at 60fps+ constantly
pcsx2 cant run on an fx ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNo2v115fZI
not that it would interest most people anyway

2. You save time and money by buying an i3, you dont have to invest in a cooler or a more expensive mobo or take the time to overclock -you dont save anything - it takes the same time to buy an amd setup as an intel setup , a cooler capable of 4.3/4.4ghz costs $15 which is the price difference between the 2 cpu's - you dont need an expensive board to overclock a 6300- $40 for an matx,$60 for a full atx that supports crossfire.

3. The lga 1150 platform has more features than AM3+, mainly for storage

Honestly - if youre buying either of these 2 cpu's for a 5 year no upgradable you're certainly not going to worry about m-sata (which are expensive boards anyway)

To be fair, some games on pcsx2 can run on a toaster, but most games need good single core performance to run outside of its software mode.

For the cheap amd boards, i would not trust them to overclock, i see your 6300 did well, but ive also seen other peoples build with the same board have vrm throttling issues, not to mention 8 cores lighting boards on fire.

 

[teknobug]

gawd and I thought I was an AMD fanboy going back 20 years, at least I'm not blind with the difference between AMD and Intel.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

I'm really confused between fx 6300 & core i3. I'll pair it with r9 270x or gtx 960.
core i5 is out of my budget. Should i go for fx 8320? I'm not gonna upgrade it for the next 4-5 years, so please suggest. I'll use this pc for gaming, photoshop and programming.
Please suggest.

Here's a quick summary.

1. The i3 is probably the best gaming processor, but don't expect a world of difference.
2. Multiple threads are relevant for gaming; look at GTA V.
3. The FX-8320 is the best processor for Photoshop but only if you're batch-processing multiple dSLR RAW files.
4. Both graphics cards will work just fine with any of those processors.
5. All of those processors are on dead sockets.

I can't speak for programming, but I would imagine that compiling code is a heavily multi-threaded task. If so, then the FX-8320 would likely offer the best performance.

So, ask yourself which task is the most important; gaming, Photoshop or programming?