AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition vs i3 3220

[The Q6660 Inside]

FX6300\6350 is your friend, it is only 20$ more than the 965BE and offers vastly superior performance in many applications. On the actual question, the 965BE is superior, but as stated above, the FX6300 is a better choice.
FX6300 build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1gY7B
FX 6350 build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1gY6t
965BE Build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1gY8M

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Buying a Dual Core CPU, at this point in time, is pretty ridiculous imo. Gaming performance aside, which is pretty nuanced between a Phenom II X4 and a Core i3, your system performance will differ greatly between a Dual coreand a Quad core CPU. I'm not sure if you use your PC as I do, with a stream of Browser tabs open displaying Flash content, but let me tell you that a Dual core grinds to a halt under such circumstances. Heck an older Q9550 of mine has issues with several FireFox YouTube tabs open at once (issues as in I detect lag and thus feel compelled to put my fist through the screen).

Out of all of the CPUs recommended so far the FX-6300 takes the cake in my opinion. Second to that would be the 965BE. I'd stay away from dual core CPUs such as the i3 3220 if you use your computer for anything other than the equivalent of a gaming console.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

You will be suprised how fast these i3's are. A dual core core 2 duo might grind to a halt but from sandy bridge on the core i3 or mobile core i5 dual cores are amazing performance, make light work of flash. It alway makes me laugh when people judge a cpu by the cores. The i3 multitasks better then anything amd have even the fx8350 on the review shown.

I don't believe that for a minute. I'm on a Compaq 6200 Pro (Slim Form Factor model) which is powered be an Intel® Core™ i3-2120 (3.30 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) as seen here: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/sm/WF06a/12454-12454-64287-3328896-3328896-5037900.html?dnr=1

This is my PC at work and it is horrible for Multi-Tasking. As we speak I've got 16 tabs open in Google Chrome, two in Firefox and around 12 or so in IE. These are work/web applications.

The system is bogged down. The Flash content alone (on many different tabs) pushes the CPU usage to over 60%. It is normal for the Flash content my web applications use to use up CPU resources. The difference is that I don't get this slowdown from AMD FX CPUs (or my 3930K).

I also work from home. I've worked on my 3930K as well as my FX-8350 and FX-6300s. It's not the same experience at all. I question those results from bit-tech but cannot find any other such tests having been conducted elsewhere.

Screenshot to show I'm not bsing:

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Im not trying to wum but I use my p7350 2ghz c2d have over 20 tabs open and my cpu usage is 4-5%. I know for a fact even flashed based websites the core 2 duo won't have much trouble unless theres like 8-10.

I think my 3317u with the 640m or hd 4000 can do 1000 of these at 60fps.
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishbowl/

Anyway these i3s will do better then a phenom 2 at multitasking or quick response. You have to load the 965BE phenom 2 to 100% to get a minor gain over an i3 3220.


You can see from here the i3 3220 does well against the 965 I think 965 won 13-10 but the margins are so close its basically equal:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=677

Elmoisevil check the ram thats left. Thats most likely the problem. I use xp MCE 2002 service pack 3 on my 5930g and my cpu usage doesn't go above 10% with 20 tabs of different web pages open and I have 3gb ram and have 1.3gb free ram.

Approved by the E8400 rig I am using right now. http://i.imgur.com/Nx40QB5.png

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

2GB of RAM used... still have plenty left over (4GB Total but a portion is set aside for the onboard graphics which I don't use on account of using a Radeon HD 6450). It's not the RAM it's the CPU usage... in total it's almost always at 100%. I tab between tabs in order to access the various applications and it takes time (lag/a delay).

This issue doesn't manifest itself on the Core i7 3930K or the FX machines I run at home. It really is the lack of cores.

 

[montosaurous]

XP bogs down easier than Windows 7, so a comparison between an i3 on XP and PII 965 BE on Windows 7 isn't fair. The two will probably be about the same in most things. The i3 has lower power consumption, the Phenom II has better multithreaded performance. Don't bother with either, get an FX 6300.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

XP bogs down easier than Windows 7, so a comparison between an i3 on XP and PII 965 BE on Windows 7 isn't fair. The two will probably be about the same in most things. The i3 has lower power consumption, the Phenom II has better multithreaded performance. Don't bother with either, get an FX 6300 or FX6350.

+1

 

[montosaurous]

Eh FX 6350 isn't a good buy. It's $20 more for 400 MHz. Unless you want a higher binned chip for OC reasons, the FX 6300 is a better option.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Eh FX 6350 isn't a good buy. It's $20 more for 400 MHz. Unless you want a higher binned chip for OC reasons, the FX 6300 is a better option.

Keyword: OR
The FX6350 is like FX 8320 is to FX8350, people generally just get the 8350 over the 8320 simply for OC reasons.

 

[montosaurous]

It's kinda of stupid to get an FX 8350 over an 8320 now since it's $40 more expensive on newegg. A little bit more OC just isn't worth it IMO.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

2GB of RAM used... still have plenty left over (4GB Total but a portion is set aside for the onboard graphics which I don't use on account of using a Radeon HD 6450). It's not the RAM it's the CPU usage... in total it's almost always at 100%. I tab between tabs in order to access the various applications and it takes time (lag/a delay).

This issue doesn't manifest itself on the Core i7 3930K or the FX machines I run at home. It really is the lack of cores.

This could be if you have lots of advert banners on these web pages or flash or some plug in is using the whole cpu sometimes that happens. Anyway its most likely the ram. Leave more space on the virtual memory as in use the hdd more if you go over and it won't run slow. The i3 should make light use of web based applications.

It's kinda of stupid to get an FX 8350 over an 8320 now since it's $40 more expensive on newegg. A little bit more OC just isn't worth it IMO.

It is more of a "I have the top of the line" factor, it seems that 8350s seem to overclock better, but the 8320 still works wonders for the most part.

 

[montosaurous]

A few hundred megahertz isn't going to have a huge impact on performance. It has more of an effect on Intel chips than it does on AMD chips really. I still don't think it's worth the extra $40.

 

[lijith321]

Huh, got a problem....!!! AMD phenom is not available here(old), but FX 6300 (Buldozer series) are available.....!!!
I think FX 6300 is better than i3 !!!!!!!!??? right??

 

[catshannon]

Huh, got a problem....!!! AMD phenom is not available here(old), but FX 6300 (Buldozer series) are available.....!!!
I think FX 6300 is better than i3 !!!!!!!!??? right??

Yes the 6300 is a good chip and will do much better on games like battlefield 3 were the i3 will struggle with large maps with 64 players

 

[logainofhades]

Huh, got a problem....!!! AMD phenom is not available here(old), but FX 6300 (Buldozer series) are available.....!!!
I think FX 6300 is better than i3 !!!!!!!!??? right??

FX6300 is actually a piledriver based chip and yes it would be an even better chip than the Phenom II. Clocks higher, and has better multicore support. An i3 cannot overclock and has inferior multicore support. Single core would be faster with an i3, but games are going the multicore route.

 

[lijith321]

Huh, got a problem....!!! AMD phenom is not available here(old), but FX 6300 (Buldozer series) are available.....!!!
I think FX 6300 is better than i3 !!!!!!!!??? right??

FX6300 is actually a piledriver based chip and yes it would be an even better chip than the Phenom II. Clocks higher, and has better multicore support. An i3 cannot overclock and has inferior multicore support. Single core would be faster with an i3, but games are going the multicore route.

thnx