AMD Vs Intel + AMD Vs nVidia

[cale_afterearth]

Hey all,
been talking to my friends, n some of them are after a new but cheapish gaming machine, to replace there ancient one... which is about 12 years old... lol

i've been kinda behind with all the latest stuff, since i got my Q6600, i stopped looking at new parts... however, in my quest to get my friends gaming machines capable of playing "something made this decade"!

anyhoo, i mostly been researching myself, but i got stumped on 2 things....


Firstly, AMD vs Intel.

i spotted an AMD FX-4 4100, 3.6GHz, which is £89 on the site i look on.
(ebuyer.com)
which i thought was massively cheap. cos the Intel i5 2500k 3.3GHZ is £168...

but which is better?
by price alone, i assumed the i5 would be better, but is it 70% better... or just a bit... or not at all??
even the FX-8 is only a little more than the i5...?

Secondly, since i began building my own PC, i for some reason, stuck with nVidia and never really looked at AMD...?

i was looking at a GTX560 for myself, eventually (when the prices drop)
but alot of people are talking about AMD now, but i dont even know the equivelant of the 560 for AMD.. lol

what do you guys recommend? i'd like to spend less than £100, and ideally it should be no bigger than my 9800GTX+... well, it CANT be bigger, because it wont fit in my case.. lol
i'm not too fussed about the latest card, i usually stay a gen or 2 behind to save money anyway.

thanks!

 

[Blahman11]

The i5 wins hands down. Intel's cpus currently own everything at every price point, AMD is a bit stuffed at the moment. The new AMD FXs are all heat and clockspeed and no performance.

The core 2 architecture is about as fast as the Phenom ii architecture and the Phenom FXs are not faster than Phenom iis so I'd say your Q6600 is quick enough for today. Whats the rest of your system? You might just be able to get away with a graphics upgrade and save yourself alot of money and save up for a really good system when Ivy bridge comes out and has the bugs ironed out (if any).

In fact, the GPUs you can get for £100 aren't really bottle necked by an overclocked Q6600 at 3ghz ish.

I've seen an AMD Radeon HD6850 for just under £100 on ebuyer.

On ebay I've seen a GTX465 for £80, and GTX480s for £150, not overclocked and looking in damn good nick. I've also seen HD5850s for around the same price. They're a few generations behind but they're directx11 and still very quick. Granted the high end GTX400 series produce alot of heat and use alot of juice but if your cooling and power supply is good enough you can get near GTX570 performance for half the price.

 

[Chip in a box]

An A8 3850K will probably be a mind blowing gaming machine for anybody who has an old PC. The difference between the i5 2500K and FX 4100 is nowhere near the cost difference, it's more like 15%-20% faster for 90% extra cost - and that's not counting the motherboard cost either.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-4100-core-i3-2100-gaming-benchmark,3136.html

The FX will be plenty good enough, and you can always give them your 9800gtx to go with it if you buy a new card.

 

[cale_afterearth]

my system is a bit odd and last Gen.

I got a q6600 @3.0ghz oc
a gigabyte p35 dsl3
4 gb ddr2 800mhz
a 9800gtx
and a 630w psu

its fine for now but my mobo is too old.... still has ide on it, no ddr3 or USB 3, also not pcie 2.0. lol was a bad choice back when I got it. my fault for being cheap tho!

I was just gonna update the graphics n leave it at that until I can afford a full upgrade again.
will probably be ages tho. lol


thanks for the info tho, I had no idea the AMD chip was that bad!

 

[Chip in a box]

The thing about cpu's and graphics is the cpu makes less of a difference depending on what graphics card you have and what settings you use.

Intel chips blow away AMD chips at lower settings and with the fastest graphics cards, but at high settings and with midrange/lowend cards the gap is much closer.

 

[K3v1n]

I am running a FX-6100 @ 4.2 ghz and a HD 5770 and I can play every game at max settings (I use 1366x768 resolution). I went from a phenom II X4 and notice a good bit of a performance increase. If you haven't owned a FX yourself, don't diss it. They are better than what the benchmarks you're reading on here say

 

[wr6133]

I am running a FX-6100 @ 4.2 ghz and a HD 5770 and I can play every game at max settings (I use 1366x768 resolution). I went from a phenom II X4 and notice a good bit of a performance increase. If you haven't owned a FX yourself, don't diss it. They are better than what the benchmarks you're reading on here say

No their not i own a 4100 and a 960T (unlocked to 6 cores). Even at Stock the 960T is snappier and more responsive. Bulldozer was/is a flop. It's largely only defended by people that bought it and are too arrogant to admit they shouldnt have. They then talk others in to the same mistake which is a real lousy thing to do.

Phenom II is still a logical buy on a budget if you can find one.

FX is crap at the low price points. At the high pricepoints it cant compete with Intel so is also by default crap.

 

[wr6133]

Between my x4 B55 at 4.2ghz and my 2500k at 4.4ghz.
It just takes the p!55 how fast intel is.
Us who say this stuff are not doing it because we are intel lickers, we are telling facts!

I dont disagree while I am very happy with my Phenom II right now the FX is a joke. What was meant to replace the pII is actually relegated to HTPC. If I was building right now with a good budget it would be 2500k but on a lower budget I still say Phenom II then i3 and never FX

 

[Onus]

Disclaimer: for the last five years I have built many more AMD than Intel systems, typically budget machines.

Recent articles (some on this site) have made clear over the last few months that there is no longer a price point at which Intel does not outperform AMD in games.
Also, since even a lowly H61-chipset mobo can be found with USB 3.0 and/or SATA 6GB/s, the chipset advantage that AMD used to have has also been lost.
Your prices and availability may also be sufficiently different from U.S. prices and availability to skew those results somewhat.
That being said, it is also true that the graphics card(s) will make a bigger difference than the CPU for gaming performance.
Review the Best Graphics Cards for the Money monthly article for selections in each price range, but don't sweat bullets over it. Hardware is so powerful today, that it is hard to do truly poorly without really trying. You may waste some money (which isn't good), but whatever you get will likely be able to play most games with "decent" settings.

 

[wr6133]

For the OP i meant to link you this

http://www.cclonline.com/product/26600/HDZ965FBGMBOX/CPUs/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-Black-Edition-3-4GHz-Quad-Core-Processor/CPU1046/

That's the same price as a FX4100 and will perform better it will overclock very well too.

Phenom II 960T used to be a good choice but now I cant find one to link you that doesnt have a silly pricetag.

 

[Blahman11]

The 400 series can beat 580's with custom cooling with ease.

I was more thinking with the core count. The GTX480 has the same amount of cores as the 570 so I assumed that it would perform about the same. Of course overclocking would make the 480 run faster, it uses higher performance transistors too if I'm right in thinking, thats why it kicked out so much heat

 

[Onus]

I agree with what wr6133 has said. For games, I'd also go i5>i3>PII>Pentium>AthlonII. Since I also do other things, and I think the real cores (vs. hyperthreaded ones) do make a difference, for an overall build that will also play games, I'd go i5>PII>i3>Pentium>AthlonII; given that the AMD chips would be overclocked (although not necessarily excessively).

 

[noob2222]

No their not i own a 4100 and a 960T (unlocked to 6 cores). Even at Stock the 960T is snappier and more responsive. Bulldozer was/is a flop. It's largely only defended by people that bought it and are too arrogant to admit they shouldnt have. They then talk others in to the same mistake which is a real lousy thing to do.

Phenom II is still a logical buy on a budget if you can find one.

FX is crap at the low price points. At the high pricepoints it cant compete with Intel so is also by default crap.

the 4xxx is crap, why do you think its around $100? I run 2x 6970 video cards and haven't found a game yet that pegs my 8120 to 100%. BF3 on MP sometimes will reach 100% on one core, but more often it hovers arond 80% on 2 and 40-60% on the other 6, and minimum fps ~75 maxed out on ultra. Those points on BF3 would bring a 4xxx to its knees then kick it while its down, I know I disabled half my cpu just to see how bad it was, it was horrid.

Would I recommend the 4100? only to someone who can't afford the 960T or can't find one, otherwise no way. BD modules are only 80% efficient on multi-core usage.

Putting FX on the 4100 is laughable. only thing it can do is overclock, and thats not enough.

 

[game junky]

There are going to be fanboys on both sides of this debate and I have seen so many different benchmark tests out there that I have lost interest in this battle of red vs blue and red vs green.

For pure processing muscle, I think there is a consensus that Intel's i5/i7s have an advantage.
For multitasking and applications requiring multiple cores, I feel most would agree that AMD's FX-8150/8170s has a bit of an edge at their price point. Unfortunately, developers for Win7 applications still haven't really pushed the envelope for 64-bit applications utilizing multiple cores simultaneously. That's more something you'll see more readily in WinServer environments. I think Win8 may prove an interesting development when it comes to the jihad between Intel and AMD.

For high-end graphics cards, I think Nvidia has a bit of an edge for their top-tier cards. The 680 is fantastic and I think the rest of the 600 series is going to prove to be just as good versus the 500 series in both performance and power consumption.

For mid-range priced graphic cards, I think AMD has a bit of an edge. Nvidia's 550/560/570s on average are getting outmatched by AMD graphics cards at the same price point.

Let the digital food fight continue...

 

[game junky]

the 4xxx is crap, why do you think its around $100? I run 2x 6970 video cards and haven't found a game yet that pegs my 8120 to 100%. BF3 on MP sometimes will reach 100% on one core, but more often it hovers arond 80% on 2 and 40-60% on the other 6, and minimum fps ~75 maxed out on ultra. Those points on BF3 would bring a 4xxx to its knees then kick it while its down, I know I disabled half my cpu just to see how bad it was, it was horrid.

Would I recommend the 4100? only to someone who can't afford the 960T or can't find one, otherwise no way. BD modules are only 80% efficient on multi-core usage.

Putting FX on the 4100 is laughable. only thing it can do is overclock, and thats not enough.

I am rocking an 8150 and love how well it takes BF3 even without any overclocking. My GPU is the bottleneck on mine - still rocking a 560 until the prices drop on the 680s. Wish the 990FX motherboards support PCIE 3.0 - that would have made me pull the trigger on launch day.