AMD vs Intel for budget

chayes

Honorable
Mar 19, 2012
49
0
10,530
So I am building a budget gaming pc and am wondering what would work well for me.

So I am contemplating an AMD Phenom II with an AMD3+ board, total setup with mobo would cost about 200ish.

or an i3 2120 with mobo for about the same price.

Why I like AMD over Intel is for the mere fact that the board would be usable for the next series of Piledriver CPU's, which I have high hopes for.

Intel boards well, they only work for that one socket set.

Also, I am wondering if either processor series would bottleneck an Nvidia 560ti.

Please let me know what you guys think!
 
Solution

Thats funny, it looks like the I3 2120 bottlenecks a 6950 tho.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-gaming-pc-overclock,3159-12.html

F1%202010%20High%20No%20AA.png


I5 2400 with a 6870 (stock) smokes the I3 with a 6950 (even overclocked). Me thinks someone tricked the I3 gaming review to get you to belive what wasn't necessarily true by picking the perfect games for the I3.

loneninja

Distinguished
Socket 1155 has Sandy Bridge now, and Ivy Bridge releases soon, that 2 generations.

Socket AM3+ has Bulldozer now, Piledriver to come, and nothing else is on AMDs desktop road map right now.

Considering Piledriver is only expected to be 15% better than Bulldozer at best, it'll still be slower than Sandy Bridge, I expect socket 1155 to last longer. AMD releases new sockets about as frequently as Intel does, every new processor generation has seen a new socket from them.

You don't mention what resolution you game at, or if you plan to overclock the Phenom II, since those factors will effect the possiblity of a bottleneck that is hard to answer, but I don't think either would bottleneck.

Personally I'd grab the I3 over a Phenom II.
 

cmi86

Distinguished
The i3 is going to slightly out perform a phenom in gamin and that's about it. For most every other computer task the 2/4 extra cores on a phenom put it substantially ahead of the 2100.

I personally suggest the 960T as with 4X cores 4+ Ghz is cake, Very high chance of unlocking to 6X and still hitting 4 Ghz, more often it's 3.5-3.8Ghz tho. I try and suggest people build well rounded machines well suited to multiple tasks, not just gaming.
 

Raidur

Distinguished
Nov 27, 2008
2,365
0
19,960
+1 i3 due to upgrade path/power usage if your only CPU-heavy task is gaming.

Neither CPU will bottleneck a GTX 560ti and if you don't plan on upgrading your CPU for a while (years) either way will work fine.
 

noob2222

Distinguished
Nov 19, 2007
2,722
0
20,860

Thats funny, it looks like the I3 2120 bottlenecks a 6950 tho.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-gaming-pc-overclock,3159-12.html

F1%202010%20High%20No%20AA.png


I5 2400 with a 6870 (stock) smokes the I3 with a 6950 (even overclocked). Me thinks someone tricked the I3 gaming review to get you to belive what wasn't necessarily true by picking the perfect games for the I3.
 
Solution

Raidur

Distinguished
Nov 27, 2008
2,365
0
19,960


That's funny, it looks like you picked one of the most CPU bound games reviewers use.

Isn't it slightly obvious when raising the resolution does nothing?
 

Raidur

Distinguished
Nov 27, 2008
2,365
0
19,960


Your reasoning is flawed for what you've shown. An i3-2100 does NOT bottleneck a 6950, this is common knowledge.

A bottleneck is when a component is slowing the performance of other components. In extremely CPU-bound games the GPU only matters to a certain extent, then it's all CPU. This means the GPU is taken out of the equation once past that extent, thus cannot be bottlenecked.

Sure the CPU is hurting performance, but it isn't bottlenecking anything.

There is no point in coupling a very fast CPU with a slower GPU when he could get better overall performance with an i3+faster GPU. Very little games act like that, that's why you don't judge a CPU off one or 2 games (unless that's all you play).

I'm pretty sure 77FPS is plenty of performance for a racing game. Not sure of any CPU-bound games an i3-2100 can't handle on highest settings with beyond playable frames.

The only other game on there with a noticeable difference is Starcraft II. However that is another CPU-bound game past a certain GPU extent.

Ultra_1920.png


As you can see, anything >=GTX 460 produces full frames, then it's all CPU.
 

Blandge

Distinguished
Aug 25, 2011
316
0
18,810


You are contradicting yourself. Let me rearrange your wording.

"A bottleneck is when a component is slowing the performance of other components" "the CPU is hurting performance" "This means the GPU is taken out of the equation"

Stating that the CPU is bottlenecking the GPU.
 

Blandge

Distinguished
Aug 25, 2011
316
0
18,810


You can't just pretend like a component doesn't exist to get your point across. How would you define a CPU bottlenecking a GPU?

"A bottleneck is when a component is slowing the performance of other components."

"It may be "bottlenecking" performance "

FIXED:

"A GPU bottleneck is when a CPU is slowing the performance of a GPU."

"The CPU may be "bottlenecking" overall performance "


Ok, so your reasoning is that overall performance doesn't include the GPU because :

"In extremely CPU-bound games the GPU only matters to a certain extent, then it's all CPU. This means the GPU is taken out of the equation once past that extent, thus cannot be bottlenecked."

So now remove the GPU from the system. Put in a slightly more or less powerful video card and what happens? The FPS stays basically the same because it's being held back by the CPU. You prove this in your very next post with the SC2 numbers. No matter how good of a video card you put in, the FPS won't go up by that much because it's bottlenecked by the CPU.
 

cmi86

Distinguished


You sit here and try and say an i3 is so much better for gaming yet you seem surprised that CPU intensive gaming benchmarks were cited ...
What else did you expect ?
 

Raidur

Distinguished
Nov 27, 2008
2,365
0
19,960


It was a CPU intensive benchmark comparing an i5-2400 to an i3 and was irrelevant to the OPs question. He was trying to say it bottlenecked a 6950 which is silly and false.
 

noob2222

Distinguished
Nov 19, 2007
2,722
0
20,860


So basically as long as you only examine games that don't show bottlenecks, then it doesn't bottleneck?

oh, you mean cherry picking games for a specific review to show how the I3 won't bottleneck( in those particlular programs. )

When a faster gpu (6950 vs 6870) runs ~40 fps slower (or 77.8 to 105 or 34% slower) then its not a cpu bottleneck because of the I3, its because ummm ... help me out here, where is the bottleneck? :??:


F1%202010%20High%20No%20AA.png


Bottleneck: A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. The term bottleneck is taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width of the conduit of exit—that is, bottleneck. By increasing the width of the bottleneck one can increase the rate at which the water flows out of the neck at different frequencies. Such limiting components of a system are sometimes referred to as bottleneck points.

comparing an i5-2400 to an i3 and was irrelevant to the OPs question
Irrelevant how?
OP
or an i3 2120 with mobo for about the same price.
Also, I am wondering if either processor series would bottleneck an Nvidia 560ti.
lets see if its relevant.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Aliens-vs.-Predator-Enthusiast,2668.html

560 ti, 39.1 fps
6950 1gb, 37.9 fps

Will an even faster gpu than the 6950 be bottlenecked in the same way? I doubt it will vanish into nothing and magically dissapear.


Edit: just in case you missed the 6950 vs 6870 link, here is a 1gb version review that also included the 560 ti: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/02/11/amd-radeon-hd-6950-1gb-review/5

conclusion: Also, I am wondering if either processor series would bottleneck an Nvidia 560ti. At times, absolutely 100% proven right there in f1 2010 (among other programs as well), the I3 is very capable of bottlenecking the 560 ti.
 
Only go amd if you are willing to live with it's drawbacks. For total cpu performance in floating point sensitive tasks the phenom 2 quad will beat the i3 either wise in terribly unoptimized applications (vast majority barely even scale passed two cores/threads) the i3 will run circles around any thing that amd has to offer. The i3 is ok but personally two cores is slowly becoming the low end despite great performance per core. You could settle with a Pentium series for a little less as hyperthreading can have a negative impact in some games like BF3 but beyond that both Pentium and i3 perform roughly the same while the i3 has higher clocks.

As for the board well amd has the best all around platform for their cpu(s) but you will have to live with having a weaker cpu and slower memory controller than those who sided with intel. On the intel side you will get a great cpu, blindingly fast memory controller but there are less pci-e lanes and the sata/usb controller isn't as great as seen on amd boards. Not to forget the limited 3-5% overclocking margin for non K versions.
 

Raidur

Distinguished
Nov 27, 2008
2,365
0
19,960
The game's FPS is hindered because of the CPU, not because the CPU is bottlenecking the GPU.

There is a reason you don't test for bottlenecking with a VERY CPU-bound game (or VERY GPU-bound).

f1.png


Unless you truly believe a Phenom II 955 or i5-750 bottleneck a 6970 (which was used in this review).

This is never going to end. I've tried to enlighten you but it seems hopeless.

I'll end with an i3-2100 does not bottleneck a 6950 (or 6970).

A 5ghz i5-2500k may perform better than a 3.3ghz i5-2500 in a CPU bound game, but that definitely doesn't mean it is bottlenecking the graphics card at 3.3ghz.

If you want to prove it bottlenecks the GPU try using a game that isn't tied so much to the CPU...

Done.