Choosing an AMD CPU

[ginopas]

Hello,
I've been planning a build and I'm trying to pick a CPU. I've already been through the AMD vs Intel debate and since I want to spend around $100 it seems that AMD delivers more bang for the buck at that price range.
Now the question is how to figure out which AMD CPU should I go with? Should I get the newest, fastest one I can? At that price there are a few at around 4GHz out of the box. What besides clock speed should I be looking at? I'd like to be able to overclock, mainly to learn about it, but I wouldn't spend any extra to be able to.
For the rest of the system I'm planning on getting a 2gb version of either the 7850 or 650, 8gb 1600 ram to start and a 120gb SSD to run Windows 7 64bit.. I haven't picked a motherboard yet, but I'll get one with USB3 and SATA6. I'd like to keep the mobo under $100
My main monitor is a 40 inch 1080p LCD tv. I have a second 17inch LCD monitor. I'm a writer so i like to put a movie on the tv and run Word or FinalDraft on the second or web browsing.
I also use the newest, pro versions of Cubase, Reason, Guitar Rig, Adobe Premier, Photoshop and Soundbooth. I also want to run the newest games at 1080p.
So how should I choose a CPU for this system and where can I find some info to help?
Thanks
Merry Christmas

 

[patrick47018]

Clock speed, number of cores, cache: at your price range best you'd get is an FX-6300

 

[CTurbo]

Best AMD under $80 is the Athlon x4 750k, best under $90 is Athlon x4 760k, best under $100 is FX 4300, and best under $110 is FX 6300

I REALLY recommend getting the FX 6300 as it is quite a bit better than the rest for just a little more money.

 

[yanis31]

get the 6300 or 6350 if you can find it for similar price... and a decent 970 chipset motherboard that has a heatsink on vrm's and preferably 8+2 power phase - recommend gigabyte GA 970A UD3P or Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 or atleast M5A97 R2.0... the 6350 has a better stock cooler
i think the 6300 still comes with the aluminium no heatpipe version which is just crap, but i might be wrong and they might have started including the same cooler for both as they do for the 8 cores...
don't bother with the athlons (they perform about as good as intel 1st gen core2quads, maybe a little better ) or a fx quadcore either... the 6 core performs practically as good as the 8 cores in games so it's an amazing value for money

 

[CTurbo]

The fm2 Athlons(esp the 760k) trade blows with 3rd gen i3s at stock speeds, but can be overclocked to outmatch them. They have better performance than Bulldozer and 1st gen i5s. The fm2 Athlon dual cores outperform core2duos. I don't know why you think they are so bad. I also don't know why people think/assume they are so old. The Athlon x4 760k was releases just 6 months ago, and is a GREAT value for under $90.

There is nothing wrong with the FX 4300 other than the fact that the FX 6300 is usually just $10 more making it a much better value. The FX 4100, however, is crap and should be avoided along with the FX 6100.

 

[FALC0N]

At $100ish, FX 6300 without a doubt.

 

[yanis31]

there is nothing wrong with the 4300 however it costs almost the same as 6 core and the 6 core is noticeably faster in gameplay on any benchmark you can find - in fact the 6 core is almost as good as the 8core, jsut most benchmarks show it at a lower frequency than the 8 core so you don't notice that... i think the reason for a much bigger performance difference between 4 and 6 cores than 6 and 8 is due to the fact that most modern games utilize 4 cores but giving an extra something to windows and other tasks makes a difference