Core i3 or Phenom X4 965

[cryosin]

I am upgrading my rig for Planetside 2. I have an old 8800GTX which might work, but i definitely need a CPU/RAM upgrade.

I was searching around and saw that both the Core i3 540 and the Phenom X4 965 where retailing at $119. I was looking at the $100-$120 price range, and it seems to me that the 965 is a better choice here.

This machine is going to be a dedicated gaming machine, my laptop is for other work.

I like the 965 because the benchmarks are close to identical, but having 4 cores might pay off later. However, Planetside 2 developers are working together with Intel to develop tools. Would this effect my performance on an AMD chip?

I STILL play planetside 1, so ill be playing planetside 2 a lot and almost exclusively.

What do you guys recommend?

 

[mubin]

What? Intel is better, but bus speed communication between the GPU and CPU is not the reason.

Phenom II is an older architecture, it was not then and isn't now "bad" design. Its just older than Sandy Bridge's architecture. FX CPUs have problems, and can be attributed to flaws in architectural design but again communication between the CPU and GPU is not the issue.

BTW, we have an i5-2400 system in the house in addition to my rig, they both play games just fine with no noticeable difference.

When it comes to benchmarking, a dual core intel gives better fps than quad/hexa core amd. Even with new architecture, bulldozer. Games need higher clock speed and cpu bus. AMD dont lack in clock speed in their cpu. Then comes bus. When you upgrage to a extrem cpu, you will see there is lot of bus which cause them to run faster. Thats my idea. I am still trying to figure it out about cpu bus and gpu bottleneck. They are related. Cpu with higher bus runs faster with faster gpu.

BTW, latest Intel Core processor have seperate bus for both gpu & memory(in most modal).

 

[sarinaide]

Why do these threads always decend into a "AMD cannot do anything for you", why not re-title this a Don't buy AMD because it cannot do what you need it to do thread. Thats the general perception one gets when going through the forums.

AMD is a good option for a particular user, while I concede that AMD doesn't match Intel at the highest end, they make proficient chips at the lower and mainstream end, for the price point you get a good offering.

 

[mubin]

What AMD is lacking is clock-for-clock performance.
Sandy Bridge beats both Bulldozer and Phenom II clock-for-clock.
What that means is, in a single core program, a Sandy Bridge processor at 3GHz will beat an AMD Bulldozer/Phenom II at the same clock speed.
Either way, it is better to look at existing benchmarks for actual performance, which people in this thread have already posted.

I have never heard of AMD's "lack in bus speed" causing a bottleneck with CPU-GPU communication with Phenom II or Bulldozer but if you can link me to something relevant, I would like to read it

A 3 Ghz core-i3 can beat a phenom ii x6. But how ? x6 have six core with 3/3.2ghz in each core. That a lot of clock speed. But what lacks from a dual core core i3. So my idea is bus speed. 😛 Actually no other reason i see. And old 800mhz dual core runs slower than a 1333mhz dual core. Thats how i thought. If you know clearly about then let me know. I will be glad to hear it. I am still searching.

Here is a cpu scalling:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html

 

[mubin]

Why do these threads always decend into a "AMD cannot do anything for you", why not re-title this a Don't buy AMD because it cannot do what you need it to do thread. Thats the general perception one gets when going through the forums.

AMD is a good option for a particular user, while I concede that AMD doesn't match Intel at the highest end, they make proficient chips at the lower and mainstream end, for the price point you get a good offering.

Everyone dont think "AMD cannot do anything for you". When comes to high end gpu, intel works better with it. AMD is good for mainstream/ value cards in chiper price/ limited budget. I am thinking of a x4 for my HD6770.

 

[nekulturny]

Why do these threads always decend into a "AMD cannot do anything for you", why not re-title this a Don't buy AMD because it cannot do what you need it to do thread. Thats the general perception one gets when going through the forums.

AMD is a good option for a particular user, while I concede that AMD doesn't match Intel at the highest end, they make proficient chips at the lower and mainstream end, for the price point you get a good offering.

The same reason any other forum has troll problems, people either enjoy being annoying, or they're just so opinionated that they shoot their mouth off with limited understanding of certain things.

The saying goes "If you drink from the fountain of knowledge, drink deep, for a little learning is a dangerous thing"

 

[nekulturny]

A 3 Ghz core-i3 can beat a phenom ii x6. But how ? x6 have six core with 3/3.2ghz in each core. That a lot of clock speed. But what lacks from a dual core core i3. So my idea is bus speed. 😛 Actually no other reason i see. And old 800mhz dual core runs slower than a 1333mhz dual core. Thats how i thought. If you know clearly about then let me know. I will be glad to hear it. I am still searching.

Here is a cpu scalling:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html

The reason is technical, and a bit beyond my understanding of the internal workings of CPUs. Bus speed communication between the processor and other components is not the issue however, I do understand it enough to say that. Rather the difference is in the internal workings of the CPU itself and how it reacts to the software being fed to it. To put it in terms of a way I can understand I'll put it like this:

You have two car engines. One is a 4 cylinder and one is a 6 cylinder. The 4 cylinder has 210 horsepower, but the 6 cylinder only has 180 horsepower. Now, logic would suggest that the 6 cylinder should be more powerful, but this simply isn't always the case. The individual cylinders may be smaller, and may not be as efficiently designed as the 4 cylinder. There are a lot of other factors that can cause those differences, but I won't stray too far off topic to get into it, thats just my attempt to give you a perspective on it.

 

[sarinaide]

Thats what I had said, there is a myopic view created that AMD is completely hopeless yet everyone whom has run a FX or Phenom II along with Intel comparitively priced chips notice very little real world experience difference.

I really don't see how a i3/H61 which is very limited in its general usage, and is rather dead end can be recommended over a Phenom II x6 let alone a X4, which you can put onto a higher end 990fx chipset for very little financial damage. I have been on HWbot long enough to see people on llano's trounce others with SB-e on memory performance to be overly concerned by random gaming benchmarks by reviewers that are rather callous towards AMD.

 

[mubin]

I guarantee you in gaming there is not much difference perceivable from an OCed Phenom II to a 2500K as in you won win or lose on the Battlefield cause of the CPU you run LOL as long as it is decent. I will guarantee you that that dual core Pentium you are running is a POS for gaming and the AMD would wipe the flipin floor with it.

I dont say pentium is a decent cpu and i am happy with it. I will buy a new cpu soon. Maybe a x4 or i5. Whatever suit for my HD6770 or my new gpu maybe. I am not a amd or intel fanboy. But i am a fan of performance. Whatever brand it is.

 

[RetiredChief]

Not sure but may be mixing apples and orage when talking Bus freq.
On intel systems you have a MASTER freq generator.
.. For SB systems this is 100 MHz and can ONLY be adjusted about 5 % before instability starts becoming a real problem, infact it is recommended NOT to change it. CPU speed is then determined by CPU multiplier, memory speed is also determined by a multiplier. The PCI-e lane is maintained at the Master Freq of 100 MHz.
.. For older CPUs, such as my i5-750 OCed to 3.2 GHZ. The Master Clock Generator is NOT fixed. For My OC I upped the master clock to 400 MHZ and set CPU multiplier to 16. I then set the Memory multipler to 2 for DDR3-1600. HOWEVER the Freq to the PCI-e bus was AUTO downclocked (divided by 4) so that it was still 100 MHz.

While this may be slightly different with AMD Systems I believe the pci-e bus freq is also maintained at 100 Mhz.

 

[MMO Fan]

All I will say is do not get the 540. Its a dead socket and even now trying to find a quad core for that board is hard or stupid expensive.

As for the comments saying bus between the cpu and gpu don't matter, go back and look what happened when intel put the pci-e controller on chip.

In that case AMD has better chipsets than intel in fact AMD had great chipsets

 

[nekulturny]

Thats what I had said, there is a myopic view created that AMD is completely hopeless yet everyone whom has run a FX or Phenom II along with Intel comparitively priced chips notice very little real world experience difference.

I really don't see how a i3/H61 which is very limited in its general usage, and is rather dead end can be recommended over a Phenom II x6 let alone a X4, which you can put onto a higher end 990fx chipset for very little financial damage. I have been on HWbot long enough to see people on llano's trounce others with SB-e on memory performance to be overly concerned by random gaming benchmarks by reviewers that are rather callous towards AMD.

I don't either. I wouldn't recommend an i3/H61 to anyone today. Fact is, for all the greatness Sandy Bridge HyperThreading is, 2 extra pretend cores is not a match up against 4 real cores when the software is coded to use multiple cores.

The benchmarks prove it, not only with Phenom IIs but i5, and i7s as well. But too many people care about numbers on a chart rather than what the impact is on their actual system usage. So many people acting like 5 FPS is a huge deal. It really is just simple marketing gimmicks fueled by opinionated people. Like Wendy's advertising that their "new french fries" are made from Russet potatoes, as if russet potatoes weren't already the most common potato all french fries are made out of no matter where you buy them from.

 

[MMO Fan]

The reason is technical, and a bit beyond my understanding of the internal workings of CPUs. Bus speed communication between the processor and other components is not the issue however, I do understand it enough to say that. Rather the difference is in the internal workings of the CPU itself and how it reacts to the software being fed to it. To put it in terms of a way I can understand I'll put it like this:

You have two car engines. One is a 4 cylinder and one is a 6 cylinder. The 4 cylinder has 210 horsepower, but the 6 cylinder only has 180 horsepower. Now, logic would suggest that the 6 cylinder should be more powerful, but this simply isn't always the case. The individual cylinders may be smaller, and may not be as efficiently designed as the 4 cylinder. There are a lot of other factors that can cause those differences, but I won't stray too far off topic to get into it, thats just my attempt to give you a perspective on it.

The 4 and 6cylinder is a good analogy to those that know about cars a little bit. The 6 cylinder which represents the AMD 6 core 1100T has more Torque that the Core i3 2100 "4Cylinder" has more peak HP. Just because it has more peaky HP does not make it always faster in all situation especialy under heavy load and pulling up hill the 6 cylinder will win ever time. Last I checked you can't put a Turbo/Overclock on the model of 4cylinder/Core i3 2100 which really hampers what it could have been at it's max potential. Me I would take the 6 banger.

 

[RetiredChief]

nekulturny "If you drink from the fountain of knowledge, drink deep, for a little learning is a dangerous thing"
Can add:
.. You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make him drink. Or
.. You can pull or shove a A@@ (cross between a donkey and a mule), but that does not mean he will move. or
.. Some people will drink koolaid, no matter what is in it. Or
.. Some people are like Lemmings, follow the leader off the cliff and into the ocean.

@ MMO Fan "In that case AMD has better chipsets than intel in fact AMD had great chipsets" Glad you used the PAST tense "had"

 

[MMO Fan]

nekulturny "If you drink from the fountain of knowledge, drink deep, for a little learning is a dangerous thing"
Can add:
.. You can lead a hourse to water, but you can not make him drink. Or
.. You can pull or shove a A@@ (cross between a donkey and a mule), but that does not mean he will move. or
.. Some people will drink koolaid, no matter what is in it.

@ MMO Fan "In that case AMD has better chipsets than intel in fact AMD had great chipsets" Glad you used the PAST tense "had"

They already created them now they are selling them hence had not has or creating but had because they are selling out. You are clearly a blind fanboy mouse as well as Intel Bigot LOL its so funny how the Intel guys just dont get it and just think the marketing hype make it faster in real life LOL.

 

[nekulturny]

In that case AMD has better chipsets than intel in fact AMD had great chipsets

Well if we took a trip down memory lane, AMD was the cream of the crop for the longest time. Now Intel in the last 5 years or so has taken over, but just to give an idea that tables can indeed turn. AMD was the first to roll out with multiple core CPUs, they hold the patent on 64 bit instruction sets for CPUs. Intel has made their fair share of lowsy products too, people forget this, mostly younger people who just like to pile up on the "Anti-AMD" bandwagon and are too young to remember that Intels first dual core CPU was pure trash, and early Pentium 4s compared to Pentium IIIs was an identical situation to the Bulldozer vs Phenom II. Its looking like Ivy Bridge is not going to meet the performance expected compared to the hype that was associated with it.
Who knows AMD might do something good, today they're behind, but the door swings both ways.

Intel arguably engaged in some very shady and even potentially illegal business practices to become number 1. Does that change things? Not really, whats done is done. But some of these 14 year olds who act like AMD was always garbage really need to lay off the koolaid.

 

[nekulturny]

nekulturny "If you drink from the fountain of knowledge, drink deep, for a little learning is a dangerous thing"
Can add:
.. You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make him drink. Or
.. You can pull or shove a A@@ (cross between a donkey and a mule), but that does not mean he will move. or
.. Some people will drink koolaid, no matter what is in it. Or
.. Some people are like Lemmings, follow the leader off the cliff and into the ocean.

@ MMO Fan "In that case AMD has better chipsets than intel in fact AMD had great chipsets" Glad you used the PAST tense "had"

Well said lol, I see you have a new friend who might want to take a bit to think about those. Me, I'm tired of having this same fight over and over again. :lol:

 

[RetiredChief]

^ Take care and ENJOY.
I try to say out of these when it degenerates to Fan-boyism.
BOTH systems will do the job. LOW on funds go AMD, Cash in hand go Intel. PS I keep 5 grand in cash on hand so for the past 3 years all systems have be Intel - LOL

 

[MMO Fan]

Well if we took a trip down memory lane, AMD was the cream of the crop for the longest time. Now Intel in the last 5 years or so has taken over, but just to give an idea that tables can indeed turn. AMD was the first to roll out with multiple core CPUs, they hold the patent on 64 bit instruction sets for CPUs. Intel has made their fair share of lowsy products too, people forget this, mostly younger people who just like to pile up on the "Anti-AMD" bandwagon and are too young to remember that Intels first dual core CPU was pure trash, and early Pentium 4s compared to Pentium IIIs was an identical situation to the Bulldozer vs Phenom II. Its looking like Ivy Bridge is not going to meet the performance expected compared to the hype that was associated with it.
Who knows AMD might do something good, today they're behind, but the door swings both ways.

Intel arguably engaged in some very shady and even potentially illegal business practices to become number 1. Does that change things? Not really, whats done is done. But some of these 14 year olds who act like AMD was always garbage really need to lay off the koolaid.

I just don't get the fanboisms however that being said it makes me want to buy AMD even more to be honest FX BULL DOZER 8120 is a dam good CPU so are all the others FX 4170 is the beast AMD gaming CPU it's just not as good as the hype and time it took to create it should have been better but they are still great. AMD/RADEON FTW LONG LIVE THE DRAGON PLATFORM !

 

[mubin]

^ Take care and ENJOY.
I try to say out of these when it degenerates to Fan-boyism.
BOTH systems will do the job. LOW on funds go AMD, Cash in hand go Intel. PS I keep 5 grand in cash on hand so for the past 3 years all systems have be Intel - LOL

+ 100 to you. No cash, no intel. But cash..Intel. Its clear. When you get tons of cash, go for koenigsegg ccxr. Who cares. But when you dont, get a porsche 911(If you have that much )

 

[nekulturny]

I was thinking more like, if you have cash go for the Nissan skyline, if not the honda integra...😀

I have a 2003 RSX Type S. If I had the cash, I'd still take the Type S. LOL.

 

[diablo34life]

LOL nice.
I crashed a R32 skyline when i was in army, errr what can i say... i was in a rush 😛

noone cares

 

[nekulturny]

LOL nice.
I crashed a R32 skyline when i was in army, errr what can i say... i was in a rush 😛

LOL, I never wrecked, believe it or not. Come close a few times, I don't drive as crazy as I used to. I've had the car for about 4 years, I know how fast it can go, and have a pretty good idea of what cars it could outrun and which ones it can't, whats the point of street racing anymore? The thrill is gone, but I digress.. Back to the fanboy warz!!!!

 

[nekulturny]

noone cares

I do. Therefore your statement is fallacious.

 

[noob2222]

A 3 Ghz core-i3 can beat a phenom ii x6. But how ? x6 have six core with 3/3.2ghz in each core. That a lot of clock speed. But what lacks from a dual core core i3. So my idea is bus speed. 😛 Actually no other reason i see. And old 800mhz dual core runs slower than a 1333mhz dual core. Thats how i thought. If you know clearly about then let me know. I will be glad to hear it. I am still searching.

Here is a cpu scalling:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html

you are forgetting one thing, the way the program is written. If a game is programmed explicitly for Intel, do you really think AMD has a chance against ANY Intel cpu in that game? The problem isn't always internal to the hardware.

 

[mubin]

you are forgetting one thing, the way the program is written. If a game is programmed explicitly for Intel, do you really think AMD has a chance against ANY Intel cpu in that game? The problem isn't always internal to the hardware.

Processor is just a circuit. They do what you tell. Games are not like nvidia physx, where they are unable to run without nvidia drivers. But cpu dont have drivers. So game program is not a fact i think. Am i right?