CPU/Upgrade questions and thoughts

[Aldaz108]

I'll get right into it, at the moment I this system...

AMD A-10 6800k 4.10Ghz
GTX 760 4gb Jetstream by Palit
8gig ddr3 (Most likely 1600Mhz)
ASROCK Mobo with of course a fm2 socket.


Now, I have been looking at Intel CPU's and AMD CPU's.

I have had my eye on the FX 8350 black edition, and I am wondering if it would be much of an improvement in gaming performance and work performance?

If I got it, my system would be this...

AMD FX 8350 Black Edition,
GTX 760 4gb
8gig ddr3.


is it worth upgrading? or should I save up a little more and get something else?

My budget will probs be around £250-£300, but I'm going to have to buy a new motherboard which will be around £50-£100 also... so note that.

 

[smorizio]

the 8300 been a dead cpu for 2 years, I would wait there are info amd is making newer cpu. may be out in a few months. there also the newer intel skylake that dropping at the end of summer.

 

[jazzy663]

I'm assuming this is a gaming machine.

As much faith as I have in AMD, I can't in good faith recommend 'upgrading' to an 83xx chip. As smorizio said, AM3+ is a dead socket. I don't mean to say Vishera chips are bad, for the price they're quite good-- but for gaming purposes they won't be able to hold their own in coming years. This is mainly because of Vishera's shoddy per-core performance (it's no better than your 6800K!) A lesser amount of strong cores is better than lots of weak cores, and Vishera is the latter of the two.

Without trying to sound rude, what is your reason for upgrading? Are you not getting the performance you want? Are you experiencing bottlenecks?

---

Do you overclock? If not, when people ask about upgrading chips and boards I most often suggest a locked CPU and a matching chipset. The reason being you can find these components cheaper than their overclock-able counterparts. For example, a Core i5-4690 and a good-quality H97 motherboard.

Something like this. Keep in mind this is only an example, it might not be what you want. I also don't know what form factor your PC is, you didn't specify your motherboard so it could be mini-ITX for all I know.

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£175.04 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£81.54 @ Aria PC)
Total: £256.58

If you have an interest in overclocking, then these are not the parts you want to buy.

It might be worth it to wait for Intel's new chips to come out as well. It all depends on what you want.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[NightAntilli]

I suggest you wait for the new CPUs to be released. Stick with what you have. Right now there are too many things going on at once, and it's pretty much the worst time to decide. You'll either pay too much unnecessarily, or pay little and have to spend more money later anyway.

DX12 will be coming out, where more cores will finally be utilized properly. It's currently hard to predict the performance of 8 vs 4 cores. The die-shrinks are coming soon as well while we've been stuck at 28nm for a while, both for Intel and AMD. So... Have a little patience, wait a few months.

 

[Aldaz108]

Guys, are you on about the 9000 series? because the newest on out is the 9000 series and it's AMD3+ still, and only has more Ghz(Which is good I suppose) but the amd 8350 should be enough for me.

Let me know please, thanks an thanks so far for the info.

 

[Montblanchill]

In terms of work performance, if you're pushing the CPU hard with editing and software that scales to 8 threads, then the 8350 may be an improvement. It will also probably grant you a small improvement in games due to the clock speed and more available threads, however this would only be applicable in games which scale onto more than 4 threads. Whilst this is become more of a regular thing for brand new games, you'll find a lot do not find much benefit in more that 4 at the moment.

If you are looking for a performance jump, you will find a bigger benefit with the newest range of Intel chips at the moment - they're currently better than AMD's offerings in almost all departments, gaming especially. People will often show you benchmarks of the AMD 8 cores managing to keep up with Intel, however these are and exception to the norm.

If you can afford it and really want the performance then jump over to an Intel chip. If you're just looking for a small performance bump and would like to save a little money then check out the 8350.

 

[jazzy663]

For non-gaming purposes an FX-8350 would not be a bad choice. Eight physical cores will give you superior multitasking ability, and its pure speed is nothing to laugh at. It's also cheaper than any Intel chip of the same caliber. I also doubt it will bottleneck your GTX 760 in any game.

I think one of the most popular motherboard pairs for the 8350 is the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3. Good quality AM3+ motherboard, not any cheaper than any of the other top-tier boards, but it's good quality nonetheless. 990FX is the best chipset for the 8350, but you could pair it with an AMD 970 motherboard if you wanted to sacrifice some overclockability, expansion options, and PCI-E bandwidth... would save you a bit of money.

I don't think anyone in their right mind here would go recommending an FX-9370 or FX-9590. Those chips are crazy. The only difference between those and 83xx is their core speed which AMD has pushed even higher, the cost of this is the blasting of their TDPs into outer space... both of those chips are rated for 220W. Ouch. Even on manufacturer websites they will usually warn you about the high temps and energy consumption of 9xxx chips, at least I know Gigabyte does. It's also really not worth it in my opinion to get a 9-series chip, because there's actually only a handful of motherboards on the market that support them, and they're all uber-expensive. Again, due to their crazy TDPs.