Future proof cpu upgrade:

[Swordkd]

I apologize for this question. An AMD 8350 vs. Intel 3570k. I know that currently the Intel solution thumps AMD pretty much across the board in gaming, but my question is this: In the next 3 to 4 years, will games eventually take advantage of more cores than they do now?

My last major pc upgrade was when I bought my AMD Phenom II 940. I'm currently using that cpu oc'ed to 3.4ghz and I've had it 4+ years. I think for the same price it has weathered advancements in games and programs better than the equivalent Intel solution at the time.

I'll be mating the cpu/motherboard/ram to an HIS 6870 video card and a Thermaltake Frio cooler(Overclocking *is* an option regardless of the cpu). Once again, I know the performance differences between the two cpu's right now, anyone can google it and draw their own conclusions from the benchmarks. But what I want thoughts on, is how well will either of the cpu's age over the next 3-4 years.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

Easy answer = BOTH will age....

All the best Brett

 

[darksparten]

The FX 8350 isn't even an 8 core- it's the exact same thing as the i5 3570k, 4 cores threaded into 4+4 physical/integer cores sharing the same L2 and FTPs, the i5 will age way slower due to it's better OC(FX 8000 Series OC=BSOD, hell, 8000 series even BSODs at stock), and it's just faster at stock speeds. Also the FX 8350 has garbage stock cooling, and even a watercooler has trouble.

 

[daswilhelm]

nothing is future proof. (stick with intel)

 

[jaguarskx]

How "future proof" a product is depends on your performance expectations in the future. The raw performance of the FX-8350 and i5-3570k will be the same today as it will be 10 years from now; unless of course you increase the overclock. The question is how much better performance CPUs will offer in the next 2 - 4 and how much more demanding programs will be as more features are added to them (sometimes over bloated).

Since this is apparently a gaming rig, it depends on if the CPU will bottleneck any replacement graphic card(s) for your Radeon HD 6870 in the future.

 

[William_White]

The FX 8350 isn't even an 8 core- it's the exact same thing as the i5 3570k, 4 cores threaded into 4+4 physical/integer cores sharing the same L2 and FTPs, the i5 will age way slower due to it's better OC(FX 8000 Series OC=BSOD, hell, 8000 series even BSODs at stock), and it's just faster at stock speeds. Also the FX 8350 has garbage stock cooling, and even a watercooler has trouble.

If this was between a 3770k and the 8350 this would be less false ,as it is, it is completely false the i5 does not have hyper threading and it is a quad core CPU thus 4 threads, the 8350 has 4 modules (2 cores with shared resources) and 8 threads, by the time that games require 8 threads they will both be severely underpowered, I would go with intel or, if you want an amd cpu, the 6 core fx and put more money into your graphics. There is no future proof anything in the world of computers but as it is the most future proof CPU now is the 3770k i7 if you are wanting to not upgrade any time soon that is what i would do. It will also preform better in everything else.