i5 2500k vs FX-6350 overclocked/gaming

Shamwow47

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Dec 17, 2014
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I currently have an AMD FX 6350 at @4.4ghz with a Biostar TA970 ver 5.3. I have just got a NZXT Kraken x60 watercooler and have been trying to overclock but it has been unsuccesful due to my board only having a 4+1 phase power delivery. My other option would be to buy a Asus P8 P67 Pro motherboard with a Intel i5 2500k. I would be overclocking to the maximum and was wondering which was better, my fx 6350 at around 4.4ghz or a i5 2500k overclocked to whatever I can get it to on a 280mm aio watercooler. I have a GTX 970 which is around 1600mhz. I do not care about the money as either option will be doable because I am buying the i5 from a peer. I just want to know the difference I would get in terms of gaming. I also render videos so if one was faster that would also be an added bonus. Another option would be to buy a new AM3+ board and take my fx 6350 higher (probably not worth it). Please let me know which one you think would be better and by how much. No biased answers please and anyone with experience of the two cpu's is welcome.
 
Solution
Hey,
The i5-2500K is roughly 35% faster per core if comparing same clock speed.

(Future DX12 titles will use the FX-6350 better but that doesn't help right now)

Assuming similar overclocking then that's going to be roughly the difference for games that are very CPU limited. With a GTX970 you are almost certainly losing at least 25% performance compared to the i5 at times, and more than 40% in some titles compared to a modern i5-4690K.

*One issue is the Windows license. Do you get that as well with the i5-2500K + motherboard? If not, you'd have to buy another license.

So...
You'll pretty much have to decide if 25% or so performance is worth the cost to switch. It's going to vary by title quite a bit, so you might want to find CPU...
As an i5 2500K/P8P67 Pro owner for 5 years, I would be suspect to how that used chip and motherboard were used (overclocked or stock?). My first P8P67 Pro (rev B3) crapped out after three years as an excellent overclocker (see my sig at the bottom of my post), and I would not recommend it if the original owner had it overclocked.

They have a long and distinguished high failure rate history among overclockers (read NewEgg reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131703 ). I bought a used replacement and have since returned the build back to stock speed as a backup gaming rig. If however the friend kept it stock and didn't overclock, it's certainly viable as a decent platform with a 970 for 1080p gaming. Much better than the AMD 6350 which would bottleneck the 970 more, even overclocked.
 
Hey,
The i5-2500K is roughly 35% faster per core if comparing same clock speed.

(Future DX12 titles will use the FX-6350 better but that doesn't help right now)

Assuming similar overclocking then that's going to be roughly the difference for games that are very CPU limited. With a GTX970 you are almost certainly losing at least 25% performance compared to the i5 at times, and more than 40% in some titles compared to a modern i5-4690K.

*One issue is the Windows license. Do you get that as well with the i5-2500K + motherboard? If not, you'd have to buy another license.

So...
You'll pretty much have to decide if 25% or so performance is worth the cost to switch. It's going to vary by title quite a bit, so you might want to find CPU scaling benchmarks.

Other:
VIDEO RENDERING.
That's probably proportional to CPU usage. In Handbrake my CPU uses every thread of my i7-3770K.

Both CPU's are almost identical in terms of total processing power if all cores are used (FX has six, i5 has four faster). You can use TASK MANAGER to monitor your CPU usage when rendering video.

If the CPU uses almost all six cores then the i5 won't help much. If it uses 75% or less of the processing power then the i5 should be about 35% faster (75% not 67% because there's some idle CPU overhead) since the additional two cores on the FX don't help, but the remainder are again slower.
 
Solution


Pretty much around what I expected. I think I will try using my friends 2500k later today and run a few comparisons to see how the two stack up. When the time comes that DX12 becomes more popular and helpful for 4+ core cpu's I will grab a i7 kabby lake or what ever is pretty good at the time. Thanks for the lengthy and helpful info.
 
DX12 can theoretically reduce the CPU bottleneck, so an i7 might not be needed.

It depends on the game of course, but Microsoft has claimed the code should be up to 50% more efficient, and of course we can theoretically use close to 100% of a quad-core's processing power.

We'll see on an individual game basis, but I think a 2500K is going to end up with minimal CPU bottleneck in most titles but it's hard to say right now.