Intel Core i5 4460 vs AMD FX 8350

[KillermanGabe]

Hello,

I am trying to decide between upgrading to a Core i5 4460 or a FX 8350. I currently have an A4-5300 Dual Core processor. Of course I will be buying a new motherboard as well because each of the processors have a different socket type. Here are my current system specs:

CPU: A4-5300 3.5GHz Dual Core
GPU: GIGABYTE NVIDIA GTX 960 G1 GAMING 2G
POWER SUPPLY: Corsair CX600 600W
MEMORY: 8GB DDR3 1600
MONITOR: 1920x1080

I am mainly going to play games such as GTA V, Rust, The Forest, and perhaps Battlefield. I also record videos and edit them using Premiere Pro. Any help on deciding between these two processors would be greatly appreciated. Also, my budget is $300 for a new motherboard and CPU so if there is a better one that would suit my needs better that is also an option.

Thanks,
Gabe G.

 

[NightAntilli]

Why not upgrade to an Athlon 760k instead? It'll save you from having to upgrade the motherboard and it'll save you money.

 

[andy_Man]

i5-4460 all the way. Better per core performance by quite a bit. 90% of games still only use 4 cores max.

 

[bignastyid]

The i5 would be the best gaming option.

 

[LookItsRain]

An i5 would be the best, but would cost alot, 760k would be a good option.

 

[Jay Stew]

FX-8350 + MSI Gaming 970. done deal for less than budget. Get you 8 cores for rendering and is OC faster than the Athlon these "experts" are recommending. It is only par where it matters with i5. ie. at 1080p once you OC the AMD you get similar performance to the i5 for way less money. Or you could spend more than $300 total for an intel i5 with only 4 cores with is slower at rendering and instead of 85fps you'll get 90fps Yay!

If you ever stream or record with fraps or OBS the FX is better at that.

 

[bignastyid]

Another option that would be good for both Gaming and rendering is a Xeon E3, its a quad core with hyper threading like the i7s. It is locked and has no integrated video but the 4460 is also locked and you have a dedicated video card so the integrated isn't needed.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-GAMING 3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.59 @ Newegg)
Total: $289.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-19 21:26 EDT-0400

 

[KillermanGabe]

FX-8350 + MSI Gaming 970. done deal for less than budget. Get you 8 cores for rendering and is OC faster than the Athlon these "experts" are recommending. It is only par where it matters with i5. ie. at 1080p once you OC the AMD you get similar performance to the i5 for way less money. Or you could spend more than $300 total for an intel i5 with only 4 cores with is slower at rendering and instead of 85fps you'll get 90fps Yay!

If you ever stream or record with fraps or OBS the FX is better at that.

I multitask a lot and record with OBS and plan on overclocking to 4.3-4.5GHz. So I agree that the FX is better.

 

[Jay Stew]

FX-8350 + MSI Gaming 970. done deal for less than budget. Get you 8 cores for rendering and is OC faster than the Athlon these "experts" are recommending. It is only par where it matters with i5. ie. at 1080p once you OC the AMD you get similar performance to the i5 for way less money. Or you could spend more than $300 total for an intel i5 with only 4 cores with is slower at rendering and instead of 85fps you'll get 90fps Yay!

If you ever stream or record with fraps or OBS the FX is better at that.

I multitask a lot and record with OBS and plan on overclocking to 4.3-4.5GHz. So I agree that the FX is better.

I have mine at 4.6 on air with only a single increment increase in power, cant remember the value but it is stable and I've left it there. The FX OC really well. I have one of those cool fans that allows you to manually drive it so when I'm just chillin I run it slower, when I'm really gaming hard, which subsequently drives my GTX970 up in temp then I boost the CPU fan too. If you go water cooling you should be able to put it over 5Ghz and close any meaningful gap with the i5. Remember that an AMD OC cycle for cycle seems to merit a better increase in benchmarks for some reason than intel, in any event one thing you will want to do is disable to auto boosting. Auto boost seems to give my CPU issues where it doesn't draw things right.

 

[NightAntilli]

Unless it's under Mantle or DX12, the 8 cores of the FX won't help you, and the 760k will beat it. But hey, believe whatever you want to.

 

[Jay Stew]

I have recorded hours of video without dropping a single frame at 1920x1080 at 60fps without a single dropped frame using the 970GTX, with the FX as backup. All while, loading up one or two cores with the game, and another one with a browser checking out my email, another browser window with a seperate account running a whole other instance playing music from you tube, and another host of programs running in the background when needed on Windows 7 and it is fine. It offers superior performance to the Q6600, and while the i5 is superior to that chip because it is years newer, it is still a four core cpu.

Examples of where the FX will benefit you include...


Streaming while playing, better than i5,
Rendering a video edit alone better than i5
Rendering a video edit while gaming, not possible with the i5 without shuddering, possible with FX
Rendering a video edit while gaming while streaming, not possible at all with i5, possible and even practical with FX.

Will you get the same framerate as an i5 with the FX, no you will not, however you will get comparable frame rates and as you OC you will close any meaningful gaps with a stock i5 or similarly clocked i5 for a trade in increased heat and energy usage. It will raise your total cost of ownership but not substantially and only while performing those heavy cpu tasks.

And yes, when DX12 comes to town in JULY 2015! You will likely see framerates blow away an i5 because the frames will be distributed across 8 cores instead of 4. In short, there will be no meaningful gap between the i5 and FX that can't be closed on air cooled CPU OC, however the FX stands to gain substantial performance increases while the i5 does not, when DX12 is released with Windows 10, again in July.

 

[Jay Stew]

Unless it's under Mantle or DX12, the 8 cores of the FX won't help you, and the 760k will beat it. But hey, believe whatever you want to.

Not what the stats say...

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-8350-vs-AMD-Athlon-X4-760K

 

[turkey3_scratch]

And yes, when DX12 comes to town in JULY 2015! You will likely see framerates blow away an i5 because the frames will be distributed across 8 cores instead of 4. In short, there will be no meaningful gap between the i5 and FX that can't be closed on air cooled CPU OC, however the FX stands to gain substantial performance increases while the i5 does not, when DX12 is released with Windows 10, again in July.

I think you have some misconceptions about how game programming works. One core does not calculate each frame, that would be impossible because events that occur the frame prior effect what happens the next frame.

 

[Jay Stew]

I misspoke I was referring to DX calls. DX calls are distributed across more than two cores now which positively impact framerates and smoothness. FX having more cores has more places to distribute a DX call which results in higher number of them being processed.