Intel i3 vs APUs vs Athlon X4 845 vs FX-6300

[Amyrro]

Hello everyone

I would like to ask for opinions on a budget gaming PC build I am thinking about. I will be using a graphics card that is 240$ or less. However, I am reluctant on the selection of CPU. The budget I set for the CPU is 150$ or less.

I the have the option of choosing a CPU vs APU. My question is, whether the integrated graphics performance of the processor would make any differece, as there will be a GPU working, most probably an AMD RX 460 or 470.

Even if there is no addition by the CPU graphics performance, I guess the FX-6300 is inferior to the the A10-7870K, as both have comparable procesing performance, while the A10-7870K has a higher singled-threaded performance with quadcore, while the extra 2 cores of the FX-6300 will remain pretty much un-used by most games. The gap is larger when considering the A10-7890K, which is supperior to both aforementioned processors.

On the other hand the Intel i3-6300 delivers significantly greater single-threaded performance than the AMD processors. However, due to the only 2 cores it has, it delivers comparable overall processing power to the APUs. I wonder if it would perform better for gaming, as most games utilize 4 or less cores.


To sum up for gaming:
1- Does the integrated graphics of the processor add any benefit for gaming, if the there is a graphics card in the system to handle games ?!

2- If not, then which option is a better go to between the i3-6300 vs Athlon X4 845 (comparable performer to the APUs), since both deliver comparable overall performance, the Intel having significantly higher single threaded performance and being more expensive (considering the added price f the cooler), while the AMD has more cores ?!

Plus, if the computer is to be used for daily tasks as well, such as Internet browsing and office work, such as word processing, slideshow presentation creation, and spreadsheats. How big is the difference between AMD and Intel, since all the within-budget processors mentioned (A10-7870K, A10-7890K, Athlon X4 845 & i3-6300) fall within the same range of computing performance, but th i3-6300 has less cores and much greater single-threaded performance.


Sorry for the long thread
Thanks in advance
Regards

 

[DSzymborski]

- The integrated graphics of the processor does nothing to benefit performance of a discrete GPU unless you're using an extremely low-end GPU and using hybrid crossfire.

- The i3s single core performance have increased from generation-to-generation to the extent that they do heavy lifting as well as the 2012 FX chips these days, with the exception of some very specific use cases that involve extremely parallel tasks. For daily tasks, you'll get no benefit from the additional Piledriver cores. Which is hardly surprising - it's fairly old technology in a space that AMD hasn't focused on in years.

Two of my favorite CPUs of all-time were AMDs, the Athlon 64 3500+ and my Phenom IIx4 965 BE. But at least until Zen comes out, it's very, very difficult to recommend an AMD CPU right for most new builds.

 

[Amyrro]

- The integrated graphics of the processor does nothing to benefit performance of a discrete GPU unless you're using an extremely low-end GPU and using hybrid crossfire.

- The i3s single core performance have increased from generation-to-generation to the extent that they do heavy lifting as well as the 2012 FX chips these days, with the exception of some very specific use cases that involve extremely parallel tasks. For daily tasks, you'll get no benefit from the additional Piledriver cores. Which is hardly surprising - it's fairly old technology in a space that AMD hasn't focused on in years.

Two of my favorite CPUs of all-time were AMDs, the Athlon 64 3500+ and my Phenom IIx4 965 BE. But at least until Zen comes out, it's very, very difficult to recommend an AMD CPU right for most new builds.

Thanks for the reply

Wouldn't any games work better on quad-core CPU vs. Dual Core CPU ?!

 

[DSzymborski]

- The integrated graphics of the processor does nothing to benefit performance of a discrete GPU unless you're using an extremely low-end GPU and using hybrid crossfire.

- The i3s single core performance have increased from generation-to-generation to the extent that they do heavy lifting as well as the 2012 FX chips these days, with the exception of some very specific use cases that involve extremely parallel tasks. For daily tasks, you'll get no benefit from the additional Piledriver cores. Which is hardly surprising - it's fairly old technology in a space that AMD hasn't focused on in years.

Two of my favorite CPUs of all-time were AMDs, the Athlon 64 3500+ and my Phenom IIx4 965 BE. But at least until Zen comes out, it's very, very difficult to recommend an AMD CPU right for most new builds.

Thanks for the reply

Wouldn't any games work better on quad-core CPU vs. Dual Core CPU ?!

Not really. The first core is always the most important and the i3's hyperthreading is helpful. A carpenter can build a wooden shed quicker than me and one of my random friends - i3s these days even match or beat the 8350 in both games that explicitly use more than two cores (Far Cry 4) and new/recent AAA titles (Doom, Witcher 3). The cores issue just isn't a big a deal in gaming, which simply has fewer parallel tasks. Me and that random friend from above might be able to wash a car faster than you do by yourself, but two of us won't be able to get to the beach faster than you.

Once we're not comparing the i3s to the 8350 and instead to lesser CPUs like the 6300 or the various FM2+ chips, it's even easier.

 

[Ecky]

This is pretty typical of how games perform on various CPUs:

Be aware that the i3 6100 is a huge improvement over the i3 4330, and APUs perform about the same as the FX-4300. There are some cases where the 8-core FX CPUs pull a little ahead of the i3, but there are also plenty of cases where the i3 will be close to twice as fast.

DSzymborski summed it up pretty well. I'd suggest picking his post as the solution.

 

[Amyrro]

- The integrated graphics of the processor does nothing to benefit performance of a discrete GPU unless you're using an extremely low-end GPU and using hybrid crossfire.

- The i3s single core performance have increased from generation-to-generation to the extent that they do heavy lifting as well as the 2012 FX chips these days, with the exception of some very specific use cases that involve extremely parallel tasks. For daily tasks, you'll get no benefit from the additional Piledriver cores. Which is hardly surprising - it's fairly old technology in a space that AMD hasn't focused on in years.

Two of my favorite CPUs of all-time were AMDs, the Athlon 64 3500+ and my Phenom IIx4 965 BE. But at least until Zen comes out, it's very, very difficult to recommend an AMD CPU right for most new builds.

Thanks for the reply

Wouldn't any games work better on quad-core CPU vs. Dual Core CPU ?!

Not really. The first core is always the most important and the i3's hyperthreading is helpful. A carpenter can build a wooden shed quicker than me and one of my random friends - i3s these days even match or beat the 8350 in both games that explicitly use more than two cores (Far Cry 4) and new/recent AAA titles (Doom, Witcher 3). The cores issue just isn't a big a deal in gaming, which simply has fewer parallel tasks. Me and that random friend from above might be able to wash a car faster than you do by yourself, but two of us won't be able to get to the beach faster than you.

Once we're not comparing the i3s to the 8350 and instead to lesser CPUs like the 6300 or the various FM2+ chips, it's even easier.

This is pretty typical of how games perform on various CPUs:

Be aware that the i3 6100 is a huge improvement over the i3 4330, and APUs perform about the same as the FX-4300. There are some cases where the 8-core FX CPUs pull a little ahead of the i3, but there are also plenty of cases where the i3 will be close to twice as fast.

DSzymborski summed it up pretty well. I'd suggest picking his post as the solution.

Hello guys

Thanks for the replies. In fact, the results which this guy managed to obtain cached my interest, and are a reason why I am asking about the core count, especially with MS DX12 taking a rise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLkaNWo0EV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4dUCeF2jnU

Regarding the last video, the guy tried to benchmark the FX-6300 on the AMD side, while I believe an Athlon X4 could provide higher single-threaded performance and comparable overall performance for the same price. What do you think in regard of the future trend towards multi-threaded performance of games ?!

Thanks again
Regards

 

[Ecky]

One disadvantage of AMD's current design is that when you load up more cores, you get a performance penalty, because those cores share resources. Two cores exist per module, and when both of those cores are used, they both slow down. For the FX-6300, it's about 20% per core, meaning that all 6 cores fully utilized are only about 4.8x faster in most tasks (on average). The module penalty on the Athlon x4 8xx is a little smaller since it's a newer core design with more duplicated resources, but all 4 cores loaded is still less than 3.5x the performance of just one core. It's worth noting that when you load up all cores, per-thread performance takes a hit. The FX-6300 can load up more cores before per-core performance begins to drop, and so sometimes has an advantage in IPC over the Athlon, despite the Athlon being a newer design with better performance per clock when just one core is working.

Intel's Hyperthreading is a bit different. On a Core i3, you start with one core that is about 70% faster per clock than an AMD core, thus making it worth around 1.7 AMD cores. Hyperthreading allows unused resources in that core to do extra work on another thread, and on average there's around 30% extra throughput. Because of this, a Core i3 performs about the same as 4.5 AMD cores, despite being only a 2 core CPU. Remember though that an FX 6300's 6 cores do not perform 6x as well as one core due to the shared resource penalty. For this reason a Core i3 is about as fast as an FX-6300 in fully multithreaded tasks and much faster than an Athlon x4. Per-thread performance in multithreaded tasks is more than twice as high than either AMD CPU, due to AMD's module shared resource penalty, and in single-core tasks the i3 is still in the range of 70% faster than either.

Most games can heavily utilize no more than 2-3 cores, and rely heavily on one of them being very fast. Because of this, AMD's module design is very poor for modern games, while Intel's fewer faster cores with HT are practically ideal. AMD CPUs either leave some cores unused, or the performance of each core suffers, when a game relies on them being fast. In AMD's upcoming Zen CPU, the module design was scrapped and it seems they've designed something that behaves much more like Intel's CPUs.

I hope this helps.