Phenom iix4 vs iix6 Gaming!

[kingxpaul]

What's best for AMD Gaming with High Settings. (w/AMD Turbo CORE Technology)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849&cm_re=AMD_phenom_ii_x6-_-19-103-849-_-Product

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz
or
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103894&cm_re=AMD_phenom_ii_x4-_-19-103-894-_-Product
Not sure if best to have 4 cores or have 6 for future reference and use turbo core?

What would you guys recommend for best performance and fps and graphics?

 

[zooted]

Try the 955be

 

[kingxpaul]

wouldn't the 970 be better then the 955 anyway even a 965 is better but 970 or 1090T

 

[coldsleep]

The 970 is best for gaming. Few games today use even 3 or 4 cores, 6 cores won't be touched.

The higher clock speed of the 970 will matter more for gaming.

The 955 is probably a better value if you're overclocking, as it's cheaper and should be able to be overclocked reasonably. If you don't plan on overclocking and money isn't a problem, the 970 is your best bet.

That being said, for most games, GPU matters a lot more than CPU. Assuming money is limited, your best bet would be to get a 955 and spend the money saved on getting a better graphics card. Even though it's only $30, that could be the difference between a 768 MB GTX 460 and a 1 GB GTX 460 or a 6850.

 

[kingxpaul]

Best answer selected by kingxpaul.

 

[coldsleep]

I can't believe I said "best bet" like 2 or 3 times.

To recap: ignoring all other factors, the 970 is the best gaming CPU of the options presented (the i5-750/760 is probably a better gaming CPU, as far as that goes). Taking overall system and price into account, the 955 is a better value for a gamer. All else being equal, spend more money on your GPU than on your CPU.

 

[swifty_morgan]

970 is best why ? Because the slightly higher clock speed gives it a few extra FPS ? If I were buying a processor right now I'd go right for a 6core. And if you look, I posted something inre to games that already benefit from the extra cores. Think it isn't coming.... think again. Look under cpu's for 6core and gaming......... and you can bump the 6core to run at the same speed as that quad. So what's the benefit. You can't add cores.

 

[tony singh]

Phenom 970 is your best bet , or u can get a i5 960 & overclock it , it will just blaze.

 

[coldsleep]

970 is best why ? Because the slightly higher clock speed gives it a few extra FPS ? If I were buying a processor right now I'd go right for a 6core. And if you look, I posted something inre to games that already benefit from the extra cores. Think it isn't coming.... think again. Look under cpu's for 6core and gaming......... and you can bump the 6core to run at the same speed as that quad. So what's the benefit. You can't add cores.

Uh, yes, precisely because the higher clock speed gives it a few extra fps. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/186?vs=146 And again, note that for the most part, a better GPU will matter much more than the difference in clock speed or cores.

The OP didn't indicate anything about overclocking or not, so it's kind of pointless to discuss that without more information on the OP's plans.

Physical cores have been staying well ahead of the requirements of the majority of games for quite a while now. Except for some RTS games and GTA IV, very few games make good use more than a couple of cores. By and large, gaming developers code to the last or current generation hardware. There's no reason for any gaming company to make a game that only runs on 4+ cores until at least 50%-75% of the gamer market has a 4+ core computer. How well would a game requiring 6 cores sell? (Answer: horribly.)

Beyond that, in traditional gaming, there isn't a great use for parallelization. Almost everything depends on the user playing the game...my understanding is that it's hard to code a lot of simultaneous commands that don't depend on input from the user. Parallelization has its use, but to date, it hasn't really been well-implemented in games.

More cores will certainly be used eventually. I just don't see it becoming a severe problem for the next few years. Maybe by the time the OP is ready to upgrade, it should be a consideration...but the question posed and the workload don't lend themselves to a hex-core.