Radeon or NVidia ? Intel or AMD? Building a gaming PC

[PUB_Farul]

Hi guys, im trying do build up a gaming pc (with also 3DS Max rendering), but the more i search, the more i have questions. So let me write as it was step-by-step:

1.At first i wanted to make a cheap PC, so i was thinking about a combo like AMD FX8350 + Radeon R7 250-270. It was just my first thought.

2. Later i thought that Nvidia graphic cards have better performance and user panel so i was trying to combine a MSI Nvidia GTX960 2GB craphics with AMD FX8350-8370.

3. Then ive heard that AMD FX series have got much more power usage, and you need a separate good quality fan to cool the CPU down, so my cart list grew up to around 800 euros.

4. In the meanwhile i was thinking about Intel i3 - i5 but they are too expensive i think

5. Then i found that there is a lot cheaper APU A10 7850-7860, and that it has integrated graphics and is much newer than FX series.

6. So i thought if the APU has and integrated Radeon R7, will it work with Nvidia graphics card. Started looking here, read that the Radeon will be disabled. But ive also found about Crossfireing the integrated R7 with a R7 250-260 card. But i think its too weak/old and was thinking more about R7 360, but i dunno if it will crossfire.

So the question is, should i buy a i3 6100-6300 with a MSI Nvidia 960 card, or stick with APU/FX with Nvidia or APU with R7-360 if it can be crossfired .... well, im just looking for a best performance with the lowest price, and want everything to work together.

 

[RobCrezz]

I would go Intel for the CPU, until AMD release their new Zen CPUs, they arent competitive in terms of performance.

 

[PUB_Farul]

I would go Intel for the CPU, until AMD release their new Zen CPUs, they arent competitive in terms of performance.

So what youre saying is that a i3-6300 3,8GHz with two cores and four threads gives better performance than a for the same price FX-8320 3,5GHz with eight cores? I know the technology is newer and so but seems to me like 20GHz more in the AMD product.

I am wondering, that if you can make crossfire with APU and R7, can you do the same with integrated Intel graphics and an Nvidia card? Seems to me that Intel is more expensive only cause of the graphics, but if i wont be able to use it then it feels like a waste of money to me. Too bad they dont make octa-cores without graphics, i would have no doubts then to go for one and buy that GTX 960

EDIT: Oh wait, they do, but one costs half more than my whole budget is...

 

[sizzling]

Each one of the FX cores is much weaker than the latest Intel's, the Intel's can do more per clock cycle (IPC). The i3 6300 for gaming not only beats the FX8xxx series it also gives you an upgrade path to an i5 to i7 later. The FM3+ socket and DDR3 RAM are both end of life giving you no chance of future upgrades without replacing the lot. Also a lot of games won't use more than 4 threads so the extra cores on the FX are useless in this situations.

 

[PUB_Farul]

Each one of the FX cores is much weaker than the latest Intel's, the Intel's can do more per clock cycle (IPC). The i3 6300 for gaming not only beats the FX8xxx series it also gives you an upgrade path to an i5 to i7 later. The FM3+ socket and DDR3 RAM are both end of life giving you no chance of future upgrades without replacing the lot. Also a lot of games won't use more than 4 threads so the extra cores on the FX are useless in this situations.

Thanks for the reply! Explained a lot.
But still, do you have any idea about the integrated graphics when i have separate Nvidia card? Is it disabled, does it help anything, or even if its possible to run both, isnt that just a waste of memory?

EDIT: Atm im thinking about i3-6300 and i5-6400. I guess that iX-4XXX on socket 1150 arent worth mentioning, right?

 

[stuartturner34]

A GTX 960 will outpace a crossfired APU / R7 setup. Also, the R7 360 cannot crossfire with any existing APU (The GPUs have to be the same or nearly the same, and the R7 360 is a totally different animal.) If you're doing 3DS MAX and gaming, you are much better with a single-gpu, powerful CPU setup. Also, as stated above, AMD CPUs are MUCH weaker in single-threaded environments than AMD processors. Games always run better on a newer-gen Intel.

Oh, and Intel's on-die GPU doesn't SLI with Nvidia's GPUs. Totally different companies, totally different architectures.

 

[PUB_Farul]

A GTX 960 will outpace a crossfired APU / R7 setup. Also, the R7 360 cannot crossfire with any existing APU (The GPUs have to be the same or nearly the same, and the R7 360 is a totally different animal.) If you're doing 3DS MAX and gaming, you are much better with a single-gpu, powerful CPU setup. Also, as stated above, AMD CPUs are MUCH weaker in single-threaded environments than AMD processors. Games always run better on a newer-gen Intel.

Oh, and Intel's on-die GPU doesn't SLI with Nvidia's GPUs. Totally different companies, totally different architectures.

Ok, so i made a build on PCPartPicker, looks like this http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Gq7gnn

1. Intel Core i3-6300
2. MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2GB
3. Motherboard MSI B150 Gaming M3 DDR4 s.1151
4. Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4 2x8GB 2133MHz
5. SSD Kingtson HyperX Savage 120GB
6. WD Red 1TB
7. got some power supply around 450-550W, dont remember exactly, hope its enough
8. case is Tracer Quantum, not available on PCPartPicker, looks like this https://proline.pl/?p=TRACER+QUANTUM

Rest of the less important stuff i have from my old PC. Cost of this set in my country is 794USD / 707EUR. Was thinking about that i5-6400 but doesnt seem like a big difference on benchmark (by cpuboss.com - i knot its not the best choice but gotta do for now). Also thought bout HyperX Fury memory which is around 25-30% cheaper than Savage version, and differs only with one more cycle latency.

Also got one last question. Ive heard that AMD cpus get hot as hell, and need some better cooling unit. Does the same goes for Intel, or the standard one is enough since theyre locked for overclocking?

EDIT: Actually this is the last one. MSI B150 Gaming has in its description: "Multi GPU - handling of AMD crossfire technology / 2-Way AMD CrossFire". Whats the sense in making AMD crossfire on a motherboard that supports only Intel 1151 socket? Or is it and error somebody wrote?

 

[kansaw]

If you want a true gaming computer consider these spec requirements for the new game Battlefield 1 (from their website). Hope this helps.

MINIMUM SPECS
OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
Processor (AMD): AMD FX-6350
Processor (Intel): Core i5 6600K
Memory: 8GB RAM
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ HD 7850 2GB
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce® GTX 660 2GB
DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
Hard-drive space: 50GB

RECOMMENDED SPECS
OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later
Processor (AMD): AMD FX 8350 with Wraith Cooling
Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 4790 or equivalent
Memory: 16GB RAM
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ RX 480 4GB
Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 1060 3GB
DirectX: 11.1 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
Available Disk Space: 50GB

 

[RobCrezz]

A GTX 960 will outpace a crossfired APU / R7 setup. Also, the R7 360 cannot crossfire with any existing APU (The GPUs have to be the same or nearly the same, and the R7 360 is a totally different animal.) If you're doing 3DS MAX and gaming, you are much better with a single-gpu, powerful CPU setup. Also, as stated above, AMD CPUs are MUCH weaker in single-threaded environments than AMD processors. Games always run better on a newer-gen Intel.

Oh, and Intel's on-die GPU doesn't SLI with Nvidia's GPUs. Totally different companies, totally different architectures.

Ok, so i made a build on PCPartPicker, looks like this http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Gq7gnn

1. Intel Core i3-6300
2. MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2GB
3. Motherboard MSI B150 Gaming M3 DDR4 s.1151
4. Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4 2x8GB 2133MHz
5. SSD Kingtson HyperX Savage 120GB
6. WD Red 1TB
7. got some power supply around 450-550W, dont remember exactly, hope its enough
8. case is Tracer Quantum, not available on PCPartPicker, looks like this https://proline.pl/?p=TRACER+QUANTUM

Rest of the less important stuff i have from my old PC. Cost of this set in my country is 794USD / 707EUR. Was thinking about that i5-6400 but doesnt seem like a big difference on benchmark (by cpuboss.com - i knot its not the best choice but gotta do for now). Also thought bout HyperX Fury memory which is around 25-30% cheaper than Savage version, and differs only with one more cycle latency.

Also got one last question. Ive heard that AMD cpus get hot as hell, and need some better cooling unit. Does the same goes for Intel, or the standard one is enough since theyre locked for overclocking?

EDIT: Actually this is the last one. MSI B150 Gaming has in its description: "Multi GPU - handling of AMD crossfire technology / 2-Way AMD CrossFire". Whats the sense in making AMD crossfire on a motherboard that supports only Intel 1151 socket? Or is it and error somebody wrote?

The stock intel cooler is fine on the i3, they dont make much heat.

AMD crossfire is for their graphics cards, so you could potentially run two of them for increased performace (if you wanted). But its generally better to run a single more powerful graphics card.

 

[PUB_Farul]

The stock intel cooler is fine on the i3, they dont make much heat.

AMD crossfire is for their graphics cards, so you could potentially run two of them for increased performace (if you wanted). But its generally better to run a single more powerful graphics card.

Thanks very much guys, all the info helped me a lot, some time passed since my last Pentium 4 PC...

Still have a lil doubt about the cpu. Tried i3-6300, i5-6400, i5-6500 and i5-4460 all on cpuboss benchmark charts and looks like i3 is better than i5-6400, slightly better than 6500, but still 4460 is better than all of them. Seems like a bullshit to me, that two cores mean nothing and that an older tech cpu is better, but I dunno.

 

[RobCrezz]

CPUboss is a crap site, pay no attention to it.
In order of performance:
1) 6500
2) 6400
3) 4460
4) 6300

The 6500 would be my choice, great clock speed for single core performance, and a true quad (unlike the i3 6300). I would only go for the 4460 if it was very cheap.