Should I take on a i3 or FX build?

[TheChaoticToast]

Hi,

Im going to be looking to play games like Watch Dogs, Battlefield 3 and 4, , Far cry 3 and 4, Theif, Counter strike GO, Skyrim, etc. at Medium to high settings. So my question is, should i start off with a i3 4150 CPU, with the possibility of upgrading to a haswell i5, or should I just jump into the fx-6300 or 8320 CPU?


GPU: R7 260x ( possibility of upgrade if I chose fx)

RAM: 8 GB 1600 mhz








Thanks

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It really depends on the game and in the end it'll come down to you making a choice, because no matter what people who support Intel are going to tell you Intel, and people who support AMD are going to tell you FX. If a game uses a lot of cores (like Battlefield 4) there is a good chance the AMD will give you better performance over the I3. In other games however that use a lot of individual core power, the I3 can surpass the FX in frame rate.

 

[TheChaoticToast]

It really depends on the game and in the end it'll come down to you making a choice, because no matter what people who support Intel are going to tell you Intel, and people who support AMD are going to tell you FX. If a game uses a lot of cores (like Battlefield 4) there is a good chance the AMD will give you better performance over the I3. In other games however that use a lot of individual core power, the I3 can surpass the FX in frame rate.

But generally saying, if I know I can upgrade to a i5 in the future, should i go the Intel path or should i go with whats powerful right now and go AMD?

 

[Tanner Fredrickson]

In Thief, Far Cry 3/4, and Skyrim, an i3 will outperform a stock-clocked FX CPU, and still approximate overclocked FX CPU performance.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/787/bench/CPU_01.png

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/11/14/intel-core-i3-4130-haswell-review/5

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/917/bench/CPU_01.png



In the others, an i3 will approximately match an FX-8320 or FX-6350. The i3-4150 would be even better than the i3s they tested.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/827/bench/CPU_01.png

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/734/bench/CPU_01.png

Plus, an i3 has an upgrade path to an i5 or i7, whereas the FX CPUs currently have no upgrade path.

An i3 matches the FX line in speed right now, and an i5 will destroy them in the future. Go i3.

 

[Jeremy Howard]

Even though the i3 is dual core you will get some advantage with the hyper threading. Plus as stated the path to i5/i7/Xeon is always an option since the path beyond a 8350 is the 9000 series FX and those require a lot of watts to run. Not worth it. I like intel and even though my first gaming rig is on a 6350 (which honestly has treated me well since I put a GTX 780 with it) my next upgrade for it will be going to an intel i5 (or Xeon E3-1230v3)

 

[turkey3_scratch]

My personal recommendation is to go for the i3.