What will Give me better gaming performance?

[MrTechGuy]

I will be null ding a gaming PC shortly but I can't decide which combo to buy.

(1)I could go with a pentium(I will oc it to about 4.2ghz) and a r9 280 and get an i5 for around Christmas time

(2)I can get a fx6300 and a r9 270 and maybe crossfire around Christmas time(I will oc the 270 if I need to).

A r9 280x is out of budget right now. I need some opinions. Thank you in advance.

 

[MrTechGuy]

I will be *building* a gaming PC shortly.

 

[synphul]

What about getting an i3 like the 4160. It's no more expensive than the pentium anniversary edition plus the aftermarket cooler needed to oc it. Then you'll have 4 threads and a cpu that will still perform better than the fx 6300 in games with an upgrade path to the i5 if you still want to later. If you don't need sli for dual nvidia cards and don't plan to get a k series i5 and overclock it, something like an h97 board should work fine for both i3 and a locked core i5 (just can't oc on an h97 board). Even a b85 board would probably work though may need a bios update for the i5 depending which model you get.

 

[anti-duck]

I would go for the FX 6300 and 270 for now and then sell the 270 around Christmas time and whack something better in. I had 2 270's previous to my 2 970's that I have now and I ended up using a single video card most of the time because of Crossfire issues.

 

[game junky]

FX6300 is actually a decent gaming CPU in combination with a decent card but that platform is dead so you won't really have an upgrade path.
The i5 k series are the best bang for your buck when it comes to high-end gaming - it's possible that 2-3 years down the road, developers will find a way of stressing a 4690's resources but right now that thing eats any processing needs with a smile on it's face. For day to day usage, I would go with the Pentium to i5 path for long term enjoyment of your rig.

I am an Nvidia guy so I can't speak to the performance of AMD's R series GPUs - the one thing that is consistent across all GPU's and games is that video memory is a huge factor and though SLI & xfire do increase the amount of processing power, it's not a 1-1 ratio and you can't use the ram from both cards. On average, you're looking at a 50% increase in graphical performance. A single card with more video memory is going to be a better investment in the long run than a dual-card config. There are some 280X options with 6GB of memory but I think a 290 would be the way to go:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002

If you're in a hurry to build, I would build option 1 but I wouldn't expect to run everything smoothly on high settings at a high frame rate @ 1080p. I am still using an FX-8150 and a 4GB 770 - it wasn't cheap to build at the time but it's still a solid performer.

 

[maddogfargo]

FX6300 is actually a decent gaming CPU in combination with a decent card but that platform is dead so you won't really have an upgrade path.
The i5 k series are the best bang for your buck when it comes to high-end gaming - it's possible that 2-3 years down the road, developers will find a way of stressing a 4690's resources but right now that thing eats any processing needs with a smile on it's face. For day to day usage, I would go with the Pentium to i5 path for long term enjoyment of your rig.

I am an Nvidia guy so I can't speak to the performance of AMD's R series GPUs - the one thing that is consistent across all GPU's and games is that video memory is a huge factor and though SLI & xfire do increase the amount of processing power, it's not a 1-1 ratio and you can't use the ram from both cards. On average, you're looking at a 50% increase in graphical performance. A single card with more video memory is going to be a better investment in the long run than a dual-card config. There are some 280X options with 6GB of memory but I think a 290 would be the way to go:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002

If you're in a hurry to build, I would build option 1 but I wouldn't expect to run everything smoothly on high settings at a high frame rate @ 1080p. I am still using an FX-8150 and a 4GB 770 - it wasn't cheap to build at the time but it's still a solid performer.

In modern multithreaded games the FX 6300 at stock is as good as an i5 4440. It's almost a dead even match. However, game junky makes a very good point you don't want to overlook:

AMD will be coming out with AM4 and Zen CPUs soon

This means the AM3+ platform will likely be phased out in a year or so. If you can get a midrange Intel build on a current platform with a longer lifespan, I would go that route. It will likely give you a bit longer upgrade path.

 

[synphul]

Which games is the 6300 performing as good as an i5? In nearly every bench I've seen the 6300 is beat out by the 8320/8350 and the i3 meets or beats those.

 

[game junky]

FX6300 is actually a decent gaming CPU in combination with a decent card but that platform is dead so you won't really have an upgrade path.
The i5 k series are the best bang for your buck when it comes to high-end gaming - it's possible that 2-3 years down the road, developers will find a way of stressing a 4690's resources but right now that thing eats any processing needs with a smile on it's face. For day to day usage, I would go with the Pentium to i5 path for long term enjoyment of your rig.

I am an Nvidia guy so I can't speak to the performance of AMD's R series GPUs - the one thing that is consistent across all GPU's and games is that video memory is a huge factor and though SLI & xfire do increase the amount of processing power, it's not a 1-1 ratio and you can't use the ram from both cards. On average, you're looking at a 50% increase in graphical performance. A single card with more video memory is going to be a better investment in the long run than a dual-card config. There are some 280X options with 6GB of memory but I think a 290 would be the way to go:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002

If you're in a hurry to build, I would build option 1 but I wouldn't expect to run everything smoothly on high settings at a high frame rate @ 1080p. I am still using an FX-8150 and a 4GB 770 - it wasn't cheap to build at the time but it's still a solid performer.

In modern multithreaded games the FX 6300 at stock is as good as an i5 4440. It's almost a dead even match. However, game junky makes a very good point you don't want to overlook:

AMD will be coming out with AM4 and Zen CPUs soon

This means the AM3+ platform will likely be phased out in a year or so. If you can get a midrange Intel build on a current platform with a longer lifespan, I would go that route. It will likely give you a bit longer upgrade path.

You're not wrong - that's why both Sony & Microsoft are using custom AMD chips in their consoles.

Intel's Skylake is coming this year as well - for me, it's the DDR4 support on both platforms that I am excited for. I have been biding my time with my 8150 waiting for a significant upgrade knowing that even the 8370 isn't going to give me a significant enough improvement in performance to be worth the money. I want to see apples to apples as much as possible in performance tests with Skylake vs Zen once they're both released with their flagships. I refuse to continually chase the latest and greatest because that's an expensive addiction to have, but my 8150 is showing it's age.

 

[synphul]

Console chips and platforms are entirely different from pc platforms. They may be becoming more similar, but they're still very different architecturally. Just like a gaming gpu and workstation gpu are different. Assuming that because amd manufactures the chips in consoles they're good for pc gaming is assuming if I use goodyear tires on my car it will handle terrain like bigfoot simply because they make tires for both.