Worthy upgrade from FX-8120

[GonSanzo]

Hi Everyone,

So i just read the recent article "Best Gaming CPUs for the Money April 2014" and wanted to know if I am due for an upgrade. I was thinking of going the simple route of upgrading to a FX-8350 or even the FX-9xxx series, if so would it be a great upgrade, or would I be better off jumping into a into the Intel line possibly a i5-4670K or higher?

I do a bit of everything on my PC, mainly more gaming but also graphic work and might jump into some video editing down the line. I do not plan on overclocking at all and will be upgrading my graphics card as well to possibly a single 280x or 770. If budget is possible maybe even up to a 290 or 780.

I've been reading other threads on here and wanted to get a direct opinion on this.

Thank you everyone!

 

[enemy1g]

If you have the money, Intel will be better. If you're considering a 9xxx series AMD CPU, I'd steer clear, and again, go with Intel.

And seeing as you don't plan on overclocking, it wouldn't be worth it to go with an AMD CPU, or the 4670k. You'd be better off with an i5-4670, or a i7-4770/1

 

[STACKS ON DECK]

intel is better . . spend a little more and get the good one . . 4570 if not OC . 4670k if OC

 

[GonSanzo]

I've been reading that even though the Quad core of the i5 series is a much stronger processor, newer games are starting to utilize more cores. Would this be a drawback with the i5's power? Also, would a upgrade from my 8120 to a 8350 be a significant boost?

 

[logainofhades]

If you don't want to overclock, then this is for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($243.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $308.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-17 11:54 EDT-0400)

 

[paitjsu sadff]

I've been reading that even though the Quad core of the i5 series is a much stronger processor, newer games are starting to utilize more cores. Would this be a drawback with the i5's power? Also, would a upgrade from my 8120 to a 8350 be a significant boost?

I truly believe the real answer on that is YES to both of your questions, as far as the 8350 goes i would go with a FX-8320 and overclock it since it's the exact same chip, so a 4.0ghz FX-8320 is the same as a FX-8350 4.0ghz...those cpu's all reach upward of 4.4ghz anyway. You are looking at a 20% better performance per core over your bulldozer CPU and you could sell it on ebay and basicaly have this upgrade for almost free...that's defenetly what i would do.

If you want to consult real testing results and good benchmarking on these check those out, don't even bother looking at youtube videos and online reviewers most of them are biaised in any way possible that's the only conlusion i can draw after testing those chips myself:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2013/-36-Total-Time,3179.html

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

These are real tests compilation featuring single-threaded and mutli-threaded workloads (compression, physics, encryption, floating point math, integer math, sorting, extended instructions testing, single-thread performance etc.) and are the real deal...check the FX-8350 at stock 4.0ghz does very well against even the core i7, it surpass the core i5 everywhere except for single-thread performance...but in the long run this will become less and less of an issue as the future generations of games will unfold as those are going to be much better optimised for multi-core CPU's

 

[GonSanzo]

If you don't want to overclock, then this is for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($243.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $308.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-17 11:54 EDT-0400)

Thanks for the info on this, I didn't think about a Xeon processor. I may give this a try in the future.

 

[GonSanzo]

I've been reading that even though the Quad core of the i5 series is a much stronger processor, newer games are starting to utilize more cores. Would this be a drawback with the i5's power? Also, would a upgrade from my 8120 to a 8350 be a significant boost?

I truly believe the real answer on that is YES to both of your questions, as far as the 8350 goes i would go with a FX-8320 and overclock it since it's the exact same chip, so a 4.0ghz FX-8320 is the same as a FX-8350 4.0ghz...those cpu's all reach upward of 4.4ghz anyway. You are looking at a 20% better performance per core over your bulldozer CPU and you could sell it on ebay and basicaly have this upgrade for almost free...that's defenetly what i would do.

If you want to consult real testing results and good benchmarking on these check those out, don't even bother looking at youtube videos and online reviewers most of them are biaised in any way possible that's the only conlusion i can draw after testing those chips myself:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2013/-36-Total-Time,3179.html

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

These are real tests compilation featuring single-threaded and mutli-threaded workloads (compression, physics, encryption, floating point math, integer math, sorting, extended instructions testing, single-thread performance etc.) and are the real deal...check the FX-8350 at stock 4.0ghz does very well against even the core i7, it surpass the core i5 everywhere except for single-thread performance...but in the long run this will become less and less of an issue as the future generations of games will unfold as those are going to be much better optimised for multi-core CPU's

This is some great info. Thanks very much for this. I have decided to keep it simple and upgrade my cpu to a 8320.

 

[GonSanzo]

Thanks for the help everyone. I think I'll be upgrading to the FX-8320 soon. I think this would be the better option for me, since I still have solid parts that don't need replacing at the moment and rather keep to a budget.

Is my 8120 currently holding me back when it comes to gaming terms at the moment? Bottlenecking or ect ect. I will be upgrading my video card soon as well, but wanted to know if the cpu will be holding me back.

 

[paitjsu sadff]

This is some great info. Thanks very much for this. I have decided to keep it simple and upgrade my cpu to a 8320.

it's a great move, make sure your motherboard supports it maybe you have to do a BIOS upgrade in order to support the new CPU if you do need to flash it make sure you do it BEFORE you install the new CPU and most important BEFORE you sell your old CPU if you intend to do so...i strongly encourage you try to sell it to the most offering those chips are still quite sought after i'm sure you can get a good price for it...

 

[paitjsu sadff]

Thanks for the help everyone. I think I'll be upgrading to the FX-8320 soon. I think this would be the better option for me, since I still have solid parts that don't need replacing at the moment and rather keep to a budget.

Is my 8120 currently holding me back when it comes to gaming terms at the moment? Bottlenecking or ect ect. I will be upgrading my video card soon as well, but wanted to know if the cpu will be holding me back.

As far as gaming goes, no the FX-8120 CPU currently won't bottleneck any GPU's in most games, but the most CPU intensive single-threaded games, if you play elder scrolls online or planetside 2 for example yes this CPU will hold you back a bit due to it's ''not that great'' single-thread performance, but nothing major... it's on the fence really and those badly optimised games that use only 1 or 2 super heavy threads are about to be a thing of the past with the new generation of consoles even the FX-8120 will do nice in them with directX12 and mantle and low-levels hardware access API...it will only get better for those 8 core CPU's and my guess is that the price on those will only go up in value as the time will go by...so it's a bright move to upgrade on that while they are available and at good price...

Also if you are about to update your GPU you might want to hold on to your 8120 a little longer and see if it performs good enough for you in the games you play with a new graphics card...chances are you might still be happy with it.

Feel free to ask if you need help with choosing a good GPU to fit your needs

see ya !

 

[GonSanzo]

Thanks for the help everyone. I think I'll be upgrading to the FX-8320 soon. I think this would be the better option for me, since I still have solid parts that don't need replacing at the moment and rather keep to a budget.

Is my 8120 currently holding me back when it comes to gaming terms at the moment? Bottlenecking or ect ect. I will be upgrading my video card soon as well, but wanted to know if the cpu will be holding me back.

As far as gaming goes, no the FX-8120 CPU currently won't bottleneck any GPU's in most games, but the most CPU intensive single-threaded games, if you play elder scrolls online or planetside 2 for example yes this CPU will hold you back a bit due to it's ''not that great'' single-thread performance, but nothing major... it's on the fence really and those badly optimised games that use only 1 or 2 super heavy threads are about to be a thing of the past with the new generation of consoles even the FX-8120 will do nice in them with directX12 and mantle and low-levels hardware access API...it will only get better for those 8 core CPU's and my guess is that the price on those will only go up in value as the time will go by...so it's a bright move to upgrade on that while they are available and at good price...

Also if you are about to update your GPU you might want to hold on to your 8120 a little longer and see if it performs good enough for you in the games you play with a new graphics card...chances are you might still be happy with it.

Feel free to ask if you need help with choosing a good GPU to fit your needs

see ya !

I definitely would have questions regarding a new GPU. I'm guessing I should create that post in the GPU section.
Again, thanks so much for the help. I'm going to take your advice and try to run down my cpu as much as possible, and put that money towards a new GPU. See how everything runs and go from there.

 

[paitjsu sadff]

Great ideas, also i see in your signature that your CPU is stock, maybe if you do not have a good after market cooler look at a cooler master hyper 212 it's only 29$ and will allow for great overclocks on that CPU and will provide substential performance increase for free...AMD Cpu's are all good overclockers and it's quite easy to do since they all have unlocked multiplier, all you have to do is go in the bios and set a different value on the multi and maybe raise volatge a bit to get stability again...plenty of tutorials on how to manage that and even a section dedicated to overclocking here on toms if you have questions regarding overclocking...good luck !

 

[logainofhades]

If you don't want to overclock, then this is for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($243.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $308.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-17 11:54 EDT-0400)

Thanks for the info on this, I didn't think about a Xeon processor. I may give this a try in the future.

That particular model is really nothing more than an i7 without the integrated graphics that can work with regular desktop or server components.

 

[GonSanzo]

Great ideas, also i see in your signature that your CPU is stock, maybe if you do not have a good after market cooler look at a cooler master hyper 212 it's only 29$ and will allow for great overclocks on that CPU and will provide substential performance increase for free...AMD Cpu's are all good overclockers and it's quite easy to do since they all have unlocked multiplier, all you have to do is go in the bios and set a different value on the multi and maybe raise volatge a bit to get stability again...plenty of tutorials on how to manage that and even a section dedicated to overclocking here on toms if you have questions regarding overclocking...good luck !

Thanks for the info on that. I've been wondering if I should bother putting an after market cooler but never bothered since i wasn't overclocking. I may give this a try if I do decide to push my CPU some more before having to replace it.

 

[GonSanzo]

If you don't want to overclock, then this is for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($243.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $308.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-17 11:54 EDT-0400)

Thanks for the info on this, I didn't think about a Xeon processor. I may give this a try in the future.

That particular model is really nothing more than an i7 without the integrated graphics that can work with regular desktop or server components.

That's pretty awesome, I would actually really consider this if I do decide to jump ships into Intel. Especially since majority of us have run dedicated video cards anyways. For the price, it seems really reasonable especially for the performance. learning more every day.