i3 3220 vs AMD A10-5800k vs FX 4300

[Dent1]

Hello everyone.
I am building this new gaming rig. I wont be playing all games on ultra settings, med/normal-settings would do for me. I won't be doing anyother heavy multitasking either.
I pretty much have everything else figured out, other than what CPU to use.

I am stuck between-
Intel i3 3220
A10-5800k
FX 4300.

For the GPU I will be using-
1) Gigabyte's HD 7850 OC edition with 975 MHz GPU clock and 2gb GDDR5 256-bit 4800 MHz memory.
2) OR Nvidia 650ti 2gb GDDR5(if I run out of my $600 budget).

I can switch to i5 3570 and run it on turbo mode, instead of OCing A10-5800k. But in that case, I will have to further downgrade my GPU to HD 7770 or equivalent.

So what do you think i should go with?

None!

Get the FX-6300!

The FX-6300 costs about the same as the i3 3220, performs about the same in today's games, and significantly better in almost everything else. It's the better CPU for the price.

 

[Frick]

This comment made me laugh. It so not true and you are misleading readers. The 8350 runs circles around a i3.

I actually found three graphs with the i3 besting the 8350. I should not have to use the word "single thread". Seriously though, for a hardcore gamer who wants a high end machine Intel is the way to go currently. Most games ARE not good at multithreading..

 

[nt300]

None!

Get the FX-6300!

The FX-6300 costs about the same as the i3 3220, performs about the same in today's games, and significantly better in almost everything else. It's the better CPU for the price.

The fx 8350 wins in games like Skyrim, Diablo 3, Dragon Age, Dawn of War 2, WOW, Starcraft 2 and is also faster in stuff like Adobe Photoshop, Win 8 pov-ray 3.7rc6 multi-thread and Cinebench 11.5 in multi-thread. Anything multi-thread I give the win to the 8350.

But you are right the AMD chips do well in multi-threading and most new games are multi-threading.

 

[Aquinus]

The fx 8350 wins in games like Skyrim, Diablo 3, Dragon Age, Dawn of War 2, WOW, Starcraft 2 and is also faster in stuff like Adobe Photoshop, Win 8 pov-ray 3.7rc6 multi-thread and Cinebench 11.5 in multi-thread. Anything multi-thread I give the win to the 8350.

But you are right the AMD chips do well in multi-threading and most new games are multi-threading.

I'm calling you out on SC2. SC2 does not run better on AMD machines. SC2 is not multi-threaded at all and quite frankly even can do badly on my 3820 (which is pretty pathetic considering it starts happening when a single core is maxed. )

SC2 favors higher clocks and a better IPC over more cores/threads as this picture makes very obvious.

 

[Ghost]

This comment made me laugh. It so not true and you are misleading readers. The 8350 runs circles around a i3.

I was talking about games.

In applications 8 core PD is almost as fast as and sometimes faster than 4 core Ivy with HT (i7), but in games it's just as fast as 2 core Ivy with HT (i3).

FX-8350 ~ i3 3220. And FX-4300 is way below. No contest here. You'd have to be really dumb to get FX-4300 over i3 3220 for gaming.

 

[Dent1]

You'd have to be really dumb to get FX-4300 over i3 3220 for gaming.

I agree. You'd also have to be dumb to get a i3 3220 over a FX-6300 too.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I don't like being this guy, but no, this is simply not true.

Perhaps if you only play >3 year old console ports the i3 3220 is as fast as a FX-8350 in gaming, but in most modern games, the i3 simply is inadequate compared to modern day quad cores(or 8 cores).

I'd say if you're only planning on playing old console ports, you should get the i3, otherwise, dont let yourself get fooled by the "i3 is enough". 2 Cores in this day and age is just really low end, and will quickly bottleneck in those newer applications and games.

+1 only a retro gamer would buy a dual core now , crysis 3 uses every ounce of all eight cores for eg and an i3 wont cut it, at all,,
N fact Sort your writing out all, the op wants advice, this gens consoles are multi core next will be octo so whps makeing single threaded games now.
Hardly anyone pro just indie, Future proof , heard of it???

 

[cdawall]

i3 3220 is as fast as FX-8350 in gaming. But if you can stretch to any i5, even something like 3350P, that would be great. Otherwise i3 3220 + HD 7850 is fine too.

[yt]eu8Sekdb-IE[/yt]

Do you really really want to compare the i3 to an 8350? Like seriously? Is this some kind of stupid joke? The i3 is better in high clocked single IPC games no duh. It is also just as good as the i5 and i7 in those EXACT SAME GAMES. So if that's true why bother ever buying an i5? It's not any better than the i3 in games. Seems like a complete and utter waste of money to buy anything but the highest clocked i3. Oh wait there are games other than the horribly coded single IPC monsters out there!

Any modern game that isn't terribly coded to only use two cores will make benefit out of both the 8350 and 3770K if they didn't no one would buy them. People like you are the exact reason why people buy garbage Intel i3 chips when for less money you can typically get a better budget AMD setup.

 

[Dent1]

+1 only a retro gamer would buy a dual core now , crysis 3 uses every ounce of all eight cores for eg and an i3 wont cut it, at all,,
N fact Sort your writing out all, the op wants advice, this gens consoles are multi core next will be octo so whps makeing single threaded games now.
Hardly anyone pro just indie, Future proof , heard of it???

I think the biggest issue with dual core is its "just enough". If you get in to that mentality you'll always be upgrading. I'd rather a 4 core or a 6 core which performs about the same in gaming today if it means I can hold off upgrading for a few more years longer.

Perfect example, a couple of years back my friend was forced to upgrade his Core 2 Duo E5200 because Battlefield 3 didn't like it! My trusty old Athlon X4 620 was more than enough. For years he was saying that games don't like quad cores. Well who had to upgrade? - Not me.

 

[Aquinus]

I agree. You'd also have to be dumb to get a i3 3220 over a FX-6300 too.

This. FX-6300 is in a pretty sweet spot imho.

 

[Fourstaff]

Future proof , heard of it???

Was thinking of that when I bought this laptop more than 3 years ago. It was obsolete when I bought it, yet I can still play the games I want (Dota 2, World of Tanks, Starcraft II) now. Future proofing is an argument which people fall back on when they overspec a machine due to lack of knowledge of the user's needs.

I think you really need to consider what kind of games OP wants to play before saying things like "3220 is better than 8350". I will take 3220 over 8350 any day due to the games I play (other than Dota 2 which runs smoothly regardless of chip, the other 2 favours strong thread performance), whereas other people who play, say, Battlefield 3 as their primary game will pick 8350 any day. So if OP tends to play games which work well with multicore (and assuming he will be playing future iterations of that game), then 6300/4300 will be a good choice, whereas if OP is like me and tend to stick with games which favour strong single core then 3220 is the way to go.

 

[cdawall]

Was thinking of that when I bought this laptop more than 3 years ago. It was obsolete when I bought it, yet I can still play the games I want (Dota 2, World of Tanks, Starcraft II) now. Future proofing is an argument which people fall back on when they overspec a machine due to lack of knowledge of the user's needs.

I think you really need to consider what kind of games OP wants to play before saying things like "3220 is better than 8350". I will take 3220 over 8350 any day due to the games I play (other than Dota 2 which runs smoothly regardless of chip, the other 2 favours strong thread performance), whereas other people who play, say, Battlefield 3 as their primary game will pick 8350 any day. So if OP tends to play games which work well with multicore (and assuming he will be playing future iterations of that game), then 6300/4300 will be a good choice, whereas if OP is like me and tend to stick with games which favour strong single core then 3220 is the way to go.

Got it so if the OP wants to play any game released in the future that is not written by trained monkeys purely for profit AMD is the way to go.

 

[Fourstaff]

Got it so if the OP wants to play any game released in the future that is not written by trained monkeys purely for profit AMD is the way to go.

Yup, if OP wants to play games written by untrained monkeys 3220 is the better choice

 

[cdawall]

Yup, if OP wants to play games written by untrained monkeys 3220 is the better choice

 

[Crap Daddy]

I used to advocate the i3 over AMD FX for gaming but things are changing fast. The Crysis 3 CPU benchmark is a sobering experience as to what extent real cores make a difference in new games. Add to that the fact that PS4 and probably next Xbox will use 8-core Jaguar with DDR5 so I think it's better to choose now as many cores as you can get over better IPC.

 

[tokyoduong]

Guys, this is turning into a fanboy argument thread again. Let me summarize it.

Buy AMD FX6300 if you want decent performance and bang for buck.
Look http://microcenter.com/product/4017...ion_35GHz_Six-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processor $119 and you save $50 instantly with any Asrock/Asus motherboard. So you will end up paying less than $200
-6 cores
-lower single thread performance than i3/i5/i7
-higher multi thread performance than i3
-consume a little more power

Buy i3 32xx if you only care about single thread performance and not want to somewhat future proof your system
-High IPC
-only 2 cores
-value priced but not highest bang for buck
-still use same motherboard as i5/i7 1155

Buy i5 K if you want a good overall system without paying too much.
http://microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor
$189 + $50 instant rebate if you buy Asrock/MSI/Asus board with it
- Quad core
- No HT(main difference between the i5 and i7)
- High IPC
- Relatively low power consumption
- Right at the heels of i7 in gaming

The A10 is pretty much an FX 43xx with a gpu. The problem is it uses a different socket and performance is somewhat hampered by its bandwidth/memory issues. If you disable the gpu then you'll see more comparable cpu performance to the FX. The FM2 socket pretty much eliminates your upgrade path to 8xxx processors.

I don't include the i7 or FX 8xxx because the 83xx is about the same price as the i5 3570k but it is not as good in gaming. The i7 is just too expensive.

Just to clarify, there's no such thing as being future proof. You can somewhat do it by over speccing your system. But I would just build a system to last 1-2 years, then think what I would need to do to "future proof" my system. Whatever that extra cost, it is better to save it and upgrade when you need it. It's the same philosophy buying 78xx or 79xx cards. People say 79xx is future proof. That $140 or so difference in price is better saved. Why? because in a year a 88xx card will perform as good or better than a 79xx while consuming much less power. That $140 you saved is only $20-30 short for a brand new card that will have the new architecture(which drivers will be supporting).

 

[de.das.dude]

i just cant understand why the intel fanbois are being so daft.

i3 3220 is still a dual core CPU. newer games are all multithreaded to the max.

so buying an i3 3220 is only worthwhile if you are out of cash and plan on upgrading later.

OH WAIT! The FX costs the same as the i3... o well..

 

[brandonwh64]

i just cant understand why the intel fanbois are being so daft.

i3 3220 is still a dual core CPU. newer games are all multithreaded to the max.

so buying an i3 3220 is only worthwhile if you are out of cash and plan on upgrading later.

OH WAIT! The FX costs the same as the i3... o well..

Only thing you left out was the I3 has hyperthreading which helps it out in multithreaded applications due to the 4 threads.

 

[Dent1]

lower single thread performance than i3/i5/i7.

Buy i3 32xx if you only care about single thread performance and not want to somewhat future proof your system.

The FX-6300 shows virtually the same single threaded performance as the i3, in games and otherwise, whilst also being somehat fureproof.

Buy i5 K if you want a good overall system without paying too much.
http://microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor
$189 + $50 instant rebate if you buy Asrock/MSI/Asus board with it
- Quad core
- No HT(main difference between the i5 and i7)
- High IPC
- Relatively low power consumption
- Right at the heels of i7 in gaming

I agree with this.

Just to clarify, there's no such thing as being future proof. You can somewhat do it by over speccing your system. But I would just build a system to last 1-2 years, then think what I would need to do to "future proof" my system. Whatever that extra cost, it is better to save it and upgrade when you need it.

Disagree with this.

In 1-2 years your Intel motherboard will be End of Shelf Life. So there will be no upgrade path for you.

Also in a few years there is a 50/50 chance the FX-6300 will be a good future proofed investment, with the i3 3xxx you have a 0/100 that it'll remain futureproofed. At the same price which sounds like better odds?

 

[Cotton_Cup]

well I guess OP just needs to flip a coin or something, whichever he can get cheaper or whichever he likes just buy it, any of those chips should be able to play the games nicely. much better than my old pentium 4 with a fx 5200 back in the old days.

 

[Super XP]

Only thing you left out was the I3 has hyperthreading which helps it out in multithreaded applications due to the 4 threads.

Hyper Threading is a joke, and only does well in synthetic benchmarks. In real world, it doesn't provide as well as it should. Like I previously said, we are not talking about Bulldozer, we are talking about Piledriver a leap ahead of Bulldozer which is why I recommend either of the two FX-4300 or FX-6300, though for a few extra $$'s you are better off with the 6300.

 

[tokyoduong]

The FX-6300 shows virtually the same single threaded performance as the i3, in games and otherwise, whilst also being somehat fureproof.



I agree with this.



Disagree with this.

In 1-2 years your Intel motherboard will be End of Shelf Life. So there will be no upgrade path for you.

Also in a few years there is a 50/50 chance the FX-6300 will be a good future proofed investment, with the i3 3xxx you have a 0/100 that it'll remain futureproofed. At the same price which sounds like better odds?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=699
single thread intel wins. Overall, FX6300 wins especially with multi thread. The FX6300 is the best value here.

You are confusing future proof and upgrade paths. You are also confusing shelf life with platform performance potential. Having a longer shelf life with lower performance does not equal future proof. Future proofing means what you can get now so you don't have to worry about it in the future. There's no point in guessing performance on next gen right now. Currently the performance upgrade path for 1155 is better than AM3+. In the future, nobody knows. If AMD does another bulldozer flop....

Please don't ever use "investment" describing computer parts unless you're using it to do work for a living.

Stop doing these 50/50 0/100 BS because neither you or anyone here knows. I can just easily say 99% of statistics are made up.

What price sounds better right now? the FX6300 because it is a cheap CPU with above average performance overall. If you have an extra $60-70 then go for the i5 3570k and be more "future proofed".

The FX6300 is a solid performer and a good value for under $200 cpu + board. Anyone who picks an i3 over that is crazy. If you must future proof then buy an EE processor.

 

[Jack1n]

4300+gtx660.

 

[suraswami]

I think either we all scared OP or he is just having fun watching all the I vs A fighting.

OP - please fill in exact components you are choosing including Power Supply then we can balance out your build based on your budget.

Another option is to get used parts from our forum members.

 

[Ronnyv1]

Going AMD offers alot of advantages, mainly:
1. AM3+ socket [4100/6300/8300]so you have another gen to use [steamroller]
2. Bang for buck multithreadding

While the i5k is good its an EOL socket that offers no value for future upgrades in a world where more and more threads are being used.