£500 for a new gaming pc...appreciate 2nd hand will be option:

I completely agree with that statement. I would probably fall within the two price bands, but a bit unlucky as until we have an idea where AMD's steamroller is going I dont feel like buying an AM3+ board.
 
Just seems like you're looking for validation not to get an i5 in all honesty (Which isn't a problem, it's just a little strange, given that the comparisons aren't comparisons)

If Steamroller's good, AMD are going to charge for it, as always, AMD history is blessed with ignorance, check Bulldozers launch pricing when AMD thought they had it nailed :p

Steamroller's upto 6 months off, being in a similar situation before, I'd just jump at what I could/wanted now.

If your budget is around 500 quid, then look at an FX6300 with a 7870 or something.

I'd personally much sooner go second hand i5 than buy an FX, but that's because I generally have the easy option to do so as I support a few gaming rigs, so I can swap parts around and get the best performance for the price I can.
 
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Just seems like you're looking for validation not to get an i5 in all honesty (Which isn't a problem, it's just a little strange, given that the comparisons aren't comparisons)

If Steamroller's good, AMD are going to charge for it, as always, AMD history is blessed with ignorance, check Bulldozers launch pricing when AMD thought they had it nailed :p

Steamroller's upto 6 months off, being in a similar situation before, I'd just jump at what I could/wanted now.

If your budget is around 500 quid, then look at an FX6300 with a 7870 or something.

I'd personally much sooner go second hand i5 than buy an FX, but that's because I generally have the easy option to do so as I support a few gaming rigs, so I can swap parts around and get the best performance for the price I can.

I cannot stress enough how disappointing it was owning my FX processor. While it was a workhorse and did what I wanted it to do, it was sluggish and performed horrifically when using multi-core apps and when gaming. Upgrading to my current 2500k & AsRock Extreme 7 Gen 3 setup was the best thing I could have done. I wish in all honesty, I'd upgraded straight to a chip like this after my Q6600 had keeled over.

I strongly recommend checking around for a 2nd hand setup, it would be a worth while investment and keep you going until Broadwell or even Skylake (intel's next gen) are released.
 
Pretty sure you weren't that disappointed in the start :p

No, it was nice to get a (slight) performance boost, but overtime, it didn't impress and was a depressing thought that I'd spent money which could have been better invested. I wish I'd found this forum first.
 
But we're raving anti-AMD, Intel loving fanboys.

I jest, sort of.

That aside, AMD has gone a fair way since Bulldozer, which really wasn't great.
But they need a quick follow up from Piledriver.
 
Just seems like you're looking for validation not to get an i5 in all honesty (Which isn't a problem, it's just a little strange, given that the comparisons aren't comparisons)

It may seem like that to you but I do enjoy probing to get a balanced view of current technology - the guys on here have good knowledge which is why I use this forum.

I do however keep an open mind and not buy something just because the rest say it's 'better' take a look at the GPU's and you will find similar brand loyalty arguments from the two camps.

If Steamroller's good, AMD are going to charge for it, as always, AMD history is blessed with ignorance, check Bulldozers launch pricing when AMD thought they had it nailed :p

I sincerely hope not, I am a value pc user so will buy the best overall performing product at the time - if AMD make that mistake then they wont get me buying just because I like their name.

Steamroller's upto 6 months off, being in a similar situation before, I'd just jump at what I could/wanted now.

I guess your right. I will have my thread coming in a couple of weeks to see what choice I can go with.


I'd personally much sooner go second hand i5 than buy an FX, but that's because I generally have the easy option to do so as I support a few gaming rigs, so I can swap parts around and get the best performance for the price I can.

Well that makes a big difference to a buyer's choices. I have a youngster and a wife that these days wont allow for multiple rigs and man caves like in my younger days.
 
I meant friends gaming rigs etc.
The first one I did properly was a Phenom II X4 AM2+ 4870x2 rig, he's going for a 4670K rig, so now I've got a bunch of AMD stuff I can just bang into a budget rig for 100 quid, and they've got a blazing fast base set up for the price.

The first to get a PC off me and the last to upgrade :p
 
Yeah thats nice to have spares available.

My first rig was a pentium 3 450, with a voodoo 3 (3dfx), next I went AMD to an athlon (t-bird) so have never been biased with which I choose.
 
Well built pc last night, all boots up fine...only issue was the Vista upgrade disk I had wouldnt let me install it!

Now I know what to do it will be installed this evening, I will hopefully be able to give you a few thoughts!
 
I keep reading this as Gina G.

I've never seen anyone with a decent Piledriver system complain about its performance. It's usually only people on Intel who've never had one who say it's rubbish.
 
OK thanks GinG!

Maybe Martini can suggest some tests to run to see if the FX system is of any worth?

Not sure how you can compare it without any base line for 500 quid.

It'll perform fine, but if you'd spend the budget differently, it'd perform differently.

I keep reading this as Gina G.

I've never seen anyone with a decent Piledriver system complain about its performance. It's usually only people on Intel who've never had one who say it's rubbish.

I've never had one, I certainly don't call it rubbish, I don't see anyone here calling it rubbish.
 
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The i5 is the biz, but it's not a chip for every single budget.

I run a 4670K at 4.6GHZ, I ran a 2500K at 4.8GHZ before that, and a 1055T at 4.375GHZ before that.

I can probably do 4.8GHZ on my 4670K, but meh.

My 1055T bottlenecked my 6870 Crossfire in RTS's so badly, in DOWII I gained 40 FPS average with a 2500K.
 
The i5 is a good processor. The 8320/50 is a good processor. Which is best depends on what you're running.

In tomshardware's recent roundup of AMD CPUs it ended with:

Moving up the list, AMD's dual-module FX-4350 is typically able to outperform the company's older Phenom II X4. Overclocked, it destroys Ivy Bridge-based Core i3s in threaded productivity and content creation applications. It's also able to compete aggressively in games. But positioned between the FX-6300 and -6350, the £110 FX-4350 is a hard sell.

The shining star in today’s comparison is AMD’s FX-6350, which delivers solid performance in games, while besting Intel's Core i5 in a number of our other benchmark workloads. The cheaper FX-6300 is an even more attractive bargain, so long as you're willing to overclock it.

And that's just the 6300, not the 8320.
 
Well the FX6300 and FX8320 generally don't game all that differently in the vast majority of games.

That may be true, but we don't buy new PCs just to play old games. It's normally more important for the current and upcoming ones, and no new engine now is going to use 2 cores.
 
The i5 is the biz, but it's not a chip for every single budget.

I run a 4670K at 4.6GHZ, I ran a 2500K at 4.8GHZ before that, and a 1055T at 4.375GHZ before that.

I can probably do 4.8GHZ on my 4670K, but meh.

My 1055T bottlenecked my 6870 Crossfire in RTS's so badly, in DOWII I gained 40 FPS average with a 2500K.

So all your machines ran around the mid 4.x GHz, and you could see a massive difference between them?

I don't mind upgrading but I wont do it annually to see 10-15% improvement. I will obviously see a leap from a C2D @ 3.5Ghz.
 
The only one I saw a difference on really was the change from the Thuban to the i5 2500K.

The 4670K isn't a massive upgrade over the 2500K in any sense of the word.

Uses less power, I now average more in DOWII, more consistent minimum frame rates in other games, but nothing exactly to write home about.

Any slight minor CPU bottleneck in games was removed, I think I'd managed to bottleneck Bioshock 1 by my 2500K (We're still talking a few hundred FPS) but it was like 95% GPU or whatever, my 4670K took it to a pretty constant 99%, but it's nothing noticeable.
 
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