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AMD vs Intel

Old Man

Old Man

Old Man

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I understand that this question has been dragged through the mud a lot, but I need to ask it any way, so be nice please. When putting together a gaming system (desk top pc) and wishing for it to have a life of say 5 years, where it will handle (more or less) all types of gaming without too many problems, is it better to go for AMD or Intel? Taking into account, that I would be getting a gtx 970, everything else is open up to say £750 for the complete build as of today.

TY in advance

Also some pro/con as to your choices please..
 
I'd go Intel for your uses, it has a better upgrade path as the highest end AMD CPU is the 9590/8370, and after that on the AM3+ platform there is nothing and there will be nothing coming up

I believe Z97 boards have Broadwell support but don't quote me on that, so if you went for say an i5 now, you could upgrade to an i7 in the future. Intel CPUs also are better performing generally (i5 vs 8320) unless you are doing multi-core heavy loads like video editing and rendering

AMD provides a great budget option though, the 6300 and 8320 are great and low priced, but if you can afford it, go Intel at this point in time. Hopefully one day this will change :)
 
Intel is your best bet at the moment.

I would also suggest reconsidering the 970 if you plan to use this PC for 5 years due to its vram issues.
 
Intel if you can get an unlocked i5 in budget. Prices are objectionably high at the moment, but it's the best choice if budget stretches.

If going AMD, get the 8320 and overclock - the more expensive CPUs are all just overclocked versions of the 8320 so not worth the cost.
 
Zethor said:
Intel is your best bet at the moment.

I would also suggest reconsidering the 970 if you plan to use this PC for 5 years due to its vram issues.
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Hmmm, it's quite costly to move up to a gtx 980, so I doubt there would be any cash for it, so what real choices are there other than the gtx 970?
 
Martini1991 said:
The 4690k is loltastically priced right now here.
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Quite agree. Intel is probably the best for performance but £200 for a 4690k is disgusting. Taking prices into consideration you would have to seriously consider AMD's 8320/8320e now even though they and the motherboard chipsets have been around a while. They are not as quick as the Intels but £80-90 cheaper for the cpu alone is a hell of a saving.
 
My 290X on BF4 gets to about 72c I think.....but that does all depend on room temps though.....plus BF4 has been very smooth when playing since I got the 290X :)
 
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-360-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Still £150 cheaper than a high end 980 and will give it a bloody good run for the money, too. Cooler is excellent.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-269-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Slightly cheaper, still LOLs at the price of the 980 and should be more than good enough.

As for the CPU? well in all honesty the 8320 is more than good enough for any gaming rig. I'm one of the few who does not run FPS counters or anything like that on screen so I just go with my intuition. If a game runs well I know it, and I know how to spot crap performance.

I honestly and truly see no difference in gaming between the 8320 I have clocked to 4.7ghz or my 3970x at the same clocks. Obviously if I ran a FPS counter and benchmarked the results would be higher (I assume any way !) with the 3970x but actual gaming is more than good enough with my 8320.

You can pretty much get a 8320 *and* a board for the same price OCUK want for a 4690k. And with all of these new APIs? I can honestly say a FX 8 will be more than good enough for quite a while to come. I run mine with a 7990 and the only difference I saw at 1080p between it (the 7990) and my Titan Blacks in SLI was that I could use 8xMSAA on Crysis 3 without noticing a performance drop.

I would surmise the 7990 would not quite be up to it but I could even be wrong.
 
Both are fine and both have the own merit.
AMD for a budget build that will have all round performance
Intel if you have the cash for i5 K chip
 
Intel have the better performance and upgrade path however the prices are sky high at the minute.

An AMD FX8*** is still very good for gaming and as others have said the price is much more appealing. Plus having a CPU that lasts 5 years is not necessarily realistic so getting a cheaper one now and then upgrading later may be better.
 
This is a classic scenario isn't it person looking to get an AMD chip (presumably for budget reasons) and looking to get an nVidia card (presumably for prestige reasons) and its the wrong way around, get an Intel chip and an AMD card! I see this pattern occuring again and again.

Shivy011 said:
Old Man said:
I thought there was a major heat and power issue with this card?
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No, only the reference cooler version, and that's not what I'd call "major" either
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I also hear this same argument again and again across forums, everywhere I go its "get nVidia!! Its the best! Don't get AMD runs hot/has issues!" and I have to point out that reference cards run hot, third party cards are fine and save yourself a packet too. I've had ATI/AMD cards for nearly 10 years now the last nVidia card I bought was an FX5600! But I've had Intel processors for almost all that time.

I'd say AMD has an image problem and needs to put more effort into better marketing honestly.
 
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