Best Performance to Cost AMD CPU for Gaming

keasy · 9 Sep 2015 at 18:51

My kid wants a gaming rig for his Christmas so it's time to start buying the components just now.

I've been very much an Intel user these past years and haven't bought AMD since the first X64 Athlons.
So I'm assuming AMD still offer a better price to performance for a budget gaming rig. What CPU would I be looking at with a budget of £100 to £120 for him ? I'll work the motherboard out later based upon the CPU choice.

Thanks much!

keasy · 9 Sep 2015 at 19:00

P.S.

I'm not bothered about an APU CPU as I plan to buy him a midrange GFX card.

keasy · 9 Sep 2015 at 19:09

So...

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/viewcart.php

Is that any good ?
OS KB+M isn't required.

I have a multitude of mice he can use.

megatron · 9 Sep 2015 at 22:39

All I'd say is make sure you are using dx12 because it will help with slower CPUs. That means R9 285 or later (any Nvidia DX12 card), also dx12 is probably locked into windows 10 too.

On a side note I've heard 280x is dx12 capable (lowest feature set):
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2633854/directx-support-280x.html

This never ends well · 9 Sep 2015 at 23:29

megatron said:
All I'd say is make sure you are using dx12 because it will help with slower CPUs. That means R9 285 or later (any Nvidia DX12 card), also dx12 is probably locked into windows 10 too.

On a side note I've heard 280x is dx12 capable (lowest feature set):
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2633854/directx-support-280x.html

Wrong

https://community.amd.com/thread/186209

To the op 8320 with a gigiabyte 970a-ud3p, unless you can pick up a 990fx series for a good price, but have a read off it's review's 1st

megatron · 10 Sep 2015 at 05:59

C'mon everyone knows a R9 280 is a 7950 rebrand.

This never ends well · 10 Sep 2015 at 08:58

megatron said:
C'mon everyone knows a R9 280 is a 7950 rebrand.

We all know that and from the 7 series it. start's from 7730.

Doogles · 10 Sep 2015 at 10:47

Members Market for a i5 2500k/i5 3570k with motherboard and RAM for £150. HD 7970 £80 and a decent 700w PSU to go with it, just need to get 900 posts in before november XD

keasy · 10 Sep 2015 at 18:55

keasy · 10 Sep 2015 at 18:55

Thx for advice (the real advice ).

Scougar · 10 Sep 2015 at 19:10

if on a real budget an i3 is a very good option as well, but the i5 is bang for buck territory where you are not gonna have any detrimental impact in any game really. They are fantastic chips.

On the AMD side getting something like a 860K would be a good option. or pay almost double that for the 7850/7870 (but that's got an integrated GPU that would only really be capable of mid level graphics.

Dedicated GPU wise, a Nvidia GTX 960 or AMD 285/380 is the place you want to be unless you are going second hand.

Sandycheeks · 11 Sep 2015 at 13:14

What games does he play or will be likely to play?
The G3258 anniversary and a decent board will more than likely be fine for now if paired with say a R9 380 or similar.
You can then drop in a better second hand cpu later on for an upgrade when the time is right.
Always try to give yourself an upgrade path as it works out cheaper in the end.

Go from Pentium K to i5 then to i7.
AMD have no upgrade path unfortunately at the moment...a athlon 760k with a r9 270 would be ~~good~~ decent but would cost a similar amount with very little choice of upgrade.