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Cheaper AMD Piledriver for gaming

KelDG

KelDG

KelDG

Associate
Joined
7 Dec 2009
Posts
759
Heya all

I'm looking at building a gaming PC for the wife, I was going to just go Intel again and grab a non K i5 Haswell and a cheapish board, but to be honest it's only really working out about £40 cheaper than grabbing the K version.

So I had a quick look at the Piledrivers and can make a significant saving. I have had no experience at all with AMD since the "Venice" days so wouldn't mind an opinion off someone who has gone this route. Whats your guys take on the 8320 or the 6300 processors?

How are they with recent games, she will probably just be playing whatever new MMOs come out, she is defiantly in it for the eye candy. Would I be shooting myself in the foot by "Cheaping" out on the processor this way give myself a bigger GPU budget?

Cheers peeps.

Kel
 
In MMO's Intel tends to be better, because MMO's use less threads, so rely on the core for core performance, which on AMD is still a good 40% behind Intels best, and you can't cheap out on a board with AMD really as the VRM's can't always handle an FX8320.
 
I would say,many MMOs tend to be more lightly threaded,so Intel has a advantage. However that is starting to change with newish ones like ArcheAge,which is based on CryEngine 3,and threads better but it is one of the first TBH,so it might take a while for it to become more common.

However,when it comes to reality(not forums) I do tend to see something somewhat different.

A lot of people I know running MMOs are not using Core i5 K series,plenty are using much older or cheaper CPUs. Its like with WoW,D3,SWTOR or even ES:O,almost everyone I know running it is either using a Core i3,Pentium,FX CPU(I know a few people using FX6300s for example) or an older Core2 based CPU.

The thing is bigger MMOs with millions of players need to scale well with hardware,otherwise no one would play them.

So I would be very careful,about thinking you need a Core i5. You might find a Core i3 or cheaper CPU will be fine too.
 
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Plenty of thinking to be doing then, I will consider looking at the i3 range thanks to both your replies. I didn't know about the VRM's on the cheaper AMD boards.

Its so easy to think, "Just get the next best component", and before you know it you are looking at a water cooled i7 with quad 780s in the basket.... I'm after sensible on this build :)
 
It depends on what you mean by cheap out. The FX8320 at stock should probably be fine on the cheaper 970 motherboards from better companies(and one 760G one,but only one),but if you really want a decent overclock,the higher end £60 to £70 970 ones are the ones you should start with. Supposedly according to one or two people that 760G one is not bad at overclocking,but I am bit here and there about it TBH.

There is also a Intel Pentium K series CPU being released,which is a dual core without HT,which might be useful for some lightly threaded games,but you are still looking at at least £60 to £70 for the cheapest Z series motherboard if buying new.
 
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KelDG said:
Plenty of thinking to be doing then, I will consider looking at the i3 range thanks to both your replies. I didn't know about the VRM's on the cheaper AMD boards.

Its so easy to think, "Just get the next best component", and before you know it you are looking at a water cooled i7 with quad 780s in the basket.... I'm after sensible on this build :)
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You say your wife wants eye-candy. I'd be tempted to not cheap out on the CPU in that case. You don't want to spend a huge amount of money on a GPU only to find your CPU is holding back your GPU in games.
 
As someone who just plays MMO's I learned the hard way not to skimp on the CPU. I frankly would not buy anything less than a i5 unless A. You only play WoW or really old MMO's and have no planes to play new ones or B. You already have a FX990 or one of the few good 970 AMD overclocking boards and got a 8320/50 and overclocked it to 4.6+.

I went from a fx 6300 overclocked at 4.6 to a i5 4670k at stock and while it was not a "OMG" upgrade I an tell you it greatly smoothed out my frames out which is exactly what you want in a MMO. My frames do not dip as much or as low as they used to with the FX.
 
Superjeep4x4 said:
As someone who just plays MMO's I learned the hard way not to skimp on the CPU. I frankly would not buy anything less than a i5 unless A. You only play WoW or really old MMO's and have no planes to play new ones or B. You already have a FX990 or one of the few good 970 AMD overclocking boards and got a 8320/50 and overclocked it to 4.6+.

I went from a fx 6300 overclocked at 4.6 to a i5 4670k at stock and while it was not a "OMG" upgrade I an tell you it greatly smoothed out my frames out which is exactly what you want in a MMO. My frames do not dip as much or as low as they used to with the FX.
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Cheers Superjeep

The more I read into this, I think I will just end up going for an intel i5, probably wait for the devils canyon refresh to come out before I buy anything. At least I know it will be pretty future proof, my 2500k is not overclocked yet and still chews through everything I throw at it. Shame, as it would have been nice to spend a bit less on the processor but I suppose you get what you pay for.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It depends on what you mean by cheap out. The FX8320 at stock should probably be fine on the cheaper 970 motherboards from better companies(and one 760G one,but only one),but if you really want a decent overclock,the higher end £60 to £70 970 ones are the ones you should start with. Supposedly according to one or two people that 760G one is not bad at overclocking,but I am bit here and there about it TBH.

There is also a Intel Pentium K series CPU being released,which is a dual core without HT,which might be useful for some lightly threaded games,but you are still looking at at least £60 to £70 for the cheapest Z series motherboard if buying new.
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Thanks for the info CAT, I will have a look at the Pentium K series too, if the price is right for the performance :)
 
Ive had 6300 in the past and since its for the wifey ill get her that and save the money not like gonna keep an eye out for fps unless she nerdy lol
 
For a non enthusiast build the difference between an 8320 and a 4670k will not be THAT significant.

There is a difference for sure and if it was me I would get the i5, but if you are building a rig for casual gaming and want to save some cash, I don’t think the 8320 will let you down.

I would still play it safe tho and grab an i5. :p
 
Tbh, even newer MMOs are not that intensive. If MMos are all your wife plays, you could easily get away with a Pentium and be perfectly happy.

Sure the 8320 wont let you down but it wont show performance gains over a 6300 on MMOs and you will probably find that most MMO's available will even play as well on a pentium as a 8320.

This is coming from someone who owns a handful of 8 core fx chips, a 4770k and a pentium. I use to be a big MMORPG player and i dont see them catering for more than a few cores any time soon, nor do i see them becoming intensive enough to need to.
 
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I'm running the machine in my signature and installed wow today. Is it capped to 100fps as that's what I was getting constantly. That was with the cpu @4.5ghz as well.

I just built a rig for my friend with an fx4300 @4.2ghz mild oc with a asus hd7770 and she gets 100 fps dipping to about 45fps in densely populated areas of a map.

I'd suggest going for the fx4300 and oc it in a 990 chipset board that can take 125w plus. The fx4300 is 95w plus the extra when oc. Fx4300 is only £71.99 on ocuk as well I think.
 
Fair enough, even still, densely populated areas will affect them both on the CPU, 100 FPS capped isn't anywhere near what you'd go into WoW expecting consistently, even with a top of the range Intel.
 
:rolleyes:
Martini1991 said:
Fair enough, even still, densely populated areas will affect them both on the CPU, 100 FPS capped isn't anywhere near what you'd go into WoW expecting consistently, even with a top of the range Intel.
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Yep, I'd agree with this. Neither my haswell or SB-E are able to hold 100 fps constant in many wow situations, even with settings turned to less than ultra. In boss fights in raids, getting a constant 60+ fps would make happy but that isn't always the case either. With my fx8320 @ 4.8 ghz paired with a 780, I was getting 40-50fps in raids.
 
Ya your never going to get really high frames in a MMO(meaning like constant 60-100+ type frames in every situation)unless your kinda out in the wilderness by yourself.

As I said I ran several MMO's with a overclocked FX6300 and it ran decent but the dips in frames is what always bothered me. With a MMO you want 40-60 fps as constant as possible and it makes it run very smooth but you could get 200 fps and if its constantly dipping 30-50 fps every time you turn or when lots of spell effects and what not go off the game will start to stutter and it gets really annoying really fast.

It may be the case I am just hyper sensitive to the dips that others are not but my frames have been much more stable with the i5 and led to a much more enjoyable experience. This is also coming from someone who is not the biggest fan of intel and I usually go bang for buck route.
 
I also moved from a 6300 OC'd to a 4670k also OC'd and have to say I did notice the difference. This was with a 7970.
But it was still certainly playable on the 6300
 
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