IPC = Instructions per clock.
This is per core ;
Lets say an i5 can do 100 calculations per 100MHZ, and the FX83/63 can do 70 calculations per 100MHZ.
At 4.6GHZ the FX83/63 would be doing 3220 calculations, while the i5 is doing 4600 calculations.
That's IPC in a nut shell, more performance per clock per core.
AMD's tackling that with more cores, but software isn't all there yet, so in a lot of games you've got your 8 core FX83 with 4 cores doing nothing.
Take Crysis 1, that's pretty much a dual core game, to remove a bottleneck from that, you'd need more performance per those 2 cores.
Of course, if AMD's cores were running much higher frequencies at standard and overclocked, then the IPC argument becomes less revelant, but at the moment both vendors are pretty much hitting the same clocks.
The whole Temash/Baytrail is like that. Temash has the higher IPC, but Baytrails running much higher clocks.
I know the i5-3750k is the CPU that all and sundry seem to recommend here, but having invested in a decent mobo I'm very reluctant to make the jump to Intel. The question is whether upgrading to the FX-8350 is worth the cost? Presumably I could sell the 6300 for, what, £80-£90 meaning I'd need to find £60-£70 for the new CPU?
You'd never get 80-90 for a 6300 as that's its price brand new.
I'd just stick with the AMD and live with the bottlenecks, the bottlenecks aren't going to make things unplayable, you'll find odd games that are awful (Arma 2/Arma 3 I expect) etc.
