• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Intel 4 Core or AMD 8 Core?

So the situation is:

My friend bought his PC around 6 months ago, built it, uses it for gaming and works great. He recently decided he wanted to upgrade his CPU from a Intel Pentium G860 and so he found the Intel i5-3570k. The reason he chose this was because his Motherboard had a 1155 socket. I said that he could buy the ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 Motherboard and the AMD FX-8350 for the same price. This also improves his motherboard as it supports Cross-firing which he wants to do in the future. I personally thought this was a much better option but he, being the sceptical arse (not in a bad way) he is, decided to post on some forums. Many people told him to choose the Intel CPU because it's way better for gaming.

I'd just like your guys' opinions too.
 
The 3570K only costs about 20-30 quid more than the FX8350, so how he can get a board in there for the same price is beyond me :p

Wouldn't touch that Asrock board though.

The 3570K is generally better for gaming over the FX8350, especially if we're talking stock versus stock.

But if your friend's on a naff board he can't overclock on, he's better off getting the Xeon that is 4 cores and 8 threads.

You can't force a game to use X or Y cores, and there's only a handful that are really well threaded, Intel has the higher core for core performance.

The landscape is starting to change as we're getting more engines that are heavier threaded.
But then we're also getting engines that are threaded but still need core for core (Anvil Next, whatever abomination RTW2 is on)

You've also got games that are top heavy (Very GPU limited) which show no difference in performance. Back when a 5870 was top dog, CPU's showed like no difference in Crysis 1, but that landscape has changed and with higher GPU's, there's now differences.
 
Last edited:
Martini, aren't you supposed to be setting up about 15 systems?

But yeah, forget ASRock AM3+ boards, there's always an Asus one around the same price far better.

The 3570K is a solid CPU, but I expect that an 8320 will be performing equal or better in next gen games, and I suspect that Mantle will work much better on 8 core/8 thread CPUs. It's always too simple to say that AMD or Intel is better than the other.
 
Ha.
I only just managed to set up the i5 4670K rig with the R9 290.
That caused me a few headaches, it wouldn't boot with the R9 290.

Turned out it was because there was an Asus R9 290X BIOS on it so it wouldn't boot.
I switched it to the Sapphire 290 bios and it worked.

Then his creative speakers are DOA.

Didn't get around to setting up the AMD build, I put the FX8320 into the board (Lovely looking board for 75 quid) and the cooler.

Right now I'm just pre-seshing before my GF's night out.
 
Martini1991 said:
The 3570K only costs about 20-30 quid more than the FX8350, so how he can get a board in there for the same price is beyond me :p
Click to expand...

I've found one around £60 cheaper.

Martini1991 said:
But if your friend's on a naff board he can't overclock on, he's better off getting the Xeon that is 4 cores and 8 threads.
Click to expand...

There are many Xeon's, recommend a specific one?
 
Martini1991 said:
Turned out it was because there was an Asus R9 290X BIOS on it so it wouldn't boot.
I switched it to the Sapphire 290 bios and it worked.
Click to expand...

A thread came up with this same problem earlier, turns out a motherboard BIOS update fixed it for some reason.
 
The board will just throttle an 8350, you might not be able to run it at stock consistently let alone overclocked. A lot of the cheaper AM3+ boards were designed for quad core Phenoms rather than 8 core Piledriver CPUs and don't handle them well. The two Asus boards I listed will take the CPU to 4.8GHz or so, depending on the chip.
 
Well the £75 Asus 970 board can do Crossfire, but it's limited to 8x4x.

The 8320 is £110 at the moment, it's the same chip as the 8350, it just may be more difficult to get very high OCs on (4.7GHz+)

edit: actually, it may be 16x4x for the 970.
 
Last edited:
TriShredatops said:
Without getting too technical, can anyone tell me why Intel's 4 Core CPUs are better than AMD's 8 core CPUs?
Click to expand...

If you cannot afford an i7 get an FX8350.

But a 4670 isn't that bad, however you should consider upgrade sometime next year, compared to having an FX8350.
And is dead socket. (as everything right now).
 
Last edited:
If his current motherboard wont allow for decent clocks, best option i can see is either a half decent am3+ board and a 6300 or a 35070k with his current board and do an upgrade later when he can afford a motherboard which can overclock.

If it were my money, i would save up a bit more cash or sell any parts he can and grab a 8320 + a board suitable for overclocking (not that extreme 3, with its exploding VRMs, sure it was a good board on release but that was before the first fx chips ate through its 'power management') or a 3570k and a bog standard gigabyte z77 board.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom