• 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.

Moving from AMD FX to I5, thoughts?

Furyio

Furyio

Furyio

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2014
Posts
28
I know, another one of these threads. Granted the few I've searched on this forum, the FX models people are talking about seem a lot later then my one.

I'm currently using an AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition. I "believe" the cpu is very good for overclocking, but as much as I say I will I've simply never bothered, and I don't see myself doing it either.

I've been toying with the idea of upgrading the CPU(and by assosiation my motherboard) and I guess I just wanted to get the experts input.

I had originally planned for an i5 4460, but I've been able to secure a 4690 for the same price ( 165 euro) and just need to pull the trigger.

I mainly play CPU intensive games like world of warcraft and Battlefield 4.

I'd been lining up to get myself a GTX970, but think I'll hang off until maybe March, see how the CPU change behaves ( currently running a R9 270x)

Any feedback or thoughts are welcome :)
 
Last edited:
Martini1991 said:
Do you mean the Phenom II X4 955?

What motherboard do you have?
Click to expand...

Erm, yeah sorry it's a Phenom, like I said everything seems to be discussing latest FX's, and I'm behind that again.

The motherboard I have at present is

ASUS M5A97 R2.0, AM3+, ATX

I have the following picked out for going ahead with an i5 processor.
Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Intel B85 S1150 Micro ATX Motherboard

Done a lot of reading and investigation the last two weeks and speaking to people about real performance and impact, and I'm pretty much decided on moving away from AMD and going to Intel. I've been using AMD for as long as I can remember, but it just appears i5's are going to be a big boost for the CPU centric games I play.
 
BF4's CPU centric, but it uses Mantle (So, going for an AMD GPU is best, such as an R9 290), and even then. If you went for a 970, an FX83 and i5 will give identical performance as far as a single card goes.

WoW, the win goes to the i5, but it depends how heavily you play WoW.

What other games do you play? Your motherboard will easily take an FX8320, and as far as price/performance goes for the upgrade, it's hard to argue against its merits.
 
Pretty sure you'll get as good performance in BF4 from a FX-8 as from an i5. BF4 loves the core count on the AMD.

WoW is better on Intel. but you'll still generally be getting 60+ fps on the FX-8.

For a £100 drop-in upgrade vs £250 on an i5 setup, it's hard to argue against the 8320.
 
WoW would be the main game I'd play.

I'd dip in and out of other games the odd time, but WoW would be my main game. Battlefield 4 is coming back into the fray now that I've a little more time.

Other games I play, like CS:GO, are fine with the setup I have.

World of Warcraft would be my main game, and use on the PC. So getting best improvements there would be somewhat key.

I'm not exactly hamstrung by a budget, although I don't want to write a blank cheque. I've €400 to spend immediately, and if I wanted I could go CPU+MOBO+GPU, but I'd like to just go CPU at the moment, and see if a GPU is required come March.

Interestingly enough, from about five hardware enthusiast forums( took ages for moderators to approve my access here ebfore christmas) your the first person to even mention keeping with AMD :)
 
With just a CPU upgrade the difference you see will be close to nil on everything, except maybe the extreme in WoW when you're in like a heavy raid or what not and your FPS tanks. But I'm not sure it's worth spending 200+ pound on that.

If you had an AM3 set up, and it was a move, I'd suggest the i5 all the way, but you only play like 2 games, so yeah :p
 
Last edited:
Martini1991 said:
With just a CPU upgrade the difference you see will be close to nil on everything, except maybe the extreme in WoW when you're in like a heavy raid or what not and your FPS tanks. But I'm not sure it's worth spending 200+ pound on that.

If you had an AM3 set up, and it was a move, I'd suggest the i5 all the way, but you only play like 2 games, so yeah :p
Click to expand...

Hmm, was receiving a lot of feedback, including from people who did the specific upgrade I'm planning, indicating the performance boosts were very noticeable and real.

wow raiding, and trying to maintain high FPS would be high on the agenda.

I remember moving to my R9 270x last summer from an old generation Nvidia, and while there was some immediate boosts, it wasn't as big as I expected. Some corners have commented that my CPU might have been a bottleneck there.

I was just a touch bored and decided to throw a thread down, but you've thrown a massive seed of doubt into the mix now haha :D
 
I mean the difference between an i5 and FX83 CPU side with your GPU. Not i5/FX over the Phenom.

The Phenom II is getting old, so no matter what I'd get rid of the Phenom II for an FX832 at the least.

You currently do have a CPU bottleneck. That much is true.

With WoW, again, I'd pick the i5 over the FX83, but I don't think I'd want to spend that amount on just WoW, when you can take the FX83 and overclock to at least 4.8GHZ and see good gains over your current Phenom.
 
Martini1991 said:
I mean the difference between an i5 and FX83 CPU side with your GPU. Not i5/FX over the Phenom.

The Phenom II is getting old, so no matter what I'd get rid of the Phenom II for an FX832 at the least.

You currently do have a CPU bottleneck. That much is true.

With WoW, again, I'd pick the i5 over the FX83, but I don't think I'd want to spend that amount on just WoW, when you can take the FX83 and overclock to at least 4.8GHZ and see good gains over your current Phenom.
Click to expand...

OK I see where you are coming from now. In all honesty I bought the Phenom I have on the pretence " ow its brilliant to overclock" and I just never bothered. I understand the concepts and in some cases the ease of us, but I just don't ever get around to it.

It's actually why I'd a 4690 picked, rather then the K model.

I should probably mention the following :

I've received a number of vouchers and mini bonuses from work, so I'm not exasperating over cost. I could launch into a GPU purchase now as well, I just want to hold off for a month or two.

I'm being offered a 4690 for €165, thats basically the same price in some quarters as a 4460. So my immediate reaction is I'm getting a good discount on a good chip.

I'm taking your point on board though. Would your opinion change if a GTX970 came into the mix? Or would you still be of the same opinion?
 
Since you only really play BF4, the opinion doesn't change with going for the FX83. You won't see anything between the i5 and the FX83.

If you want to go for the i5, it's not exactly the wrong option, stock versus stock it's the superior gaming chip, I just don't think it's warranted in this scenario because of the added cost of the motherboard
 
Why not just overclock your current CPU and see what it's like in games? Not like there's anything to lose.

i5 will beat the 8320 in WoW; they will be about equal in BF4. Neither will reach their full potential without overclocking.
 
Furyio said:
WoW would be the main game I'd play.

I'd dip in and out of other games the odd time, but WoW would be my main game. Battlefield 4 is coming back into the fray now that I've a little more time.

Other games I play, like CS:GO, are fine with the setup I have.

World of Warcraft would be my main game, and use on the PC. So getting best improvements there would be somewhat key.

I'm not exactly hamstrung by a budget, although I don't want to write a blank cheque. I've €400 to spend immediately, and if I wanted I could go CPU+MOBO+GPU, but I'd like to just go CPU at the moment, and see if a GPU is required come March.

Interestingly enough, from about five hardware enthusiast forums( took ages for moderators to approve my access here ebfore christmas) your the first person to even mention keeping with AMD :)
Click to expand...

WoW would benefit greatly from an I5 or I7. The game runs horribly on an AMD CPU.
 
Martini has already summed up the demise of this upgrade.

If you really must do it (contrary to the other advice you received) then go ahead, but as already mentioned that's 200 for VERY little gain. WoW is what 10 years old now and plenty of new titles will thread better or even may use mantle.

I would overclock the CPU you have and invest in a better GPU.
 
It's possible the fx would be a drop in upgrade. I would drop in a fx 6300 for now for the extra cores more than anything. They're great gaming chips. I'll check your board later on phone atm.
 
His board takes an fx 6300 with possibly needing a BIOS update, depending on what he has at the moment. I agree it would be a good choice and at very little cost, but only if it is overclocked a bit ? If he hasn't overclocked the X4, I suspect he won't be wanting to overclock the FX.
 
Tuvoc said:
His board takes an fx 6300 with possibly needing a BIOS update, depending on what he has at the moment. I agree it would be a good choice and at very little cost, but only if it is overclocked a bit ? If he hasn't overclocked the X4, I suspect he won't be wanting to overclock the FX.
Click to expand...

From what I saw from BF3 and BF4 the clock speed wasn't as important as the physical count. This is even more true of Tomb Raider.

With the new APIS core count matters and clock speed seems not to matter as much. It's only older games that want single threaded high clocks.

In BF3 the 6300 was bang on terms with the 3770k at their stock speed.
 
Its great that people buy components and then do not feel the need (or competency) to overclock them. However if your coming toward the end of your time frame or the system is lacking the beef then it is absolutely the time to overclock.

There is plenty of information here on the overclockers forums and many other online guides to get you started.

Discussing dropping in a new i5 which is not clockable is nonsensical and IMO a waste of cash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom