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Intel or AMD CPU for gaming PC?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    So what unlocked Intel chip is there available at this budget range? Answer - none.

    Yup, point being that not everyone is an overclocker.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    So what unlocked Intel chip is there available at this budget range? Answer - none.

    We get it, you're an AMD fanboy. Post things that actually make sense.

    I think my points about OCing - that most people find it risky, and therefore don't do it - are perfectly sensible.

    You make the point that a gamer would benefit from a second graphics card far more than a better processor. That's not necessarily true. If he plays mostly MMO and RTS games, a faster CPU could definitely be a better buy. If he were adding a second graphics card, he might need a better PSU, further driving the cost up.

    Intel motherboards aren't expensive. You can get perfectly good 1155 boards for €50. If you want SLI, you're talking around the €80 mark. Not what I'd call expensive by any means.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    nesf wrote: »
    It depends on the kinds of games he plays. BF3, sure the extra card makes perfect sense, with an RTS like Supreme Commander and similar the extra CPU power makes more sense for large scale games. High end simulation games also scale better with CPU etc.

    At this point you're being silly. When people refer to 'gaming' pcs they are referring to machines with strong graphical abilities and you know it. I play realtime strategy games all the time - they aren't going to be held back by any moderately powerful modern CPU - certainly not a 4ghz amd 955 - I know because I use one. On the other hand any driving game, any first person shooter or any immersive game like L.A. Noire is going to be throttled by the graphics card and not the processor and you know it. Why don't we just agree to disagree at this point because honestly I think you're lapsing into pedantry and bizarre usage scenarios in order to justify your opinions at this point.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    At this point you're being silly. [...] Why don't we just agree to disagree at this point because honestly I think you're lapsing into pedantry and bizarre usage scenarios in order to justify your opinions at this point.

    Wrong. Deus Ex - modern, yes? - is CPU-bound for me, as is Supreme Commander, as well as older games, like Descent Freespace 2, and Star Trek Bridge Commander. Not bizarre at all.

    You're right though; I'm sure World of Warcraft will get excellent FPS with an 955 and two GTX 580s.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    Serephucus wrote: »
    We get it, you're an AMD fanboy. Post things that actually make sense.

    I think my points about OCing - that most people find it risky, and therefore don't do it - are perfectly sensible.

    You make the point that a gamer would benefit from a second graphics card far more than a better processor. That's not necessarily true. If he plays mostly MMO and RTS games, a faster CPU could definitely be a better buy. If he were adding a second graphics card, he might need a better PSU, further driving the cost up.

    Intel motherboards aren't expensive. You can get perfectly good 1155 boards for €50. If you want SLI, you're talking around the €80 mark. Not what I'd call expensive by any means.

    No actually I'm not an AMD 'fanboy' though I'm pretty damn sure there are quite a few Intel ones on this board. I own five computers - a Mac workstation (intel based obviously) a mac laptop (likewise) a second less powerful pc work station (AMD powered) and two older pc laptops, one of which is Intel and one of which is AMD. I'm typing this on the intel 270 based one as we speek.

    I was just trying to point out that at this end of the market Intel doesn't produce a blanced good-value platform and I provided pretty decent evidence based on expert opinions to demonstrate the same. Your comments about MMO games benefitting significantly from a second a processor upgrade are simply untrue in the context of starting from an already powerful processor - I know because I play such games all of the time.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    Serephucus wrote: »
    Wrong. Deus Ex - modern, yes? - is CPU-bound for me, as is Supreme Commander, as well as older games, like Descent Freespace 2, and Star Trek Bridge Commander. Not bizarre at all.

    You're right though; I'm sure World of Warcraft will get excellent FPS with an 955 and two GTX 580s.

    In what sense is Deux Ex CPU bound for you? What processor are you using and what specific benefits do you think you would get from going to a faster one? Sorry but we're talking about starting off from a 4GHZ AMD 955 processor here - for the tiny number of games which would be remotely 'processor bound' by such a CPU the upgrade benefits to something like a 2600k or whatever would be trivial. On the other hand adding a second graphics card will increase the frame rate by a huge amount in 90% of games that are released.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    At this point you're being silly. When people refer to 'gaming' pcs they are referring to machines with strong graphical abilities and you know it. I play realtime strategy games all the time - they aren't going to be held back by any moderately powerful modern CPU - certainly not a 4ghz amd 955 - I know because I use one. On the other hand any driving game, any first person shooter or any immersive game like L.A. Noire is going to be throttled by the graphics card and not the processor and you know it. Why don't we just agree to disagree at this point because honestly I think you're lapsing into pedantry and bizarre usage scenarios in order to justify your opinions at this point.

    Skyrim has a CPU bottleneck even on high end i7s. It's not bizarre at all. Supreme Commander 2 is CPU limited. Going forwards this will only get worse even on the highest end hardware with some games.

    You really don't need more than a 6850 to play the vast majority of games out there right now at 720p which was my point.


    Anyway, yeah, we should agree to disagree as neither one of us will convince the other.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    Wrong again!

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-10.html
    AMD

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-9.html
    Intel
    In what sense is Deux Ex CPU bound for you? What processor are you using and what specific benefits do you think you would get from going to a faster one? Sorry but we're talking about starting off from a 4GHZ AMD 955 processor here - for the tiny number of games which would be remotely 'processor bound' by such a CPU the upgrade benefits to something like a 2600k or whatever would be trivial. On the other hand adding a second graphics card will increase the frame rate by a huge amount in 90% of games that are released.

    See specs in my signature. At stock, I was bottlenecked, even overclocked, I hit 100% a fair bit (though it's to the point where FPS doesn't matter, as I'm getting 60+ usually anyway)


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    nesf wrote: »
    Skyrim has a CPU bottleneck even on high end i7s. It's not bizarre at all. Supreme Commander 2 is CPU limited. Going forwards this will only get worse even on the highest end hardware with some games.

    You really don't need more than a 6850 to play the vast majority of games out there right now at 720p which was my point.


    Anyway, yeah, we should agree to disagree as neither one of us will convince the other.

    Post some evidence showing that Skyrim would suffer significan real world bottlenecking on a 4GHZ chip like the X4, bottlenecking that would go away or be greatly reduced by upgrading to something like the 2600k.

    You are being pretty intellectually dishonest at this point - the OP for this article seems to have a rougly 400-500 Euro budget - the point of this discussion was to get the best all round bang for his buck. Literally 90% of games would benefit far more from a second graphics card than minute bump in additional processing power.

    Also as you should know since you're a moderator on this board - skyrim is a brand new game and is buggy, a lot of this supposed CPU bottlenecking is down to programming errors and not actual processor requirements which is why Bethsheda have promised to release fixes for these problems asap:

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1213875p1.html


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    Serephucus wrote: »
    Wrong again!

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-10.html
    AMD

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-9.html
    Intel



    See specs in my signature. At stock, I was bottlenecked, even overclocked, I hit 100% a fair bit (though it's to the point where FPS doesn't matter, as I'm getting 60+ usually anyway)

    Wow - you do realize that you've complety proven my point, right? The links you provide show that systems with more cores do much better for warcraft and similar games written to take advantage of multicore pcs. I'm the one advocating that they OP buy a four core AMD CPU which can be gotten for roughly the same price as the dual core i3. Thanks for proving my point for me.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Post some evidence showing that Skyrim would suffer significan real world bottlenecking on a 4GHZ chip like the X4, bottlenecking that would go away or be greatly reduced by upgrading to something like the 2600k.

    You are being pretty intellectually dishonest at this point - the OP for this article seems to have a rougly 400-500 Euro budget - the point of this discussion was to get the best all round bang for his buck. Literally 90% of games would benefit far more from a second graphics card than minute bump in additional processing power.

    Also as you should know since you're a moderator on this board - skyrim is a brand new game and is buggy, a lot of this supposed CPU bottlenecking is down to programming errors and not actual processor requirements which is why Bethsheda have promised to release fixes for these problems asap:

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1213875p1.html

    I'm not a moderator of this board.


    Real world, on a 4.4GHz i5 2500k, FPS drops to mid 30s when a lot of shadows need to be rendered from being capped at 60 in low shadow environments. It's got to do with shadows being calculated on the CPU not the GPU by Bethesda and has created a lot of problems for people running older CPUs and modern graphics cards (low 20s/10s for some poor people if they have shadows turned on). A 4.4 GHz i5 2500K is substantially more powerful than any of the X4 line unless you're overclocking with liquid hydrogen.

    It's not buggy as much as it's just a CPU intensive implementation of the engine. Which was crazy by Bethesda but there you go.

    Some people reporting experiences here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1650891


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    nesf wrote: »
    I'm not a moderator of this board.


    Real world, on a 4.4GHz i5 2500k, FPS drops to mid 30s when a lot of shadows need to be rendered from being capped at 60 in low shadow environments. It's got to do with shadows being calculated on the CPU not the GPU by Bethesda and has created a lot of problems for people running older CPUs and modern graphics cards (low 20s/10s for some poor people if they have shadows turned on). A 4.4 GHz i5 2500K is substantially more powerful than any of the X4 line unless you're overclocking with liquid hydrogen.

    It's not buggy as much as it's just a CPU intensive implementation of the engine. Which was crazy by Bethesda but there you go.

    Yeah, so you're recommending that the OP make his purchasing decision based on a problem with a single brand new, poorly written bug-riddled game and ignore the fact that 90%+ of games benefit far more from the second graphics card? He'll have better shadow rendering in Skyrim until the fix patch is released. Makes sense.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    Wow - you do realize that you've complety proven my point, right? The links you provide show that systems with more cores do much better for warcraft and similar games written to take advantage of multicore pcs. I'm the one advocating that they OP buy a four core AMD CPU which can be gotten for roughly the same price as the dual core i3. Thanks for proving my point for me.

    I'm trying very hard to not use the word "moron" here...

    Second chart down on each page:

    Athlon X4 640: 44 FPS
    Intel i3 655: 68 FPS
    And just for the hell of it...
    Phenom II X6 (four cores): 58 FPS

    That's not including the fact that that's a generation old, and that the 2100 would get anywhere from 15-25% better numbers.

    Clear enough?


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Yeah, so you're recommending that the OP make his purchasing decision based on a problem with a single brand new, poorly written bug-riddled game and ignore the fact that 90%+ of games benefit far more from the second graphics card? He'll have better shadow rendering in Skyrim until the fix patch is released. Makes sense.

    You asked for how Skyrim is CPU intensive and I gave you some info. I never said he should base a build off one game.

    You said always upgrade the GPU, I said it depends on where the bottleneck is for the games you play, you said CPU bottlenecks didn't really exist and I'm just pointing out a couple.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    Serephucus wrote: »
    I'm trying very hard to not use the word "moron" here...

    Second chart down on each page:

    Athlon X4 640: 44 FPS
    Intel i3 655: 68 FPS
    And just for the hell of it...
    Phenom II X6 (four cores): 58 FPS

    That's not including the fact that that's a generation old, and that the 2100 would get anywhere from 15-25% better numbers.

    Clear enough?

    Oh wow, he gets a 10 frame advantage in a single game. Would you like me to list the several thousand games that will get a 40%+ frame rate advantage by adding a second graphics card? As for using the word moron - there's no need to be so hard on yourself, you just made a mistake.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    nesf wrote: »
    You asked for how Skyrim is CPU intensive and I gave you some info. I never said he should base a build off one game.

    You said always upgrade the GPU, I said it depends on where the bottleneck is for the games you play, you said CPU bottlenecks didn't really exist and I'm just pointing out a couple.

    No I didn't say to always upgrade the GPU, I said it makes more sense for the vast majority of people, which it does. YOu came back with bizarre usage scenarios which have little to do with the needs of 90%+ of general users or gamers. This thread was started by the OP in order to get advice on what would be the best build for him. My advice was oriented towards that - I'm really not sure what your points are oriented towards apart from pedantry and an inability to stop digging.


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Except it doesn't need a third party cooler and doesn't give lower performance in games since at his budget and with the graphics card he has indicated he is buying the graphics card is the one throttling performance. Buying an x4 along with a cheap AMD motherboard will allow him to buy a better card => much better gaming performance. You might want to review the Tomshardware build which evaluated both of these processors since your comments don't seem to be based on evidence.

    If you want to overclock it you need a 3rd party cooler. Try overclocking a 955 X4 with the stock cooler and see how far you get. Then see if you like how loud your computer is.

    I've given sources showing the i3-2100 > X4 @3.7GHz for games. You have yet to disprove it. You keep spouting the tomshardware article, except you forgot to mention that they don't use the same graphics card. So the entire comparison is pointless.

    You keep saying that the X4 is cheaper. Please find an X4 CPU + mobo + cooler combo that beats this for price please:

    Item|Price
    Total build cost: €143.92
    Intel Core i3-2100 Box, LGA1155|€100.97
    ASRock H61M-HVS (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX|€42.95


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    deconduo wrote: »
    If you want to overclock it you need a 3rd party cooler. Try overclocking a 955 X4 with the stock cooler and see how far you get. Then see if you like how loud your computer is.

    I've given sources showing the i3-2100 > X4 @3.7GHz for games. You have yet to disprove it. You keep spouting the tomshardware article, except you forgot to mention that they don't use the same graphics card. So the entire comparison is pointless.

    You keep saying that the X4 is cheaper. Please find an X4 CPU + mobo + cooler combo that beats this for price please:

    Item|Price
    Total build cost: €143.92
    Intel Core i3-2100 Box, LGA1155|€100.97
    ASRock H61M-HVS (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX|€42.95

    Wow, you totally lose. You have literally no idea what you are talking about. AMD officially endorses overclocking this chip all the way up to 3.8ghz on air with no additional hardware. They supply a software utility with the chip that allows you to overclock it to 3.8 without even going into the BIOS. Most users find they can even go significantly beyond this without hardware.

    Seriously - don't post about things you know absolutely nothing about. And maybe watch the following video which was already posted above:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p7HB9OMJSs


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Wow, you totally lose. You have literally no idea what you are talking about. AMD officially endorses overclocking this chip all the way up to 3.8ghz on air with no additional hardware. They supply a software utility with the chip that allows you to overclock it to 3.8 without even going into the BIOS. Most users find they can even go significantly beyond this without hardware.

    Seriously - don't post about things you know absolutely nothing about. And maybe watch the following video which was already posted above:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p7HB9OMJSs

    HEATSINK: ZALMAN 9900LED 120MM FAN ALL COPPER HEATSINK

    Cost of about €50. Your point?


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    deconduo wrote: »
    HEATSINK: ZALMAN 9900LED 120MM FAN ALL COPPER HEATSINK

    Cost of about €50. Your point?

    Excuse me? He states in the video that this is done on air. I have an AMD running this chip at 3.8ghz on air also. Are you really going to try to pretend that this chip requires a heatsink for overclocking when basically everybody else in the world knows it doesn't? My advice to you is to stop making a fool of yourself while you still can.

    EDIT - here's a second video, this time overclocked to 4ghz with the stock cooler. Still want to argue about this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGK8mWtRxMw


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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    No I didn't say to always upgrade the GPU, I said it makes more sense for the vast majority of people, which it does. YOu came back with bizarre usage scenarios which have little to do with the needs of 90%+ of general users or gamers. This thread was started by the OP in order to get advice on what would be the best build for him. My advice was oriented towards that - I'm really not sure what your points are oriented towards apart from pedantry and an inability to stop digging.

    I give up trying to get through to you that some games are genuinely CPU bottlenecked.


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Excuse me? He states in the video that this is done on air. I have an AMD running this chip at 3.8ghz on air also. Are you really going to try to pretend that this chip requires a heatsink for overclocking when basically everybody else in the world knows it doesn't? My advice to you is to stop making a fool of yourself while you still can.

    EDIT - here's a second video, this time overclocked to 4ghz with the stock cooler. Still want to argue about this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGK8mWtRxMw

    Because you seem to be having trouble understanding:

    Stock Heatsink:
    http://www.pacificgeek.com/productimages/xl/AMD-AM2-4200.jpg

    One of many air coolers:
    http://www.etonix-media.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Scythe-Mugen-3-PCGH-Edition.jpg

    Liquid cooler:
    http://techgage.com/images/news/corsair_h100_060211_thumb.jpg

    If someone says I got XXX on air, that does NOT mean with the stock cooler. Also that video of 4GHz you linked is with liquid cooling.

    It is clear you are the one who is totally misinformed, and you are such a blind fanboy you refuse to listen to everyone saying that you are wrong. My computer has an X4 955 @ 3.8Ghz, its a great chip and was the best value for money when I bought it but not anymore. Times have changed, move on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    nesf wrote: »
    I give up trying to get through to you that some games are genuinely CPU bottlenecked.

    I'm not surprised since you didn't manage to do so in regards to any game's real playability on a chip like the 955 X4. Advocating doing a processor upgrade from a chip like that in lieu of adding a second graphics card is simply laughable in the context of modern gaming. You tried to claim that a lot of RTS games have problems with processor bottlenecking so I just went to my two year old AMD based laptop and checked whether my system would run a bunch of modern RTS games using this website:

    http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

    Guess what? All of them passed for cpu requirements but failed because of the weak graphics card. So yes, you have failed to prove your point.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    I'm not surprised since you didn't manage to do so in regards to any game's real playability on a chip like the 955 X4. Advocating doing a processor upgrade from a chip like that in lieu of adding a second graphics card is simply laughable in the context of modern gaming. You tried to claim that a lot of RTS games have problems with processor bottlenecking so I just went to my two year old AMD based laptop and checked whether my system would run a bunch of modern RTS games using this website:

    http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

    Guess what? All of them passed for cpu requirements but failed because of the weak graphics card. So yes, you have failed to prove your point.

    Um, what? We're talking about a system with a 6850 at 720p here for reference.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    deconduo wrote: »
    Because you seem to be having trouble understanding:

    Stock Heatsink:
    http://www.pacificgeek.com/productimages/xl/AMD-AM2-4200.jpg

    One of many air coolers:
    http://www.etonix-media.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Scythe-Mugen-3-PCGH-Edition.jpg

    Liquid cooler:
    http://techgage.com/images/news/corsair_h100_060211_thumb.jpg

    If someone says I got XXX on air, that does NOT mean with the stock cooler. Also that video of 4GHz you linked is with liquid cooling.

    It is clear you are the one who is totally misinformed, and you are such a blind fanboy you refuse to listen to everyone saying that you are wrong. My computer has an X4 955 @ 3.8Ghz, its a great chip and was the best value for money when I bought it but not anymore. Times have changed, move on.


    You lecturing people on comprehension issues is laughable. Both of the videos I posted used the stock heatsink which comes with the chip. If you'd bothered to do 2 minutes of googling you would see that this chip can be brought to 3.8ghz out of the box and thousands of people have done so. As I say - stop digging, you're only making yourself look increasingly absurd.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭Paul_Hacket


    You lecturing people on comprehension issues is laughable. Both of the videos I posted used the stock heatsink which comes with the chip. If you'd bothered to do 2 minutes of googling you would see that this chip can be brought to 3.8ghz out of the box and thousands of people have done so. As I say - stop digging, you're only making yourself look increasingly absurd.

    Also, your idea that this has something to do with loyalty to 'my computer rig' is priceless. As I stated above I own 5 pcs - I work in media editing and one of them is a Mac Pro. Guess who makes the processors inside that?


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    You lecturing people on comprehension issues is laughable. Both of the videos I posted used the stock heatsink which comes with the chip. If you'd bothered to do 2 minutes of googling you would see that this chip can be brought to 3.8ghz out of the box and thousands of people have done so. As I say - stop digging, you're only making yourself look increasingly absurd.

    In the description of the first video:
    HEATSINK: ZALMAN 9900LED 120MM FAN ALL COPPER HEATSINK

    Second video:
    Xcs3T.png

    Best looking stock cooler I've ever seen.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,399 ✭✭✭dwighet


    This is fun to watch!!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    You lecturing people on comprehension issues is laughable. Both of the videos I posted used the stock heatsink which comes with the chip. If you'd bothered to do 2 minutes of googling you would see that this chip can be brought to 3.8ghz out of the box and thousands of people have done so. As I say - stop digging, you're only making yourself look increasingly absurd.

    Ok, sorry, now you're asking for it: Moron. There, I said it.

    In the first video, a Zalman 9900 is used, as you'll see the giant airplane-shaped thing sitting on the CPU, that doesn't look anything like a stock cooler. As deconduo has already stated, it's also in the description.

    As deconduo has also clearly shown from the picture posted, the second 4.0GHz video has the guy using a liquid cooler.


    You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, so please don't keep vomiting on about it.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,399 ✭✭✭dwighet


    Serephucus wrote: »
    Ok, sorry, now you're asking for it: Moron. There, I said it.

    In the first video, a Zalman 9900 is used, as you'll see the giant airplane-shaped thing sitting on the CPU, that doesn't look anything like a stock cooler. As deconduo has already stated, it's also in the description.

    As deconduo has also clearly shown from the picture posted, the second 4.0GHz video has the guy using a liquid cooler.


    You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, so please don't keep vomiting on about it.
    Well said Sir...


This discussion has been closed.
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