I want to build a gaming pc but not at all sure on the CPU. If i went for the 7850K, would i be sacrificing performance as if i went for the FX 6300 (CPU wise, not the GPU) for gaming in the long term (3-4 years). The advantage with going for the APU is that i have the ability for Micro/Mini ATX/ITX motherboards and cases, the disadvantage is 4 cores compared to 6 cores of the FX 6300 and i dont know if that makes a difference for long term gaming...
Thanks in advance.
You are talking about two fundamentally different platforms here.
The FX-6300 is a 32nm AM3+ CPU without any onboard graphics.
The 7850K is a 28nm FM2+ APU with onboard graphics.
The 6300 is a more powerful CPU than the 7850k but in games it generally doesn't matter as the GPU does most of the heavy lifting.
If you go with the cheaper 6300 you will need to buy a dedicated GPU whereas if you go with the 7850k you will not.
That being said, the on board GPU of the 7850k is pretty weak and will struggle in games especially at 1080p. You will also need to buy highspeed RAM inorder to get the most out of the platform. Even then it won't be a satisfactory gaming experience for most people.
The cheaper 6300 needs a GPU but that paired with a R9 270 will smoke a 7850K easily and usually be cheaper than the 7850k and highspeed RAM.
You should look at the 760k or the soon to be released 860k. These are APUs (6800k and 7850k respectively) with the dedicated GPU removed and at a much lower price. One of these paired with a GPU like an R9 270 will be as fast in game, usually, as the 6300. More CPU intensive games will struggle as will productivity.
When building a new PC the main question is always, what do you want:
First: What do you want to spend in total?
Second: What do you want to do with the PC/ Which games do you want to play?
And third: Do you have some old parts? (IE: old hard drives, a monitor,....)
THe FX 8 core prices are going to drop, i would look at a FX8320 + a nice GPU, it will blow a 7850k out of the water.
If that is out of budget, then a FX6300 still offers a good alternative. But its a bit depending on your budget basicly, and which games you like to play mainaly.
Basicly for pure gaming an i5-4690K + dedicated gpu will be better, you also have the mini itx options there.
But its better to know your budget and to know which games you like to play.
It depends a lot on the games you play and the gpu you use. With a r9 280x and a more cpu intesive game like hitman absolution, the 6300 is faster. A game like tomb raider it doesn't matter because the r9 280x would be the bottleneck.
My advise would agree with DerKrieger and look at fm2 cpu's without the integrated gpu. Unless you need the extra power of the fx6300 this probably is the cheaper option and you'd have the most future proof platform with FM2+ mobo's.
And look at this review so you might decide whether you need the extra power or not.
Good luck
Meh for a gaming build at this point I'd wait for the 860k, its the 7850k without the integrated gpu that isn't that great for games anyway. It'll be cheaper too meaning more money to put in to the gpu.
Between the two(7850k and 6300) I'd go 6300, two more cores and while games right now may not use all the cores some do(even though most games that use > 4 cores don't do it very competently because of how hard it is to program that for games, one plus for intel I guess) it'll still see a boost in games like crysis 3 and some future ones. Plus if you wanted to stream or do videos ever the more cores the better for that. Plus the l3 cache will give a per core performance boost to the 6300 over the 7850k.
If you don't mind waiting/spending a bit more the 8320 is getting cheap, 8 cores of pure fun. Really for amd for gaming I wouldn't get anything other than a athlon for the fm2+ socket(ie 860k) or the 8320, which one would depend on budget.
EDIT: if you live near microcenter the 8320 is $120 there and the 8300 $99