He wants to build a gaming machine for light gamin, but also capable of capturing and rendering the gameplay. So goes the whole core vs clock decision. He's looking into an FX 6350 as a medium between gaming performance and video rendering performance.
I don't personally have experience with the 6350 but clocked at 3.9 and 6 cores seems alright to me. He'll have a STRIX RX 470 and 16GB of RAM (though the RAM part really isn't important it might help to have a more complete picture).
Minecraft, Dota, and L4D2, is pretty much all he does?
Run away from Asus and AMD graphics combination. The older strix 300 series was overheating as crazy... 200 series was full of issues. Also you may want to look at RX 480 4GB version...
For the purpose of light gaming 3,3Ghz and 3,9Ghz should not see any difference. However...
In my local stores FX 8300 eight core cpu is similarly priced to the 6350. But it have 8 cores. It will be better for capturing, editing, rendering etc... On top of that, 8300 is 95W, while 6350 is 120W...
Get an ssd... If the choice is 8GB ram and ssd or 16GB without ssd - get an ssd...
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to be thurrow about everything.
It should be fine for games like that, but imo if i were him id throw in the few extra bucks and get the 8350 version. The 8350 has a approx the same clock speed, and IPC, but he'd be getting an extra 2 cores. But i dont think it would make a world of difference though between the two for his usecase.
I went with the 8320e cause it was the same price. If the AM4 APU's were here (including an Athlon X4 varient) I would go with that or 7870/7890/860/845.
The 8320e with the base clock at 223 gives me a nice single core boost from 990 or so to 1280 on cpu/z
Those particular games are pretty cpu demending if im right. I personally dont think that a FX cpu would be that awesome in this day and age. But non the less they will still be pretty capable. And it of course depends on the budget.
There is being quite capable of playing a game, then there is overkilling it. Intel CPUs destroy the requirements for games now a days, and charge a 500% premium to do so. FX cpus are more then capable of gaming, and including "cpu intensive" games. The games which are mentioned are all games where a AMD CPUs would be more than capable. I'm guessing the guy in question isn't looking to hit 1000 fps by investing in a 2000$ Intel/NVIDIA fanboi system, but rather just wanna hit the magic ~60 fps cap as cheap as possible, and enjoy some gaming while capturing it, which a FX system would be more than capable of.
Sure they are still capable to play games. I exally run a FX8350 since 2012, so i definitelly know its pro´s and con´s. However it depends a bit on the budget. My point basicly is that investing in an old dead am3+ platforms nowdays doesnt really make a whole lot of sense anymore. Especially not with ZEN just arround the corner. Unless you are trully on a tight budget.
For this exact usecase, waiting for the release of ZEN would only mean a drop i FX prices(Which i think is a good idea btw, its like max. 1 month or so, wait for a price drop). He has no need for a massive capable CPU(If he had so i would deffinetly opt. in for a Xeon), the FX line would run his games more than well, and he would be running a 6-8 core system for lets say 2-3 years at a very cheap price(compared to it's alternative). Im personally running a fairly new bought fx 8350 also, and it more then lives up to my expectations, and play everything from witcher 3 to settlers online(e.g. GPU, and CPU intensives) all more than capable of playing at ~4k albeit not at 200 fps using the big brother of the GPU this guy is asking his question about, hell playing withcer 3 with a VM running using 4 cores in the background, meh i got spares. And witcher 3 requirements are ALOT(<- ALOT more resources) higher then minecraft.
I run 760k and it runs games fine. I haven't yet found a game, that really seriously struggle on my 760k/270X combo... However... Recording is fine, but editing and rendering is a pain. Real pain. Definitely if time allows it, wait for Zen. If not - 6-8 core for that kind of gaming and content creation would be better choice, than the equivalent i3...
I agree on this, thats why i mentioned depending on budget. a FX83xx or FX63xx cpu can still be a better choice over a core i3 in certain circumstances.
FX6350 or FX8320 + RX470 will still be a fine combo afterall. But not as great as an i5. But yeah with Zen arround the corner, i´m not sure if it would make a whole lot of sense. But that just depends on budget, and time.
Just for old timey reference. I actually use then previous revision FX 6 core, the 6100 clocked at 4ghz so getting pretty comparable. It is with a 290 and 8gb of system ram and have yet to come across a game that is hurting for performance.
I will be upgrading to zen but this still plenty capable and will remain functioning in a different role there after. Been more than happy with it over the years.
I tried the video capture vefore and it did it fine. Streaming took a little set up, searching and configuration tweaking but it did that too perfectable acceptably in the end, I just did not continue with streaming. The likes of rocket league was going out at 1080 and 60fps. And rocket league usbnit demanding but it was also max settings.
Furtherly my little bro runs an fx 4350 with a 1gb 7850 and us yet to encounter a game to complain about the system specs, granted games are not run at max but we have been playing up to Killing floor 2 and he us heavily playing Overwatch right now so it is still good for that.
Will your friend be streaming to one site? Amd just released relive (there version of shadowplay) that is done on the gpu. If that were the case an i3 could be a good option for your friend.
Wait for Zen to drop. It will offer a better platform that will have more life in it than AM3+, and will (hopefully) drop the prices of previous AMD and Intel parts.