Hello everyone. I'm building a PC from scratch over the last couple months, trying to buy each part on sale. I'm not from US, where I live the currency is "weaker" so percent deals tend to be very attractive.
My dilemma right now is about what to choose for my CPU and mobo.
My 2 options are, obviously, performance or price:
1) FX 8320 + Asus M5A97 2.0. Valued at 776 of my currency (Don't worry about not understanding the price, what is important is %difference between the two options.)
2)i5 4690k + Asus Z97-K. Valued at 1219. About 57,08% more expensive.
The rest of my pc is:
PSU:EVGA 600B
RAM: Adata 2x8GB 2400mhz
SSD: Kingston v300 240GB
GPU: R9 280X XFX.
Case: Sharkoon BD28.
I've been buying each of those parts over time when their prices were attractive. I will buy a water cooler and a 2TB HD after I've bought the CPU+MOBO.
Now, this is where I need the help from you amazing people:
I play mostly multiplayer games. Dota 2, Planetside 2, BF4, etc... How much in terms of performance would I be losing if I decided to buy the AMD pack? Will the CPU Bottleneck me too hard when I play? Would it definetly be the weakest part of my pc? Could anyone point me at real, non-biased data showing the difference between those 2 picks? (I can't really seem to find trustable information on this one, everyone seems biased.) Which one would you chose?
Thank you guys a lot for anyone that wants to help me clarify this situation. Also, sorry my eventual english mistakes.
This is a hard choice, really. That price difference is a pain in the ass. With you playing mostly multiplayer games, the Intel's higher IPC would really come in handy. On top of that, you have upgrade options (AM3+ is a dead socket, no more new cpus). As far as benchmarks and bias, when basically everyone is agreeing that the 4690k wipes the floor with the 8350, there isn't much more to say. BF4 multiplayer really likes the i5 (keeps frame rate drops to a minimum from what I've heard from people who have had experience). Dota 2 is easy enough to run that either will be fine. Planetside 2 is not terribly well optimized, and is multiplayer, so it will favor Intel as well. Either cpu should get you acceptable frame rates in any of those games, but for multiplayer stuff, I would probably try to stick with Intel for the IPC. Then you have the added benefits of power consumption being a lot better on Intel, and actually having some upgrade path for the future should you need it.
THe choice is not hard, if i look at the games that op is playing its obvious to me that he should go straight for the 4690K with Z97 mobo. Planet side 2 and Dota are cpu bound games, (very badly optimized for multiple cores). and will run better on intel.
I am saying that either should be able to play either game without problems. You can run some benchmarks on your 8350, if you want though.
He should have no problem with Dota 2. Both are about 60 for the minimum.
Doesn't look like he will have any problems with Planetside 2 either. The i5 does better here, but worth 50% more? I just don't know. An 8350 should be playable based on this chart.
yeah well offcourse both cpu´s will play ps2, however there is offcourse a diffrence between multiplayer and single player. and offcourse also about the gpu that is used on those charts.
Single player will mostly be fine on both cpu´s, with a midrange gpu, But multiplayer then things can / will be diffrent.
I would go with the intel if you could afford. If not, then offcourse amd is not a mistake.
Obviously the i5 is the better part. The price difference is just so high, it makes me hesitant to suggest it. I guess that it is up to the OP to decide that though.
The Intel and AMD should be equal in performance for dota 2 and bf4 but ps2 significantly bottlenecks on single threaded CPU performance. I know as I play ps2 often. During large battles the game clearly bottlenecks at the CPU and I have an overclocked haswell i5. I suspect that benchmarks in the chart above were made in a low population area and aren't representative of how the CPUs perform in heavy combat. With all the in mind I think the Intel CPU is the best choice. I believe your planetside 2 gaming experience would be significantly worse if you chose the AMD CPU.