A game streamer is looking to drop about $400 on a new CPU and obviously will need the motherboard to go with it. He's gunna be coming off an AMD Phenom II X4 965, which seems to be managing, albeit having a rough time of it.
The obvious choice is something like an FX-8350, but at $400 it seems kinda slack. The unlocked i7s on the other hand are a bit out of the price range if you're going to include a decent motherboard. The thing that makes sense then is the i5-4690K, but I'm not sold on that considering he's streaming.
So whats another option? Is a Xeon a viable alternative?
Well, that is a slippery slope. Xeon is a great chip, but with xeon, barring some very clever tricks, the performance they ship you is all you will ever get, which is marked. once you get the chip, the only thing that you would look for in a board after that is if it has the specific features you want without worrying about how many powerphases and what not. That being said, once you spend that much on the chip, spending a lot on the board quickly becomes and exercise in futility . I think you would get more out of the 8350 because you spend less on the chip and still (at $400) have enough money for a very decent 6+2 to 8+2 board with a lot of features. So what I am saying is, while with 400 xeon can be had, it is not a one sided issue. To go with LGA1150 /15/7 You will blow most of that budget on a chip and the board will be too weak to utilize it. just my opinion though, there may be some LGA boards out there that are cheap that can handle it.
I'm just not convinced on suggesting he replace a "4 year old" CPU with a 2 year old CPU. I know it has some advantages, but I just feel like the 8350 is already so far behind in a lot of other aspects that within a year or two it will be the wrong choice entirely. Where as the i5 can be upgraded and hopefully the socket will still be relevant.
That said, if we do consider an i5 for a moment, what mobo would be the best pick? http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=26320306
8 cores @ 4.0Ghz+ compared to 4 cores @ 3.5Ghz = A no brainer
The FX-8350 8 core rig will handle the stain of gaming and streaming at the same time better than the older X4-965 4 core is struggling to do right now.
Or for $20 more get an AMD FX-9370 4.4GHz 8-Core OEM/Tray Processor ...............
The FX-8350 is a rather significant upgrade over the CPU he has now. That part was rather obvious, though. The more relevant question is will the dual module cores of the aging FX-8350 really be better than the i5-4690k's superior architecture and options for upgrading for the next 2-3 years?
The problem, like ProSonicLive stated, is that you'll be blowing your budget on just the cpu and motherboard combo, but if you can bite the bullet and spend a little extra, that processor acts just like a 4770, is efficient, runs newer instruction code, but the limitations include no overclock etc.
After reading the newegg reviews, one guy claims he is using that processor with the following $90 board.
Superior is subjective, But to answer my own curiosoty, I found one can have a 4670K with an Asus Gryphon for $2 short of $400 which has a 8+2 powerphase.
In multi-threaded performance, the 8350 does overtake the 4670k by a small margine.
It is also a good bit faster in memory intensive apps.
Price to performance, the 8350 stomps the I5. If single thread is that important to you, not that that is bad, go with I5. Otherwise, you get more for the money with 8350. above that you are paying a premium for Intel.
That small margin is what's bothering me. At around $300, the FX-8350 is a go-to-pick. At around $500+, the i7-4790k starts to become an option. At the $400 mark, it becomes a tough choice to sacrifice a large margin worth of single core and overall performance, for a much small margin of multi-threaded performance.
AMD: Cheaper and better for running more things in the background while gaming. Huge overclocking potential. Older and more likely to need an upgrade sooner. Will be the most expensive to upgrade. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Anonymiter/saved/Zx6NnQ
I would 100% recommend he go slightly over budget for that. I don't know if he has a MicroCenter near by, though, or if he's willing to drive to it. :(
That said... even with a $140+ motherboard, there is no room for a CPU cooler. I might recommend an i5 with stock cooling, but the i7 is going to run at over 90c since he's going to be streaming.