G3258 Vs A4 7300 Vs i3 Vs A8 7600

i tend to do a fair amount of budget builds for people and was wondering which would you guys consider the better all round recommendations.The intel CPUs are usually a bit faster overall in tasks, but does the iGPU of AMD's offerings benefit the average user?

 

If someone on the site could do a comparison video that would also be great.

 

from a quick newegg search for prices(rounded)

G3258 60

A4 7300 50

 

i3 120

A8 7600 90

 

also why does intel have so many different variants?

Intel has greatly improved the iGPU in the processor but AMD has slightly better integrated GPU. If the machine is going to be running windows 7, which favors the primary cores for applications, go with the Intel CPU. If it is going to be  running Windows 8, then the APU may have a slight advantage when it comes to multitasking and windows 8's tendency to use the last cores or spread the usage of core out evenly.

As for the second question. I had always wondered why Intel has so many skews. After some searching, the wafers all CPU manufactures get/create may or may not have the potential to be a core i7 at 4.4 GHz (4 cores 8 threads) and suppose that that portion of the wafer is unable to achieve all 4 cores and 8 threads, or the ability to reach even 3.2GHz .

Ultimately it comes down to, How many highest end CPU's can we get from this wafer? What ever is not a core i7 is sold as a slower or cheaper skew that way no material is wasted.

The A8 7600 is a good option for the price if users are going to play some games and a little bit of multi tasking. The iGPU's on AMD's are a whole lot better than that what intel offers. But AMD chips tend to consume more power, and users will benefit more from AMD's because of their great price to performance ratio.

Intel chips offer solid performance but won't really matter for average users. Try checking CPU-world for great comparisons between intel and amd chips. Check this out for comparison between the i3 and a8 7600 http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/278/AMD_A8-Series_A8-7600_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-2120.html

 

Get the x4 860k, its basically a 7850k without a GPU.

Right, but the A8 is only around 15 more, gives you more options later if you ever upgrade.

Intel has so many different variants because they like your money.

Anyway, it depends on what you mean by the average user.  For someone who is just going to be web-browsing and checking e-mail, any of those will be sufficient.  Once you get into the realm of productivity (be it encoding, or whatever else requires a lot of number crunching) or gaming is when you actually need the extra oomph - at that point you should invest in an I3 or A8.

If you're going to be playing any sort of games beyond in-browser games, you'll probably want the benefit of AMD better integrated graphics.  Most modern games are playable at 720P, which is always nice for beginning users.