What is the sweet spot for intel processors right now? Need a new CPU and motherboard
Lukas
Well that all depends what you're really looking for honestly. Intel and price to performance generally aren't mentioned very often together and honestly the best price per dollar takes you to their really low end stuff like <$50 which you really won't be doing much in terms of gaming or really anything honestly. The g3258 is pretty awesome for the money but its a pentium dual core at the end of the day and really the highest gpu you would want to pair it with would be a 760.
Think a better question would be to say what you're looking to spend versus what the best deal is.
Depends on what you want to do, I assume you want to game and overclock your cpu
--->i5 4690k + some cheap z97 motherboard that got all the features you want.
If you want to keep your cpu/mobo for some time maybe wait a few weeks and spend some extra cash for a mobo with m.2 and usb 3.1.
I can't think of the last time I heard or described intel as Best Bang for Buck. intel is like an antonym for Best Bang for Buck. AMD is normally the Synonym for Best Bang for Buck. You really can't go wrong these days with the FM2+ socket. especially with the Mini-ITX deals that include Bluetooth and Wireless AC. Even the mATX and ATX boards are packed with features and the CPUs/APUs for the socket are really pretty good. You can usually pair an AMD Athlon X4 860K with upwards of a R9 280X and be fine. You can also Overclock the hell out of that chip.
One of the xeon versions of the i7 quadcores would be my choice.
i5 4590, Your preferred h87 mobo with h97 bios patch, no gpu as the gpu in the i5 is more than powerful enough for most games at low to medium. but if need be, grab a 280x or wait for the new 380x.
intel xeon E3-1231-V3 is the cpu that i would recommend for your kind of tasks.
You can pair this cpu with a cheap H97 board, because this cpu is not realy overclockable, so you dont need to spend extra money on a more expensive Z97 board. THe Xeon is a decent chip for the workload you are doing.
And at gaming, its better then anything AMD has to offer currently.
Also not to mention that if we gonne talk about bang for buck, remeber with an FX9590 you will need an decent more expensive mobo, and also a decent more expensive cooler. if you calculate that into price, the Xeon with H97 board will be even cheaper. The Xeon E3-1231-V3 is basicly a 4790 without igpu.
p.s, Topic moved to CPU section!.
+1 Yeah I just got that CPU and its freaking awesome. I used to own a FX 6300 and I was happy but not this happy when I bought the Xeon 1231 V3 gained like 15-30 fps in League of Legends. Had to overclock the cpu of the fx6300 because it was dipping below 60 and i was not pleased. I oced the fx 6300 to 4.6ghz and was slightly happier than the stock speeds.