I'm looking to build a gaming PC, Something well enough to play Battlefield 3. Hopefully I can get some feedback and suggestions from you guys and let me know what build is better between my AMD and Intel choices.
AMD
AMD Phenom II x4 965
MSI 990FXA-GD65 V2
Corsair Vengeance 1600mHz PC3-12800
Corsair CX750 Watt
Sapphire Radeon 6870
Intel
Intel i5 3570k Ivy Bridge
As Rock Z77 EXTREME 4
Corsair Vengeance 1600mHz PC3-12800
Corsair CX750 Watt
Sapphire Radeon 6870
Will the intel improve my gaming experience $100 worth?
Going off the 3 game benches that gave, maybe it's worth $100? Albeit WoW isn't exactly taxing on the CPU and the other games, personally I would take the extra hundred and get a 7950 or something along those lines. In terms of gaming GPU > CPU
Also you can get a 7850 for the same price and get better performance just wanted to point that out, if you do decide to go for intel.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202004 and benchmarks http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/540?vs=549
I would let the rest of the people here put there two cents in before making a decsion.
From both of your systems you have listed, the 3570K intel build will destroy the 965BE. With that being said you are not really being fair with your builds, comparing a $220 3570K vs a $90 965BE. $130 difference just between the two, now let us even out those prices a bit. Upgrade from the 965BE to the FX6300 is about $40 from the $130, leave us with $90 to upgrade the graphics card. Replace the 6870($150) and add a 7870 ($217) and the intel rig loses, Here is the difference between a 7870 vs 6870: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=540
Dollar for Dollar in a small budget build, the AMD can offer more graphical horsepower and overclocking fun for less. The 3570K is still faster then the FX6300, but the 7870 on the FX6300 system just pulls ahead of the 3570K+6870 system by quite a bit.
I'd go with the intel. There will be performance gain in daily basis and in gaming. Plus, you have more flexbility when upgrading ur rig later on. There is a huge chance of the Phenom bottleneck any faster GPU solution. With the 3570k this will not happen anytime soon. Cheers!