The AMD FX4130 or 4300? I don't believe there's a dramatic improve in performance, however the 4130 is about 25 dollars cheaper here. Which one should I take? Phenom 965 isn't really an option, since I need watercooling for a bit of performance and the FX 4130 is similarly priced.
FX4300 all the way, Bulldozer was a bit of a flop. I'd always take Piledriver over Bulldozer, dat better single thread performance.
Yeah, you're right; Piledriver is always better than Faildozer.
I'm still a fan of the old Phenom II myself. I just don't think that either of the newer architectures did quite enough to enhance the performance. The old Phenom II X4 965 BE keeps just trading blows with the FX 4300 in benchmarks, and the differences are hardly anything to write home about. So, for less money and the ability to overclock it to like, 4.5 GHz when the FX is already at 4 GHZ? I think I'll take my chances going back in time, and let the motherboard handle the forward compatability with the memory speeds.