AMD cpu for midrange gaming PC

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Stoly

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Since I'm low on cash and need to upgrade I'm considering going AMD.

What would be a good CPU to pair with a 650Ti boost?

Preferably less than 120 bucks
 
Not knowing if or what board you have . If you're looking for a good cheap solution the X4 965 is still available for under $100
 
It really does depend on what cpu and motherboard you have now and what it is capable of running. The x4 965 mentioned about would work well if your board supports it. But as it stands now we don't know what sort of power supply or motherboard you're dealing with right now to make a better educated suggestion. Also important to know is if you plan on overclocking at all.
 
No need for a fancy mobo, overclocking is secondary, no need for fancy features like usb 3.0 or dual x16 slots

Got a 600w PSU
 
So you're getting both? What's the spending limit say for Mobo/ ram/ cpu?
 
Johan45 said:
Not knowing if or what board you have . If you're looking for a good cheap solution the X4 965 is still available for under $100
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This! Best gaming chip on the market dollar for dollar. They're going for like $90 shipped right now.
 
Yeah, the FX-6300 is one of the best-valued gaming chips I've seen in quite some time (besides the PII 965BE). The problem with the 965BE is that, well, it's older and won't OC as well as the FX-6300 can. I see the FX-6300 going for $110~120 most of the time in various places.
 
I really like the FX6300 too. you would be fine with an AMD 965/955 but clock them to 3.6ghz+ for best results.
 
Both the 965 and the FX-6300 are very good value. I would go for the FX-6300 because is overclocks like a beast.
 
I concur that the FX-6300 or 6350 would be best for that price range. If you can dedicate the whole price to the chip, I'd encourage to look for a used 83xx series. Motherboard wise, I suggest any of the Asus boards first - they will likely have one for your needs.
 
AMD: Any x6 or 6-core FX or phenom II x4 would be ok. Even the under-3ghz x4 models should oc to at least that high on the cheapest board unless the board has absolutely no oc'ing options at all. The only games a 3-ish ghz x4 might suffer somewhat is in certain games that only use two cores. For the most part, your video card is what matters.

If the main concern is games + cheap, I would also consider an Intel (Sandy/Ivy) Pentium or even Celeron. Look at the game benches on those things. They're surprisingly good for being low-end chips. They fall behind in certain other areas though. Also, an Intel board can be updated to a much faster cpu in the future if necessary, and it also uses less watts than AMD. Saving power is usually a small thing unless overclocking hard or overclocking 8 cores, but it's still something.

An x4 Phenom II is better than any 2-core Intel in various ways, but for just games the non-hyperthreaded Intels are surprisingly solid and might be worth a look. Just something to consider. A 6300 is certainly better.
 
6600k since no 1 mentioned it. But yeah those 965 still in stock, less price + sum l3 cache so yeah. 6600k Quad Core also though higher stock clocks and integrated 8570D gpu and only 100 watts instead of 125.
 
960T, 6300 FX, or 8120 FX. I have had all 3 and they were all boss. I am currently running the 6300 FX.
 
newster said:
960T, 6300 FX, or 8120 FX. I have had all 3 and they were all boss. I am currently running the 6300 FX.
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Off topic, but would you recommend a piledriver 6-core over a phenom 6-core? Overclocking taken into consideration.

The reason I ask is because I game on my phenom 1100t OC'd to 4.0ghz; would an FX6300 at a considerable OC perform better in today's games?
 
FX-6300 can OC to like 4.8GHz on air with ease. I don't even think you need to bump up the voltage too much to reach that, either.
 
NaroonGTX said:
FX-6300 can OC to like 4.8GHz on air with ease. I don't even think you need to bump up the voltage too much to reach that, either.
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With the piledriver IPC, how would that compare with my 4.0ghz phenom 6?
 
Piledriver I would say, depending on the task, is either on par with PII or exceeds it a bit. I'm into this PS2 emulator called PCSX2, and it can give you a good idea of how your CPU will perform overall since it's a *very* CPU-intensive application. In fact, it's more CPU-intensive than just about any modern-day PC game. I'll link you to the official benchmark which will show you a lot of different processors -- on the list are both the FX-6300 and the Thuban hexacore Phenom II's.

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-CPU-Benchmark-designed-for-PCSX2-based-on-FFX-2
 
The impression I got initially was that stoly wants something chep. If he goes with the PII 965 just about any MOBO will do. If he goes with the FX6300 and gets a cheap bord he's going to be disappoited. They're power hungry chips and from what I've seen there aren't any lowend boards that will run them satisfactorily. The boards overheat and typically throttle the CPU. Even now the Giga UD3was a decent/low cost board but they screwed that up with the rev3. So the minimum you'll be spending on a board is around $150 bucks to handle the FX6300. If you didn't already have the Nvidia card I would have suggested and APU on an FM2 board. Good solid cheap gaming rigs.
 
NaroonGTX said:
Piledriver I would say, depending on the task, is either on par with PII or exceeds it a bit. I'm into this PS2 emulator called PCSX2, and it can give you a good idea of how your CPU will perform overall since it's a *very* CPU-intensive application. In fact, it's more CPU-intensive than just about any modern-day PC game. I'll link you to the official benchmark which will show you a lot of different processors -- on the list are both the FX-6300 and the Thuban hexacore Phenom II's.

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-CPU-Benchmark-designed-for-PCSX2-based-on-FFX-2
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Judging by the scores, that application has almost NO multithreading capability. Interesting to see a easily OC'd 6300 just eek out a heavily OC'd 1100t. That's in a single-threaded workload. I wonder how a multithreaded workload would fare...
 
I just picked up an FX6300 with motherboard from microcenter last night for $135 after tax. My FX chips never benchmarked very well, but i never had a problem with any game -- in fact the game i play the most (world of warcrack) runs a lot better on the FX chips then the older AM3 stuff.
 
KazeoHin said:
Judging by the scores, that application has almost NO multithreading capability. Interesting to see a easily OC'd 6300 just eek out a heavily OC'd 1100t. That's in a single-threaded workload. I wonder how a multithreaded workload would fare...
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PCSX2 itself can use up to three cores max, however -- that benchmark uses only two cores and it uses them in Software mode as well, meaning that the CPU does a vast majority of the work instead of the GPU helping.

In regards to highly-threaded workloads, you wouldn't see a crazy-huge difference between the Thuban x6 and the FX-6300.
 
Would 4 vs 6 cores make a difference in gaming? Should I consider a FX 4300 instead?
 
Stoly said:
Would 4 vs 6 cores make a difference in gaming? Should I consider a FX 4300 instead?
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1) Rarely.
2) I think most people would say No. I forget why at the moment. I think mainly because it's not cheap enough to bother with vs. the 6300. If that's the main reason though, then it might be a good deal used.

Look at benchmarks for 4 vs 6 cores AMD. There's usually not a whole lot of difference other than the mhz difference, (and x4 x6 mhz is stronger than FX mhz). Though some games more cores helps, and the argument is more future games will support more cores. ...But at the end of the day, even an x4 Phenom II still plays games fine for typical setups (single card, 1080p).
 
Stoly said:
Would 4 vs 6 cores make a difference in gaming? Should I consider a FX 4300 instead?
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I wouldnt consider the FX4300 unless its vastly cheaper then the FX6300 (by like $40+) majority of games dont use more then four cores, but that trend is starting to change
 
OGOC said:
1) Rarely.
2) I think most people would say No. I forget why at the moment. I think mainly because it's not cheap enough to bother with vs. the 6300. If that's the main reason though, then it might be a good deal used.

Look at benchmarks for 4 vs 6 cores AMD. There's usually not a whole lot of difference other than the mhz difference, (and x4 x6 mhz is stronger than FX mhz). Though some games more cores helps, and the argument is more future games will support more cores. ...But at the end of the day, even an x4 Phenom II still plays games fine for typical setups (single card, 1080p).
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An X4 is not sharing resources though, plus has better IPC if both are clocked at same mhz
 
I'd look at most of this like this: if I want a cheap but solid gaming and all-around nice PC, basically anything from AMD from the past four years will work. Phenom II x4, x6, FX 4 or 6. But I can get an x4 or even a lower-end x6 used (maybe even new for an x4) for around $80. Or even cheaper for a used x4. And it will work well for pretty much everything, though I might wish I had a Sandy or Ivy for a few games that only use two cores.

I would also consider the Sandy/Ivy Pentiums since some of them put up good numbers in games and are priced well and give a path to i5. They are only 2 cores though, and lack certain features of the better intels, so in things aside from gaming I'd likely be wishing I had a 4-core AMD instead. They also MIGHT be a concern for future gaming. But by that time, I could probably pop a used i5 in there for a decent price. ...that would still be more money overall though.

Lots of positives and negatives both ways on all this stuff.

A used x4 Phenom II would do everything fine, would be doing it with 4 physical cores, and a used one is around $75 or even less. Even new ones aren't much more lately sometimes. And even the lower-end ones should oc on a basic board to about 3.2 to 3.5ghz, but even 3ghz is fine for gaming on a mid card at 1080p.

So then questions would be things like, "Do I want to pay another $50 to have two more cores?" The most logical answer for this situation would be "no." If you can get something like a Microcenter deal where it's $125 for a 6300 with board, that's different. Hard to pass up a deal like that.

You gave a limit of $125 or so for the CPU, but with an x4 or used lower-end x6, (or Pentium, or Microcenter 6300 deal), you could be at $125 for both cpu and basic board. Could also get an i3 for around $80 too used on a good day, but for gaming they may not be worth it over a used Pentium, or perhaps over an x4. I'd have a hard time buying an i3 if it's over $100.

Like Johan45 said, one thing about cheap boards is an x4 will (usually) require less power than an x6, and cheap boards are usually not good with having excess power, so that could be another reason to go x4 over x6.

Bottom line to me would be even an x4 Phenom II would be rather good overall at everything, and a Pentium is pretty good at games and would give me a path to i5, so I'd need a decent reason to pay much more than what I can get those for. If you do have a Microcenter nearby and can get a 6300 + board for $125, then I'd likely just get that.

Has the OP said what he's upgrading from?
 
A core2duo E4500 with 4gb DDR2, 1tb HDD, GTX650Ti Boost

I was considering getting a core2quad but I don't think its worth it.
 
Stoly said:
I was considering getting a core2quad but I don't think its worth it.
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I was thinking about mentioning one of those the next time I posted. If your motherboard can handle a quad, that might be an easy way to go. Especially if it can overclock it a bit. They're basically on par with x4 Phenom II, with the quad being a little better mhz vs mhz.
 
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