A8 6600k vs. i5 2500k

D

dabeeed

n00b
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
11
Hi,

As the title indicates, I was wondering which processor would be better - in terms of CPU only.
I have a i5 2500k currently and was given the A8 recently from a friend. Is it worth the upgrade? The A8 has a faster Ghz speed, but as I am finding out, that does not indicate best performance.

Thanks!
 
The i5 should be faster by quite a bit, especially if you overclock.

Also, no reason to make 2 threads.
 
Yep, clockspeed comparisons have been quite meaningless in comparing cpu's in quite some time. It'd be like judging a car engine solely by it's RPM range.
 
In raw CPU power, the difference is that stark. The only time an apu looks competitive is when you use the onboard video of the 2500k, which is terrible.

Clock for clock, the 2500k decimates an apu.
 
The i5 is obviously faster, but decimation? Way to overexaggerate. I mean, if you're gonna render HD videos all day or something, I don't know why you'd settle on an APU. But for light-to-mid level gaming, and typical stuff like web browsing, etc. an APU will get the job done. Games aren't CPU-bound, they haven't been for ages. The only time you'll see an AMD get "smoked" by an Intel in gaming nowadays is if the game is single-threaded or something (or one of those garbage ports where the game isn't optimized at all for PC in the first place).
 
It isn't really an exaggeration. The 6600k is going to get destroyed by a 2500k in terms of cpu power. It depends on your application, though, yes. If you're actually using your cpu, the 2500k will own it.

Bottom line is, if you're not using the IGP, there's no reason to use an APU over an FX chip or Intel. They're just not very good as far as the cpu goes.
 
In terms of the CPU, the A8 and A10 parts have pretty much the same IPC as the FX 4300 does. The pricing of the FX 4300 is priced pretty horribly, like I always see it about $10 less than the FX-6300, which makes no sense. Anyone would be better off going with the FX-6300 over the 4300.

Like I said, the i5 would win in any CPU-dedicated task, but in terms of most non-high-level stuff, the difference in actual performance isn't worth talking about.
 
Also, like I said, if you're not using the onboard graphics, the apu is a poor choice. It really depends on if they plan on using onboard graphics or not. If you are, it's not a bad buy. If you're not, you can get a 2500k for a little more than the 6600k nowadays. It's a no brainer. The apu's still don't even have L3 cache.
 
There are also people who start off with APU-based rigs and opt to just drop in a discreet card later to get more performance. In which case, the CPU performance is more than adequate for any type of normal gaming they'd throw at it. The only games where the APU would start to choke would be something like Planetside 2, which is known for being pretty CPU-hungry. Other cases would be using multi-monitor setups with more than one GPU, which is where your choice of CPU really starts to matter. Intel would be better suited to such environments.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top