Talk me out of building a budget AMD gaming rig?

It's not gonna take 7-10 years for DX12 and Vulkan to proliferate that much. Those API's will expand much faster than DX10 and 11 did because they are actually a significant upgrade in performance and programmability.

This is pure supposition. And it's what's been said about previous generations of DirectX upgrades as well.

It'll make a bigger impact on lower-end hardware since it'll remove CPU bottlenecks and make the GPU the bottleneck more often. So it's not as irrelevant as you try to make it seem.

It'll remove them if it is used.

A) Unless you're a gaming programmer who's already dipping their toes into DX12, you likely don't know how easy (or stable) this feature currently is to implement.

B) Implementation of this feature may not make any sense in certain areas of gaming. Remember, we're not just talking the latest and greatest RTS/FPS/etc games here.

Anyway FX chips are still good for gaming, though of course the Intel chips have the strong integer cores which DX11 and anything before it prefers since those API's were multi-threaded, not truly multi-core.

Strong integer cores?

Recommending a super-gimped Pentium for a gaming box is a fucking joke unless the only game you're gonna play is World of Tanks and Starcraft 2.

The person DID say "light" gaming. So we're going to assume that they're probably NOT going to be rocking 4K or Eyefinity or taking all the sliders and setting them to "OMGWTFBBQ?"

They're econoboxes. Moderate resolutions at moderate quality levels.
 
Did I say that he should use an AMD processor?

Did I say he shouldn't? No. I talked strictly about multicore. YOU are the one who has now injected the idiotic AMD vs Intel crap into it.

No. I said that suggesting that he use a dual core is silly in this day and age. Save up a few more pennies and get at least a quad core.

And I said, for light gaming, a decently clocked dual-core was fine. The budget is already set. Telling them "wait and save" is disingenuous, when they can build something that meets their needs now.
 
This is pure supposition. And it's what's been said about previous generations of DirectX upgrades as well.

Nonsense. Devs have been asking for low-level API's for PC for AGES now. It's not some random initiative. That's the difference between these new API's and previous ones. DX12 isn't a minor update over the previous ones, and devs will be insanely daft to skip over it.

It'll remove them if it is used.

A) Unless you're a gaming programmer who's already dipping their toes into DX12, you likely don't know how easy (or stable) this feature currently is to implement.

B) Implementation of this feature may not make any sense in certain areas of gaming. Remember, we're not just talking the latest and greatest RTS/FPS/etc games here.

I don't get why you're trying to downplay these API's so hard. There aren't really any negatives to using these API's. For instance, much higher minimum framerates than DX11/OGL. The capability to push graphical effects and IQ higher due to lack of CPU bloat. Much better frametimes. Better multi-GPU rendering techniques. Actual multi-core rendering rather than just multi-thread. Multi-adapter GPU rendering which can leverage unutilized iGPU's. I could go on. It's not a gimmick.

Strong integer cores?

Yes. Problem?
 
Nonsense. Devs have been asking for low-level API's for PC for AGES now. It's not some random initiative. That's the difference between these new API's and previous ones. DX12 isn't a minor update over the previous ones, and devs will be insanely daft to skip over it.

We'll see. As it is right now, it appears to simply be "more of same".


I don't get why you're trying to downplay these API's so hard. There aren't really any negatives to using these API's. For instance, much higher minimum framerates than DX11/OGL. The capability to push graphical effects and IQ higher due to lack of CPU bloat. Much better frametimes. Better multi-GPU rendering techniques. Actual multi-core rendering rather than just multi-thread. Multi-adapter GPU rendering which can leverage unutilized iGPU's. I could go on. It's not a gimmick.

I'm not downplaying them. I'm saying that aren't universally applicable. And I seriously doubt that adoption will happen as quickly as you believe. As such, it makes little sense to tell someone with a set budget that they should wait and save more just to take advantage of a feature THAT CURRENTLY ISN'T USED *ANYWHERE* just because it might start trickling into games in a few years...

Remember, there's ALWAYS "something better" "just around the corner". If you keep waiting for The Next Best Thing, you wind up in a perpetual cycle of inaction where you never buy ANYTHING.


Yes. Problem?

Was looking for clarification on why this was brought up.
 
For those games either AMD or intel dual core will be fine. Heck even the Pentium G(whatever number that is unlocked) and a 1150 motherboard will do well, with the option to upgrade to an i5/7 later on.

But the AMD rig will run those games very well, and I have a 8320 setup at 4.3ghz that plays CSGO beautifully. compared to my Xeon [email protected], same/similar graphics(280x vs 7970) I cannot tell a difference other than my AMD rig boots way faster(due to mobo bios's/chipsets).
 
Don't buy AMD if you have a brain. Simple as that.
It's like buying a Blackberry or a Nokia.
 
I think at this price point AMD is your best bet. Won't be worth the money to go Intel.
 

well it is unfortunate but some people have it in their heads that it matters. Fact is criteria matters most and when most give advice they give no criteria.

Fact: </= 60fps/any resolution most any CPU can meet this criteria

Fact: >90fps/Multi monitor/Multi GPU any resolution Intel is the more suitable choice.

Now for my opinion: No one should be buying a 2 core anything. Sorry it is ill-advised, I don't care how high it clocks. Seriously if anything, just based on the fact that most don't run JUST the game. There is a lot going on while playing even the games now want at least 4 cores.

I recommend as follows:

AMD: 8 core is the primary choice with 6 core being the minimum. (APUs don't fall in this logic as their intent is different)

Intel: Any 4 core and up. I generally lean more to advising i7 over all else.

Resolution doesn't really affect CPU performance Except when running eyefinity/wide screen/multiscreen. More landscape means more work for the CPU even when talking sub/equal to 60fps gaming. That is why Intel gets the nod there rather than AMD.

I own a FX 8350 so by way of a lot of experience I can say it will do great for 60 fps or less single monitor game play. But I am not so blind that I cant see its limitations and would give bad advice in an attempt to hide them. Being honest what I stated is Fact.

Again it is unfortunate so many cant be as honest.
 
you will pay ~$139 for the cpu+mobo on an i3, its hard to beat that price for pure gaming, and the fx overclocked will not perform better than the i3 in 9/10 games.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=1197
Although the 8 core is more powerful in other respects, gaming won't utilize that power. What gaming will utilize is the vastly superior single thread performance of the i3.
It will be a bad purchase decision if you get the 8 core unless you can get it for the same or cheaper price, but it will be slower than the i3 at stock speeds in fps terms.

Yeah, plus if you're doing light gaming you could even rock a G3250. The only scenarios I would justify an AMD processor are: big sale/combo or video editing + BF4 gaming.

Sadly, Intel's pricing and specs leave only a small window for a rational customer to choose the competition.
 
But,for integrated GPU only, the 7870K is a great CPU!

They are great and why I said they serve a different purpose and didn't really fit my in the discussion as I was making it. AMD APUs are very promising and quite the powerhouses in a small total package.
 
No AMD CPU will come close to the new skylake i3s in any kind of FPS battle even in the most CPU intensive games.
Why would you buy it then, these new i3s are cheap.
 
No AMD CPU will come close to the new skylake i3s in any kind of FPS battle even in the most CPU intensive games.
Why would you buy it then, these new i3s are cheap.

because it has 2 cores. It may suffice when you play some games but honestly 4 cores is the minimum for great gameplay. It is like recommending a 13 inch monitor, sure you can play your games on it but the experience is terrible.
 
because it has 2 cores. It may suffice when you play some games but honestly 4 cores is the minimum for great gameplay. It is like recommending a 13 inch monitor, sure you can play your games on it but the experience is terrible.

Although I know you are correct, the user you quoted thinks that dual cores are the end all, be all. Nothing that has been said to him has ever convinced him otherwise. The only time dual cores are good to me are in office computers, laptops or tablets.
 
i simply can't stomach buying today the 990FX platform, five and half years after i bought functionally identical 890FX platform.
i loved my 1090T, and the Gigabyte 890FX UD5 board i built it on, but time has moved on!

FM2+ is a perfectly excellent modern platform, only two things i'd love to see:
newer motherboards with m.2 4x 3.0 slots making use of the 24 PCIe lanes from kaveri CPU's
cpu's worthy of a higher average selling price. the asus crossblade ranger is almost comical priced vis-a-vis the CPU you can put in it.

if the 4.0GHz x4-880k arrives soon and can be had for approx £60 it would make a well balanced gaming machine with a £150 GPU for fullHD AAA gaming.
 
Just waiting for Zen to see how it compares to the Intel offering in tasks that I use. I wouldn't recommend a 990FX system if buying new parts. It is still fine for everything that you can throw at it. Just that the little extras are missing like USB C yadda, yadda, yadda.
 
because it has 2 cores. It may suffice when you play some games but honestly 4 cores is the minimum for great gameplay. It is like recommending a 13 inch monitor, sure you can play your games on it but the experience is terrible.

It has four threads which is the exact same thing as a four core i5 which also has exact same threads.

If you are on a budget and you think 8 really weak cores are better than 2 really strong cores + HT, you are wrong.

Seriously how can you even argue against a skylake i3 vs fx even at 5ghz, they even released a 3.9 Ghz clocked one. Haswell they were close but now they are not even in the same leauge in FPS/Frame times.
 
It has four threads which is the exact same thing as a four core i5 which also has exact same threads.

If you are on a budget and you think 8 really weak cores are better than 2 really strong cores + HT, you are wrong.

Seriously how can you even argue against a skylake i3 vs fx even at 5ghz, they even released a 3.9 Ghz clocked one. Haswell they were close but now they are not even in the same leauge in FPS/Frame times.

Links to backup your claims would be good
 
It has four threads which is the exact same thing as a four core i5 which also has exact same threads.

If you are on a budget and you think 8 really weak cores are better than 2 really strong cores + HT, you are wrong.

Seriously how can you even argue against a skylake i3 vs fx even at 5ghz, they even released a 3.9 Ghz clocked one. Haswell they were close but now they are not even in the same leauge in FPS/Frame times.

Sorry but you are wrong. 2 cores with HT are not equal to, ever, 4 cores. Most games in DX11 use one core/thread heavily then scale down from there. So basically one core makes HT worthless as it wont run well that way. 4 core with HT can see some benefit because they have 3 full cores after the first with which HT can be used efficiently enough.

i3s are never a good idea when building a PC for gaming, ever. They cant multi-task worth a crap. Try alt-tabbing while playing a game.

Besides Criteria is the end argument and you have none. At 60fps that i3 will prove to be nothing more than a burden outside the scope of gaming even if it can best the FX in a few benchmarks.
 
2 cores with HT are not equal to, ever, 4 cores.

I say this is not necessarily true. It also depends on what is in the cores. For example: take a quad CPU system from 2000. And compare it to a modern i3. Then tell me that 2 cores + HT are not better than the 15 year old system that had 4 cores.
 
I say this is not necessarily true. It also depends on what is in the cores. For example: take a quad CPU system from 2000. And compare it to a modern i3. Then tell me that 2 cores + HT are not better than the 15 year old system that had 4 cores.

That would be a terrible argument and no real basis here. Even if someone was rocking an i5 SB I would still advise against the latest and greatest i3. Two cores no matter how strong have Multitasking issues that no amount of speed and HT can fix.
 
I understand i3s are crap when you alt tab, but if it is giving more or even same FPS for the same price, why would you buy a power hungry CPU that you need to pair with a good quality mobo which costs $. You can buy the cheapest possible mobo + lowest SKU of 6th gen i3 and you can pretty much 60 fps anything.
Why are we even talking about multi tasking, i know a lot of people just play games and maybe have chrome in the background, a lot of gamers don't use their PC for anything else.
FX line was a big failure, how it is still recommended baffles me.
If you are on a budget, you don't complain about 2 cores if it plays games well, if you can spend a little more just get the lowest i5 SKU and that will be good enough for most needs.


And the system recognizes 2cores+HT exactly the same as 4 cores. IT SEES 4 CPUS in both cases. That's what i meant by no difference. So no game has ever been made that will refuse to run on an i3 (games that refuse to work on dual core CPUs).
 
I understand i3s are crap when you alt tab, but if it is giving more or even same FPS for the same price, why would you buy a power hungry CPU that you need to pair with a good quality mobo which costs $. You can buy the cheapest possible mobo + lowest SKU of 6th gen i3 and you can pretty much 60 fps anything.
Why are we even talking about multi tasking, i know a lot of people just play games and maybe have chrome in the background, a lot of gamers don't use their PC for anything else.
FX line was a big failure, how it is still recommended baffles me.
If you are on a budget, you don't complain about 2 cores if it plays games well, if you can spend a little more just get the lowest i5 SKU and that will be good enough for most needs.


And the system recognizes 2cores+HT exactly the same as 4 cores. IT SEES 4 CPUS in both cases. That's what i meant by no difference. So no game has ever been made that will refuse to run on an i3 (games that refuse to work on dual core CPUs).

Actually it doesn't recognize it as a 4 core it recognizes as 2c/4t, 4 threads do not equate 4 cores.

And you have yet to prove against the criteria I gave. And you keep acting as if Multi-tasking is a small issue when in fact it is widely used now by almost all. i3s are terrible for any desktop build and should never be recommended, period.
 
I understand i3s are crap when you alt tab, but if it is giving more or even same FPS for the same price, why would you buy a power hungry CPU that you need to pair with a good quality mobo which costs $. You can buy the cheapest possible mobo + lowest SKU of 6th gen i3 and you can pretty much 60 fps anything.
Why are we even talking about multi tasking, i know a lot of people just play games and maybe have chrome in the background, a lot of gamers don't use their PC for anything else.
FX line was a big failure, how it is still recommended baffles me.
If you are on a budget, you don't complain about 2 cores if it plays games well, if you can spend a little more just get the lowest i5 SKU and that will be good enough for most needs.


And the system recognizes 2cores+HT exactly the same as 4 cores. IT SEES 4 CPUS in both cases. That's what i meant by no difference. So no game has ever been made that will refuse to run on an i3 (games that refuse to work on dual core CPUs).

i3 is starting to lag behind FX 6300/8300 by 30% or more in FPS in newer games that are CPU bounded/intensive and are highly multi-threaded.

Example - Witcher 3 in Novigrad City.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rutk9ErhKG4#t=3m30s

GTA V is another where you'd see 5-8 threads.
 
I understand i3s are crap when you alt tab, but if it is giving more or even same FPS for the same price, why would you buy a power hungry CPU that you need to pair with a good quality mobo which costs $. You can buy the cheapest possible mobo + lowest SKU of 6th gen i3 and you can pretty much 60 fps anything.
Why are we even talking about multi tasking, i know a lot of people just play games and maybe have chrome in the background, a lot of gamers don't use their PC for anything else.
FX line was a big failure, how it is still recommended baffles me.
If you are on a budget, you don't complain about 2 cores if it plays games well, if you can spend a little more just get the lowest i5 SKU and that will be good enough for most needs.


And the system recognizes 2cores+HT exactly the same as 4 cores. IT SEES 4 CPUS in both cases. That's what i meant by no difference. So no game has ever been made that will refuse to run on an i3 (games that refuse to work on dual core CPUs).

Well when I game I like to have a bunch of tabs (~30)in Google Chrome open so that I can read strats, watch multiple videos, ask the fellas over here what do I need to do to make the game run better, read random stream chat when farming in games like Diablo 3, play music / music videos. Heck my Skype is always popping up messages, and the guys on Steam are messaging me with requests to play with them. Also I stream on Steam to the masses for my buddies that don't own the game and record video to archive for later.

I can't imagine a gamer that cuts on a game and only plays it like he is in a vacuum. While I was playing Van Helsing Final Cut today, Euro Truck Simulator started an update in the background on Steam. Not one frame was dropped when this happened.

In short, dual cores are for office word processing. Even there I really question their use if the person using it has 3 monitors to multitask, 30+ tabs open in a browser, a Facebook game and other doodads running.
 
Was given £800 ($1200) to build a gaming rig for a customer last week. I've always built AMD rigs for that but as I haven't had to build a gaming rig from scratch for three years AMD didn't get a look in this time.

We went i5/Z170/DDR4 2666/Nvidia build this time.

I specced up a AMD FX8350 build but it only came in £30 cheaper. Best go with the Intel build with the more modern chipset and ram.
 
I understand your points, you cannot minimize a game and have more than 2 other light apps running with an i3. I was just under the assumption that most people sit and play a game for hours without minimizing it a lot, check facebook / email on their phones specially people who move from consoles to PC gaming.
When i had an i3 i got the cpu for $110 and mobo for $45 (Canadian) - i agree it is not powerful by any means, but when you don't have a lot of money to spend you couldn't find anything new for $155 that will come close to performance. And you can upgrade to a much better CPU on that mobo.
The prices have increased now due to the canadian peso going shit, I don't know how it would compare now it would probably be similar. Would've paid atleast $85-100 more at that time for a system that could overclock with the lowest SKU of 8 core FX and the fps was more or less the same.
 
I understand your points, you cannot minimize a game and have more than 2 other light apps running with an i3. I was just under the assumption that most people sit and play a game for hours without minimizing it a lot, check facebook / email on their phones specially people who move from consoles to PC gaming.
When i had an i3 i got the cpu for $110 and mobo for $45 (Canadian) - i agree it is not powerful by any means, but when you don't have a lot of money to spend you couldn't find anything new for $155 that will come close to performance. And you can upgrade to a much better CPU on that mobo.
The prices have increased now due to the canadian peso going shit, I don't know how it would compare now it would probably be similar. Would've paid atleast $85-100 more at that time for a system that could overclock with the lowest SKU of 8 core FX and the fps was more or less the same.

That just really depend on the game and extra task you will be doing apart from gaming, but for sure you can easily have several chrome tabs opened and still be able to have a great gaming experience, the problem will appear with what kind of pages will you be using with chrome, an i3 its more than capable of that job without issues because browsers tab doesn't really have an impact in the CPU (specially if the person its using Hardware Acceleration), the limiting factor will always be RAM as background task will always have low priority and foreground task (as gaming) will have maximum CPU priority. nothing of this application can really affect the gaming performance as all of those apps (skype, steam, etc) have little to no CPU impact, the high IPC in those tiny i3 help a lot in those situations, and I Know very first hand how i3 are very capable chips as my sister it's exactly using one i3 (i3 4370 + GTX 770 4GB), she isn't the typical people who are pending on how much things have opened, she just alt+tab everything, facebook/twitter/ASK/skype/twitch and a bunch of other pages because she like to stream her Modded Skyrim sessions and i'm really surprised how she its still able to be gaming without any FPS hit.. rarely you can see that chip with four threads 100% maxed out taking sever performance hit, that can only happen with really rare rare games (I can only remember GTA V of the games she play).. but I never, never underestimate any of the newer i3 chips in CPU power. problem are always be RAM as principal bottle-necking issue in multitasking, However I wouldn't also never buy an i3 for me as main machine, as like cageymaru said, not everyone it's just sit gaming, I think with the experience with my FX machines the task where those chips shines it's when you are Heavy CPU encoding and streaming at the same time that you play a CPU hog game like crysis 3.. however with tools like AMDs game DVR and Nvidias shadowplay/shadowplay streaming, the process of encoding and streaming were never so easy with little to none performance Hit, Even windows 10 game DVR tool its amazing for record and stream your game sessions in real time without worry about lack of performance.

With any modern CPU you can even have several Games minimized without a considerably performance hit (with certain exceptions that keep running heavy paused and minimized like Dragon Age Inquisition or Bioshock).
 
That just really depend on the game and extra task you will be doing apart from gaming, but for sure you can easily have several chrome tabs opened and still be able to have a great gaming experience, the problem will appear with what kind of pages will you be using with chrome, an i3 its more than capable of that job without issues because browsers tab doesn't really have an impact in the CPU (specially if the person its using Hardware Acceleration), the limiting factor will always be RAM as background task will always have low priority and foreground task (as gaming) will have maximum CPU priority. nothing of this application can really affect the gaming performance as all of those apps (skype, steam, etc) have little to no CPU impact, the high IPC in those tiny i3 help a lot in those situations, and I Know very first hand how i3 are very capable chips as my sister it's exactly using one i3 (i3 4370 + GTX 770 4GB), she isn't the typical people who are pending on how much things have opened, she just alt+tab everything, facebook/twitter/ASK/skype/twitch and a bunch of other pages because she like to stream her Modded Skyrim sessions and i'm really surprised how she its still able to be gaming without any FPS hit.. rarely you can see that chip with four threads 100% maxed out taking sever performance hit, that can only happen with really rare rare games (I can only remember GTA V of the games she play).. but I never, never underestimate any of the newer i3 chips in CPU power. problem are always be RAM as principal bottle-necking issue in multitasking, However I wouldn't also never buy an i3 for me as main machine, as like cageymaru said, not everyone it's just sit gaming, I think with the experience with my FX machines the task where those chips shines it's when you are Heavy CPU encoding and streaming at the same time that you play a CPU hog game like crysis 3.. however with tools like AMDs game DVR and Nvidias shadowplay/shadowplay streaming, the process of encoding and streaming were never so easy with little to none performance Hit, Even windows 10 game DVR tool its amazing for record and stream your game sessions in real time without worry about lack of performance.

With any modern CPU you can even have several Games minimized without a considerably performance hit (with certain exceptions that keep running heavy paused and minimized like Dragon Age Inquisition or Bioshock).

And don't forget you can set CPU affinity for applications so that Chrome and whatever else was running in the background could be restricted from using resources of one core you could dedicate to running the game. This makes any sort of game minimizing smoother in my experience. If it's an I3 with HT though, remember to group the virtual cores with their true core when assigning affinity.
 
And don't forget you can set CPU affinity for applications so that Chrome and whatever else was running in the background could be restricted from using resources of one core you could dedicate to running the game. This makes any sort of game minimizing smoother in my experience. If it's an I3 with HT though, remember to group the virtual cores with their true core when assigning affinity.

with windows 10 that doesn't it's necessary anymore. I found Win10 actually great at the management of CPU resources regarding True Cores an Virtual Cores. it's actually very good keeping foreground activity running with primary affinity to real cores and background to virtual cores. this works great with this kind of chips.
 
It is hands down the best cheap gaming CPU, but now if you want it to be a workstation too, or if you want more than what you paid for (want to multitask heavily), you will surely diss it.
If you think buying a FX chip today for a budget rig is a sensible decision, you are retarded.
Better get a used i7 920 + mobo from ebay for cheap... that performs similar to the FX and both are ancient technologies.
 
It is hands down the best cheap gaming CPU, but now if you want it to be a workstation too, or if you want more than what you paid for (want to multitask heavily), you will surely diss it.
If you think buying a FX chip today for a budget rig is a sensible decision, you are retarded.
Better get a used i7 920 + mobo from ebay for cheap... that performs similar to the FX and both are ancient technologies.

Intel fan boys quote of the year! lol
 
*NM Nothing to see here*
 
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Intel fan boys quote of the year! lol

There is no such thing as "Intel Fanboy" when there is only one company who makes CPUs that people can actually buy.
A lot of people agree that FX line is as garbage as it can get in terms of a chip, but they are still eagerly waiting for zen so they can upgrade their 2500k/2600k.

It has put AMD in such a bad shape, primarily because of their incompetitive product. Fanboyism can exist when there are 2 companies who compete, it cannot exist when one company has a product that was a massive failure and even the people who always bought their products were forced to switch.

And i have owned 1 AMD CPU and 1 Intel CPU, and knew nothing about how they compare even after I bought the intel one.
I just get bored and read forums/ watch tech videos and they have all pointed to what I am saying.
 
I have parts for you! lol. FX - 9590 that is just not being used... Want? Pay for shipping dude. I am sorry if this isn't even allowed. I am trying to be nice. If it's not allowed, and a user has to post a FS/FT, then post something, I will reply to it officially.
 
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