Looking at AMD quad cpus suggestions?

[scaryjim]

You want an FX6300. Outside of Skyrim it matches or beats the i3 3220 - it's closest price-comparable Intel opposition - in gaming and hammers it in anything uses more than 2 threads. The only scenario in which an i3 would be faster is if you perform tasks that take along time and make heavy use of single threaded code. Those scenarios are *very* rare nowadays (and besides, the FX6300 multitasks better so if you're doing that kind of task you can just play some games whilst it completes!).

Read the hardware canucks FX6300 review that CAT links to in this thread: http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...ew-thread.html

They spell it out pretty clearly - the FX6300 is almost certainly the best processor you can buy at its price point. I see no reason why you'd look at anything else, tbh.

[scaryjim]

Must point out though i need to have a mATX board due to case restrictions

http://www.ebuyer.com/398388-asrock-...rd-880gm-le-fx

£47. Job done (the FX6300 is only a 95W TDP so that board should be fine at stock, and being an 880G chipset it should be able to handle some mild overclocking)

Alternatively (if you prefer scan): http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-8...vi-d-hdmi-matx

EDIT: There are a number of 760G based motherboards on AM3+ as well - most look pretty cheap but there's a few that seem to have decent VRMs and 4 RAM slots - may well be worth a look.

[Biscuit]

fm2?? oh my days im lost lol

AM3+ is the enthusaist platform that dont have a combined GPU so it would be:
970/990 and some 870/880/890 motherboards[mATX link] [non mATX 8 series link]

along with

FX8*** FX6*** and FX4*** processors

FM2 is the more midrange platform that uses an 'APU' (combined graphics and CPU) so you would need:

A55, A75 and A85X motherboards

along with

A4, A6, A8 and A10 series CPUs

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The FX6300 is a good allrounder and Biscuit is right,there are no 900 series AMD mATX motherboards. Its a shame the AMD 880G mATX AM3+ motherboards with 4 RAM slots are so pricey. However,the 880G based motherboards do have SATA3.0 and usually USB3.0 too.

The 880G uses essentially the same southbridge as the 900 series motherboards though.

There are cheaper 760G and 780G based AM3+ motherboards:

http://www.ebuyer.com/395310-gigabyt...-ga-78lmt-usb3

http://www.ebuyer.com/269072-asus-m5...-m5a78l-m-usb3

However,these lack SATA3.0 and I am not sure if the 700 series chipsets are any good for the newer AMD CPUs??