Got an issue with my current rig and it looks like I'm going to have to replace my AM3 motherboard. But, that led me to wonder whether this'd be a good time to arrange a nice little pre-Christmas upgrade. So my options are
a. Buy an (Asus) AM3+ board and continue to use my PhenomII 1090T;
b. Buy that AM3+ board and slap in an FX8350;
c. Leave AMD and get a Z87 board (Asus Z87-A) and an i5-4670k;
d. The "lottery winner" option - Z87 board and an i7-4770k.
At the moment my preferred option is probably (c) since the wisdom seems to be that it'll oc nicely (Noctua NH-D14 air cooling) and TDP(/power consumption?) is lower than either AMD option. (d) would be nice to have, but the strain on my credit card would be appreciable!On the other hand, the benchmarks I've seen for gaming seem to show not a huge difference between a stock 4670 and 4770.
Main use of the PC is gaming, (BF4 pre-order here, CoD:Ghosts on it's way), but I also do a bit of MP3 ripping - for which the PhenomII is VERY effective. Not planning to use any IGP, (got a 7970 I'm happy with), so that's not an issue.
Any opinions? Feel free to tell me that my choice of Asus is poor too - I really don't like their new DIMM fixing arrangement.


LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
On the other hand, the benchmarks I've seen for gaming seem to show not a huge difference between a stock 4670 and 4770.
Reply With Quote
AAA games are only going to get more threaded in the future (console hardware is going to force developers to work out how to efficiently thread their games), so an 8350 should be a good safe buy. Plus, you get both an unlocked multiplier and safe FSB tweaking with AM3+, giving you a lot more options for overclocking - it's a much more old-school experience than Intel provides 
And you're right about the prices - IF an 8350 can just about cut it with an i7 then that sounds pretty good value, because that FX is more than £100 cheaper. Additional plus for me is that the Noctua's currently using the AM3 fittings (for my PhenomII) so an FX8350 wouldn't need new fittings the way that moving to Intel would. And I'm guessing that I'm more likely to have a trouble free swap going from SB890 to 990FX than SB890 to Z87 - really don't want to have to rebuild Windows if I can avoid it.






