AMD FX, A10 or Intel i5, if on a tight budget!

[Little*Freak]

Hi, am after opinions on what to get for a mid spec gaming setup.
Games I want it for are things like BF4, Ghosts, CS:GO and probably Black OPs 3, HL3 etc etc.

Have been mostly looking at the i5-4570 and the new AMD Kaveri, am mostly after new CPU, Motherboard, RAM and a new PSU.

With my budget I can stretch to (as an example), AMD A10-7700K, 16 GB 2400MHz Ram, Motherboard and a new PSU.

Max Budget is £370.



Any help would be appreciated

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yello!

Can you tell me what case you have ATM??

[Little*Freak]

Sure CAT, I'd say it's a midi ATX, height is about 16 an a 1/2 inches, length the same and width is just under 8 inches.

It isn't a Branded case, just something that I could afford at the time.

[Willzzz]

What GPU do you have? Can you take advantage of Mantle in BF4?

A 4570 is a very solid choice, however most FPS games don't rely a lot on the CPU so if budget is tight savings can be made.

[4960x]

If you are on a budget which you are, then go with Kaveri and try to invest in a better GPU since the integrated GPU has a hard time playing modern games.

[Little*Freak]

Thanks for your opinions, fellas.

GPU at the moment is a GTX560Ti-448 core, so no Mantle for me yet.

I've read that u can crossfire an R7 250 DDR3 card with the Kaveri or I could just get a better AMD GPU to go with it later on.

Am considering the Kaveri cause of its DDR controller and new architecture.

The i5, cause pretty much every single person I know including those I play online with say just get the Intel, you will not regret it.

I can't stretch to a 4670K.

[4960x]

The 560Ti can handle all those games well but it will have a hard time keeping up with BF4. You are looking at low-med settings with BF4. Go for R7 260X or maybe 270X if you can afford it because it will make a huge difference.

[Willzzz]

If you want to spend your whole budget on the 4 components above, then get the i5.
However I'd probably suggest getting an AMD FX and upgrade your GPU sooner with the money saved.

[Little*Freak]

Thanks 4960x, I would if I could but I can't right now

[Little*Freak]

Thanks Willzzz, have thought about it but thought that with a new GPU I'd really need a PCI Gen 3.0 to make the most of it.

Am not totally sure about that, however.

[kompukare]

Thanks Willzzz, have thought about it but thought that with a new GPU I'd really need a PCI Gen 3.0 to make the most of it.

Am not totally sure about that, however.

No, no, and no again. PCIe 3.0 is only relevant for Crossfire & SLI and even then only for those using 3+ high end GPUs. This does come up all the time so some of the helpful techsites did the work, for instance TPU:



EDIT: just to clarify the x4, x8, x16 means PCI-E slots with x4/x8/x16 lanes from the CPU. Because, SB/IB/Haswell CPUs only have a limited number of lanes. In your case, you only want compare the x16 results between PCI-E generation 1.0,/ 2.0, and 3.0.

[Willzzz]

An extra 1% performance then. Woo!

[Little*Freak]

Thank you Kompukare, this is the first time I've even considered a Crossfired/Sli setup.

Lot of learning to do :/

[Little*Freak]

For now it'll just be the GTX I have, if I can (if the washing machine etc doesn't blow up on me), I may get a different card next month.

[Willzzz]

He wasn't suggesting you should go SLI, he was saying that PCIe3 only matters if you have high end SLI/CFX.

Most people are better off with a single card.

[kompukare]

He wasn't suggesting you should go SLI, he was saying that PCIe3 only matters if you have high end SLI/CFX.

Indeed. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

As for the OP's choices, here are some quick picks from that pcpartpicker site:
AMD FX6300
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2NhV5
Total £286

Intel i5-4430
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2Ni1Z
Total: £322

AMD A10-7850K
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2NiGx
Total: £333

The AMD FX could use a 3rd part cooler, and too sure about the motherboard.


Oh, and are you sure you need 16GB of RAM? Unless you have some program which would actually use that, 8GB is plenty. And except with the for the A10 where dual channel is important, you should be fine with 1x8GB leaving plenty of slots free to upgrade in the future.