Choosing between 2 CPUs?

[Lawford]

Hello, I'm going to be buying a computer tomorrow and am on the verge of putting it into my basket, all I need now is my CPU to be checked out and to see if it's any good, if you could give me some advice and what you think, It would be appreciated!

LN47458
AMD FX 6300 Black, Vishera, 3.5GHz Hex Core, 14MB Cache
This is the cheaper one out of the two, but am not sure on getting this due to there being a review saying it
can't handle games such as Arma 3 too well.

The other CPU which is £15 more is
LN50770
AMD FX 6350 Black, Vishera, 3.9GHz Hex Core, 14MB Cache
This has very good reviews but is seen to have a terrible fan, if anyone knows some info on this or if someone has either of these, please let me know what you think!

[Ttaskmaster]

AMD FX 6350 Black, Vishera, 3.9GHz Hex Core, 14MB Cache
This has very good reviews but is seen to have a terrible fan, if anyone knows some info on this or if someone has either of these, please let me know what you think!

I can't really advise you that much, but I do have this same CPU myself...

1/. Ditch the stock fan. Almost NO-ONE uses them these days, especially if you're overclocking. Get a decent heatsink and fan set, or an All-In-One watercooler if your case can handle it. If you're serious about overclocking, you'll probably want a custom water loop.
I recommend Noctua heatsinks, myself. I have nine of their case fans in my rig, as well as having used the NH-D14, NH-D15 and NH-L12 in previous builds and they are well worth the money.
In my personal rig I still use a Corsair H100, because it was cheap at the time and I love the pretty lights.

2/. My CPU has a "mild" overclock to 4.5GHz and it handles whatever I throw at it with aplomb. I believe the world record for a stable overclock on this CPU is 6.3GHz, which is pretty insane and likely using LN2, but still gives you an idea of what this little puppy can do.


Hopefully there will be people along who can better advise you about whether AM3+ is a good CPU socket to buy into nowadays, or what other chips (probably Intel) will give you better performance for the sort of money you're spending. They will know more than me, I expect!!

[mikeo01]

I may as well comment on this as I play ARMA 3 (well not as much as I used to ). Simply put an AMD chip won't cut it. The ARMA engine still relies heavily on a single thread so you'll find performance will be awful either way.

At the time I owned an R9 280X and the bottleneck was my CPU. I had been running a 4.0Ghz overclocked Phenom II X6 . And also my Athlon 760K at 4.5Ghz.

Needless to say they both couldn't handle the game logic when more than half a dozen AI were introduced.


Unfortunately you'd probably get better performance with a cheap overclocked Pentium than you would with AMDs offerings for this game specifically.


The FX-6300 is a great chip and to be honest will handle the majority of games out there no problem, especially once overclocked.

The platform is old now and I doubt they will be releasing any more chips on it; so you'd be stuck with the FX-8xxx at most if you do upgrade in future.

FM2+ is the way forward, but you'll be limited to FX-4300 performance then.


A year or two back I would of recommended an AMD chip but to be honest I do believe at this stage it wouldn't be wise to invest in the AM3+ any more. Personally I'd say scrap the AMD choice and get a decent Z87 board and an I5. The cost of a cooler and a decent board to overclock the chip outweighs its performance benefit when that money could of be invested in an I5.


My personal opinion anyway

[Bonebreaker777]

If i5, I recently found that you can buy one from CeX under the price of eBay, or pretty much the same price as a FX-6xxx would come about.

If you combine it with a reasonably equipped MoBo and enough memory, you can get a very good machine for cheap (i5 with 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD for £275).

On the other hand if new-new-new is the main concern, the FX-6300 will do beautifully.

[MrNeil]

I use a FX-6300 as do both my boy's ! We all have Arma 2 and 3 and really i don't have any concerns Card wise i have a 7950 ,oldest has a 270X and the youngest a 270 ..If you tweak you settings a little then you will be fine ..I mostly play the Role play servers and find the only real problem is getting owned by my boy's

[Millennium]

I think it depends still on the application. I have a mountain of respect for AMD and their APUs. They redefined PCs and PC expectations and continue to do so.

Though, yes, for certain gaming applications you already need 4500 million hertz of instruction(s) per second. But you can get close on a CPU that doubles as a GPU and that's something very exciting for the 85% of people we assume are casual gamers. They may miss out on a few Titles but they hardly miss out on actual gamers. That's the point, still, isn't it? ..

We place a lot of emphasis on responsiveness. What we are actually saying is that our time is valuable to us. AMD realised this really really early (before Pentium) and this vintage still works in their favour.

When it comes down to it, I'd still rather have a CPU with a competitive GPU component over my i5 2500k which infers *buy a GPU that I can talk to* just to enjoy my ''pc moments''. I'd have rather typed this on my mum's A5 3500k too. It's an incredible chip.

Not that that's going to make sense!

[Lawford]

Thanks for all the replies, I went and bought the computer which included the more expensive CPU out of the two. I did this before checking here and now i'm quite anxious! Either way, hopefully I can play Arma 3 when it arrives, if not I'll be pretty gutted! I'd rather choose the computer that included either of the CPUs anyway because I'm not too confident in mixing parts together, rather would go to a gaming website which sells decent pre-made comps! Thanks for all the help everyone!

[watercooled]

There's nothing wrong with that choice at all, enjoy your new system!

[Lawford]

There's nothing wrong with that choice at all, enjoy your new system!

Thanks!

[Ttaskmaster]

One of us... One of us... One of us... One of us... !!!

Enjoy it, mate!!
And stick around here - It's a very cool place!

[Lawford]

One of us... One of us... One of us... One of us... !!!

Enjoy it, mate!!
And stick around here - It's a very cool place!

Yeah I will do! I'll let you all know on how it goes!
PS: I had to change a PSU part with another, if anyone knows if this one I chose instead of the original part is good, let me know!
Part chosen instead of original: Cooler Master G650M 650W Hybrid Modular 80+ Bronze Power Supply (PSU)
Original: Corsair CXM Builder series 600W Hybrid Modular Power Supply

Thanks!

(I feel like the part which isn't the original is better one due to the +50W, but i'm crap so I dunno)

[watercooled]

Yeah that PSU should be fine, here's a review of the 550W version which should be similar internally: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CoolerMaster/G550M/

The 50W likely isn't a big deal in reality though TBH.

[Lawford]

Yeah that PSU should be fine, here's a review of the 550W version which should be similar internally:

The 50W likely isn't a big deal in reality though TBH.

Thanks!

[MrNeil]

go for a Evga B2 PSU Very good solid psu ..

[pledgerwood]

You won't be pushing the fan too hard on the 6350, so i would get that. Then, when you have the money, upgrade your fan to a better one. The Performance is good for the price.

[jim]

Op bought it in December, so probably not still deciding. Locked.