INTEL VS AMD CPU / AMD VS nVidia Graphics Card?

Question

AMD CPU choice. I can't find an Intel that will match up to this for the same price. I don't want an onboard graphics card.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4904562&CatId=7339
130$ limit.

AMD Video Card choice 160$ limit
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2941929&CatId=7387
nVidia
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5247877&csid=_61

Answer 1

You've already picked the best AMD CPU in that price range.



It's weak compared to Intel's Core i5 but those are significantly more expensive, unless there's a Microcenter in your town (their in-store specials on CPUs are insane- you can get a Core i5 3470 for $150)



Even the Core i3 3240 has approximately the same overall performance as the FX-6300, and is better in some titles (most games still aren't coded to utilize more than 2 cores). But in games which actually utilize 3-4 cores the FX-6300 outperforms the Core i3. So stand pat with your CPU choice.



Instead of synthetic benchmark numbers, let's check actual performance in games:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300_6.html#sect0



On the GPU side, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti is the easy pick for $150 or less. It outperforms the Radeon HD 7770 across the board, and gives you the benefit of hardware level PhysX support along with Nvidia's better drivers.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130838



However, this is a situation where stretching your budget by $5 (actually $10 including shipping) is worth it. The 1GB Radeon HD 7850 for $165 is unbeatable.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161426



GPU performance:

http://www.techspot.com/review/583-nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti/page4.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6359/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-650-ti-review/10



You can safely ignore the fanboy ranting- both AMD and Nvidia have their own proprietary features. Games don't care whether you've got Nvidia's CUDA or AMD's Stream, some titles are more optimized for Nvidia cards (like Starcraft 2, Far Cry 2 and BF3) while others are more optimized for AMD cards (like Skyrim, Metro 2033 and STALKER).



Often the competing cards are so close that it comes down to which game titles you play as to whether an Nvidia card or AMD yields higher fps. This is true if you're stuck between a GTX 660 and HD 7870, or between a GTX 660 Ti and HD 7950.



But not in the $150-$190 range. The GTX 650 Ti is clearly better than the Radeon HD 7770, and the Radeon HD 7850 is clearly better than the GTX 650 Ti. It's just a question of how much you're willing to spend.

Answer 2

I recently did a build with the FX-6300 and it is a fine CPU and it beats out the similarly priced i3 3220.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+FX-6300+Six-Core&id=1781

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-3220+%40+3.30GHz&id=1472



The main reason to go with the i3 would be the potential for upgrading to an i5 or i7 that would be superior to the FX-6300. However, for a budget gaming build, the FX-6300 is at a fantastic price/performance point.



As for the GPU, the 650ti all the way.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-650-ti-benchmark-gk106,3318-5.html

It's far superior to the 7770.



I've always used Intel and Nvidia in my own personal PC's but I know better than to fan-boy onto brand preference. In terms of GPU dominance, AMD and Nvidia trade blows. When it comes to CPU's, Intel is no question the leader (but that power comes with a price) and typically similar priced CPU's from either company will have similar performance.



Final recommendation: FX-6300 with 650ti = Nice.

Answer 3

PROVEN FACTS, NOT MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE:



Intel are much better processors for gaming and almost anything else a home user will do on a home/office/gaming computer.

AMD is just a cheap replacement for Intel, always the runner up, second place.



nVidia cards are also better than similar AMD Radeon HD cards.



When comparing same class graphic (video) cards, more or less in the same price range, nVidia (GeForce) always was, still is and will always be better than ATI/AMD (Radeon).



Here's why:



nVidia has the advantages of lots of superior nVidia proprietary features like:



* CUDA cores (Compute Unified Device Architecture)

* nVidia GPUDirect and nVidia PureVideo HD 1080p, an nVidia hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU (processor) hardware to the nVidia's GPU hardware, used in all series GeForce 6 and later and GeForce M for laptops

* PhysX (a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK)



All those features lack on the ATI/AMD cards...



What all that translates into, is more stress put on your CPU to compensate when using an ATI/AMD card, and degraded overall performance in games and other graphics intense applications.



That's why AMD uses cheap tricks such as putting the GPU on one board (what they call dual graphics) or creating the AMD APU series processors (an all-in-one CPU+GPU) in a desperate (and failed) attempt to compete against an nVidia GPU from the same price range.