Hey guys. I've been following the Piledriver benchmarks thread carefully and I've decided to upgrade my Phenom II X4 830 to either the FX-4300 or 6300. It's sitting on an AM3+ motherboard, which is why I haven't just made the switch to Intel. Reading numerous reviews has left me confused on which CPU to choose, however. Which route should I take for better performance in modern games? I mainly play a FPS called Natural Selection 2, which is very CPU-dependent. I don't plan to do video/3D editing, so I've narrowed my choice down to either a 4 or 6-core.
I'm not an avid overclocker, although I've managed to successfully OC my Phenom II from 2.8 to 3.8 GHz. Due to my inexperience with component specifics, I lack the knowledge to make a firm decision on which CPU to choose. A user on another forum, mmorpg.com, suggests buying the 6300 over the 4300 for these reasons:
The better choice seems to be the 6300. This review by AnandTech states anywhere between a 1 to 11 FPS difference across multiple games. The gains seem minimal and I guess it would be nice to have two more cores for general multitasking and whatnot.
My main question concerns the core speeds of the two. The 4300 is 3.8 GHz stock, while the 6300 is 3.5 GHz. Since the 4300 has a slightly higher frequency, I assume that it can be overclocked higher than the 6300. But is this a moot point since the 6300 performs slightly better than the former at stock speeds anyway due to additional cores, higher L3 cache, etc?
Am I overthinking this and just buy the FX-6300?
I admit I'm drooling at the gains compared to my old, yet trusty, Deneb.
I'm not an avid overclocker, although I've managed to successfully OC my Phenom II from 2.8 to 3.8 GHz. Due to my inexperience with component specifics, I lack the knowledge to make a firm decision on which CPU to choose. A user on another forum, mmorpg.com, suggests buying the 6300 over the 4300 for these reasons:
Quote:
AMD is launching the six-core FX-6300 at $132, which is only $10 more than the four-core FX-4300. Six cores at 3.5 GHz with 4.1 GHz turbo should mean you can readily overclock to 4 GHz or so if so inclined. That could make it a nifty purchase for people looking to assemble a new gaming system on a budget. While you don't actually need six cores for gaming, the shared-scheduler architecture means that you can really only half of the cores at a time at full speed, and three cores is definitely better than two. The FX-6300 also has double the L3 cache of the FX-4300.
The better choice seems to be the 6300. This review by AnandTech states anywhere between a 1 to 11 FPS difference across multiple games. The gains seem minimal and I guess it would be nice to have two more cores for general multitasking and whatnot.
My main question concerns the core speeds of the two. The 4300 is 3.8 GHz stock, while the 6300 is 3.5 GHz. Since the 4300 has a slightly higher frequency, I assume that it can be overclocked higher than the 6300. But is this a moot point since the 6300 performs slightly better than the former at stock speeds anyway due to additional cores, higher L3 cache, etc?
Am I overthinking this and just buy the FX-6300?
I admit I'm drooling at the gains compared to my old, yet trusty, Deneb.
Phenom
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Phenom
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