[tylerand]

Hey everyone, so I've been in need of an upgrade for some time now. Been slowly selling off my consoles and trying to start gaming on PC again. Got myself an R9 270X 2gb for $120 CAD today, think i did pretty decent there. Managed to pump my 3dMark 11 score from 2932 stock on my 5770 up to 6161 on the 270X. However, my processor is keeping this card back big time, and i think it's time for a change. Overclocking it shows an extreme jump in performance, but at the cost of weird stability issues with timing in games.

So I've been looking around, and came across some reviews on the Intel G3258 and the MSI H81M-P33. From the looks of it this seems to be about the best price to performance ratio i can get, with overclocks of up to 4ghz being pretty easy (and the board unofficially supports OCing).

That being said, i loaded it up today and it appears the processor jumped in price $20 since the last time i looked. Is this my best bet for Performance to cost? Am i really missing out by not getting at least an i5? I'm not opposed to buying used, but with the Canadian dollar as weak as it is right now, i haven't been having much luck on ebay. Most of what i find is only a couple dollars under retail.

Edit: On an unrelated note, this card is great. At 1200mhz core and 1550mhz memory it's running super cool so far with a max temp of around 65.

 

[ronnin426850]

As a person who went from quad-core AMD to dual-core Intel - DON'T. Save money and upgrade to Core i5, dualcore Intels are not worth it against a quad AMD. Try a mild overclock on your athlon and save up for something decent.

 

[tylerand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronnin426850

As a person who went from quad-core AMD to dual-core Intel - DON'T. Save money and upgrade to Core i5, dualcore Intels are not worth it against a quad AMD. Try a mild overclock on your athlon and save up for something decent.

Appreciate the advice, might wait for an i5.

Overclocking isn't really an option sadly. I can get it stable up to 4ghz running all day, but anything above stock frequency gives really weird timing in games. Things like voices won't match up, cutscenes don't work right, text lags behind. Strange stuttering when moving around in mmo's, like my character's walking super slow but my FPS is at 60. I'm sure it's something to do with the high bus speed, and since the multi can't be changed. It's really weird though, never had this problem with any other processor.