Intel / Nvidia Versus AMD / Radeon for Build

[JacobusRex]

- THIS IS NOT A WILLY-WAVING CONTEST BETWEEN INTEL AND AMD LOYALISTS, DO NOT INSTIGATE. -

I've been looking at builds, enjoying the process of making part lists in pcpartspicker but I want to finalize a build and go ahead. It's clear to me that there is a lot of animosity between the Intel and AMD users because of Intel's reputation for quality and the price to match it versus AMD's reputation for lesser quality but relatively cheaper price. Gold versus Silver

What I want to know is what are the facts here. Does AMD still have problems with heat and stability? Does Intel still have problems with price gouging and throttling the power back on their products thereafter? Is there a reason to buy AMD vs Intel and vice versa?

Is this attractive bundle worth the risk of AMD quality? http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...=Combo.2508108

Or is this build I put together worth the price? http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2sXGf8

[Evildeffy]

Currently it is not worth it putting a high end machine together using an AMD FX-8350 CPU.

ZEN on the other hand (last rumours put more info on this CPU in October, possibly even releasing) might be the first AMD CPU worth it in years for high end gaming.
Whilst AMD does have a price advantage it's simply too old and outdated for it to be useful nowadays when Intel's so far ahead on IPC etc. that even 8 cores don't change anything.

That doesn't mean the FX-8350 is bad... far from it... just not worth it anymore.

As for GPUs it doesn't matter either way, AMD or nVidia both work perfectly fine and are very good in combo with an Intel CPU.
Anyone that tells you that AMD is better or nVidia is better in general are idiots, they are both equally fine in the GFX department.

Though having said that I would not pick the R9 Nano or the GTX 970 but either the RX 480 or the GTX 1070 in the builds you mentioned.

The GTX 970 is not worth it vs. the RX 480 and the R9 Nano is not worth it vs. the GTX 1070 so you need to make a choice here.

Also your build is fine but with that case add another 120mm fan so you have 2 intakes, worth it.
The RAM I would reduce in speed to 3200 or 3000MHz as above 3200 it is known to generate some weird RAM clocking issues on Skylake unless messing with overclocks.

I would drop Windows 10 from that entirely and grab a Windows 7 Pro key from Kinguin for 1/3rd of the price and upgrade before the 29th of July to W10 Pro for free.

Having said that ... that monitor is a UW 1080p ... and EVERY SINGLE UW 1080p screen I've seen so far is atrocious beyond belief.
I'd rather you pick a 24" 1920x1080 screen that does 120/144Hz... but that of course is personal.

[Mythbredor]

I'll be straight up honest from what I know here. AMD has had driver issues in the past I believe that's been getting much better and their cards genneraly run hotter than nvidias. But they do one thing extremely well which is make good cards for a good price. Nvidia does the other end of that spectrum they make high end cards but they're super expensive. Nvidia generally has better driver support for (most) games and generally runs cooler.

I personally (don't misread what I said here) Perfer Nvidia over AMD for GPUs. That's not saying AMD is bad.

In terms of Intel CPUs vs AMD. My PC has a intel 6700k I love it. My Mom has an FX 6300 it works great for her, and my Dad also has an AMD cpu. Generally speaking Intel wins single threaded tasks and AMD wins multithreaded. AMD went down the road of more cores less power, and intel fewer cores more power.

These are just my opinions and some facts tho.

[kail]

Intel for CPU. Either for GPU. ATM with the new gen GPUs just arriving, expect prices of the previous gen (970s, 390s) to drop a bit. If you want to better future proof your build, I'd try to jump in the new generation if possible. I'm waiting to see how after market RX 480s perform and compare it to the 1060. As someone still using a 1080p monitor, I don't see a need for anything higher.

[Vash The Stampede]

The CPU end of things will depend on what your goals are. You go AMD for CPU because...

#1 Most games care little for CPU performance, and you happen to play those games. WoW obviously isn't one of those games.
#2 Their cheap, and you're broke.
#3 You might upgrade your system in the near future.
#4 Cores cores and more cores.

Otherwise, you get an i5. Not a i3, not a Pentium G3258, but a i5. Only two AMD CPU's I would look at. The 860k and the FX 8320 and that's it. As for the GPU, the whole driver thing is nonsense. You get whatever is the best performance for the price. Nvidia rules the high end, and AMD rules the mid to low end, for the moment. If you want fast, you get a 1070 or 1080 depending on your budget. Anything else, you get a RX 480. Why? Cause $199. Very soon, depending on your budget, you get a RX 470 or 460.

[DarkBlade6]

One thing I have to give to AMD is how they kept improving the GCN architecture for 4 years. Remember how the 780 ti used to circle around the 290x? Well now, it's the other way around. If you bought a GCN card in the last couple years, it's probably a good 20-25% (if not more) faster than what it used to be at it's launch. On the other hand, Nvidia seems to drop support for older cards really quickly and focus on their latest architecture and give the latter all the incremental improvement via drivers... until their next gen architecture. This time, I really hope Nvidia stick with the same architecture for the entire 14/16nm generation.

[Drunkenvalley]

I'd pick Intel for processor because of the many new features that've been coming out since the last AM3 board refresh. That said, I'd keep my eyes on Zen if I was in the market for a new pc "soon".

On the side of graphics card, budget entirely dictates where you want to go imo. People will talk about shitty AMD drivers, but frankly nVidia are equally full of shit, if not worse than AMD lately as AMD's cards have been steadily improving across the board, while nVidia's performance intermittently requires revisiting by users to disable features that their card can't actually make good use of, like default high tesselation in games with cards that don't support it.

EDIT: Your links are also weird. You're comparing a $1300 vs $1800 build, where the latter one has a bunch of added items like monitor, Office and more.

[Sorshen]

The CPU end of things will depend on what your goals are. You go AMD for CPU because...

#1 Most games care little for CPU performance, and you happen to play those games. WoW obviously isn't one of those games.
#2 Their cheap, and you're broke.
#3 You might upgrade your system in the near future.
#4 Cores cores and more cores.

Otherwise, you get an i5. Not a i3, not a Pentium G3258, but a i5. Only two AMD CPU's I would look at. The 860k and the FX 8320 and that's it. As for the GPU, the whole driver thing is nonsense. You get whatever is the best performance for the price. Nvidia rules the high end, and AMD rules the mid to low end, for the moment. If you want fast, you get a 1070 or 1080 depending on your budget. Anything else, you get a RX 480. Why? Cause $199. Very soon, depending on your budget, you get a RX 470 or 460.

Games definitely care about cpu performance, and a lowly i3-6100 beats FX-8350 in most games. Plus it's not a dead platform.

[Lathais]

intel CPUs are straight up better for gaming. Period. Whatever AMD CPU system you put together, I can put together one with an intel CPU for around the same price that will perform better in games.

As for GPU, it really depends on your budget. On the low end, currently, the 480 is the best bet. However, if you are looking to spend a little more, AMD currently has nothing to compete with the 1070/1080. It will likely be different this time next year though.

As for the notion that you must pair and intel CPU with a nvidia GPU or an AMD CPU with a AMD GPU, I just don't know where people get this idea from. Best bet currently, on the budget side of things, it an intel CPU with an AMD GPU. No problems with that at all.

[Vash The Stampede]

Games definitely care about cpu performance, and a lowly i3-6100 beats FX-8350 in most games. Plus it's not a dead platform.

Older games, yes I agree. But newer games that use DX12 will scale better with multicore CPUs. So an i3 is faster in games like WoW and pretty much all DX11 titles, but in Ashes of Singularity the 8320 should pull ahead, maybe even the 860k as well. And right now the i3-6100 is priced close to the 8320.

But like most people if you're limited to 2-3 games that you play, and they're mostly Blizzard games, then an i3-6100 would make sense. If you happen to play Ashes of Singularity, Hitman, and will soon buy Dues Ex, then I would get the 8320. I don't think anyone actually plays Ashes.

[Slippermoon118]

intel CPUs are straight up better for gaming. Period. Whatever AMD CPU system you put together, I can put together one with an intel CPU for around the same price that will perform better in games.

As for GPU, it really depends on your budget. On the low end, currently, the 480 is the best bet. However, if you are looking to spend a little more, AMD currently has nothing to compete with the 1070/1080. It will likely be different this time next year though.

As for the notion that you must pair and intel CPU with a nvidia GPU or an AMD CPU with a AMD GPU, I just don't know where people get this idea from. Best bet currently, on the budget side of things, it an intel CPU with an AMD GPU. No problems with that at all.

I totally agree with this ^ because Ive had amd cpu's back in the day and I switched to intel and they are just way better

as far as gpus yeah there is a just a lot to choose from amd and nvidia

[Zenny]

Older games, yes I agree. But newer games that use DX12 will scale better with multicore CPUs. So an i3 is faster in games like WoW and pretty much all DX11 titles, but in Ashes of Singularity the 8320 should pull ahead, maybe even the 860k as well. And right now the i3-6100 is priced close to the 8320.

But like most people if you're limited to 2-3 games that you play, and they're mostly Blizzard games, then an i3-6100 would make sense. If you happen to play Ashes of Singularity, Hitman, and will soon buy Dues Ex, then I would get the 8320. I don't think anyone actually plays Ashes.

The i3 6100 is actually faster then even a FX-8370 in Ashes, the gap closes in DX12, but the i3 is still faster.

[Vash The Stampede]

The i3 6100 is actually faster then even a FX-8370 in Ashes, the gap closes in DX12, but the i3 is still faster.

If you're revering to this benchmark, it doesn't seem that Ashes scales that well. The 6700K is faster than the 8 core 5960X. It seems this game peaks at 4 cores, or in 4 threads in the i3's case. If the cores are slower per core, like in the 5960X and 8370's case, then lower core CPUs win.

I think Witcher 3 scales better with CPU cores.