The eternal CPU question

So I will be finally upgrading again so my son can have my Phenom x2 for his PC. I will be getting a new CPU, motherboard and ram. I have been doing a little reading and read quite a few reviews on CPU's and I am still stuck on which to get. The budget will be roughly $600 so I am considering an I5 or I7 or maybe an AMD FX 8350. I know that many of the games are now ports from consoles and the current gen consoles are running 8 core AMD chips. I am going to hopefully future proof a little here so I am thinking more along Intel but maybe since I game more than anything else; AMD might be a better choice.

The debate continues as always and I know benchmarks always show Intel to be better, but I need a little more "real world" experience on this one. Benchmarks are fine as they show raw processing; but do they really show the difference between CPU's when I'm playing Planetside 2 at 1920x1080 and there are a million bullets and explosions going on around me?

My Phenom X2 6 core still does very well but I am swaying more towards an Intel for the first time ever, I have always used AMD. I guess the biggest thing now is the price of a decent Intel motherboard and the DDR3 ram. DDR4 is out but still up there in price; I'm still willing to wait a little longer to see if next gen CPU's from both manufacturers are worth it. The latest article I read says game code writers will be trying to use more of the threads and cores in future games, I noticed a lot of people on Steam still use dual cores for gaming. So I am not sure if I just need a quad or an 8 core .

But, if I just get my son a good 1150 socket CPU and some more ram, he might be fine, he runs 4gb ram currently on an old 860 dual core. My 6 core might be okay?

What's the general thought out here?

Hey....just noticed this when I searched unanswered threads...not sure why it's unanswered.

I used AMD for years, but retired my trusty old 955 BE, which is the X4 version of your X6, give or take a tiny %.

There are a few titles, like BF4, that use up to 4 cores, but very few that are written to utilize more well. Games are still very dependent on fast cores more than core count. The code operates in phases, and some phases aren't easily threaded.

As such, you're interested in the highest single core performance, with core count of 4 (to cover most engines). There are still avid AMD fans who insist the current 6 and 8 core vishera are fine (and really, they are, just not for Planetside 2), but the fact is some games are far better served with i7 and i5 single thread advantage. Note I'm not saying those are single thread games/engines, but that portions are dependent on the one or two core speeds, with additional cores less utilized as the count goes up. Beyond 4 cores offers little at present, and I don't see that game engines will advance generally to utilize more - we'll see specific games with new engines in some unpredictable future; year, two...maybe 3.


So, yes, in that contest Intel wins. For Planetside 2 in particular, by a significant margin. Frame time (the duration of each frame) in Planetside2 can show half (double the framerate) comparing a 4670K (i5) to FX 4300 clocked at the same 4.5 Ghz (a typical overclock for 4670K). That assumes, of course, only the CPU's contribution...ignore the GPU contribution.

It does not seem i7 serves Planetside 2 with any advantage over i5, so you could save on that point if you have no other reason for HT.

However, if you evaluated a recent i7 as if it were an 8 core machine (running 8 threads), it still competes reasonably well with an 8 core vishera on similar tasks...making the i7 attractive toward the "future proofing" idea in your mind. I've never advocated the concept of future proofing...yet, I know what you're saying...not having to upgrade for at least 2 or 3 years.

The Intel platform is headed for Skylake by 2016 (very late 2015, maybe). There, a new chipset, the Z170, will mean a new round of motherboards. In the meantime, for 2015, the debate is between Z97 on the 1150 (which is only due one more chip release, Broadwell...then it's done), or the X99 platform. While the X99 offers more PCIe lanes and DDR4 RAM, Skylake will focus on yet a new chipset that supports the additional PCIe lanes and DDR4...so, X99 seems like a waste to most of us. X99 owners love the platform, don't get me wrong...and the option of 6 and 8 (or more) core CPU's is attractive for users like me (not games, multiple virtual machines, 3DS Max rendering, C++ compilation, video editing...where cores matter more).

X99 will be near it's end by the time the X170 appears, which is Intel's unspoken plan. We hear about "tick/tock" a lot, but it also implies upgrading everything from the motherboard to the RAM every 2 or 3 years.

Broadwell was supposedly released end of Jan 2015. There is supposed to be a K part for 1150. The current Haswell and DC are 22 nm chips. Broadwell and Skylake are 14nm chips.

What we saw from the past, however, was not expected. From 65 to 45 to 32nm, we got lower power demands, lower temperatures, faster speeds.

If you look at the forums, you'll realize we didn't get any of those dropping from 32nm to 22nm. Typical 32nm chips reached 4.6Ghz, with many reaching 4.8 and 5.0. So far, the 22nm chips rarely reach 5.0 (some do), and 4.6 seems to be the most common upper limit. Heat is also an issue. In older nodes things got cooler, but in 22nm chips, not so. The reason seems to be that more heat is concentrated in a smaller space, and it's becoming tougher to pull that heat out of the chip.

I suspect the drop to 14nm MIGHT be the same disappointment. Many are very optimistic, as they were when Haswell and DC were released. They were slightly disappointed. My own 4790K reaches 4.6 comfortably, will 4.7 a bit warm, needs more voltage than I'm willing to push into it to manage 4.8 and gets too hot even on Phanteks (which is about as effective as most AIO water). 3770K and 2600K parts ran faster in clock speed, but...in reality the increased IPC of Haswell does make up for it.

What I'm saying is, waiting for Skylake may be a disappointment and an exciting advancement both at the same time, by 2016...we should learn a lot in the coming weeks as Broadwell parts give our friends here the first crack at pushing the new 14nm chips...you might like to wait just long enough to observe their results. If they're better than I expect, you might jump to Broadwell instead of Haswell.

That's an awesome and informative answer Jason! Thanks for the help on this, I'll keep an eye on Intel for the next few months and see what unfolds...

right now, if you have the itch to jump in would be a 4690k on a z97 board.
I made the jump from amd to intel when DC came out and am happy for it.
at this point I will upgrade to broadwell and sit out the first gen of skylake, that will let me see how that works out while scratching the play toy itch with cheap, used gpu's.
I run a 4790K/asrock extreme 9 motherboard and that will cover all I need here at the house, both work and play.