have a $550 budget..

[simviatoR]

I currently have:

AMD 955 BE
Asus M4A88T-v Evo
MSI Ref. GTX 580 1.5gb
8gb Kingston hyperX
Corsair CX500

and a bunch of HDD's.


I do some gaming (battlefield, counterstrike, and mostly flight simulator) and a moderate amount of photo editing (photoshop and lightroom). Overclocking is a must for me too.

Thinking I'm keeping the PSU, RAM.. and try to upgrade CPU, mobo and GPU.

I'm torn between the 2 setups below:

i5-4690K
MSI Z97-Gaming 5
GTX 770?

for around $550 from microcenter

--OR--

AMD FX-8350
Gigabyte UD3P
plus GPU.. (the CPU/MOBO will be roughly $100 cheaper than the Intel setup)

 

[Janus67]

I would check to make sure that the UD3P is a good enough board for the octocore AMD CPUs. Generally the trend tends to be buying a higher-end motherboard that has a powerful enough VRM section to handle the 8-core CPU, as others have major issues that don't have enough VRM phases to power it. What tends to happen is needing to buy that upgraded board brings the two costs to be within $50 or so and makes it more worthwhile to get the (overall) better-performing Intel setup.

 

[simviatoR]

That is very true, Janus.. I should think more about that.

 

[Theocnoob]

The bare minimum board recommended for the 8320/50/70 is the 990FXAUD3 not the 970AUD3P.

I suggest you go Intel and buy a cheap motherboard like a Z97 Extreme 3.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

The 970 UD3P is fine for an 8 Core.

What speed and timings is your RAM?

 

[caddi daddi]

it's a 965 atminside, so 1600 is max, not much issue in most games.
you're really better off with the intel setup, the throughput of the intel will show up in flight sim, i have played it with the 8350 and a 4790k, intel is better.

 

[simviatoR]

1600mhz at default clocks, not at my computer right now

- - - Updated - - -

Am leaning towards the intel side - looking at cheaper z87 boards

Would a 2600k be as fast as a 4690k?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I'd be grabbing an 8320/UD3P/970 combo.
You're going to see much bigger gains in-game of jumping up to a 970 than going with a 4690K and lower GPU.

Right now the combo I listed (using the EVGA 970 SSC) is $525 from Microcenter.
That's a hard deal to beat.

 

[Theocnoob]

1600mhz at default clocks, not at my computer right now

- - - Updated - - -

Am leaning towards the intel side - looking at cheaper z87 boards

Would a 2600k be as fast as a 4690k?

At single threaded, no. In heavily multithreaded stuff, possibly just barely faster. Keep in mind you need a P67/Z68/Z77 board for that chip if you want to overclock it. Those older platforms have inferior connectivity options. Only 2 Sata 6gbps ports vs 6 off the chipset, no M.2, no Sata express, etc.