Intel vs AMD

[stormhawk31]

Ok. Here's an interesting question - at least, to me. Which do y'all think is better: the Intel Core i7 4770k, or the AMD FX-8320 Vishera? I know the AMD is less expensive (and as some of you know, despite the fact that I don't have to be, I tend to be a bit on the cheap side), but I'm simply not going to go with the AMD if the Intel is a lot better. I know that the Vishera isn't as good as the i7 4820k or 4930k, but I wasn't going for that level of performance right now, anyway. I'm looking for something on the level of, or beyond, the 4770k. Also, I'm looking for an excellent ASUS motherboard to pair with the AMD processor, and I'd like suggestions for that as well. If I went with the 4770k, I would go with the ASUS z-87 Deluxe/Quad (for upgrade ability), so I'll need a comparable ASUS AMD motherboard.

 

It occurs to me that it might be helpful to let y'all know what I'm shooting for. I'm going to build a solid starter system, that will be good for the limited gaming I do, some light video editing, use with a WACOM tablet, and especially, high definition video watching. I want a minimum of 8 gigs of RAM, though 16 gigs is VERY preferable, a 4770k (or comparable) AMD processor, the aforementioned motherboard (must be ASUS, since they're the best on the market), a GeForce 650ti 2GB video card (or equivalent, or better), a 4TB hard drive, and a 128 GB SSD (or at least one big enough to allow me to install my operating system without any issues). I want room to expand (for example, to add a TV tuner, and perhaps a nice sound card), but it should be damn capable from the moment I switch it on. Oh, the motherboard needs at least built in Wi-Fi, since I don't feel like sacrificing an expansion slot to add it.

 

Oh, one other thing: I'd like to keep the cost as close to $1000 as possible. Less is better. As I said, I'm cheap.

 

Thoughts? 

Edited January 2, 2014 by stormhawk31

[aaron6581230]

What do you use for video editing?

 

If you're going to be putting a 650Ti in there (1GB version is enough by the way), then neither CPU will bottleneck for gaming. You're not going to run into troubles doing video watching either.

 

Personally, I'd go with a 4670K and put some more money into RAM and the graphics card, especially if you're doing rendering on the CPU.

[ir_cow]

+1 , what he said

[WarWeeny]

I would personally go for the 8320/8350.

I am not a big fan of hyper-threading and not all programs support it, with the 8320/8350 you will have those 8 cores ready regardless of the programs you use.

 

Gaming wise you wont notice much as said above, but i would personally go for a 660TI/7870 instead of the 650, its only a few dollars more these days and it has quite a significant boost in performance.

[VaporX]

The "light" video editing makes things different. I help a local college professor that teaches video editing build an editing system for his home. He does 15 to 20 minutes videos at the max and wanted the system to perform well and have a great price.

 

We built him an i5 system, though I imagine a 6 core or 8 Core AMD would do just as well. The key for him was the memory, which we did 16 gig and we put in a small, 60 gig SSD for a temp file drive. This was in addition to his 240 gig SSD for OS and Apps and 1 TB drive for storage.

 

As for the motherboard, I would not worry about built in WiFi, the standard is moving fast to AC so I would just get a USB adapter for the WiFi so you do not use the slot as you stated. Also Asus is good but I am no longer sure they are the "best", I have had much better luck with Gigabyte boards. Asus has a ton of features for sure but 90% of them are gimmicky and not used often enough to matter, save the money and get a good mid range board.

 

Video Card, now here I am going to admit a bit of a lack of knowledge, not for gaming mind you. I have talked to quite a few pro video editors and NONE of them have been happy with using the various acceleration features of GPU computing with their video work. Everyone of them has told me there is a lose in image quality for that gain in speed. For gaming I would get a Sapphire 270X, it will give you solid 1080 gaming as well as play video with ease.

Edited January 2, 2014 by ComputerEd

[Braegnok]

I agree with Ed,.. the R9 270X is a solid mid-level card,.. and for AMD motherboards I like the Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 it supports multi-GPU and DIGI + power control.

New Egg $129,99 after $20,00 MIR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131851

[DanTheGamer11]

At the moment I prefer Intel for gaming since most reviews that I've seen show the Intel CPUs to have higher minimum frames and higher frames when they use minimum settings.. not sure if it will change with the next gen games due to consoles, and if Mantle is what it's advertised to be then powerful CPUs won't be that relevant for gaming as they are now(still not too much but it does help) for Mantle enabled games...

[EuroFight]

If Adobe CS software is being used, I'd recommend using NVIDIA GPUs as GPU accelerated rendering has been around for NVIDIA GPUs much longer than it has for AMD GPUs...

[Waco]

I would personally go for the 8320/8350.

I am not a big fan of hyper-threading and not all programs support it, with the 8320/8350 you will have those 8 cores ready regardless of the programs you use.

 

Hyperthreading does not require application support. The stronger cores from Intel tend to outperform AMD CPUs most of the time even with 4 cores / 8 threads competing with 8 cores / 8 threads.

[wevsspot]

Unfortunately there isn't any AMD equivalent to the 4770K if you're talking raw processing power.  The multicore AMD processors that you're considering will all perform well for the tasks that you are targeting, but just keep in mind that there isn't anything that AMD offers that will equal or exceed the clock for clock computing power of a 4770K across the board.

 

In order to help refine your search;

 

1. Do you plan on overclocking via CPU multiplier?

2. Would any of your applications benefit from hyper threading?

3. What is your budget for the CPU?

 

And, I'll go out on a limb and make a lot of Asus fans angry, but there are comparable boards at better prices from other manufacturers.  I'm not knocking Asus - let me be clear about that.  It's just that there are better values out there than what you're currently considering.  I certainly wouldn't buy an Asus motherboard just because they are the "best"..............  Because that's not an entirely true statement some of the times.

[Bubbaxm2]

Just get whatever better fits your budget. You won't notice a difference.

[stormhawk31]

1. Do you plan on overclocking via CPU multiplier?

 

2. Would any of your applications benefit from hyper threading?

 

3. What is your budget for the CPU?

______________________

 

1.The answer to that is a solid maybe. Honesty, although I've built computers before, I've never overclocked, so I don't know much about it - how it's done, what the benefits/drawbacks are, etc. I DO know that it will increase the operating temperature of my system, and since I have no experience with, and am not particularly motivated by, water cooling, I'm not sure overclocking would be a great idea. But, that's part of why I'm here. If the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and if I can get some tutoring from more experienced overclockers...who knows?

 

2. Ah, hyperthreading... Here, I once again show just how long it's been since I've built a computer. I'll be upfront and tell y'all that the last computer I built had a Pentium 3 450 processor and was running Windows 98, and I was very happy with it. So when you ask me about hyperthreading...I have some idea of what it does, but I honestly don't know whether anything I do would benefit from it.

 

3. Budget. Well, as I indicated, as inexpensive as possible, so long as it performs, because I'm a bit of a miser. By "performs", I mean that it runs all of my programs without bogging down AT ALL (and since the most intensive program I run is probably Sony Vegas - I don't play Crysis or anything even nearly that power-hungry - that shouldn't be too hard), plays Blu-ray quality HD video without lagging or pixelating AT ALL, starts up quickly, can multitask without any issues, and does what I tell it to when I tell it to, without making me sit around waiting while programs open or applications run. Some of that is going to be related to how much memory I put in it, but some well be related to the processor and video card. But, if I HAVE to throw a number out there, I'd say...$250, MAX. Preferably significantly less than that. In the end, I want a system that performs admirably "out of the box", but leaves room for dramatic improvements as time and technology allow.