Windows 7: i3 3220 or FX-6300

Could someone answer the following questions regarding the comparison of these two CPU's

1. Best value for money?

2. Personal opinion, which would you get?



3. Should I consider a lower end i5?

4. Which offers the best upgrade path? (consider steamroller and excavator)

and if you dont mind explain yrou reasons

I thought you already had this figured out. Save up and get an Intel i5 and decent Z77 motherboard.

As for those 2 CPU's......the AMD is $139 and the Intel is $129. AMD prices their processors to match Intel at various price points for a reason, and that reason is whatever CPU is closest in price is probably it's equivalent in terms of overall performance. The FX 6300 has 6 cores and the i3 3220 is dual core with HT.....there are some things the Intel will run faster/better and vice versa. I would go with a decent Asus Z77 motherboard and a good Intel i5 CPU. It will last you much longer than you think, and will beat most AMD CPU's handily.

You mentioned upgrade paths.........AMD will probably be the way to go there. I don't know how much longer they plan on using the AM3+ platform, but they just released a new architecture for it, and Intel has pushed socket 1155 as far as they are going to go.

Kelly

+1 more for an Intel chip with an ASUS board - I've got an i7 with an ASUS P8Z77-V PRO and I love it Haven't had any issues with either of them yet and it runs pretty quick, so that's good enough for me.

thank you for you responces, what do you think of the i5 3470

i5s are nice processors, I was tempted by the 3570K with this build, but the Add to basket item next to the i7 was just too tempting

The 3470 is a nice processor and will cope with most of what you throw at it, the only drawback is that you can't overclock it - but I don't know whether you planned on doing that anyway? If you wanted to get into overclocking, you'd have to go for a 3570K (the K denotes an unlocked multiplier - one of the requirements for OCing)

Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache.. | Ebuyer.com

When looking to buy your components, I would highly recommend eBuyer: Cheap Laptops, Computers and Cheap LCD TVs | Ebuyer.com

After looking everywhere (OCUK, Scan, Amazon, eBay, eBuyer), I found that eBuyer was cheaper on all of my parts - I had to get one through Amazon though, as eBuyer doesn't sell it. So shop around, and you might save yourself a few quid But watch it on eBay, things that seem too good to be true usually are - like that 3770K bundle for £20 (the CPU alone cost me £256...).

Tom


Tom

yes but i think i will stick with the fx-6300 because of the huge upgrade path, and yes you are correct, when i changed from scan to ebuyer i calculated a difference of about £25 using the exact same parts!!!