AMD CPUs

Granite

Granite

New Member
Hi, my friend is currently building a new computer. His looking at building an AMD system. Which AMD CPU do you think is the best for gaming? His budget is at less than $250 AUD. Thanks in advance!
 
By budget, do you mean the actual CPU? If so, I would get the Phenom 9950 BE, I think ITestate has those tor somewhere between $200-$250, that seems to be the general price for that CPU here in Australia.
 
He doesnt need a quad core for gaming

go with amd duel core
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Of course he doesn't "need" one, but dual-core in this case ain't a lot better... the Phenom architecture is so much more efficient, at stock speeds a 2.5GHz Phenom performs about the same as 3GHz Athlon, and the extra two cores always help, no background task is going to get in the way of your games and some games can even take advantage of 3 or more cores, in which case the Phenom will perform better.
 
hackapelite said:
Of course he doesn't "need" one, but dual-core in this case ain't a lot better... the Phenom architecture is so much more efficient, at stock speeds a 2.5GHz Phenom performs about the same as 3GHz Athlon, and the extra two cores always help, no background task is going to get in the way of your games and some games can even take advantage of 3 or more cores, in which case the Phenom will perform better.
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+1 Phenom hands down and least a x3
 
There is a common misconception here. Dual cores are no better or worse for gaming than quadcores. If most of your games are not designed for quadcore, so what. You bought yourself a WAY faster desktop processor that will make you computer really zippy. And for those few games that do take advantage of multi-core processors, you'll get better performance in those games. But having a 3x or 4x CPU in your computer will not hurt your games if they don't take advantage but it will help your others games that do use technology. I think that is something that gamers do not seem to get.
 
Yeah, i would go with at least a x3 phenom, architecture is better than that of the athlons. If he hasnt built the computer yet, i would look at getting an intel system however...
 
63083 said:
There is a common misconception here. Dual cores are no better or worse for gaming than quadcores. If most of your games are not designed for quadcore, so what. You bought yourself a WAY faster desktop processor that will make you computer really zippy. And for those few games that do take advantage of multi-core processors, you'll get better performance in those games. But having a 3x or 4x CPU in your computer will not hurt your games if they don't take advantage but it will help your others games that do use technology. I think that is something that gamers do not seem to get.
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its not a "misconception." the argument is that, for the same price, you can get a FASTER dual core or a SLOWER quad core. since most games only use one core anyway, its better to have afaster dual core for gaming. search the forum for e8400 vs q6600, you will see hundreds of posts about this.
 
its not a "misconception." the argument is that, for the same price, you can get a FASTER dual core or a SLOWER quad core.
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True, but in this case it's different... E8400 and Q6600 are based on same architecture, so of course higher clock = faster CPU, but Athlons and Phenoms are based on different architectures and clock-for-clock Phenoms outdo Athlons by a significant margin. So, in this case (AMD), a higher-clocked dual won't outperform a slower-clocked quad (not by a significant margin anyways).

And yes, I know an Athlon X2 6400+ would outperform a Phenom 9500 in single/dual-threaded apps, but lets keep this reasonable...
 
Theres a couple games out there now that use all the cores. Crysis and Grid do as far as I know, so I think it's gonna become more and more utilized.
 
what're some good aussie comp stores?
I'd suggest the new 125w 9950BE...
it's a beast, it'll outperform the 6400+ in alot of single threaded apps, and kills it to hell in multicore, you can overclock them to 3.2ghz or so with a decent cooler.
 
hackapelite said:
True, but in this case it's different... E8400 and Q6600 are based on same architecture, so of course higher clock = faster CPU, but Athlons and Phenoms are based on different architectures and clock-for-clock Phenoms outdo Athlons by a significant margin. So, in this case (AMD), a higher-clocked dual won't outperform a slower-clocked quad (not by a significant margin anyways).

And yes, I know an Athlon X2 6400+ would outperform a Phenom 9500 in single/dual-threaded apps, but lets keep this reasonable...
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yeah, good point
 
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