Buying a New CPU

[Bramman111]

So I've been looking around the CPU market for a month or so now, and I've narrowed down my decision to these two:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-923
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-962

I know the Zambezi is the obvious superior, but from what I've heard Phenom and Athlon processors are more reliable. The fact that they're both the same price doesn't help my decision making.I like to think of myself as a moderately tech-savvy person, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of it I'm a lot less sure of myself.

Looking for advice from anyone who has an opinion. Also, if anyone could recommend a better deal I'd gladly accept recommendations, as long as it's in the <$200-ish price range with at least the stats of the ones I linked to above.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

 

[Supernova1138]

What do you plan on using this CPU for? Gaming? Video encoding? Rendering? For gaming it is hard to recommend anything AMD at any price point. The FX CPUs have terrible single threaded performance, worse than the Phenom II. FX relies on using a higher core count to try to stay competitive. The problem is that a lot of software is not designed to use more than 4 cores, games are among these programs. If your software can't use more than 4 threads, there is absolutely no sense in getting the FX 6100, it will perform worse than the Phenom II X4 975.

If you are doing things like Video encoding or rendering, and your software can use more than 4 threads, the FX would win likely win out over the Phenom II X4 by virtue of a higher core count. Though strictly speaking even a Phenom II X6 will often outperform an FX 6100 under those circumstances, you may want to look for that instead if you are dead set on an AMD CPU.

If you don't already have the motherboard, I would strongly recommend switching to Intel, especially if you are looking for a gaming CPU. Unless you are willing to spend a huge amount of money you will only be able to go up to a quad core with Intel, but Intel's cores are much faster than AMD's cores, so even with software that can use more than 4 threads, a quad core Intel CPU will be faster than a Phenom II X6 or the FX 6100. AN i5 2500 performs better than even the FX 8150 under most circumstances, with the FX only pulling slightly ahead in a small number of applications that really benefit from having 8 cores.

 

[Bramman111]

Decided to get an i5-2500k, thanks Supernova and RAK!
One last thing, I looked through some motherboards and RAM (I knew I'd have to upgrade to DDR3 eventually, I've been using the same sticks of DDR2 memory for years) and this is what I've come up with. Wanted to run my selection by the Escapist pros before I bought anything.

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131711 (Very unsure about this, suggestions welcome. I do need PATA and SATA connections, though.)

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178333

What do you guys think, good setup? I'll be using this for medium quality video rendering, nothing fancy though; as well as gaming, which will be very fancy.

 

[Supernova1138]

The RAM and CPU are fine, the 2500k is the pretty much the best gaming CPU in existence right now, there are a couple that offer ever so slightly better performance, but they cost so much more than the 2500k that it isn't worth it. DDR3 1333 RAM is fine, RAM higher than 1333MHz tends not to offer a really significant performance boost outside of certain benchmarks, and is only really beneficial when overclocking.

For the motherboard you are going to want to get one with the Z68 or P67 chipset if you want to use the 2500k's impressive overclocking potential. The H67 boards can't overclock at all. Be aware that P67 boards are not capable of using the integrated graphics, so make sure you have a graphics card that works if you get one of those.

The Gen 3 Z68 boards also offer an upgrade path to the Ivy Bridge CPUs coming out in April, with those CPUs comes PCI Express 3.0 support, doubling the bandwidth of the current PCI-E 2.0 standard. PCI-E 3.0 isn't a vital feature, as there currently isn't a video card out there right now that can even saturate PCI-E 2.0, most can only use maybe about half that bandwidth, but it might be nice to have if you plan on running that system for a very long time.

 

[Bramman111]

@Supernova1138 I was going to get the Z68 for all those reasons you just mentioned, but it doesn't have an IDE/PATA plug. D: I'll be fine with the H67, though. I don't overclock much even with my current CPU.

 

[Supernova1138]

What device do you need IDE for? If it's just for a DVD drive, simply replace it, SATA DVD drives can be had for $20 now. If you absolutely must have IDE, you can try P67 if you still want the OC potential. The P8P67 LE from Asus has an IDE header. If you are going to stick with the H67, save yourself a bit of cash and get the plain i5 2500. No sense in spending extra for the 'k' version if you aren't going to get a board that can overclock.

 

[Bramman111]

My main hard drive (OS) uses a 1tb PATA, I'm not really sure what IDE is to be honest.
Also, I completely skipped over the P67 for some reason when I was reading your post. This one, right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131706R
If so, then yes I will be getting that one instead. I'd rather have the ability to OC just in case, than not have it available if I need it.

Well, I think that's it. Thanks again for the help.

 

[Supernova1138]

IDE is the same as PATA. The P67 is a much better fit with the 2500k. Only drawback to P67 is you can't use integrated graphics, but if you are gaming, you likely aren't going to be using the integrated graphics anyway.

 

[Verzin]

as someone above me said, i5 2500 is one of the best processors out there for gaming, and about $210 on newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073