Intel i5 4690k or AMD FX-8350 how big is the difference? (Gaming)

[VIPΣR]

I'm thinking of either getting the i5 or the FX-8, mainly for gaming. I have been doing some research and the i5 seems to be the better option for gaming, but are the extra 100€ worth it?

How big actually is the difference between this 2 CPUs?

[yoječ]

It depends on the game.

 

According to PCLab.pl, the i5 is on average 40-45% faster. I'd say it's definitely worth it.

http://pclab.pl/art50000-11.html

http://pclab.pl/art50000-54.html

Edited April 18, 2015 by yojo2

[sivispacem]

It's very game dependent. I'm not sure I believe that average, especially given the propensity for modern games to be heavily multithreaded. The methodology seems a bit weird too- those are frame rate percentages over a Phenom II 965 which is used as the baseline.

 

The i5 is still the all round better option unless you're building an SLI system (Intel cripple most of their non-X series motherboards with 16x/8x PCI-E) but the actual performance difference outside of benchmarks is marginal. GPU makes a far larger difference and if spending 150 less on the processor/motherboard combination let's you jump from an R9 260x to a GTX970 I'd argue that's a better use of the budget.

[yoječ]

Well, that goes without saying that the rig - above all - should be balanced.

 

Anyway, IMHO FX-8350 is not a good value any way you look at it - why not get the FX-8320 instead?

[sivispacem]

That's why I did. The binning is no different, my 8320 is stable at the same clock speeds and voltage as a 8350 is. But it varies- I've seen them within a few pence of each other in pricing.

As an aside, several recent game engines seem to take very well to highly multithreaded processors without really caring as much about outright single-core performance. But there's no doubt the i5 is the better processor generally speaking.