AMD FX 6300  vs 4300 

In my experience, I found the opposite to be true, as my FX-8320 was performing badly enough in games that I upgraded to my first new Intel processor since 2008 in November of 2014. I felt like as if my hardware might've been defective somehow, but my Intel put a stop to that. Nowadays though, I don't really care for games as much. Whether or not it was defective, I don't know. What I do know is that one does not simply overclock a hot Bulldozer chip on a budget board, let alone with its stock cooler. The people who realize this avoid it by purchasing an expensive motherboard and CPU cooler, all to find out that they have been deprived as well. Whether you shell out the money for the expensive hardware or not, you can never escape Bulldozer's shortcomings, and thus, you wind up losing in the end. That is why I say AMD is poor value.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2310030 -- i5-3570 oc'd @ 3.8 w/ gtx 770 (score=7000) http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4313398 --FX-8320 oc'd @ 4.0 w/ gtx770 (score=6946) Gaming experiences are very close as well, and difficult to tell unless you were to run split screen and nit-pick. In-game, you would never notice.

Joseph, if you're just gaming the AMD's will be just fine. I own several of each brand (Intel/AMD) and the difference between an FX-8320 oc'd @4.00 is neglible and equal to my I5-3570K, especially when I pair them with the same video card. (I used a GTX 770 for my comparison). The cost of the mobo and chip for AMD is much cheaper. Some games are requiring quad-cores these days and the G3258, a good cpu just won't cut it. The i3's with hyperthreading would be fine if you can get a nice budget board. Yes, I agree a fx-4350, etc are equivalent to a dual core but with a bit extra, especially the o.c. factor. When someone is crunching every single penny when purchasing a system, the AMD's will save them money and only cost a few FPS if a quality gpu is bought.

Basically, AMD's current Athlon series are their APUs without GPUs. That processor is based on the "Steamroller" architecture, which is based on Piledriver, which is based on Bulldozer...so it has the same inherent flaws that I have described.

btw im getting a gtx 770 now i think

what about AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor

Maybe not the maximum FPS, but that's just maximum. In average FPS, the FX-4300 is likely to be holding back that 960 a lot, depending on the game. You might as well put a GTX 980 on a Pentium 4! FX-4300 - Native dual-core, low single-thread G3258 - Native dual-core, high single-thread FX-6300 - Native triple-core, low single-thread If you want a "perfect" choice, you simply need to step up to an i5 & a GTX 960. If you can't manage that, that's okay, just get a G3258 instead. AMD cannot save you from the facts, their marketing is anything besides facts. It's up to you.

but a 750ti won't run games at the fps that the 4300 and gtx 960 will

That suffers the same architectural problems as I was describing before. If you want to go in as cheap as possible, get a G3258 with a 750 Ti, and that should still run your games great, albeit maybe stuttering in GTA 5 (which may be fixable). According to this site, the FX-6300 has barely any advantage in multi-core performance over the G3258, which is cheaper, and also has far, far more single-core performance.

i'm was going to upgrade my cpu to the 6300 next may?

You may benefit from an i5. I've heard GTA 5 seems to have trouble on the Pentium G3258, but, not owning the game, it's difficult for me to help. However, I have found a video with a supposed fix: https://youtu.be/enMT8Exky4g If you don't want to take the risk, though, I suggest you buy a cheaper GPU than the 960 instead, and with the saved money, you buy an i5-4460 instead of a Pentium G3258. This way, your performance problem won't be stutters, it'll simply be not being able to run as high with the graphics details.

Basically gta 5 any game i would normally get gta 5 black ops 3 new south park game dragon ball xenoverse naruto ultimate ninja storm games anything basically at 1080p medium-high hopefully

The gimped quad-core lacks Quick Sync, so you won't have a dedicated encoder for your streams. This means the CPU has to do all the work, and you don't want to give a weak processor more work. Since the Intel has Quick Sync, you don't lose one of your only two cores to streaming; both are available for the game you are running. Additionally, AMD's Bulldozer/Piledriver architecture suffers from lower single-core performance than Intel, resulting in the CPU holding back the GPU. That means, as soon as the AMD CPU holds back your GPU, you are losing out on the GPU performance you paid to have. A GTX 960 is a good GPU (that's what I have in my own desktop PC), but I can't help but wonder what you're looking to run on it. A GTX 960 on a Pentium or any AMD sounds rather unbalanced. Care to name some games, and what resolution and detail settings you'll be running them at?

and i picked the cheapest case there was btw and isn't even a gimped quad core better than a good dual core?

i was only getting r9 380 because it was £119 but it isn't anymore getting a gtx 960 now

You don't "need" a quad-core for streaming, and, besides, you picked a dual-core marketed as a quad-core. The Pentium G3258 features Quick Sync, which enables you to dedicate its HD Graphics towards video encoding. That means you aren't spending one of your only two CPU cores on streaming. I recommend using the very-popular Open Broadcasting Software (OBS), which supports this. This cannot be done on the AMD. I have a GA-78LMT-USB3 myself; it was the first board I used for my trashy FX-8320 processor. It's reliable, but it lacks in features, and only features SATA revision 2, 3 Gb/s. You can do better than that. There's also no reason to put that mATX board in an ATX case. There are more flaws than that, but let me just give you a part list already: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/B68vJx Just throw in the video card of your choice, and it's all done. I recommend against using a flamethrower for a video card, as this is mITX, which conserves a lot of space. Of course, you're welcome to change this to mATX, or even ATX, if you so desire. Whatever you do, just keep the board form factor the same as the case, and don't buy AMD's false marketing.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/NarutoSennin/saved/XDV8TW this is what im getting btw and i want to stream a little so i need quad core

Have you taken the motherboard, power supply, CPU cooler and what not into account, too? AMDs are really poor value, and it becomes more apparent once you do this. Really, those aren't even fully-enabled quad core processors, you can look at them in two ways; a glorified dual-core, or a gimped quad-core. The same goes for every Bulldozer/Piledriver processor; the true core amount is half of what's stated. I'd say you either get the Pentium G3258, or an i3-41x0. Neither are quad-cores, but AMD's FX-4xx0s aren't, either. If you want four cores, you'll have to get an i5, which starts around $190, whereas the G3258 and i3-41x0 are around $70 and $120 respectively. Between the G3258 and i3, it depends whether or not you care to overclock, and whether or not you'd like the extra two threads. G3258 if you want to OC, i3 if not. G3258 if you're fine with two threads, i3 if you aren't fine with it. Don't even consider the AMDs anymore, they're just terrible, and I say all of this from facts and my own experience, not assumptions.

i don't know what cpu to get because the only quad cores i can afford are amd

You cannot make up for a bottleneck by throwing good components at other, slower ones. Whether or not you will actually hit a bottleneck depends on what you'll be running, but there's no question that even if you throw a GTX 980 Ti at a Pentium 4, it's still not going to run modern games well, and will only serve to be an enormous waste of money, power, time, and effort. Likewise, AMD FX bottlenecks can only be solved by replacing the processor with a more efficient type.

im getting a gtx 960 4gb so i think that should make up for it maybe?

I see. Interesting. It's not by very much, though, even despite the significantly higher frequency. I also see that it's approximately a hair faster than the 8320 in single-core.

In single core performance the 4300 is actually better than the 8300 http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-8300-vs-AMD-FX-4300

Well, I understand that lots of people say that, but it's either the lack of single-core performance, or some other factor(s) that gave me the performance issues I had with my 8320. Swapping over to a 4790K seemed to give me an all-around performance increase, games included, without even swapping the GPU. However, since there are so many variables associated with a platform swap like that, it's somewhat difficult to know what, exactly, increased the performance.

in the single core performance there isn't that much of a difference apparently