im buying a new PC, and I'm not exactly tech-savvy. I get the basic understanding of it and processors are the ones I understand the least, but here's what I'm looking at.


the 3930k is a 6 x 3.2 GHz

the FX8150 is an 8 x 3.6 GHz

so isn't the FX8150 better in pretty much every way? It has more cores and each one is faster, so then why is the 3930k almost three times as expensive? Is there something I'm missing?

Also I know intel tend to be more expensive for the brand name, but I mean really, come on, why is it $400 more expensive?

Because clock speed and number of cores aren't the only stats you should look at.

Actually let me just ask, what are you going to be using this pc for?

gaming and multi-tasking
possibly at one point editing movies.

What do you mean by multi-tasking in this context?

e: also a cpu as powerful as that intel is going to be overkill for everything you intend on doing with it except for maybe movie editing, and it's probably a bad idea to spend a shitload of money on something that's only going to give you slight gains in performance in one area of your use.

you'd be better off buying say, an i5 2500k and putting the money you saved to use on an SSD which will give you significantly more noticeable performance gains.

The reason I recommend the i5 is because of the fact that the things you plan to run (games, web browsing, office stuff, I'm assuming light video editing) are not coded to take advantage of the extra cores the 3930k or fx will give you.

Nothing big, just having a game running, maybe music in the background, school work open, letting a movie on the web buffer. Nothing really intensive. Typical stuff. If I have a processor intensive program open I tend to close anything that isn't related to it or anything I don't need at the time.

I won't have like 3 different games open at once or anything.

Also which one would I receive the longest duration before I'd have to replace it is something I'll take into account.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/434?vs=288

This benchmarks the i5-2500k I recommended against the fx in your first post (since they're priced similarly).

This should give you an idea of why clock speed and # of cores are not the end-all be-all of cpu comparisons.

Okay thanks this does clear it up a little bit. I knew there was something weird, this is why I chose to ask here first cause I don't know shit, even though my friends who are apparently "tech-savvy" told me the opposite.

I'm not that in to mobo architecture, but out of interest Eleeleth, are AMD using a reduced instruction set or is there a bottleneck or something else?

It's not a reduced instruction set, since for 64 bit chips AMD was the designer of the instruction set's specifications. It's just that Intel has a shitload more money to throw at talented engineers who give us things like Hyperthreading, which is something like a 5% die size increase to a 20-25% increase in performance. (if you're interested in a longer read: http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/...technology.pdf )

Basically it just boils down to intel chips being more efficient at the lowest levels: instructions per clock cycle. So that any intel chip w/ the same specifications as an amd chip in regards to like, cores, clock speed, etc etc will be measurably faster. There are some architecture differences that will let amd pull ahead in some areas, but generally intel is going to be your best bet.

I see, very interesting!

Intel tech always is very impressive to me.