Questions

[ZombifiedPyro]

As the title says, I have many questions.

First, which is the better deal:

i3 2220 and H77/B75 motherboard for 183.98 USD

Or

FX-6300 and 970 motherboard for $214.98 USD.

The differences on the motherboard, such as PCI-e 2.0 vs. 3.0, Sata 2 vs. Sata3 ports, RAM speed, capacity, and slots, etc. Do not matter.

Second, when do graphics cards start getting bottle necked by the PCI-e lane.

Third, between these two motherboards, which would you buy for an i3 system. (Not trying to future proof.) Option 1 Option 2

[Maverik5124]

There were some benchmarks that showed that even a gtx 680 did not get bottlenecked at all by a pcie 2.0 8x slot. I guess a titan or 690 might get bottlenecked my that but I don't know. You'd have to look for benchmarks.

Same goes for the processor. By guesstimating I'd say the fx-6300 is better but you should google for some benchmarks

[ZombifiedPyro]

I was thinking about 2.0 4x.

[mvitkun]

FX 6300 is better for most scenarios,there will be some exceptions like video editing where due to the onboard memory controller the i3 may edge out the FX 6300.

also with the FX 6300 your able to Overclock.

pcie 3.0 is double the bandwidth of pcie 3.0.but a large majority of people never even utilize pcie 2.0 x16 to the full extent.

even at pcie 2.0 x4 dual graphics solutions like the 6990 run fine.

as shown in the above video while it does lose 100 points in 3dmark the score is very similar between pcie 2.0 x4 and pcie 2.0 x16.

so unless you have a 3+ graphics card crossfire/sli you won't need more than pcie 2.0 x4 bandwidth.

I'd go for the b75 since the b75 chipset allows for mild OC'ing.

this does not mean simply cpu OC'ing but also memory,so while the H77 is limited to 1600mhz dimms the B75 can handle 2200mhz.

also while the h77 has 2 pci slots,the b75 has 2x pcie x1 and a pci slot which leaves more room for upgrading.

[vampirr]

FX 6300 is far better, i3 2220 is weak and FX 4300 is better and don't get a dual core processors since its not 2009! Its 2013!

[ZombifiedPyro]

The i3 hyperthreads. So it is like the fx 4300, only better because of the single threaded performance. The 6300 is a six core. But it is kinda hyperthreaded.

[christoi]

From what I've seen, the FX6300 seems to be a better choice overall when it comes to gaming. This is especially if you are planning on overclocking, I'd say it's a better choice (make sure you get a decent motherboard if you go with the FX though, with overclocking involved vrm quality is actually rather important with Vishera).

For graphics card bottlenecking, it's actually not caused by the card itself, but the setup you have. There's tons of benchmarks that show cards like the GTX680 and HD7970 performing rather well on a 2x PCI-e 3.0 slot as already said, but you actually see larger differences with multi-monitor setups are it requires a lot more memory bandwidth (which is mainly why you see a lot of X79-based high-end gaming rigs). Given your budget however, I doubt that'll be an issue.

As for the two boards, the H77 chipset offers a lot more features, such as more PCI-e lanes, more SATA III ports, more DIMMs etc. Other than that however, there's typically not much that differs between low-end boards, so either would be fine.

[mvitkun]

FX 6300 is far better, i3 2220 is weak and FX 4300 is better and don't get a dual core processors since its not 2009! Its 2013!

no the FX 4300 is worse.

and if it were between the FX 6100 or the i3 3220,I'd go 3220.

[Giancarlo124]

In this case. I would say that the amd option is much better. Core i3's are a tad weak and wont preform well in games.

[ZombifiedPyro]

Thanks for all the input. I will not be overclocking the AMD that much if I get one. I want it to be quiet and I will only have a hyper 212 evo. The H77 board is asrock, and the B75 board is Asus, I would prefer asus, but I did not know how much they would differ. Thanks for the help with the PCI-e lanes thing, I will be doing a single 1200p monitor. I think I will get the i3 because of the single threaded performance.