CPU SPECS

[tiktakt0w]

(02-18-2014 04:10 AM)Elucidator Wrote:  the i5 is easily the most powerful CPU in that list, please note however, the task manager does not show true CPU core counts, it just shows the the number of threads your CPU supports,the i5 is only dual core(with two hyperthreads or "virtual cores"), while the AMD trinity is a dual module APU, and if your not planning on buying a video card, then the AMD trinity A10 5800K is your best bet since it has a rather good integrated GPU (way better than HD 4000 on 3rd gen ivy bridge) although you need to invest on a good RAM (at least dual channel,get the fastest speed RAM you can buy and at least 8GB (4 + 4)) since the integrated GPU shares bandwidth and memory with the CPU...

and about the frequency, its all about how much your CPU can do in one cycle not frequency, for example, CPU-A rated at 3Ghz, can do 4 instructions per cycle, while CPU-B rated at 4Ghz, can do 2 instructions per cycle, in this case CPU-A wins since it can do double the work in one cycle compared to CPU-B...

i7 is the fastest but also the priciest...

AMD Trinity is actually more than enough for what he wants to play, although if you want to play heavy emulators, like PCSX2, then the iseries is a better choice though you also need a powerful video card but CPU is more important in emulators...

one more thing, video cards here in the Philippines are crazy expensive for what they can do, so if I were you Ill take the AMD trinity A10 5800k, or wait a few more weeks since AMD Kaveri is already out, although once again, its very late here in the Philippines!

Hold your horses there. Task manager does show how much core and threads your processor has and the desktop variant of the Core i5 is not a dual core processor except for a few models.

Spending too much on RAM wouldn't help if you're in a budget. I would spend more of my money towards Processor>GPU>PSU.


@OP If your friend will just play PC games, A third Gen I3 or I5 would be enough coupled with a GTX 650Ti, It would let you play games without breaking the bank too much.
Don't even bother on buying an APU for gaming, trust me, they are crap and would leave you disappointed in the end. Buy a dedicated GPU! as mentioned above, a GTX 650ti would be enough for most people and I saw it for just like 5500 Pesos at SM Bacoor.

But! if you're gonna play Wii/gamecube games using Dolphin, I would say get a Haswell processor because Dolphin loves processors that has High performance per clock/performance per Mhz and Dolphin doesn't need beefy GPU's.

Heck, an Intel Core I7 4700MQ which is a mobile processor performs better than an AMD FX8350 on dolphin.

One final thing to take note of,

More cores doesn't mean more performance in apps/games. The app/game needs to support multi core implementations to benefit from it. Multi-tasking would benefit from multi-cores though.


It's a pain in the but to implement multi-core support in apps. -.-