AMD PC Config at 27k

AMD A10-5800k -8.4k
ASUS F2A85-M-LE -5.8k or ASUS F2A85-M -6.7k
G.Skill RipjawsX(1600MHz)(F3-12800CL9S) 4GB -1.5k
WD Caviar Blue 500GB - 3.3k
Corsair CX430v2 -2.5k
NZXT source 210 elite -2.7k
Asus DRW-24B5ST - 1k

ASUS F2A85-M has 4 memory slots while F2A85-M-LE has 2 memory slots.
The IGP of A10-5800k is pretty good.At 1024*768 the IGP of a10-5800k is sufficient for most games without any problem.
You can always add a discrete GPU if you upgrade to higher resolution monitors.
A10-5800k's IGP can handle quite a number of games at FHD at pretty decent level.

If your sole or main purpose is gaming then I think you should get an Intel 3rd Gen (Ivy bridge) Core i3 based configuration. Currently the only AMD CPU that can counter it at the same price point is A10-5800K but that is little pricy currently. I am suggesting you both the configs based on Intel and AMD.

Intel Based
Intel Core i3 3220 @ 7.1K
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H @ 4.2K
G-Skill RipjawX 1600 MHz CL9 4GB X 1 @ 1.5K
WD Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA II @ 3.3K
Corsair CX 430 V2 PSU @ 2.7K
Corsair Elite 311 @ 2K
MSI HD 7750 OC 1GB GDDR5 @ 6.8K

Total: 27.6K


AMD Based

AMD FX 4100 @ 6.03K (Flipkart)
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 @ 4K (Flipkart)
G-Skill RipjawX 4GB 1600 MHz CL9 @ 1.5K
WD Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA II @ 3.3K
Corsair CX 430 V2 PSU @ 2.7K
Corsair Elite 311 @ 2K
Gigabyte HD 7770 OC 1GB GDDR5 @ 7.9K

Total: 27.43K

Now, the AMD configuration does have a better Graphics card and a good Processor with slightly lower CPU performance compared to i3 3220. But in gaming, GPU matters more and the FX-4100 + HD 7770 will perform slightly better than the i3 3220 + HD 7750 combination. But remember, FX-4100 consumes more power than i3 3220.

^^Though gaming wise both the rigs are fine for the game-play in that resolution.
But at resolutions like 1280*720 or lower there won't be any definite advantage of fx4100+hd7770 over i3 3220+hd7750.
There can be quite a number of instances when the latter combination would perform similarly or faster than the former at 1024*768,despite having ~15-20% slower graphic card.

No, that won't be the case. They might perform similar sometimes but slower performance won't happen. Even at lower resolution, if you play games at highest settings with good Anti-aliasing and AF level, a better GPU will always perform better if the CPU can keep up. FX-4100 is slower but not that much slower compared to i3 2100. If you bring an Athlon II X2 here, then the performance might become lower.

Far cry2 1680*1050 HQ
StarCraft2 1680*1050 HQ
Dirt Showdown 1280*800 UHQ

In the first image fx4100 trails the i3 2120 by ~28%(taking fx4100 as base) at 1680*1050,HQ in FC2.Similar thing happens in starcraft2.
Things would be much more CPU dependent at 1024*768 than at 1680*1050.
In the 3rd image fx4170 trails the i3 3240 by ~33% at 1280*800,UHQ.Fx4170 has a stock clock of 0.6GHz more than fx4100.

The deficit would be more at 1024*768.This much of deficit in performance can't be compensated by a 15-20% faster card.
So there can be cases where despite having the better GPU(15-20%) fx4100+hd7770 would perform similar or relatively slower i3 3220+hd7750 at 1024*768.

Ya, I think you got a point. But isn't HD 7770 performs almost similar to HD 6850 after the 12.11 driver update? I don't know why AMD isn't releasing their better quad core models like FX 4170 or FX-4300 in India? FX-4170 is comparable with i3 2100 and FX-4300 performs better than i3 3220 in almost every aspects including gaming.

HD7770 is around 15-20% faster than hd7750 after 12.11.Both got performance improvements.
Fx4300 at a good price-point can be a good option as an alternative to i3 3220.
But at lower resolutions for gaming with an equal graphic card i3 3220 would still be a bit ahead of it although at higher resolutions they would be close,fx4300 can be a bit ahead of i3 3220 in some while trailing in some.

vkl said:

AMD A10-5800k -8.4k
ASUS F2A85-M-LE -5.8k or ASUS F2A85-M -6.7k
G.Skill RipjawsX(1600MHz)(F3-12800CL9S) 4GB -1.5k
WD Caviar Blue 500GB - 3.3k
Corsair CX430v2 -2.5k
NZXT source 210 elite -2.7k
Asus DRW-24B5ST - 1k

ASUS F2A85-M has 4 memory slots while F2A85-M-LE has 2 memory slots.
The IGP of A10-5800k is pretty good.At 1024*768 the IGP of a10-5800k is sufficient for most games without any problem.
You can always add a discrete GPU if you upgrade to higher resolution monitors.
A10-5800k's IGP can handle quite a number of games at FHD at pretty decent level.

Click to expand...

+1 for this since the OP is only gaming at 1024x768.

fx 4300 will be launched this month in india according to bitfang. Its currently available there as pre-order but priced very high.

AMD FX-4300 QC Processor, Compare and Buy latest AMD Processors Online in India: bitFang.com

Op better wait for this a bit. Better to go for a decent gpu now than later because monitor can be upgraded anytime.

First of all i would like to thank vkl, Cilus, ico and vickybat for all the suggestions...

The monitor can be upgraded later on...

After reading your posts i feel the i3 3220 is better than fx4100... Initially i thought that having 4 real cores at 3.6ghz would be better than having 2 real and 2 virtual at 3.3ghz... Anyways gaming just needs 2 cores at good speed so i ll chuck my assumptions...

So presently what i was thinking goes like this :

Intel Core i3 3220 @ 7.1K
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H @ 4.2K
G-Skill RipjawX 4GB 1600 MHz CL9 @ 1.5K
WD Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA II @ 3.3K
Corsair CX 430 V2 PSU @ 2.7K
Corsair Elite 311 @ 2K
Gigabyte HD 7770 OC 1GB GDDR5 @ 7.9K

Total : 28.7k

Its a bit on the higher side though.. U guys suggest swapping any part with the other ??? Or else do you ppl feel that waiting for FX4300 would be worth it ???

Or else do you guys feel that investment on an AMD 3.3 GHz AM3 FX6100 Processor wrth 7.7k with HD 7750 wud be more fruitful compared to FX4100/i3 with HD 7770... I dont feel that 6 cores would be any useful as gaming just needs 2 cores but still for future needs (like 3 years)... Please suggest...

Yes,that config with i3 3220+hd7770 is fine for gaming.fx4300 is still not released here.It(fx4300) would have advantage in some heavily multi-threaded programs over i3 3220.
Gaming wise both would be close,but at 1280*720 or below i3 3220 would be ahead.You can wait for fx4300 if you want.
Fx6100 is not worth it,especially for gaming.Fx6300 is much better than fx6100 but still to be released here.

Thank You man... i will surely post back as soon as i get my device this jan...

erm..if you plan on playing Online BF3 then you will need a quad-core..not HT ones..

sbnaul said:

Or else do you guys feel that investment on an AMD 3.3 GHz AM3 FX6100 Processor wrth 7.7k with HD 7750 wud be more fruitful compared to FX4100/i3 with HD 7770... I dont feel that 6 cores would be any useful as gaming just needs 2 cores but still for future needs (like 3 years)... Please suggest...

Click to expand...

For descent gaming, HD7770 is the minimum choice. About the choice of processor, go figure.

Talking about BF3 multi-player i3 3220 would be better than fx4100.
In BF3 MP fx4100 performs as good as i3 2100.
fx4100 gaming evaluation
Evaluation of BF3 both in single player and multiplayer mode is done.Fx4100 and i3 2100 have nearly identical graphs with i3 2100 having a little lead in fps.

Armored kill CPU performance -64 player server
fx4100 trails i3 2100 here.i3 3220 is clocked higher than i3 2100 and has IPC improvements.fx4300 might compete well with i3 3220.Fx4100 doesn't look like competing with i3 3220 here.Even fx6100 performs well in BF3 MP as it is heavily CPU dependent with lot of calculations but fx6100 has dismal performance in other games,often performing lower than fx4100.
Fx6300 would be good in BF3 MP though,also it performs quite well in other games as well,trades blows with i3 3220 and performs better than fx4300.But it is still to be released here.
Fx6300+hd7770 would be nice if OP can afford and if it is released soon.Else i3 3220+hd7770 is fine.

vkl said:

AMD A10-5800k -8.4k
ASUS F2A85-M-LE -5.8k or ASUS F2A85-M -6.7k
G.Skill RipjawsX(1600MHz)(F3-12800CL9S) 4GB -1.5k
WD Caviar Blue 500GB - 3.3k
Corsair CX430v2 -2.5k
NZXT source 210 elite -2.7k
Asus DRW-24B5ST - 1k

ASUS F2A85-M has 4 memory slots while F2A85-M-LE has 2 memory slots.
The IGP of A10-5800k is pretty good.At 1024*768 the IGP of a10-5800k is sufficient for most games without any problem.
You can always add a discrete GPU if you upgrade to higher resolution monitors.
A10-5800k's IGP can handle quite a number of games at FHD at pretty decent level.

Click to expand...

This is a pretty good rig even though i3 may sightly perform better in games but 4 cores has its advantages now getting a quadcore will be good fo

But, vkl, FX 4100 can be overclocked and with its stock cooler, it can run at 3.8 GHz speed. With a decent cooler like Hyper TX3 Evo, it can easily get past 4GHz. In that speed the performance difference between the i3 and FX 4100 are not that much. Since I am working on couple of tweak for both Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs, I know how they can improve performance. Without overclocking the CPU, by just increasing Turbo mode multiplier, you can run the FX series processor at full speed of the Turbo, all the 4 cores. All you need to do is to go to the BIOS and increase the Turbo Multiplier value. For example you have set it to 20, resulting a 4GHz Turbo frequency jump. But don't disable any CPu power saving features, mainly Cool 'n Quiet.

Now before starting the game, if you change the Power mode of the Windows 7 to High performance setting run any applications, all the four cores will jump to 4GHz speed and will be there until the applications is terminated. You don't need to think about CPU voltage or base clock frequency as they will be adjusted automatically. This kind of automatic overclocking reduce power consumption and also enable automatic overclocking only when applications require it and prevents it run at high speed all the time. These kind of small tweaking ca actually reduce the performance gap between it ad i3.

Also, here is the conclusion from the review link you have posted:-

Conclusion
One word, if you are a gamer on a budget spend more money for a better graphics card than a CPU. Even in lower resolutions, today’s DX-11 games at higher image quality really need a high performance GPU. Higher image quality settings can transform a game in to magic. Most of the times that will be doable with a higher performance graphics card.
AMD’s FX4100 and Intel’s Core i3 2100 are both adequate for a budget gaming system. We strongly believe that final purchase decision between those two CPUs will not be about the performance. Something else like lower power consumption, upgradability or even a platform feature will be the deciding factor.

Click to expand...

So, even at lower resolution, a capable enough CPU and more powerful graphics card is recommended, as per the reviewers.

Sbnaul,I am not against Intel but to get maximum from you PC you should get A10 based rig as suggested by vlk.no offence but if you decide to run java IDE or oracle or virtual machine later for learning purpose then a quadcore will be better.
Think you have some work to do if you are given a option to choose between 2 people and 4 people for same labour charge which option do you think you choose I guess 4 people right this is same situation as 4 core and 2 core.
Plz don't go by those reviews they will always try to prove intel is good don't go by their nos. one great example of this is tomshardware.com
Read this page you will know what I am saying for this reason I stopped reading reviews from this site.
LINK
FX-8350: Still Not The FX Us Old-Timers Remember

I won't suggest FX-4100 as well. i3 is the better bet compared to it in every way.

The Piledriver ones i.e. FX-4300 or FX-6300 are fine though. Even A10-5800K is fine and I'd choose it over i3. But no to FX-4100.

oh my god... this has got me thinking again... i went through the benchmarking of a10 out at anandtech... AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 2... it seems that the i3 3220 is a bit better than the new trinity in fps... do u think that a10's gpu (AMD Radeon HD 7660D) can work together in sync with another discrete gpu like AMD Radeon HD 6570 ??? like both gpu's together... or is the i3+7770 better than the combo...

Cilus,that link was for BF3 multi-player comparison.In the review they have used a gts450 for resolutions like 1280*1024.HD7770>>gts450.
We have already discussed about gaming in low resolutions like 1280*720 or below and we have seen some links too.
At such low resolution with same graphic cards generally i3 2100 is ahead of fx4100 in case of a good mid-range graphic card.
With i3 3220 things become even worse for fx4100.At resolutions like 1280*720 or lower there won't be any definite advantage of fx4100+hd7770 over i3 3220+hd7750 i.e. there can be quite a number of instances when the latter combination would performsimilarly or faster than the former at 1024*768,despite having ~15-20% slower graphic card.I am not saying that it would always be the case but there can be quite a number of instances,and we have seen some pics and that was the point.
1024*768 is considerably lesser(~66%) than even 1280*1024.

In CPU bound games like Skyrim,Starcraft II,Just cause2 and others fx4100 would be behind i3 2100 even at FHD at high settings.
Had the resolution been 1600*900 or something like that then i3 3220+hd7770 or fx4100+hd7770 won't make huge difference.
Also for 1440*900 and above fx4100+hd7770 would be ahead of i3 3220+hd7750 in most cases.
Also OP is saying he can go for hd7770 with i3 3220 and at his resolution i3 3220 definitely makes more sense than fx4100.
Also processor wise i3 3220 is better than fx4100 for most of the things.
Fx4300,fx6300 cases are different.They are much better than fx4100 and are recommendable as alternatives to i3 3220.
In fact fx6300 with hd7770 makes more sense if within budget and available.

sbnaul said:

the i3+7770 better than the combo...

Click to expand...

Buy i3 + HD 7770 and be done with it.

A10-5800K if you don't want to buy a discrete GPU now as the built-in GPU is going to fine for your resolution. A10-5800K + next-gen HD 8000 discrete GPU in future is also fine.

Ico, I have also suggested OP an Intel i3 3220 based configuration and told him that there is no AMD CPU at that price range that can counter it, expect A8-5800K. But since I have hands on experience on both Piledriver and Bulldozer with all the Win 7 BD patches installed and some custom tweaks, I found that BD's performance can be increased significantly using some small tweaks. If OP don't want any hassle, even the simplest one, then i3 3220 is the best solution for him.

In all the reviews, tests are done by disabling all the CPU enhancing features like AMD Turbo as well as Turbo based overclocking, by increasing the Turbo Clcok Multiplier value. Also there is another feature called Core Parking, which when turned off, increases BD's performance. As I mentioned in my previous post, if you overclock using increased Turbo Frequency in high performance power mode with Core parking off, the performance of all the BD processors increase around 5% to 10% in different scenarios. There is a very simple Windows Application available for Switching Core Parking on/off on the fly without restarting. Also there is a new option in almost all the EFI BIOS versions, called HPC or High performance Computing, which when enabled can eliminate the CPU throttling at lower than the stock speed.
After applying all those, I found out that performance of my FX-8150 was increased a lot in Benchmark suits like AIDA64, Cinebench and Wprime. In AIDA64, sometimes it was ahead of i7 2600K with no CPU overclock and Turbo Clock set to 4.2GHz. I have done all those tests with my stock AMD cooler and the temperature was not more than 70 degree.

Actually the main reason for limiting the budget was my plan on buying the Lenovo Ideapad Y500 on release in our country... Should be around by the end of February...

And the screen can be upgraded later... So 1024*768 shouldn't matter much...

After reading all the comments from the start again I feel going by what ico said... i3 3220 + 7770...

ya, be it. I was in the impression that your budget won't permit you to get i3 3220 + HD 7770 combination. If you can get this combo then there isn't any need to rethink.

Cilus said:

ya, be it. I was in the impression that your budget won't permit you to get i3 3220 + HD 7770 combination. If you can get this combo then there isn't any need to rethink.

Click to expand...

Actually at lamington, Mumbai i am getting i3 3220 for 6.6k and HD 7770 for 8.1k... So the entire system from there would well suit the budget... That is under 26k~27k...

hey guys if not for Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H, which other motherboard would take in both i3 3220 and HD 7770 ??? no plans in overclocking...