# CPU For The Sims 3 & 4 - AMD or Intel?



## Gmr_Chick (Nov 21, 2014)

To make it clear, I want to keep this conversation civil. I know the whole AMD vs Intel thing is hotly debated, but I'm here for honest, helpful advice, not to hear that AMD sucks or Intel sucks. So please, keep it civil.

I'm an avid player of The Sims 3 franchise - I currently own every Expansion Pack (there are 11 of them) and 4 Stuff Packs (things that add new things like lots, clothing or objects to the main game; I own 4 of these, but there a total of 9 of these.) In addition to this, I have about 3.75 GBs worth of mods and other custom content for the game. Unfortunately, it's been a great while since I was able to play the game smoothly - after just 15 minutes of playing, I get HORRIBLE lag and stuttering, which forces me to stop playing. Granted, this game isn't very demanding with just the base Sims 3 game, but once you get to where I'm at, it becomes harder to run smoothly. Because I believe this game to be more reliant on the CPU than the GPU, I believe my CPU may have something to do with the horrible lag issues I'm dealing with. If you look at my system specs, you'll see I'm running an FX-6100. Yes, I'm running a "Faildozer" as it's so lovingly called. 


I come here asking for help on a possible CPU upgrade, because for the life of me, I can't exactly find CPU benchmarks for this game (understandably so; it isn't exactly a AAA title) and I don't want to screw up on this CPU like I did with the 6100 (yes, in hindsight, I would have never gotten it, knowing what I know now.) I do play other games, but they are more GPU dependent than CPU dependent like the Sims 3 is; just got a 280X about a week or so ago, so I'm not worried about the GPU. Anyway, I'm looking at either an FX-6350 or 8320 on the AMD side, or anything from an i3 to a non-K i5 and H97 or Z87 board. What would you guys suggest? Right now I'm leaning towards the Intel choice because it offers a better upgrade path, but it would also require getting a new board. I wouldn't have to do that with the AMD obviously.

I sincerely value your opinions after you all were so helpful in helping choose a GPU upgrade from my 7790.


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## xela333 (Nov 21, 2014)

If your not having much success with an AMD FX6100, I don't think getting an AMD 8 core is going to make much difference. And from what I can see online, the Sims would rather a cpu with quicker single core performance than multicore. 

So I'd recommend getting the cheapest i5 CPU you can with a H81 board or Z97 if you can fit one into your budget. 

Memory will probably be an issue too if you only have 4GB, need 8GB ideally.


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## RCoon (Nov 21, 2014)

xela333 said:


> the Sims would rather a cpu with quicker single core performance than multicore



This, basically. It's entirely single threaded, so you're better off with _any_ processor that has some serious IPC beef behind it on single cores. Basically getting more cores isn't going to help. Overclocking singular cores will offer better performance increase. Honestly an i3 would be fine, just get the higher clocked ones. The i5 makes no difference besides for other games and software capable of using the cores. They i5's just tend to have slightly higher baseclocks, and are the baseline for K processors too. If you only play Sims, I don't see a need for an i5. If you play a number of other games, perhaps an i5.
Alternatively, overclock the live bejeesus out of your AMD processor.


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## AhokZYashA (Nov 21, 2014)

I'm a sims 3 player too, 
albeit  only with the base game,
i usually play it on my PC (E7400 OC'd) or sometimes on my laptop (i5 4200u) without much stuttering or lag, 
i have it all on high, both on PC and laptop, 

so yeah, i think you really need a beefier CPU than an FX-6100

i can suggest the pentium G3258 + a small Z97 board, and overclock to atleast 4-4.2GHz
it will make a lot of differences, and an SSD will also help, because sims takes its textures (and theres a LOT of them from the disk constantly)


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 21, 2014)

RCoon said:


> This, basically. It's entirely single threaded, so you're better off with _any_ processor that has some serious IPC beef behind it on single cores. Basically getting more cores isn't going to help. Overclocking singular cores will offer better performance increase. Honestly an i3 would be fine, just get the higher clocked ones. The i5 makes no difference besides for other games and software capable of using the cores. They i5's just tend to have slightly higher baseclocks, and are the baseline for K processors too. If you only play Sims, I don't see a need for an i5. If you play a number of other games, perhaps an i5.
> Alternatively, overclock the live bejeesus out of your AMD processor.



It's funny you mention the i3 because I was actually looking at the 4360. It's currently on newegg for $129 and has a base clock of 3.7 GHz, and I think it even has Hyper Threading. However, I do play other games (Sleeping Dogs, Alien: Isolation, GTA IV, things like that. But nothing like the Battlefield series or Far Cry series or Crysis, nor do I have any desire to.) so I'm wondering if a dual core with HT would still be enough for those. I would consider OCing my FX but I don't know how and I don't believe my motherboard could handle it. 



AhokZYashA said:


> i can suggest the pentium G3258 + a small Z97 board, and overclock to atleast 4-4.2GHz
> it will make a lot of differences, and an SSD will also help, because sims takes its textures (and theres a LOT of them from the disk constantly)



I was looking at that little G3258 as well. read it's a little monster, but only if OCed (still probably performs better than my FX-6100 at stock though, lol) I do have a slight interest in learning how to OC, which that little guy is made for, and I'm not looking to spend all this money on a K i5 when the little Pentium could do it just as good probably. Please correct me if I'm wrong. 

And you're right about the Sims 3 textures. I have a 7200 RPM HD and it drives me crazy how much rendering the damn game does, so after the CPU upgrade, I'll definitely look into getting an SSD. 

So, I think my choices are either an i3-4360 with an H97 board, or a G3258 with a Z97 board. This'll probably be my last CPU for a while, so I'm curious to know which would last me the longest.


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## Toothless (Nov 21, 2014)

Could try OC'ing that 6-core before pushing more money into an upgrade. Though if OC'ing isn't your style, then a non-K i5 with a high base clock will do you properly.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 21, 2014)

I would go with the G3258...but I like overclocking and for the cost of that chip I wouldn't even care if I burned it up. The G3258 uses same socket as an I3 do you could give OC'ing a try and if it doesn't work out you can just plug a i3/i5/i7 in there. I would suggest the z97 regardless of cpu choice.

Get a nice beefy Air Cooler and OC the snot out of that G3258. 

And you need a SSD for sure.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 21, 2014)

Lightbulbie said:


> Could try OC'ing that 6-core before pushing more money into an upgrade. Though if OC'ing isn't your style, then a non-K i5 with a high base clock will do you properly.



I would try to OC my FX, but I have this board: 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872 

Would I still be able to OC with it? 



ZenZimZaliben said:


> I would go with the G3258...but I like overclocking and for the cost of that chip I wouldn't even care if I burned it up. The G3258 uses same socket as an I3 do you could give OC'ing a try and if it doesn't work out you can just plug a i3/i5/i7 in there. I would suggest the z97 regardless of cpu choice.
> 
> Get a nice beefy Air Cooler and OC the snot out of that G3258.
> 
> And you need a SSD for sure.



No need to worry about the air cooler - I got a CM Hyper 212.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 21, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> I would try to OC my FX, but I have this board:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872
> 
> Would I still be able to OC with it?



Yes your board should be able to oc it moderately well. However it is a higher watt CPU and your powersupply is a 560W so you "may" run into power issues, although your PS is a great brand with a good Gold rating....You won't know until you try but from the quick search I did people have hit 4.2+ Ghz on that board with that CPU. You could always disable a few cores if you do run into power issues. Plus you will be able to push the chip further.

http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/overlock-on-asus-m5a97-r2-0-tips-anyone.185781/


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 21, 2014)

I have a 2.66 GHz Core i7 920 and it struggles with large neighborhoods (especially Paradise Isle).  The game clock freezes frequently to work on crap and it is extremely annoying.  I'd recommend as low of process as possible with the highest clockspeed as possible which basically means 4th generation Core i#.

I would also consider an SSD just for the game but I think processor is more important.  Everytime the game freezes the way it does, a core is maxed out at 100%.  SSD would fix the texture popping but texture popping is no where near as annoying as the game clock stopping.


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## v12dock (Nov 21, 2014)

TS4's engine run far better than TS3. My 4770K freezes and lags with large neighborhoods as well.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 21, 2014)

TS4 doesn't have 33.4 GiB of content nor 3 GiB saves. XD

TS3 is by far the harder of the two to run.  TS4 may be more demanding on GPU by TS3 is by far more demanding on the CPU.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 22, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I have a 2.66 GHz Core i7 920 .



How do you own this CPU and it is not overclocked?? :|


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I have a 2.66 GHz Core i7 920 and it struggles with large neighborhoods (especially Paradise Isle).  The game clock freezes frequently to work on crap and it is extremely annoying.  I'd recommend as low of process as possible with the highest clockspeed as possible which basically means 4th generation Core i#.
> 
> I would also consider an SSD just for the game but I think processor is more important.  Everytime the game freezes the way it does, a core is maxed out at 100%.  SSD would fix the texture popping but texture popping is no where near as annoying as the game clock stopping.



The game's neighborhoods are notorious for having horrible routing issues (like, if for example, you have your sim out walking somewhere, and they suddenly stop and throw a fit about not being able to get where they need to go, that's a routing issue; the only exception to this is if you're trying to make them walk up a really steep hill, which they can't do anyway. The former is related to routing.) and there are mods out there to help deal with routing issues found in the various worlds. These may help you as they have me, but it's not a cure-all. Check out a site called Mod The Sims, click on downlads>Sims3>Misc>Custom Worlds and CAS Screens and then look for a user named ellacharmed; she's fixed most of the routing issues found in the various hoods. Only thing is, to download anything, you have to join the site, but it and all the content there (which is created by other Sims players) is free. 

Ahem, back on topic. 

Ok. I've narrowed it down to the G3258 (3.2 GHz stock) and learning how to OC the snot out of it, the i3-4360 (3.7 GHz stock) with hyper threading but no OC potential, or the i5-4460 (3.2 GHz stock) with four cores, but no HT and no OC potential. I should have mentioned this before (D'oh!) but I'd like to keep both the CPU and mobo cost below $300. What would you guys suggest from these 3? 

In the meantime, I'll dabble in OCing with my FX. Any basic info I should know so I don't accidentally bork something?


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 22, 2014)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> How do you own this CPU and it is not overclocked?? :|


2.66 GHz over 10 years is better than 3.5 GHz over 5 years.



Gmr_Chick said:


> The game's neighborhoods are notorious for having horrible routing issues (like, if for example, you have your sim out walking somewhere, and they suddenly stop and throw a fit about not being able to get where they need to go, that's a routing issue; the only exception to this is if you're trying to make them walk up a really steep hill, which they can't do anyway. The former is related to routing.) and there are mods out there to help deal with routing issues found in the various worlds. These may help you as they have me, but it's not a cure-all. Check out a site called Mod The Sims, click on downlads>Sims3>Misc>Custom Worlds and CAS Screens and then look for a user named ellacharmed; she's fixed most of the routing issues found in the various hoods. Only thing is, to download anything, you have to join the site, but it and all the content there (which is created by other Sims players) is free.


That's not the problem. It's the sheer number of Sims in the neighborhood it has to calculate for and it doesn't do it in parallel.  The gameclock freezes everytime there is a backlog of simulating to do.  In the default neighborhood with no expansions, I seem to recall it only freezing at 4am on the game clock.  In Paradise Isle with all expansions, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it other than frequently.  It is noticeably improved when your sim travels to another map (e.g. University, World Adventures) and returns when you get back to Paradise Isle.

And FYI, I have two of the most popular applications on MTS for The Sims 3.


I'd go with i3-4360 unless you play other games then I'd sacrifice Sims 3 performance for i5-4460.  Most games these days that aren't made by EA make good use of multithreading.  A dual-core could bottleneck them.


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## Toothless (Nov 22, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> The game's neighborhoods are notorious for having horrible routing issues (like, if for example, you have your sim out walking somewhere, and they suddenly stop and throw a fit about not being able to get where they need to go, that's a routing issue; the only exception to this is if you're trying to make them walk up a really steep hill, which they can't do anyway. The former is related to routing.) and there are mods out there to help deal with routing issues found in the various worlds. These may help you as they have me, but it's not a cure-all. Check out a site called Mod The Sims, click on downlads>Sims3>Misc>Custom Worlds and CAS Screens and then look for a user named ellacharmed; she's fixed most of the routing issues found in the various hoods. Only thing is, to download anything, you have to join the site, but it and all the content there (which is created by other Sims players) is free.
> 
> Ahem, back on topic.
> 
> ...


Y'know the i5 is four solid cores and threads while the i3 is only two cores, but four threads? 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116505

3.3 stock with a 3.7 turbo.


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## Rowsol (Nov 22, 2014)

I bought a g3258 recently and it OC'ed to 3.8ghz by simply changing the multiplier to 38.  I didn't touch any other settings.  My GA-H81M-H gigabyte motherboard limits the voltage to 1.2v so 3.9ghz is unstable.  With the stock cooler it peaks at 70c on Prime 95.  For a budget combo h81 + g3258 can't be beat.


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## Sempron Guy (Nov 22, 2014)

Since you already have the board and to avoid the hassle of changing platforms, just get an FX 8320. Although, I don't think Sims is pretty much particular to cpu performance. Your newly purchased 280x would still dictate your overall experience on the game.


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## TRWOV (Nov 22, 2014)

You could give a go at overclocking but that board's VRM section is very poor (4+1 phases, D-PAK packages). so you might not get very far.


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## Selen Bor (Nov 22, 2014)

1. defrag hdd using "defraggler" or buy ssd, clone using "Easeus Todo Backup Free 7.5"
2. uninstall graphics driver
3. reboot
4. download and run "ccleaner", tab registry
5. download and run "autoruns", check autostart entries
5. reboot
6. download & install newest graphics driver
7. reboot
8. delete deletable files in C:\Users\..\AppData\Local\Temp (where .. is your account name)

alternatively http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/685738.page or http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/779428/solved-game-lagging-and-stuttering-all-the-time

alternatively, try with only one graphics card installed, maybe SLI/Crossfire causes problems

great cpu is pentium g3258


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## Toothless (Nov 22, 2014)

Selen Bor said:


> 1. defrag hdd using "defraggler" or buy ssd, clone using "Easeus Todo Backup Free 7.5"
> 2. uninstall graphics driver
> 3. reboot
> 4. download and run "ccleaner", tab registry
> ...


Really..? The constant rebooting won't help anything. I'd like an explanation for the 8 steps when this is clearly hardware-related.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 22, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ok. I've narrowed it down to the G3258 (3.2 GHz stock) and learning how to OC the snot out of it, the i3-4360 (3.7 GHz stock) with hyper threading but no OC potential, or the i5-4460 (3.2 GHz stock) with four cores, but no HT and no OC potential. I should have mentioned this before (D'oh!) but I'd like to keep both the CPU and mobo cost below $300. What would you guys suggest from these 3?
> 
> In the meantime, I'll dabble in OCing with my FX. Any basic info I should know so I don't accidentally bork something?



Sounds like you have a good plan. See what you can get out of the FX, which might be good enough. If that fails get the G3258.

The vrms are heatsinked but they are only 4+2 phases. So getting over 4ghz will be hard.. 1.39 vcore should get to around 4.2 ghz.

Make sure your BUS speed is at 200, and DRAM frequency at auto so ram doesnt get overclocked.
overclocking ram beyond its limits may cause the freezing/hanging keep it close to 1600Mhz.

With everything else at auto/stock, whatever your current settings, change the cpu multi to x20 for 4 ghz
and put the cpu vcore around 1.37 or 1.38.

Watch your temps. Run benchmarks, or play sims and see if it's better. If temps are low and stable start lowering vcore...or increase multi.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

Thanks! I'll give this OCing thing a try.


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## Toothless (Nov 22, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Thanks! I'll give this OCing thing a try.


If you can, put a fan over the VRM heatsink so it'll run cooler. Worked with my board but I'd be iffy on OCing with that board. Take it slow and try to keep the voltage down, and sure as hell not to 1.38 starting off. Bump the multi and see how it goes.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

I found this guide on Overclocking a bulldozer FX on the M5A97 board, but I'm assuming they're talking about the 990FX version of the board, whereas mine is on the 970 chipset.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1348623/amd-bulldozer-and-piledriver-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboard 

They mention getting the CPU up to 4.0 GHz, but I think that's a bit much for me since I'm a newbie and all... It all sounds so intimidating, lol.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 22, 2014)

Lightbulbie said:


> sure as hell not to 1.38 starting off.



Go in steps. You really don't have much to worry about until you go beyond 1.38v.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

Well, I messed around with it for a bit and according to CPU-Z, I'm at 3575.64 MHz. Not sure if that's good or bad.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 22, 2014)

Well that is 200Mhz above stock, so that is a good direction. Are you using a 17x multi or 18x and increasing the FSB? If you are I would leave the FSB alone (for now) so your memory doesn't start getting oc'd.


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## Toothless (Nov 22, 2014)

With your cooler, I'd say get it to 3.8 with the multi and stay before 1.37v. Watch your temps and bench er' out.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> Well that is 200Mhz above stock, so that is a good direction. Are you using a 17x multi or 18x and increasing the FSB? If you are I would leave the FSB alone (for now) so your memory doesn't start getting oc'd.



According to CPU-Z, my multi is at 16.5. Maybe it's just me, but it almost "feels" like my rig is running slower with the overclock. Like, things seem like they take longer to load and Windows takes longer to boot. Could it just be my imagination? I'll play around with it a little more and see what happens. 

Back on topic. I've narrowed my choices down to an i3-4360 or an i5-4460. I'm currently leaning more towards the i3 at the moment because this way I can get a better motherboard, plus with a Z97/H97 board, I can always upgrade to an i5 later. I'm curious about Z87 boards though. Is it possible they will work with Broadwell like the 9 series boards?


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## Rowsol (Nov 22, 2014)

Well unless you are OC'ing you should probably go with a cheap board.

Damn, this is 28 bucks at the moment.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=1150_motherboard-_-13-130-731-_-Product

I'd get a g3258 and that board and overclock it... but the i3 for $130 is a good deal also.

EDIT: Apparently unlike my h81 board, the MSI I linked above requires an update to OC the g3258, so for simplicity the i3 would be the better choice.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

How about one of these boards? 

GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER H6 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128726 

MSI H97 GAMING 3 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130787 

GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER Z5S - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4865#kf 

I really like the last one because it would fit my black and green theme perfectly. Plus, my local computer shop has it for $115.


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## Devon68 (Nov 22, 2014)

I would not OC on a board that has a 4 pin cpu power connector. The last guy I saw try that melted the whole 4 pin connector and had to soldier the wires to the board to make it work again (ok he might have went a little too far with his oc but still).

EDIT how is 3.5 GHz good when the turbo is 3.6 or 3.9GHz I don't remember


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## Naito (Nov 22, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 2.66 GHz over 10 years is better than 3.5 GHz over 5 years.



Ten years has the potential to see 5 Intel 'Tocks', so you'd have to be one dedicated person to hold onto a CPU that long. Besides, you'd be better looking at something along the lines of 3.2GHz (20x160Mhz) to support your 1600MHz RAM.



Gmr_Chick said:


> Back on topic. I've narrowed my choices down to an i3-4360 or an i5-4460. I'm currently leaning more towards the i3 at the moment because this way I can get a better motherboard, plus with a Z97/H97 board...



Better go with the i5 and a cheaper board. Unless you're going to OC, a H97 should suffice.



Gmr_Chick said:


> I can always upgrade to an i5 later.



Dunno how many times I've heard people say this, but yet it never happens. People invest the money upfront to begin with and by the time they have saved the cash/are looking to upgrade, they just buy a new platform again. With Intel changing sockets after every tick-tock cycle, it makes more sense to just buy the newer platform rather than purchasing that high spec CPU you were saving for. Go the better CPU now; it'll last longer and help negate the need to upgrade to a Broadwell (most 'ticks' aren't worth while if you already have the 'tock').



Gmr_Chick said:


> I'm curious about Z87 boards though. Is it possible they will work with Broadwell like the 9 series boards?



Nope, but Z87 can still be a good choice, if you don't need stuff like SATA Express. But going back to my previous statement, get what suits your budget now, rather than looking at something like the future Broadwell; it's not going to be leaps and bounds faster than Haswell and when the time comes and you're thinking about finally getting that Broadwell CPU, you probably will see it isn't worth it and will just wait for the next platform. Only thing to look out for is BIOS support of the Haswell refresh (if you go that path), but that G1.Sniper you posted already supports them.

EDIT: If anything, you could get a Z87 board now and pair with an i5, then pick up a cheap Haswell refresh i7 in the future (as, like I said, Broadwell won't be much faster), then wait it our for Skylake or beyond.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 22, 2014)

Devon68 said:


> I would not OC on a board that has a 4 pin cpu power connector. The last guy I saw try that melted the whole 4 pin connector and had to soldier the wires to the board to make it work again (ok he might have went a little too far with his oc but still).



That doesn't sound good.

Don't know about this overclocking thing, honestly. Like, does that make me less of a PC gamer if I don't overclock? 

@ Naito: In other words, you're basically saying get what I can afford now, rather than get a platform (i.e. 9 series) in which nobody really knows for sure if Broadwell will be bounds better than Haswell? Other than a few added features, that's pretty much the only other reason for the 9 series, isn't it?


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## Naito (Nov 23, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> @ Naito: In other words, you're basically saying get what I can afford now, rather than get a platform (i.e. 9 series) in which nobody really knows for sure if Broadwell will be bounds better than Haswell? Other than a few added features, that's pretty much the only other reason for the 9 series, isn't it?



It's really down to if you will want to OC. A Z87 (if much cheaper than a Z97 board), is still a very decent board for overclocking, but if you aren't going to go the way of an K-series CPU now or in future, there is no point. If you are going to go an i5 (non-K) and will be content with that in the future, you'd best go a H97 and save some coin. Broadwell is a Tick (die-shrink), so will only bring minor improvements - hardly worth waiting for if looking at a budget/mid-range setup. Yes, pretty much the only reason for going the Wildcat Point (9-series) chipset is for future Broadwell support.

EDIT: Heck, you could even go a cheap Z77 board (if you don't mind only having two SATA 6GB/s and two less USB 3.0 ports), and find a cheap secondhand i5-3570/K (non-K still OCs up to 400Mhz higher on IB) on eBay (or elsewhere). Sure you won't be able to upgrade the CPU to a 1150 CPU, but with Haswell/Broadwell not being much faster and the potential for an overclocked beast, why would you want to?


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 23, 2014)

Thank you for that great information, Naito. I appreciate it. To be completely honest, I'm not really sure if my interest in OCing is great enough to warrant something like a Z97/87 board. Therefore, I did manage to find another board from the GI.Sniper series (the old black and green scheme), only this one has the B85 chipset: 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128674 

Unfortunately it's out of stock on newegg, but it sounds like a great little board.


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## Rowsol (Nov 23, 2014)

I linked you a board that's on sale for 28 bucks and you are trying to spend 4x the price anyway.  Clearly I'm wasting my time here.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 23, 2014)

Rowsol said:


> I linked you a board that's on sale for 28 bucks and you are trying to spend 4x the price anyway.  Clearly I'm wasting my time here.



Whoa, easy there. Let's not jump to conclusions. Hell, I haven't even decided what CPU I'm ultimately going with. I realize that doesn't matter, but still. I really do appreciate your suggestions. I'm just trying to get suggestions here. So take it easy will ya?


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 23, 2014)

Naito said:


> Ten years has the potential to see 5 Intel 'Tocks', so you'd have to be one dedicated person to hold onto a CPU that long. Besides, you'd be better looking at something along the lines of 3.2GHz (20x160Mhz) to support your 1600MHz RAM.


I still have a functional Pentium 2, Athlon (original, Slot B I believe), and Opteron 180.

20% isn't worth the effort and Nehalem cores are hot-hot-HOT without overclocking.



Naito said:


> Dunno how many times I've heard people say this, but yet it never happens. People invest the money upfront to begin with and by the time they have saved the cash/are looking to upgrade, they just buy a new platform again. With Intel changing sockets after every tick-tock cycle, it makes more sense to just buy the newer platform rather than purchasing that high spec CPU you were saving for. Go the better CPU now; it'll last longer and help negate the need to upgrade to a Broadwell (most 'ticks' aren't worth while if you already have the 'tock').


100% agreed.  Adding cards/hard drives/solid state drives/RAM/optical disk drivers, sure; changing processors/motherboards, not so much.  Let's also not forget that $40 now goes further than $40 towards a new system because the parts start at about $100.  A little goes a long way on budget builds.  I'd argue changing HSF from stock to aftermarket is also money that would be better spent on a better chip.




Gmr_Chick said:


> Thank you for that great information, Naito. I appreciate it. To be completely honest, I'm not really sure if my interest in OCing is great enough to warrant something like a Z97/87 board. Therefore, I did manage to find another board from the GI.Sniper series (the old black and green scheme), only this one has the B85 chipset:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128674
> 
> Unfortunately it's out of stock on newegg, but it sounds like a great little board.


Use this:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z87-H87-H81-Q87-Q85-B85-What-is-the-difference-473/

+ Intel's ARK:
http://ark.intel.com/

To pick a processor/chipset.  B85 is for budget business machines (the ones that are like $300-400 and they buy crates of them).  I doubt you'll find any overclocking features on it.  According to ARK, B85 is better than H81.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 23, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Use this:
> http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z87-H87-H81-Q87-Q85-B85-What-is-the-difference-473/
> 
> + Intel's ARK:
> ...



Thanks for those links - the one from Puget was especially informative! Though, now I'm starting to wonder why GIGABYTE would make a supposedly "gaming" motherboard based on the B85 chipset when it's more of a business-oriented thing. I guess they must have wanted to diversify their product stack.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 23, 2014)

Beats me.  Seeing how it is out of stock and only 11 reviews, my guess is it did not sell well.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 23, 2014)

Either that or people just didn't feel like typing a review, lol. 

At any rate, would it be worth it to get an i5-4690 (non-K) despite its $224 price (on newegg) when the 4690K is only $209, even though I don't see myself overclocking? I think that price is pretty much a steal for that thing.


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## INSTG8R (Nov 23, 2014)

Well of course if you can get a K cheaper there's no reason not too.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 23, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Either that or people just didn't feel like typing a review, lol.
> 
> At any rate, would it be worth it to get an i5-4690 (non-K) despite its $224 price (on newegg) when the 4690K is only $209, even though I don't see myself overclocking? I think that price is pretty much a steal for that thing.


ARK comparison:
http://ark.intel.com/compare/80811,80810

If you click on the item on the left, it explains which each is.  Non-K has vPro, SIPP, and Trusted Execution (all business technologies).  It used to be that Non-K had VT-d (hardware virtualization) where K did not; that's a feature some people wish they had but didn't.  You can look over what those three technologies are but I suspect you have no interest in them.  When you add that to the fact K is cheaper, K seems like a no brainer in this case. 

FYI, as ARK shows, K models are supposed to be more expensive.  Newegg must be having a sale on the K model.


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## Naito (Nov 23, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I still have a functional Pentium 2, Athlon (original, Slot B I believe), and Opteron 180.



I still had functioning P1, P2s, and Cyrix CPUs up to a few years ago, but they went the way of the recycling center.



FordGT90Concept said:


> 20% isn't worth the effort and Nehalem cores are hot-hot-HOT without overclocking.



From my experience OC'ing anything from a i7-920 to a W3580 up to around the 4000MHz mark for 24/7 use, Nehalems, while not the most efficient, can be cooled relatively effectively even with a CM Hyper 212. 3.2GHz is a very modest, sensible clock that brings the 920 up to 960 speed with the added benefit of maximizing your RAMs potential (if you haven't already raised the BCLK and dropped the ratios. (I found Nehalem quite picky with RAM, though)). But hey, this is just my opinion and you can do as you please - if your rig meets your needs and you're happy with it, that's all that matters. 



Gmr_Chick said:


> Therefore, I did manage to find another board from the GI.Sniper series (the old black and green scheme), only this one has the B85 chipset:



B85 boards are extremely barebone, you'd be best to stay with Q*7, H*7, or Z*7 chipsets, even if OC'ing is out of the question.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Non-K has vPro, SIPP, Trusted Execution. It used to be that Non-K had VT-d (hardware virtualization) where K did not; that's a feature some people wish they had but didn't. You can look over what those three technologies are but I suspect you have no interest in them. When you add that to the fact K is cheaper, K seems like a no brainer in this case.



This.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 23, 2014)

Naito said:


> But hey, this is just my opinion and you can do as you please - if your rig meets your needs and you're happy with it, that's all that matters.


I'm saving up for Haswell-E or Skylake.  Ye ol' Nehalem is getting long in the tooth.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 24, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I'm saving up for Haswell-E or Skylake.  Ye ol' Nehalem is getting long in the tooth.



Oh, well if it is EOL...maybe now's the time to OC that 920. 

On Topic...

I thought you wanted to stay under $300? You should buy the best Motherboard chipset first, IMO, and then a CPU. You can always drop in a better cpu later, but a motherboard is a much bigger PIA. Plus...Overclocking.


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## GhostRyder (Nov 24, 2014)

In my book I think you have enough for your setup right now and should just attempt to bump to 4.0ghz as that is not asking an extreme amount even with that board.

Though since you want to upgrade, I would say you can invest in a decent board and then throw a nice enough CPU to get you by for now with an upgrade later if you need it.  I agree on getting something like an inexpensive Z97 board and a Pentium G3258, its a beast and can overclock enough to make up for the fact its a dual core.  I have built a couple machines (One for myself recently) and honestly you can get a lot of performance out of that chip on top of it being only around 60 bucks.


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## Chetkigaming (Nov 24, 2014)

intel for sims X and gaming.


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## Toothless (Nov 24, 2014)

Chetkigaming said:


> intel for sims X and gaming.


Where is your evidence or reasoning?


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 24, 2014)

Lightbulbie said:


> Where is your evidence or reasoning?



Oh I don't know...just like every review and benchmark published for the last 3 years. Also your post, and subsequently mine, add no value to this thread.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 24, 2014)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> I thought you wanted to stay under $300? You should buy the best Motherboard chipset first, IMO, and then a CPU. You can always drop in a better cpu later, but a motherboard is a much bigger PIA. Plus...Overclocking.



Yeah, I do want to stay under $300, you're right. I'm not sure I'd be able to do that if I bought an i5-4460 (or one of the K CPUs, even though it looks like newegg is having a sale on the 4690K @ $209) AND a good Z97/87 board. 



GhostRyder said:


> In my book I think you have enough for your setup right now and should just attempt to bump to 4.0ghz as that is not asking an extreme amount even with that board.
> 
> Though since you want to upgrade, I would say you can invest in a decent board and then throw a nice enough CPU to get you by for now with an upgrade later if you need it.  I agree on getting something like an inexpensive Z97 board and a Pentium G3258, its a beast and can overclock enough to make up for the fact its a dual core.  I have built a couple machines (One for myself recently) and honestly you can get a lot of performance out of that chip on top of it being only around 60 bucks.



That little Pentium-K does look pretty amazing considering its price. If I got that one, I'd be able to spend more on the motherboard as well. Sounds like a pretty sweet setup. Would it bottleneck on an R9 280X though?


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## anubis44 (Nov 24, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> To make it clear, I want to keep this conversation civil. I know the whole AMD vs Intel thing is hotly debated, but I'm here for honest, helpful advice, not to hear that AMD sucks or Intel sucks. So please, keep it civil.
> 
> I'm an avid player of The Sims 3 franchise - I currently own every Expansion Pack (there are 11 of them) and 4 Stuff Packs (things that add new things like lots, clothing or objects to the main game; I own 4 of these, but there a total of 9 of these.) In addition to this, I have about 3.75 GBs worth of mods and other custom content for the game. Unfortunately, it's been a great while since I was able to play the game smoothly - after just 15 minutes of playing, I get HORRIBLE lag and stuttering, which forces me to stop playing. Granted, this game isn't very demanding with just the base Sims 3 game, but once you get to where I'm at, it becomes harder to run smoothly. Because I believe this game to be more reliant on the CPU than the GPU, I believe my CPU may have something to do with the horrible lag issues I'm dealing with. If you look at my system specs, you'll see I'm running an FX-6100. Yes, I'm running a "Faildozer" as it's so lovingly called.
> 
> ...



Gmr_Chick, I'm going to go out on a limb and ask if you have checked into whether the problem could be something like this:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/936498-the-sims-3/66633324

rather than the CPU. It seems many people with super powerful CPUs run into huge lag due to characters getting stuck in certain parts of the map. The reason I'm asking you this is because I came across a youtube video of a guy with an AMD 7850K APU running the game without issue at 1080p high detail, and his CPU and GPU are definitely not more powerful than yours:










Hope you figure it out!


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 25, 2014)

Yep, I have tried all that.  Got a bunch of mods installed that helps with the problem a bit, but in general, it basically comes down to EA not optimizing the various hoods properly (the routing I spoke of near the beginning of this thread). What I gather from the video, just by looking at the bit in which he clicks on the options, is that he probably has only the base and *maybe* some of the less-demanding EPs (ones like Ambitions or Generations, two of which didn't really add anything dynamic like, say, World Adventures or especially Seasons, did.) and his amount of custom content - whether he plays "vanilla" with no mods or user-created content or not - could also have an impact on performance as well. Generally, as a rule, the base game should run fine with an APU like the 7850K, but once more Expansion Packs and Stuff Packs are introduced - especially the late ones like Supernatural, Seasons, Island Paradise, etc.,, APUs aren't even close to running the game properly, even with settings turned down. 

I have a saying when it comes to this game specifically, and that is that a person could have a rig equal to a super computer and STILL not run the damn thing without some kind of problem.  

I suspect the horrible game performance could be attributed to several factors, one being EA's horrible optimization, the other being the game probably runs better with something like a dual-core with high single core/thread performance or a quad core with great performance as well, rather than something with more cores but bad single thread performance, like mine for instance.


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## McSteel (Nov 25, 2014)

I have Sims 3 (updated to latest versions of most if not all expansions and a ton of custom content) and Sims 4 (updated all the way) installed on my computer, much to my significant other's delight. My configuration is listed, so check it out for reference.

I can tell you from personal experience that trying to keep up with EA's halfhearted stabs and lukewarm potshots at bug squashing and optimization is next to impossible.
While not the fastest ever, my machine isn't exactly slow by any stretch of imagination. Yet it struggles in the Sims 3, and pretty obviously too. Trying not to be lazy, I tried running vanilla TS3 (no custom or official expansions/content added), fully updated, and it runs no better. Graphic settings had little to no effect (it seems the HD7950 is more than adequate at 1080p), and various neighborhoods have shown no clear performance pattern - sometimes everything runs smoothly while other times it's laggy, choppy and skippy.

OCing my CPU further, to 4.4 GHz, netted no appreciable gains. Also tried moving another 8GB dual channel kit from a second machine, no tangible difference.

Sims 4 on the other hand runs smooth and crisp right out of the gate. Possibly Maxis' deeper involvement played a role there.

If you'd like to stay under budget and don't much care for typical AAA titles (especially latest CryEngine, Unreal Engine etc. games) I suppose the Anniversary Pentium will do just fine. However, there are games out there - current, today's games - which will flat out refuse to even start with less than 4 cores. Some of them can be coaxed to accept 2C/4T CPUs, but with a visible performance hit. Perhaps holding out a bit longer + maybe selling your current parts to get some funds back, thus attaining needed funds for an i5 and a solid motherboard, might be prudent...

## EDIT ##

Oh, one more thing. Compared to using a standard HDD, having a fast SSD helps alleviate some missing texture problems and helps, to a degree, with lots of scrolling the screen around. It doesn't do much to help with load times, though. This refers to the Sims 3, of course. 

The Sims 4 both loads much faster and clearly reads terrain data quicker with an SSD, so it's a worthy investment. Not to mention overall system speedup elsewhere...


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## Naito (Nov 25, 2014)

McSteel said:


> If you'd like to stay under budget and don't much care for typical AAA titles (especially latest CryEngine, Unreal Engine etc. games) I suppose the Anniversary Pentium will do just fine. However, there are games out there - current, today's games - which will flat out refuse to even start with less than 4 cores.



This. One consideration to add to this is the current generation of consoles. With both having 8 cores with relatively low single thread performance, it will become paramount that the developers make use of as many cores as possible to improve performance. This will be especially true later in the generations lifespan. Since most games these days are either ports or development was heavily aligned to consoles, it's going to become even more important to have a computer capable of running at least 4 threads. As such, a Pentium Anniversary Edition may become the limiting factor in a system running future games. Having said that, it is relatively cheap, so many not be such a huge issue if a swap out is foreseeable.


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## Toothless (Nov 25, 2014)

Naito said:


> This. One consideration to add to this is the current generation of consoles. With both having 8 cores with relatively low single thread performance, it will become paramount that the developers make use of as many cores as possible to improve performance. This will be especially true later in the generations lifespan. Since most games these days are either ports or development was heavily aligned to consoles, it's going to become even more important to have a computer capable of running at least 4 threads. As such, a Pentium Anniversary Edition may become the limiting factor in a system running future games. Having said that, it is relatively cheap, so many not be such a huge issue if a swap out is foreseeable.


Would be nice if games used more cores but were able to run on slower cores. Like a running normally on a quad-core @1ghz for older laptops and whatnot.


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## Naito (Nov 25, 2014)

Lightbulbie said:


> Would be nice if games used more cores but were able to run on slower cores. Like a running normally on a quad-core @1ghz for older laptops and whatnot.



Still requires a main process so the cores would still need to provide strong performance. Besides, even the first proper mobile quad cores (Penryns) were clocked beyond 2GHz. I'm not familiar with any quad core mobile chip clocking that low under load, not even the Bay Trails do. Furthermore, slow single-threaded performance would not be the only limiting factor, stuff like lack of modern instructions, less cache, slower buses, etc, etc, would probably play a larger part, but of course this all goes full circle back to why said CPU would be slow in single-threaded performance to begin with.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 25, 2014)

Thank you Naito, Lightbulbie and McSteel for your inputs. The SSD I'm definitely going to look into after I upgrade my CPU, because that damn Sims 3 takes FOREVER to load textures - and it does it almost constantly. 

I know you guys mentioned the consoles of today, and how they may impact PC games to come. As far as I know, very few games, even today, even utilize more than 2 cores - BF4 comes to mind, as does Crysis 3, as two games that need all the cores they can get. While it would be easy for me to say that it doesn't really matter because I've no interest in playing those anyway, it's not that easy. So here's my dilemma: get a Pentium-K with a good Z97 board and overclock the heck out of it, or get an i3-4360 with a Z97 board, even though the i3 has no turbo, but does have a high base clock and 4 threads, or say screw it and get an i5 which has turbo and 4 actual cores, based on my needs TODAY? Because I don't want to be in this same position next year regretting the fact I got X instead of Y. 

In a semi-related note, I was able to oc my FX to 3900.71 MHz.


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## Naito (Nov 25, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> I know you guys mentioned the consoles of today, and how they may impact PC games to come. As far as I know, very few games, even today, even utilize more than 2 cores - BF4 comes to mind, as does Crysis 3, as two games that need all the cores they can get.



It's because managing multi-threaded programs can become very difficult and, if not optimized correctly, can lead to more issues and thus less performance than you would see with fewer threads/a single thread. As threads share resources with a 'primary thread' (aka process), techniques must be implemented to make sure each thread get's the data it needs without conflicting with other threads. If they do, you can easily have a crashing program on your hand, or if things like mutual exclusion, semaphores and the likes aren't implemented correctly, you can have thread deadlock, starvation, live lock and so forth - all of which will lead to inefficiencies. Scale all these up to something handling 3, 4 or more threads, and it becomes very difficult. Furthermore, it can also be dependent on how the OS handles these things, as it is usually the one in charge of handling multiple threads, the CPUs just provide the means to more effectively process them with features like SMT (e.g. HyperTreading). I like to say that it's one thing to master programming, but another thing to master concurrent processes. Mind you, it's been a while since I've done such a thing, and even then it was on a basic level, I would not call myself even intermediately skilled in regards to this stuff. If anyone disagrees, wants to clarify, or even expand upon what I just said, please feel free.




Gmr_Chick said:


> So here's my dilemma: get a Pentium-K with a good Z97 board and overclock the heck out of it, or get an i3-4360 with a Z97 board, even though the i3 has no turbo, but does have a high base clock and 4 threads, or say screw it and get an i5 which has turbo and 4 actual cores, based on my needs TODAY? Because I don't want to be in this same position next year regretting the fact I got X instead of Y.



Pentium K over i3; pure clock speed will out pace a locked i3 any day. I'd say spend the extra dough now on an i5 as it'll last you longer. Future-proofing is bulls#!t in my opinion as most people hold on to a PC maybe 3 or so years and, in this time, there could be a change in socket, one and a half tick-tock cycles, newer standards, etc, with almost none of it interchangeable between builds, but this is kinda different when it comes to mid-range/budget builds or are more likely to sit on the hardware longer. So if the i5 ain't gonna break your bank and you don't plan to upgrade the core system again in under two years, go with the best you can get right now. You don't have to go a Z97 either, if it is pushing you over your limit and you're not going to OC. Like I said previously, no point buying a cheap CPU now and upgrade it 18 months or so down the track, because it would just make more sense to put that money towards a new system, especially when you consider Intel CPUs hold their value fairly well and you won't be saving much. Say you purchased a Pentium K for $60, then a few months down the track pick up a Core i5 for $180, that's technically $240 you spent on CPUs for that system not including possible resale of first CPU. The difference between the two could have been saved for another component, say an SSD, or put towards your 'next computer fund'. I'm a bit scatterbrain today, so I might just be repeating myself and not making much sense so...

...Tl;dr: Unless you're willing to hold onto the core system (motherboard, RAM, etc) for 4 or more years, go ahead and buy the cheaper option now and save for an i5 down the track as it'll help negate the need for an upgrade later. If you're the kind of person who does not/are likely not to touch the core system once it's build over its lifespan, just buy the best you can now and save the coin until your next upgrade.


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## Toothless (Nov 25, 2014)

Naito said:


> Still requires a main process so the cores would still need to provide strong performance. Besides, even the first proper mobile quad cores (Penryns) were clocked beyond 2GHz. I'm not familiar with any quad core mobile chip clocking that low under load, not even the Bay Trails do. Furthermore, slow single-threaded performance would not be the only limiting factor, stuff like lack of modern instructions, less cache, slower buses, etc, etc, would probably play a larger part, but of course this all goes full circle back to why said CPU would be slow in single-threaded performance to begin with.


My laptop overheats unless I cap it off at 1.1ghz. Hence why the more core/ low clock games would help me a lot.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 25, 2014)

Thanks for putting in perspective, Naito. Think I'll go for the highest non-K i5 I can get and pair it with a Z87 or H97 board. Other than that, the only other upgrade I see myself doing in the near future is getting an SSD. 

And thus begins the more confusing search for a motherboard, lol.


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## Naito (Nov 25, 2014)

Lightbulbie said:


> My laptop overheats unless I cap it off at 1.1ghz. Hence why the more core/ low clock games would help me a lot.



Don't mean to take Gmr_Chicks thread any more off topic than I already have, but I must ask; is it a HP by any chance?



Gmr_Chick said:


> And thus begins the more confusing search for a motherboard, lol.



What stores do you tend to buy PC stuff from? I'm not too familiar with US stores, but can have a look around at what they have and can give you my personal recommendations.


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## INSTG8R (Nov 25, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Thanks for putting in perspective, Naito. Think I'll go for the highest non-K i5 I can get and pair it with a Z87 or H97 board. Other than that, the only other upgrade I see myself doing in the near future is getting an SSD.
> 
> And thus begins the more confusing search for a motherboard, lol.



Well if you're set on getting a Non-K then no point wasting money on a Zx7.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 25, 2014)

Naito said:


> Don't mean to take Gmr_Chicks thread any more off topic than I already have, but I must ask; is it a HP by any chance?
> 
> What stores do you tend to buy PC stuff from? I'm not too familiar with US stores, but can have a look around at what they have and can give you my personal recommendations.



Well, I buy parts from my local shop sometimes (Central Computers) but their online shop kinda blows; plus, they tend to charge a little more for certain things - like my current HD 7790 for example. MSRP on it was around $150, but they charged a whopping $170 for it, and like an idiot I bought it, lol. - but as far as etailers go, I really only buy from Newegg. 

Where I live in California, there used to be a Micro Center, but I guess it left the area because of rent prices and the fact that people for some ungodly reason still buy most of their PC components from Fry's - wouldn't buy anything from there. WAY too many "Reduced Price" stickers on stuff for my liking... 

The closest Micro Center to me now is down in Southern California.  

Thank you for the help, Naito. If it helps, I'm looking for something either all black or black and green (not really a priority though), with at least 2 PCIe x16 slots, two USB 2.0 headers, ATX form factor, 3 chassis fan connectors, supports up to 32GB RAM and the like. Yeah, I'm clueless to a certain extent.


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## Naito (Nov 25, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> . If it helps, I'm looking for something either all black or black and green (not really a priority though), with at least 2 PCIe x16 slots, two USB 2.0 headers, ATX form factor, 3 chassis fan connectors, supports up to 32GB RAM and the like. Yeah, I'm clueless to a certain extent.



Well two PCIe x16 (at full speed) pretty much rules out anything under $100. I found this combo deal for $300 (after $20 mail-in rebate). Includes a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H Black Edition which features two PCIe 3.0 16x slots (8x/8x in dual mode (same as two PCIe 2.0 16x)) and one PCIe 16x 2.0 slot (at 4x and disables x1 slots when populated). Also has 4 fan headers. Spend an extra $10 and get the 4690K and the same board from the combo; may be the slightly more "future proof" if you feel you may OC later on (as easy as installing software and pushing a button if you're not too keen doing it manually).


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## XSI (Nov 25, 2014)

GhostRyder said:


> In my book I think you have enough for your setup right now and should just attempt to bump to 4.0ghz as that is not asking an extreme amount even with that board.
> 
> Though since you want to upgrade, I would say you can invest in a decent board and then throw a nice enough CPU to get you by for now with an upgrade later if you need it. I agree on getting something like an inexpensive Z97 board and a Pentium G3258, its a beast and can overclock enough to make up for the fact its a dual core. I have built a couple machines (One for myself recently) and honestly you can get a lot of performance out of that chip on top of it being only around 60 bucks.


100% agree with this post. 
first you need higher clocked core.
second g3258 is great for oc and great value for it's performance. 
your upgrade path is easy with z97 even to 4690k or similar if you wish. i believe 60$ for a CPU isn't too expensive to play around, and if you sell it half price, the money spent i guess its worth it. for the experience you can get.
I'm noob for OC but that not to difficult.


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## GhostRyder (Nov 25, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> That little Pentium-K does look pretty amazing considering its price. If I got that one, I'd be able to spend more on the motherboard as well. Sounds like a pretty sweet setup. Would it bottleneck on an R9 280X though?


No not really, but you have to overclock it at least a bit preferably in the range of 4.0ghz-4.5ghz.  I have made quite a few with that chip and all have been able to achieve at least 4.2ghz with reasonable voltages which gives superb gaming performance for what your buying.  Heck it will match up to a i7 4790K in gaming performance in many if not most titles for less than 1/3 the price.  The only real drawback is its low base core clocks with no boost and the fact its a dual core with no hyper threading.   However most gaming is reliant on the first two cores anyway so it performs just fine.

To give you a good example here are some tests with the Pentium anniversary chip:

CPU intensive games
GPU Intensive games

I use one for myself in a set top box that doubles as a spare/portable gaming machine I take to LAN parties (Just built it within the last week) for someone who cannot bring something to game on or just wants to jump into some fun which right now I overclocked it to 4.0ghz on the stock cooler and the temps even under heaven stress testing keep up to 80c which considering the Intel stock cooler is horrible in my book (Well most stock coolers are not just intels) that's fantastic.  You can easily buy something cheap like a Hyper212 Evo and overclock it to the limit without even worrying about a thing.  If nothing else though, in a year or so when you have some spare cash you can buy a second hand i5 4690K (Or the likes) and then be set for a very long time.  Even so the Pentium should be great for you and last quite a long time as well overclock.  Mine plays BF4 when paired with an HD 7870Ghz Edition (R9 270X) on games like BF4 on ultra settings, League of Legends, and a few random games like DayZ without having any real problems.

Some great motherboards to consider (I currently have mine paired with this Gigabyte Gaming 5 but I got this on a special sale was the reasoning):
MSI Z97-G55  (My Favorite Z97 board for its value to price, it has everything you could possibly want in a gaming motherboard including 8 Phase VRM for overclocking, support for dual graphics cards from both NVidia and AMD, and a decent price).  Currently out of stock but heres an alternate link to one on Amazon  .
Asrock Fatal1ty Z97 (Nice gaming board for the price as well)
MSI Z97 SLI KRAIT (A special edition but its essentially the Z97-G55 with a different color scheme)
There are plenty of other great choices as well but these should at least give you an idea of what to look for.

I would still say your 6100 should be just fine if you can get it to 4.0ghz but because of that board it might hold back its potential for serious clocking as I would see 4.7-5.0ghz a possibility with that chip which would also give you great gaming performance with an R9 280X.  But you would need a different board for that...


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## Toothless (Nov 25, 2014)

Naito said:


> Don't mean to take Gmr_Chicks thread any more off topic than I already have, but I must ask; is it a HP by any chance?


HP Pavilion G7 1368dx.


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## XSI (Nov 25, 2014)

OP, have you tried sims with that 3.9 OC? maybe you problem partly solved?
and @Naito  he had some good points but one thing to have in mind, good mobo now, g3258 now and something like i5, but most likely cheaper in the future, prices do go down, so if we add some resale value, Op wont loose to much money on it anyway.
of course if budged allows buy at once all you can, but we talking like @GhostRyder said 1/3 of the price. How much is 4690k? ~ 200$, vs 60$ for g3258? *+ many games will run similar.  *pure budget minded logic

edit: and probably ssd can get into this budget: Pentium AE 60$+Mobo 120$+ SSD 60-90$
=240-270$
and hey what about this: sell you current cpu+mobo.


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## Toothless (Nov 25, 2014)

XSI said:


> OP, have you tried sims with that 3.9 OC? maybe you problem partly solved?
> and @Naito  he had some good points but one thing to have in mind, good mobo now, g3258 now and something like i5, but most likely cheaper in the future, prices do go down, so if we add some resale value, Op wont loose to much money on it anyway.
> of course if budged allows buy at once all you can, but we talking like @GhostRyder said 1/3 of the price. How much is 4690k? ~ 200$, vs 60$ for g3258? *+ many games will run similar.  *pure budget minded logic
> 
> ...


THIS THIS THIS THIS. Sell your old hardware (even on the forum) and have a bigger budget for your new stuff. @XSI made the best point right there and it's a working thing. I'm selling off my old stuff for my new stuff and it's how I gotta get by. No gaming on a desktop won't kill anyone.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 26, 2014)

Thanks for all those good bits of info, guys. Really makes me glad that I came to this forum in the first place. I don't get the feeling that people are BSing me here as opposed to other forums. You guys seem to be very knowledgeable here. So thanks for that, and especially your patience.  

All those boards sound like they're in the vicinity of what I'm interested in, especially that GIGABYTE board Naito mentioned in the combo deal. Don't know how many times I've looked at it on newegg in the last week or so, lol. The MSI boards mentioned by GhostRyder also look interesting. Definitely putting all three said boards on my short list. One question I do have is I've noticed it seems like every motherboard company and their grandma seems to have some sort of "gaming" motherboard series now - not to mention most all of them are black and red; think everyone jumped on the ROG themed bandwagon. Anyway, in what ways does a "gaming" motherboard differ from a regular board? I'm guessing it has something to do with multi-GPU setups and overclocking, but are "gaming" boards also built with better components/materials or something?


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## McSteel (Nov 26, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> One question I do have is I've noticed it seems like every motherboard company and their grandma seems to have some sort of "gaming" motherboard series now - not to mention most all of them are black and red; think everyone jumped on the ROG themed bandwagon. Anyway, in what ways does a "gaming" motherboard differ from a regular board? I'm guessing it has something to do with multi-GPU setups and overclocking, but are "gaming" boards also built with better components/materials or something?



Usually they are. Though OC-centric boards are even more so. This is because such boards are meant for power users, high-stress situations and achieving a meaningful performance advantage. All this requires quality components, engineering and QC. The flashy colors and tacky branding is meant for those who do not delve into the subject matter too deeply


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## GhostRyder (Nov 26, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Thanks for all those good bits of info, guys. Really makes me glad that I came to this forum in the first place. I don't get the feeling that people are BSing me here as opposed to other forums. You guys seem to be very knowledgeable here. So thanks for that, and especially your patience.
> 
> All those boards sound like they're in the vicinity of what I'm interested in, especially that GIGABYTE board Naito mentioned in the combo deal. Don't know how many times I've looked at it on newegg in the last week or so, lol. The MSI boards mentioned by GhostRyder also look interesting. Definitely putting all three said boards on my short list. One question I do have is I've noticed it seems like every motherboard company and their grandma seems to have some sort of "gaming" motherboard series now - not to mention most all of them are black and red; think everyone jumped on the ROG themed bandwagon. Anyway, in what ways does a "gaming" motherboard differ from a regular board? I'm guessing it has something to do with multi-GPU setups and overclocking, but are "gaming" boards also built with better components/materials or something?


Generally when a board is gaming its more just a name than anything to be honest.  Lots of boards throw that label on it but generally the only major things you see on gaming boards is Kill LAN/WLAN (Which generally is nothing special, I own it on multiple machines and I can say its not making any differences enabled or disabled that I notice), the upper sound card is normally standard (They generally put a nicer integrated sound card but you can see which one is put on by reading, this is also not always guaranteed but I see it more often than naught), and generally the color scheme involves red.  Gaming boards are not really different from non-gaming boards it just sometimes comes with a different set of apps/features and a special color scheme but they do not really improve the experience unless the specific board has a better VRM or some special settings for overclocking and a nicer sound card.  I would not buy a board just for the gaming logo as plenty without it have better features than many of the gaming branded boards I see.

I am partial to red and black right now though for my next build in 4+ years I will probably try something different like white and black.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 26, 2014)

Thanks for clearing that up for me, McSteel and GR. So basically, next to all the marketing, most of them are basically no better than "normal" motherboards.  

McSteel, when you mentioned the bit about flashy colors and tacky branding, for some reason ASUS' ROG line immediately popped in my head


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## Naito (Nov 26, 2014)

XSI said:


> but one thing to have in mind, good mobo now, g3258 now and something like i5, but most likely cheaper in the future, prices do go down, so if we add some resale value, Op wont loose to much money on it anyway.



The three boards GhostRyder listed and the one I listed are all very good boards with pretty much the same feature levels. The choice is really between colours, brand preference, and of course price. All will easily handle even an OC'd i7. Intel CPUs hold value very well, even secondhand ones which aren't even supported by the current chipsets anymore. Not much will be saved here unless you find someone selling one cheap, which of course brings warranty into it. Having said that, the resale of a $60 CPU won't be _that _much - possibly around $40-50, but adds the trouble of having to sell it, postage, etc.



XSI said:


> of course if budged allows buy at once all you can, but we talking like @GhostRyder said 1/3 of the price. How much is 4690k? ~ 200$, vs 60$ for g3258? *+ many games will run similar. *pure budget minded logic



Yeah, a G3258 is a brilliant chip and will run OPs current games, but what if Gmr_Chick runs into a similar problem she is having with Sims 3, with Sims 4 in the future, where the layers upon layers of mods, DLC and expansions push the dual core to the limit. Games in no time will require fast four cores, especially after late next year or H1 2016 when Skylake's mainstream desktop cores will be quad core minimum. Following your logic; $120 board + $60 CPU and say a $60 SSD intially, then a within 12 months or so purchase and i5 when inevitably the dual core isn't enough, for say $200. That's $440 excluding any possible resale. What I'm saying is skip all this stopgap measures and go straight the best core system OP can afford to which OP can then always add 'peripheral' components such as SSDs, HDDs, or even a better CPU cooler too. Sure, my suggestion costs more upfront with say $320 (without rebates/excluding post) for CPU and MB, before the possibility of a $60 SSD purchase to help overall performance and responsiveness (really, once stuff is loaded into RAM, SSDs don't have that much impact on the system, mainly load times (i.e before RAM is loaded)), but this overall total is $380 for the life of the core system with no fussing around with selling stopgap components. Besides, while I think OC'ing should never be ruled out, Gmr_Chick has mentioned she is not too keen on doing so and the viability of the G3258 relies heavily on overclocking to get the most from it.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 26, 2014)

And the debate continues.  

Ok, at this point, I consider the SSD a "luxury" item - not mandatory, but a nice thing to have. Would I like one? Sure. Is it worth sacrificing a better-performing i5 for a Pentium-K (or even a top-end i3)? To me, not really. I can always get an SSD later, but right now I don't see the "need" for one. Aside from Sims 3, my games load pretty quickly. 

So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.


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## GhostRyder (Nov 26, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> And the debate continues.
> 
> Ok, at this point, I consider the SSD a "luxury" item - not mandatory, but a nice thing to have. Would I like one? Sure. Is it worth sacrificing a better-performing i5 for a Pentium-K (or even a top-end i3)? To me, not really. I can always get an SSD later, but right now I don't see the "need" for one. Aside from Sims 3, my games load pretty quickly.
> 
> So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.


I still think you should go the Penitum K route and an SSD over getting the locked i5 and eventually just get yourself an unlocked i5 (Z97 is compatible with Broadwell as I recall) which is the next generation chips.    I would suggest getting a Pentium K and SSD, overclocking the Pentium, and then sitting on what you have for a year or so.  As I stated before the games that are CPU dependent still prefer the first 2 cores anyway which means if you have strong enough cores then that's enough to run the game fine.  Now lately games are starting to lean towards using 4 cores which is noted but I think saving the money and getting an SSD with the unlocked Pentium chip and overclocking will make for a better experience overall.

The alternative of course would be the i3 as a good midway point (A high clocked variant) and that will also give you ample performance in games for a good long time.


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## Devon68 (Nov 26, 2014)

Well yeah performance over SSD id defensively the way to go. I was thinking about getting a ssd as well, but don't really need it yet even thou my Pc takes about 1:45 to start up fully.
If it's in your budget get an i5 instead of an i3. They are starting to say that some games like far cry 4 wont even start on a intel G3258 or any dual core cpu for that matter.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Nov 26, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.



Then do it! That is great choice. Choose a nice Motherboard..You will exceed your $300 budget but not much. All this time discussing you could have had an i5 built and playing SIMS by now. Merry Xmas to you...go big or go home! May as well throw a nice SSD in there as well.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 27, 2014)

Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 27, 2014)

McSteel said:


> I have Sims 3 (updated to latest versions of most if not all expansions and a ton of custom content) and Sims 4 (updated all the way) installed on my computer, much to my significant other's delight. My configuration is listed, so check it out for reference.
> 
> I can tell you from personal experience that trying to keep up with EA's halfhearted stabs and lukewarm potshots at bug squashing and optimization is next to impossible.
> While not the fastest ever, my machine isn't exactly slow by any stretch of imagination. Yet it struggles in the Sims 3, and pretty obviously too. Trying not to be lazy, I tried running vanilla TS3 (no custom or official expansions/content added), fully updated, and it runs no better. Graphic settings had little to no effect (it seems the HD7950 is more than adequate at 1080p), and various neighborhoods have shown no clear performance pattern - sometimes everything runs smoothly while other times it's laggy, choppy and skippy.
> ...


Just curious, have you ever had Task Manager performance tab open during the lags?  In my case, one core was always maxed out when the gameclock stopped for a significant amount of time.  I'm curious if it did the same to you.

As I pointed out previously, a 10% (4 GHz to 4.4 GHz) overclock isn't going to change much because whatever is causing the delay can take 10+ seconds.  You won't really notice if it was 1 second quicker because it's super annoying once it gets past 2. XD


I'd be curious to know if The Sims 4 is multithreaded better than The Sims 3.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 27, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I'd be curious to know if The Sims 4 is multithreaded better than The Sims 3.



I know the CAS demo I have ran a helluva lot smoother than Sims 3's Create A Sim mode, but I don't have the actual TS4 game yet so I can't say how well it runs. Even so, until an Expansion Pack is released and thus added to the workload, we won't know if it'll suffer the same problem as 3 did the more Expansions were added on.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 27, 2014)

That's due to caching (reading from HDD/SDD), not CPU load.  Most of the CPU burden comes from the simulating itself (especially NPC sims).  If they didn't move it to a separate thread if not highly parallelized it (create a thread for each sim), it will eventually get bogged down the same way The Sims 3 does.

The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, on the CAS front, would benefit most from being 64-bit with aggressive caching of sim assets (model, textures, sounds, etc.).  It being 32-bit, the moment CAS exceeds 4 GiB worth of content, they have to run to the HDD/SDD to fetch more data to render what you're looking at.


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## XSI (Nov 27, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?



memory will not be a problem. safe overclock  4-4.2 you should be absolutely fine. your powersupply is ok for more.


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## GhostRyder (Nov 27, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?


If you run the stock cooler like I do temporarily on my personal Pentium K 4.0ghz is more than safe temp wise.  With that PSU you would be safe even up to its max overclock possible.  It does only support 1333 however you can manually set the overclock of 1600mhz in the bios and it works just fine no problems.  I ran a set of 1866 temporarily and it was fine even running that (Though beyond 1600 I have heard it can be a bit more luck than anything).

A good Z97 and that chip would be a great investment for now because like I said waiting until broadwell comes out and you have some spare cash will allow for an awesome chip later down the line along with the fact that like this it is still awesome in games.


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## Kissamies (Nov 28, 2014)

My ex-girlfriend played Sims 3 without problems on my old #2 PC, Intel E2140 @ 2.93GHz, 3GB RAM, HD3870 with some OC. IIRC it was maxed out at 1360x768 (TV as a screen)


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## Black Panther (Nov 28, 2014)

9700 Pro said:


> My ex-girlfriend played Sims 3 without problems on my old #2 PC, Intel E2140 @ 2.93GHz, 3GB RAM, HD3870 with some OC. IIRC it was maxed out at 1360x768 (TV as a screen)



Performance of TS3 depends mainly on how many expansion packs you have. The game also ran fine for my daughter on an E8400, 4GB RAM and HD5970, when she had around 4 expansion packs. Then when she got Island Paradise the problems started and the game lagged like crazy even with the E8400 overclocked to 4Ghz and with the game installed on the SSD. It runs fine for her as long as she doesn't go into the Island Paradise lot.


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 28, 2014)

Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving (and subsequent food coma? lol)  

Been keeping track of all the new posts, doing more research, questioning myself on what I truly want in terms of this upgrade. And the short answer is: I do have an interest in overclocking, though slight. Who knows, maybe that'll change once I get into it. That said, because of my budget of $300, that ultimately leaves me with the Pentium-K -this is where a local Micro Center would help, because then I could get an i5-K off the bat - but at least I'll be getting a better Z97 board out of it AND possibly an SSD. 

Here's to hoping I don't have any regrets - I'm going with the Pentium K.


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## Schmuckley (Nov 29, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving (and subsequent food coma? lol)
> 
> Been keeping track of all the new posts, doing more research, questioning myself on what I truly want in terms of this upgrade. And the short answer is: I do have an interest in overclocking, though slight. Who knows, maybe that'll change once I get into it. That said, because of my budget of $300, that ultimately leaves me with the Pentium-K -this is where a local Micro Center would help, because then I could get an i5-K off the bat - but at least I'll be getting a better Z97 board out of it AND possibly an SSD.
> 
> Here's to hoping I don't have any regrets -* I'm going with the Pentium K. *



I don't think you'll have any regrets.
What mobo though?
Pentium K is my fave chip out of..3930k,3570k,and g3258


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## Gmr_Chick (Nov 29, 2014)

Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?


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## BiggieShady (Nov 29, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?



I would go with i5 K especially because you mentioned sims 3 is not the only game you play, and some of this year's games simply refuse to run on dual cores. Z97 board and i5-4670K would be my choice these days. There is a price difference to pay, but I always rationalize that getting a shiny new platform is kind of a rare occurrence


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## LiveOrDie (Nov 29, 2014)

Intel for any think AMD sucks


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## Schmuckley (Nov 29, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?



Yes it would make sense to get a z97 board..if you like to overclock.
or you could go with a decent h81 and Pentium K.
tbh..those little chips will run just about anything smooth..
clocked @ 4.4 or more 
I did read that far cry 4 checks to see if you have a dual-core and will not run with one.
However, I'd bet that's artificial.
It appears you're on a budget...
This is a quality z97 board on the cheap: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138408

or..h81: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138406


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## Gmr_Chick (Dec 1, 2014)

Ok, after I nearly shit myself earlier while playing with OCing my FX-6100 and it would no longer POST @ 4500 MHz, I'm not sure overclocking is for me, lol. Seriously, I was kinda freaking out - like "oh shit, I broke it!" So, I believe I will just go with a locked i5 and either a B85 or H97 board.


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## Schmuckley (Dec 1, 2014)

so much TMI


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## GhostRyder (Dec 1, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?





Gmr_Chick said:


> Ok, after I nearly shit myself earlier while playing with OCing my FX-6100 and it would no longer POST @ 4500 MHz, I'm not sure overclocking is for me, lol. Seriously, I was kinda freaking out - like "oh shit, I broke it!" So, I believe I will just go with a locked i5 and either a B85 or H97 board.


I think your over thinking it, like stated by others and myself overclocking is nothing that special or hard to a point where you have to freak out and on top of that the Pentium K is still an awesome chip for the money.  If your computer does not post when you overclock it, then there is probably not enough voltage to the chip (well theres a lot of reasons but that is normally the basic reason) which means it just needs more.  If it won't post all you have to do is reboot it once or twice more and it goes back to normal in most cases and in a worst case you just remove the bios battery for a second which will return the bios to its stock state removing any and all issues from your changes then you can move on from there.

My advice is to pick what your comfortable with but in all honesty if you go with something new and want to explore overclocking the Pentium K would probably be the best starter chip for you to work on.  Its very easy to work with and honestly runs cool enough temps are never a real issue even on the stock cooler up to 4.0 ghz (Like my personal one currently is).  If you do not want to take the risk then I would say get the highest clocked i3 you can as that will game just fine for awhile.

Also on the FX 6100, it just needs voltage but I do not think your board is great about handling that, try sticking to 4.0ghz as your reference in getting that stable then work from there.


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## qubit (Dec 1, 2014)

@Gmr_Chick I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread, just the first few posts, so sorry if I'm a bit off track.

Just wanna say that I think you should get the best Intel CPU you can, other than the hyper expensive E versions. This means a 4790K which is reasonable priced for what you get. Fact is, that the game takes ever increasing CPU power what with all the add-ons and new versions, so it will always slow down over time. Hence, getting the fastest CPU and overclocking it to a good 4.5GHz or so will really accelerate the game and make it run smoothly, plus make your PC that little bit more future proof. You'll also want to ensure that you get a motherboard with the top Intel chipset for it too, for overclockability.

Finally, I recommend NVIDIA graphics cards too when it comes time to upgrade, because I have so few problems with them, performance is great, plus some great enthusiast features. I've not had an AMD graphics card for about 5 years now, but from what I can tell by reading the forums around the web, they're still more glitchy than NVIDIA.


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## Gmr_Chick (Dec 1, 2014)

Yes, I do tend to over think things, like this for example  My guess is most people don't over think about something like a CPU. They just buy the best one that fits their needs and move on. At any rate, if I get an unlocked CPU, I'll probably have to get another PSU as well because most boards now take an 8 pin CPU connector and mine only has one half of the original 8/4 pin connector because my dad got rid of the other 4 pin connector while he was sleeving my cables. I'd really feel safer with a bigger PSU anyway. 

If I don't really care about Broadwell and M.2, could I just get an i5-4670K and a Z87 board?


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## xvi (Dec 2, 2014)

I know you've been going back and forth on the Pentium Anniversary vs i3 vs i5 debate, but I just thought I'd weigh in on my experiences gaming on my little rig. It's a Pentium G3258 Anniv. overclocked to 4.8 GHz on a MSI Z87I GAMING AC mITX board with a Radon HD 7870 GHz Ed. It's handled pretty much everything I've thrown at it quite admirably, in my humble opinion.

Since you're going for budget, I definitely recommend something with overclocking potential. I think you're worrying too much about overclocking your FX. Boot failures are a normal part of the overclocking experience. All it means is you've attempted to POST at an unstable clock and you either need to move your clock down (yes) or your voltage up (typically no unless you're absolutely positive you can handle the increased heat). Just take a deep breath, reset your BIOS, and try again. Hopping up to 4.5 GHz might have been ambitious. 

Considering the build, I don't think a SSD will give you a good return on performance versus the money you'd spend on it. A mechanical drive will typically give you a nice bit of storage space without a huge performance decrease. The money you save could go towards other components that would net you a higher return.

I'd recommend the G3258 for a few reasons. Being a budget build, there's a lot of bang for the buck in that processor. Performance at stock speeds will probably match your FX processor, but overclocking it will take it to a whole new level. Additionally, if you ever feel the need, you can upgrade the processor at a later date and sell the old one. I like this route as it helps me spread out the investment over time. Power consumption is also lower, which means you may be able to keep your current PSU.
If overclocking isn't your thing, that's okay. The I think it'd be worth looking at the i5-4570 or i5-4590 then. If you don't mind the price bump, you could always get the unlocked i5-4670K or i5-4690K and just run at stock speeds. It should increase the resale value of the processor if you one day decide to move on and give you the option to overclock if/when you run in to this problem again with Sims 5. 
As much as I like AMD, if you need strong single-threaded performance and you're not overclocking, Intel is the way to go.

As for motherboard chipsets, the Z87 is still a excellent option as long as, like you say, Broadwell and M.2 aren't a big concern. (imo, just sell old and buy new if it is.)



Gmr_Chick said:


> could I just get an i5-4670K and a Z87 board?


If that works for you budget wise, most certainly. I'd start with a decently good motherboard though. It's the most annoying thing to replace down the line.


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## Schmuckley (Dec 2, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Yes, I do tend to over think things, like this for example  My guess is most people don't over think about something like a CPU. They just buy the best one that fits their needs and move on. At any rate, if I get an unlocked CPU, I'll probably have to get another PSU as well because most boards now take an 8 pin CPU connector and mine only has one half of the original 8/4 pin connector because my dad got rid of the other 4 pin connector while he was sleeving my cables. I'd really feel safer with a bigger PSU anyway.
> 
> *If I don't really care about Broadwell and M.2, could I just get an i5-4670K and a Z87 board?*



I like that idea!
Here's a good z87 board for cheap: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...8380&cm_re=biostar_z87-_-13-138-380-_-Product


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## Gmr_Chick (Dec 2, 2014)

Thanks for the suggestion, Schmuckley. I'll be sure to read up on that board. 

I don't intend to upgrade for awhile, so I think I will go for the 4670K and a good Z87 board. Mircocenter has such awesome deals I may have to ask my dad if we can go on a little road trip  (in case you're wondering, my vision prohibits me from ever driving a car) I mean, crap, on their web-site they have the 4690K for $179! That's unbelievable. They say that's a savings of $80. I think that would be worth driving down there for.


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## qubit (Dec 2, 2014)

Yes, the 4670K and a Z87 board sounds like a decent combination, especially if you want to save a few bucks.


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## GhostRyder (Dec 2, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Thanks for the suggestion, Schmuckley. I'll be sure to read up on that board.
> 
> I don't intend to upgrade for awhile, so I think I will go for the 4670K and a good Z87 board. Mircocenter has such awesome deals I may have to ask my dad if we can go on a little road trip  (in case you're wondering, my vision prohibits me from ever driving a car) I mean, crap, on their web-site they have the 4690K for $179! That's unbelievable. They say that's a savings of $80. I think that would be worth driving down there for.


If you can get to a Micro-Center, do that and get a decent Z87 board + i5 combo as that will be the best you can do easily without breaking the bank!


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## Gmr_Chick (Dec 2, 2014)

Think I will do that, then. 4670K and this board: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4865#kf 

Has all the features I want, is Z87, plus it matches my build perfectly and sells for about $115 at my local computer shop; the trip to Micro Center would be for the CPU only. Still, even this way, I'd still be saving a good chunk of $$.


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## Naito (Dec 3, 2014)

This thread went full circle a few times  When you've collected all your parts and are in the processing of building your new rig, maybe take some pictures and place them in the 'You PC ATM' thread. Provide a link back to this thread so for those of us getting notifications from this thread can go check it out. I think I can speak for quite a few of us here on TPU when I say that we enjoy seeing new parts and builds. Good luck with it all.


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## Gmr_Chick (Dec 3, 2014)

Well, I actually have my rig already - have had it for nearly a year now - I'm just looking to upgrade it a bit. New GPU (which I have), CPU + mobo. I'll have to take some pictures of it so you guys can see it though.


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## Naito (Dec 3, 2014)

Gmr_Chick said:


> Well, I actually have my rig already - have had it for nearly a year now - I'm just looking to upgrade it a bit. New GPU (which I have), CPU + mobo. I'll have to take some pictures of it so you guys can see it though.



For me a 'new' rig can reuse many of the old parts, but have upgraded core components (CPU, Motherboard, GPU, RAM, etc). This is what you are going to do. I did pretty much the same thing a couple of years back, albeit with more components like RAM and CPU cooler (have since changed case, PSU, GPU, HDD and added soundcard and a SSD). Besides, that thread is not really for build logs, but rather what your PC is at that time, so can post pretty much anything.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 3, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 2.66 GHz over 10 years is better than 3.5 GHz over 5 years.


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## Enterprise24 (Feb 4, 2015)

Sorry for dumb this post and sorry for my bad English but I want to share some opinion for someone who typing "good CPU for Sims 3 or 4" in Google.
I am a hardcore fan of Sims I own all expansion pack and stuff pack , First system that I play Sims 3 in 2010 was Phenom II x2 555BE 3.2Ghz , PWC HD 5770 with 2GB system RAM and Windows 7 32bit.
It play Sims 3 quiet well for my resolution (1360x768) but after season pack release in OCT 2012 my game stop working several time , lag , stutter basically I can't play anymore so I decide to add RAM to 8GB and change windows to 64 bit  , game run somewhat better but still not perfect.
Half year later I change system to i5-2500K with Z77 M/B and Plextor M5P SSD my FPS in Sims 3 went skyrocket even at stock clock and OC 2500K to 4.5Ghz remove SOME lag and make game load and save faster.
Another upgrade is 5770 -> 7970 and monitor to Full HD with this I can't see any improvement , 7970 perform A VERY LITTLE BETTER than 5770 in Sims 3.
I went further to prove that single core CPU performance is a must for Sims 3 so I buy "Silicon Lottery" 3770K from Zolkorn (He is a famous overclocker in Thailand) it use just 1.35V to archive 5Ghz stable 24/7 and I even once hit 5.4Ghz @ 1.52V just to play Sims 3 by this way 





Even 3770K at 5.4Ghz I play Bridgeport but ... believe it or not it still lag even without mod or CC.
So I sold my 3770K to gain back full money that I bought it and go to Haswell this time my 4770K hit 4.4Ghz @ 1.3V which is suck and cannot match single core performance of 3770K @ 5Ghz.
I search some good batch and luckily I found 4670K L313B428 this CPU hit 4.9Ghz @ 1.35V 24/7 combine with 2800Mhz RAM 12-14-14-35-1T it should outperform single core of my old CPU.
I play with 4670K @ 4.9Ghz quiet long but Sims 3 still run suck FPS is high but frame time suck. Later I bored Sims 3 and sold CPU for good price and went to used 2600K no OC. Now I rarely play Sims 3 but my wife still play it sometimes.

Sims 3 with every expansions is very CPU bound , How ? I can't tell perhaps it must run on 4690K @ 7Ghz under ln2 to archieve good game.
Now I change VGA to GTX 970 and use DSR for my QHD so I can run Sims 3 @ 5120x2880 , at 4K Sims 3 still CPU bound but 5K is completly GPU bound my 970 running near 1.6Ghz run 99% all time and can't maintain 60FPS (usually 40-50) even GPU bound the game can't escape the fate that it run suck (lag stutter) no matter what system you play.
For Sims 3 any system will run suck perhaps worse than Ubishit port and Nvidiot "Gameworks" such as Watch Dogs , AC Unity or Far Cry 4.

For Sims 4 I must admit this game is quiet good optimize , when I sell R9-290 to get GTX 970 I used onboard Intel HD Graphics 3000 of my 2600K to play Sims 4 @ QHD "medium setting" and maintain 60-80 FPS all time.
Sims 4 run much better than Sims 3 for Intel I think i3-4150 or G3258 @ 4.5Ghz is solid for AMD maybe Athlon x4 860K is enough.


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## xfia (Feb 4, 2015)

you had to put your cpu on ice to play sims 3 

my sister plays sims 4 on high settings with a laptop that has a a8


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## LiveOrDie (Feb 4, 2015)

Enterprise24 said:


> Sorry for dumb this post and sorry for my bad English but I want to share some opinion for someone who typing "good CPU for Sims 3 or 4" in Google.
> I am a hardcore fan of Sims I own all expansion pack and stuff pack , First system that I play Sims 3 in 2010 was Phenom II x2 555BE 3.2Ghz , PWC HD 5770 with 2GB system RAM and Windows 7 32bit.
> It play Sims 3 quiet well for my resolution (1360x768) but after season pack release in OCT 2012 my game stop working several time , lag , stutter basically I can't play anymore so I decide to add RAM to 8GB and change windows to 64 bit  , game run somewhat better but still not perfect.
> Half year later I change system to i5-2500K with Z77 M/B and Plextor M5P SSD my FPS in Sims 3 went skyrocket even at stock clock and OC 2500K to 4.5Ghz remove SOME lag and make game load and save faster.
> ...




Your running a single GPU on 4K its has zero to do with your CPU lol, My old 775 could run sims 3 not sure what your doing but seems to be wrong.


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## Toothless (Feb 4, 2015)

Enterprise24 said:


> Sorry for dumb this post and sorry for my bad English but I want to share some opinion for someone who typing "good CPU for Sims 3 or 4" in Google.
> I am a hardcore fan of Sims I own all expansion pack and stuff pack , First system that I play Sims 3 in 2010 was Phenom II x2 555BE 3.2Ghz , PWC HD 5770 with 2GB system RAM and Windows 7 32bit.
> It play Sims 3 quiet well for my resolution (1360x768) but after season pack release in OCT 2012 my game stop working several time , lag , stutter basically I can't play anymore so I decide to add RAM to 8GB and change windows to 64 bit  , game run somewhat better but still not perfect.
> Half year later I change system to i5-2500K with Z77 M/B and Plextor M5P SSD my FPS in Sims 3 went skyrocket even at stock clock and OC 2500K to 4.5Ghz remove SOME lag and make game load and save faster.
> ...


Can you not thread necro? Thanks.


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## Gmr_Chick (Feb 4, 2015)

What Toothless said. I think this thread should officially be retired, as I've got a solution to my problem which is leaps and bounds better than my FX-6100 ever was; that little i3-4360 I got works wonders and I couldn't be happier with it. Sims 3 now runs nearly lag free and I can play for more than 10 minutes now without it suffering from severe lag.


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## McSteel (Feb 4, 2015)

Still, I thought that was a pretty interesting piece of information there 
Certainly should help people who may be thinking they're doing something wrong, or need to invest more in better hardware, when the gains will actually be minimal...


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## Darrian2727 (Dec 2, 2016)

xela333 said:


> If your not having much success with an AMD FX6100, I don't think getting an AMD 8 core is going to make much difference. And from what I can see online, the Sims would rather a cpu with quicker single core performance than multicore.
> 
> So I'd recommend getting the cheapest i5 CPU you can with a H81 board or Z97 if you can fit one into your budget.
> 
> Memory will probably be an issue too if you only have 4GB, need 8GB ideally.


Do you think the AMD FX 4300 would be fine for the sims 3?


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## HammerON (Dec 2, 2016)

Off topic posts deleted.  Darrian2727 posted a relevant post to the topic at hand, even though the thread is old.  This is allowed in our forum and I would hope that members would try to help answer the questioned posed.


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## slozomby (Dec 2, 2016)

Darrian2727 said:


> Do you think the AMD FX 4300 would be fine for the sims 3?


its a 7 year old game. any recent cpu should play it just fine.


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## eidairaman1 (Dec 2, 2016)

slozomby said:


> its a 7 year old game. any recent cpu should play it just fine.



A Phenom 1 or core 2 Will run it.


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