Best matchup

[Terry]

Question for the gurus. Which of the these two processors would make the best match with a GTX 970 card, an AMD FX 6300 or an Intel I7 920? I am only concerned with FSX performance.

[RyanJZ]

Go with the i7. Intel makes really good processors, never had a problem with them

[Hdguy]

I use the AMD FX 8350 quad at 4.0 , and OCed it to 4.5 and FSX runs flawless ...

[Terry]

I have the two PC's and graphics card listed above already, I just want to know the best pairing for FSX.

[rvn817j]

I'm not saying the FX8350 is better than the Intel I7, but it is half the price (or better). On sale today at Newegg for $169.99... see this link - http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/Jan-0-2016/Mancave_Superbowl_15/index-landing.html?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL011516&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL011516-_-EMC-011516-Index-_-E0-_-PromoWord&et_cid=24204&et_rid=2058287&et_p1=&email64=UlZOODE3SkBZQUhPTy5DT00= .

The FX 8350 is smooth nonetheless and I run it with a GTX760. Works just fine. The newer AM3+ motherboards do a great job of OC'ing the FX8300 series. Hdguy's OC is not unusual for this CPU.

[SixGhost]

The Fx6300 is by a significant margin better then the i7 920 and should run FSX decently!

[Boss86001]

I have had both AMD and Intel processors. In FSX, the Intel I-7 has been the best for me. May pay more, but it's worth it to me.

[txnetcop]

You never mentioned what is your drop dead amount is to spend. Old Intel i7 920 technology is pretty much dead and buried as is FX6300. The new Haswell i7 and i5 CPUs are by far faster processors than the AMD FX6300 or even the newer FX9590 and you can pick them up for just a little more money at newegg.com, amazon.com, or microcenter.com. You can run FSX on AMD just fine if you are willing to overclock! However P3d and X-Plane 10.3 will lag considerably. It is not GHz alone that determines the fastest chip. Even at the so-called AMD 5 GHz range it is still slower than the Haswell i5 and i7 stock turbo range. Also the Nvidia video card performs much better with Intel. If your choice is AMD you might want to consider an R9 series AMD video card for best performance.

If your interest is only FSX AMD oc'd to 4.2GHz or better is just fine. I still recommend the AMD R9 series video cards for it and they have a new catalyst software that works great. But the cost for AMD FX anything vs Intel i5 Haswell is almost the same on sale. The i7 Haswell has even more features but does cost more. So depending on your budget if you comparing the FX6300 vs i7 920 you will have to overclock either to get FSX smooth. Neither will run P3d or X-Plane 10.3 at realistic frames per second.
Ted

[Terry]

You never mentioned what is your drop dead amount is to spend. Old Intel i7 920 technology is pretty much dead and buried as is FX6300. The new Haswell i7 and i5 CPUs are by far faster processors than the AMD FX6300 or even the newer FX9590 and you can pick them up for just a little more money at newegg.com, amazon.com, or microcenter.com. You can run FSX on AMD just fine if you are willing to overclock! However P3d and X-Plane 10.3 will lag considerably. It is not GHz alone that determines the fastest chip. Even at the so-called AMD 5 GHz range it is still slower than the Haswell i5 and i7 stock turbo range. Also the Nvidia video card performs much better with Intel. If your choice is AMD you might want to consider an R9 series AMD video card for best performance.

If your interest is only FSX AMD oc'd to 4.2GHz or better is just fine. I still recommend the AMD R9 series video cards for it and they have a new catalyst software that works great. But the cost for AMD FX anything vs Intel i5 Haswell is almost the same on sale. The i7 Haswell has even more features but does cost more. So depending on your budget if you comparing the FX6300 vs i7 920 you will have to overclock either to get FSX smooth. Neither will run P3d or X-Plane 10.3 at realistic frames per second.
Ted

As I mentioned above I already have two PC's one with the FX 6300 the other with the I7 920. I have the GTX 970 in the AMD machine and it's a dog. You state that Nvidia cards perform better with Intel. That's the piece of information I was looking for. Thanks!

[alehead]

I run the i7 920 in my work computer at home. The processor is now several years old. The fsx setup is on my newer box which runs an i7 2700K at 4.8GHz.
Obviously, your budget is the most important aspect. I would recommend Intel for fsx and co, and go for the newest you can afford. You might have difficulties finding boards for processors from 5 or more years ago. I overclocked mine for some time, so I don't think the board would be of much value if I sold it on. Overclocking not only taxes the processor but also the board. I need to check the capacitors on the main board to make sure they are not about to explode.

A


Andrew Entwistle