So I have been out of the game for a long time and have been trying to build a computer for a while now. I have decided to narrow it down to these two option, listed below, and am hoping I can get some help. There is a ton of chatter online about how anyone build a computer for gaming should I avoid AMD.
When I was on top of this stuff I always went with AMD because they were always the best price/performance, nowadays it seems they are pretty even.
I am still leaning towards the AMD as the passmark score seems to be better than the Intel one I listed, but would like some input.

Core™ i3-3220 Processor Bundle w/ Asus B75M-A Motherboard
AMD™ FX-4350 Processor w/ Asus M5A97 R2.0

Also, other than memory speed and latency is there anything else I need to worry about?

I may be interested on your results. Since my laptop is MIA I'll probably build another gamer desktop.

Well I think it will more than likely be AMD route.
Then what ever the best deal I can get on memory.
Everything else is from my current build.

Ooo. Go with AMD. Much better for the price. What's your budget? Want me to recommend some parts according to your spending limit?

I'm thinking of a slight upgrade on my system, my Phenom x4 is feeling a little sluggish on video encoding.

I was actually looking at the FX-6300, six core for $5 less than the 4350 you listed, pretty much owns it in every benchmark despite the slightly slower clock speed.

My quad phenom OC'd to 4.2ghz is super laggy in my flight sim to the point where I have to run it on lowest graphic settings.

Sure, that would be cool!
Not much budget though looking to keep it low.
Maybe around 250-300.
I only need mobo, cpu, and memory.
Although I would love an ssd that's sadly out of my price range as I would rather update my computer than just my drive.

Don't even bother building a computer without going here:

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8033818&Sku=

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4904561&CatId=7339

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1963472&CatId=7248

That totals to about $320 before tax going by tigerdirect pricing. Places like ncix.ca should have better prices. Also, thats with a single 8gb stick of ram. So it'll help with upgrading in the future.

What video card are you going to be using?

Stephan why did you choose that motherboard?

Salomon, do you mostly use it for checking compatibility or for pricing? or both?

Seems the best chipset one from MSI on sale from them. Personally, after nearly frying a motherboard and then a CPU by over volting, my MSI motherboard would boot right back up. I have also never had a problem from overclocking an MSI board, even with prolonged gaming and under high heat conditions. That's why I'm biased towards their boards.

Also, the new AMD CPU's supposedly have a good architecture.

You can also check out newegg.ca, I've found quite often their prices to be slightly better than tigerdirect.

I always buy everything from memory express.
The have free shipping on wednesday and the price beat policy is the best.

I asked because I looked for reviews on that board and from what I see that cpu doesn't play well when overclocked and has been known to cook the board.

Sal, this site is really cool, it's nice to build everything and see pricing for everything too and I don't have to stress about stuff not working together.

I also read reviews on both my MSI boards about how they don't OC well, but both ran amazing at any speeds and were very forgiving with any errors I made.

Bryan, I use that site for picking compatible parts, comparing pricing and just about everything else. It has reviews and everything else as well...

It compares all the major (and not) sites selling parts, so you really can't go wrong. They've even got some great guides to different levels of PC builds that they update fairly frequently.

Glad you like it...it's definitely helped me out more than a few times and saved me quite a bit of cash.

Going to take your advice Jason, I have also read a bunch of reviews and people said they were able to get it up to 5GHz clock stable, with stock cool.
So I will probably toss it in and overclock it to 4GHz

Nice call Salomon, I usually have to search all my parts on shopbot.ca before ordering.

Good choice, I haven't seen anything bad regarding these cpu's. I need to figure out which board I'll go with now and probably 12-16gb of ram.

I already have an SSD hard drive, so it should make a nice upgrade. Seriously, when you can budget in an SSD, do it, they make your system feel much snappier.

well it was a choice between new computer and an ssd.
For now I will do the computer, I will be getting a 200+ GB hard drive so I will need to save up.
I have always bought ASUS and the M5A97 r2.0 seems to fit what I need on the board. Plus I already have the graphics card I want so I am set there.

I am still on a x2 6000+ at 3.0GHz so it's probably best i do the update.

What he said. It's like a whole different level.

I need prices to come down on the 240GB SSDs, my 120 has been filled. Too many damn game installations haha

That's the other thing, the more full the SSD is the sooner it will die. that's why I am waiting on a 240 too

Bryan it has limited writes, but it won't die that soon.

You'll probably be onto the next best storage device before it dies.

Haha I wouldn't bet on that, I tend to hang onto this longer than I should. Like this computer, it's almost 6 years old.

So here is the final build, thank you all for your advice:
AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

$305 after tax

I've been running a G.SKILL Phoenix Pro 60gb SSD for over 2 years, I haven't noticed any degradation yet. I try to maintain at least 20gb free on it. I have windows 7 and only the apps I used the most installed on it, the rest resides on a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint drive.

I used Photoshop(scratch disk on the SSD) and Lightroom a lot, as well as some video editing and the SSD really helped a lot. I'm not a gamer, so I can comment on how it would affect that, but I couldn't see any downside.

Here's a quick benchmard of my two drives, not ideal conditions, about 4.4gb of background apps running while doing the benchmark lol. You can obviously see when the SSD hits an empty spot on the drive. The read speeds is generally a little faster, but the access time is the real secret.

Nice, good stuff to know.
I thought about splitting it up like that but would prefer not to. 20gb free on a 60gb drive is a lot! so you shouldn't.
I am impressed the SSD is going strong, scratch disk will definitely add some wear.

Just make sure you get a drive larger than 32gb.

So parts arrived and she is all together but I can't seem to get it into setup.

What setup? You mean BIOS?

No it was windows 7 setup.

I got it now, I am just in ubuntu right now copying some stuff before I install.

It seems the windows 7 install doesn't want to start with anything more than the bare minimum connect. I had a PCI USB hub and as soon as I took it out I was good to go.

1 stick of RAM, enter BIOS immediately and set the appropriate voltage for your RAM.

Save exit.

Install windows with that single stick of RAM.

If it's still flakey, try another RAM slot or try another stick of RAM, if possible, something really run of the mill that will run at lower stock voltages for DDR2/DDR3 whichever you have.

Edit: Still bad, and getting errors about missing files during disc loading, try another hard drive, could be bad.

I'm going to assume you're using a legitimate copy of windows, otherwise it could be that release you've acquired is just effed up, burn another copy.

Well this night has been a mess.

I finally am installed on windows and then went to grab the stuff I backed up and somehow I installed on the wrong effing drive! They were both labeled the same and I usually pull the drive that I am not putting windows on but this time I opted not too. Anyways it's going to take a while for me to get back up to speed.

Thanks Michael.

I hate when that happens. I just finished building my computer yesterday, put in the final SSD and when I formatted, my SSD and my driver / program partition are the same size, I was like hmm haha.

LOL

@Bryan, that's why you ALWAYS put the source as Disk1 and the target as Disc0, so 0 being you main OS drive, new drive.

*face palm*

The computer I just finished building was

i5 3570k @ 4.5ghz
MSI Z77 G45 motherboard
16gb DDR3 Corsair Vengeance
1 64gb SSD
1 120gb SSD
2x 1TB HDD
MSI Twin Frozr 7970 3gb OC edition
H70 Corsair water cooler
Corsair 850W modular psu
Corsair Carbine 300m window edition case

Michael do I do that in BIOS? I changed the boot order of the drive but didn't think that changed what the label was. I honestly should have had the backup labeled like the rest of my drives/

Nice setup Brandon, I think the next thing down the road will be a modular psu, I spent some good time this build hiding wires and making sure they were tucked away before I put the board in.

I didn't get a fully modular, the 850m from corsair is semi. So all your main plugs are there all the time, so CPU and motherboard. Same with 1 row of power connectors. Still, corsair rates their psu on maintained power not peak, so it's a really good psu and goes on sale for around 110.

I have heard a lot of good things about corsair so I will probably go that way.

So the computer has been running for a while now and I have to say I am happy with the setup!
It is booting a bit faster, and I am actually able to do stuff as soon as I get into windows, where as before I had to wait for everything to finish loading.
The fan control for this motherboard seems to be a lot better, I would say my computer is definitely quieter than before. I have yet to play the games it was struggle with before (Metro Last Light and Witcher 2) but I am sure with the new mobo and cpu I should be good.

What do you guys usually do with your old parts?

I keep all my old parts and give them to friends when their stuff breaks. That, or I build older Frankensteins and donate them to family members who don't have such good (or any) PCs. You can also donate them to schools. A few years ago I helped a buddy of mine build his own in-car computer with his older computer. That was fun too!

Hey carputer, that's cool!
I have already hooked up the fam with computers, so good there.
I would probably go for one of those tiny things if I was going to do that. I can't imagine using a full size computer for a carputer. What did you use for a screen and where did you put it? That has always been my issue.

Had a spare laptop so we slapped the LCD on the passenger side dash area angled so that both the driver and passenger could see it. The alternative was to cut up the dash a LOT more and pop it in the middle console area but the angle sucked and it was right next to his shifter... Bad shift = fist through monitor.

Haha, true that would not be good! Good call on the laptop screen! They are relatively cheap to pickup, I am sure I can solder a female connection so that I could use a laptop monitor with with vga.