Maximum PC

So ive been planning a build for a new rig, and im stuck on one little roadblock: Picking a processor. Im doing an AMD based build in order to keep prices down, and no i wont be swayed to Intel. This is an AMD build. That being said, im thinking that AMD's line of 8 core processors looks pretty good, but i cant make up my mind. So, main question is, and excuse me if this sounds slightly idiotic but is there any huge difference between the Fx-8120, 8320 and 8350 other then clock speed, would overclocking say, the 8120 make it equal to one of its superiors? Last question, all other things in the build being equal, would any big difference be seen vs one of those 8 cores and a quad core in AMD's line-up in moderate to heavy gaming, video editing and overall moderate-heavy day to day usage that would justify the, admittedly small, price difference.

I was thinking of the same build you are. But my toss up was the AMD 8350 or Intel i7 2011. For mostly photoshop/lightroom.
I am leaning to 8350.

Wait a moment, in your initial post you also said that this build was going to be used for heavy to moderate gaming as well, so what is the primary use for this system going to be? Keep in mind that you're not doing an apples to apples comparison with an i7 that uses the 2011 socket instead of using an i7 that uses the 1155 socket. Frankly I would recommend going with an i5 over an 8350 even for photo & video editing since the performance gulf between the two isn't that much and the i5 even beats the FX-8350 in a few photo & video benchmarks while it absolutely destroys it in gaming based benchmarks.

When I click on this link, the 3570 is being compared, not the 3550. AMD still loses in the single thread, but is essentially winning multi-thread. I'm happy to see AMD is at least becoming competitive.

Considering the 8350 is $200, while the 3570 is $230, if you can save $10-20 on the mobo, that's a big enough price difference to go AMD.

Im not the OP. i just piggybacked off his question because I was considering the 8350 as well. I really dont PC game, im still of a console gamer. I figured I go with the i7 because it should last me at least 5yrs, as my current proc is now. I know the i5 got great reviews and has good performance, so if i wanted to save a few extra bucks I could go with the i5. And if I was was going Intel, i wanted the 79 chipset.

Again guys, this isnt going to be an Intel build, its an AMD build. I understand that performance wise, i can get better results with an Intel processor, but at the same time, my wallet likes the price of AMD. As for the usage, its a little bit of everything though mostly gaming. Yes, i realize that most games arent optimised to used more then 2 cores, but i like numbers. That was sarcasm people, dont hurt me. Im just looking to put together a rig that performs well and is some-what future-proof. So the question was, between AMD's lineup of octo-cores and those with experience with them, would i be better served going with the top of the line, could i get similar performance by overclocking one of the lower lines, or does the general public think that the extra cores arent worth the cost over one of AMD's quad- or hexa-cores, which for the intent of argument is the perfectly arbitrary $50-75.

You might be better served by overclocking, but at this point, the 8150 is the same price as a new 8320, which you could just overclock the 8320 to be on par, if not better, than the 8350. So you can skip the 81xx line altogether.

I understand that you like the prices - i mean, ~$190 for "8" cores right?
Problem is, while those 8 cores will actually be 8 real cores for many threaded applications, in others, it really only works as 4 cores, as 2 cores per module share certain resources. It's better to think of it as 4 pairs of cores, where each pair saves on transistors by sharing certain "die-expensive" areas.

The single threaded performance of core-i5 is simply higher - and with 4 real (and powerful) cores, it's difficult to justify the 8 core AMD as others above are also talking i5.

BUT - why not consider the 6300? you're not really losing much multithreading/multiprocessing performance. The cost is more comparable to core i3, and since core i3's single threaded performance is weaker because it's got half the cache of the i5, no turbo, and no AES hardware, the single threaded 6300 performance looks stronger in this fight. At this price point, the AMD actually is a nice option. You'll save a fair amount, and the loss of 2 cores will not be felt really.

A friend of mine is using an 8150 for a minecraft server. Main problem he faced was it's primarily a singular thread heavy process. It however does let him run multiple server instances easily. He hasn't tried overclocking, but as a server, stability is more important.

Lower end lines, especially with piledriver, appear to overclock easily. Common statement is your-milage-may-vary, but i'd say 4.0GHz is a given.