in general for those building gaming rigs on the cheap, id recommend staying in the i5 ballpark and avoiding the fx lineup if they can, in the long run, its a much better investment. you could only imagine my disappointment when i learned that my 970 OC's to 1410 on the core was being held back in a good handful of my more cpu intensive game. RIP. EDIT: forgot to mention my CPU is a FX-9590