When comparing Intel i5-4460 vs AMD FX-9590 Black Edition, the Slant community recommends Intel i5-4460 for most people. In the question“What are the best CPUs for desktop gaming?” Intel i5-4460 is ranked 5th while AMD FX-9590 Black Edition is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Intel i5-4460 is:
Being that this is a Haswell chip that uses the LGA 1150 socket, it is quite easy to find cheap motherboards and cheap RAM (DDR3) to use in those motherboards. This makes a good option as it is still a powerful chip comparable to even newer ones but allows for a wide selection of compatible parts. It also is a good choice for those that are already using a LGA 1150 compatible motherboard and would just like to upgrade from a less powerful CPU.
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Pros
Pro Easy to find cheap components
Being that this is a Haswell chip that uses the LGA 1150 socket, it is quite easy to find cheap motherboards and cheap RAM (DDR3) to use in those motherboards. This makes a good option as it is still a powerful chip comparable to even newer ones but allows for a wide selection of compatible parts. It also is a good choice for those that are already using a LGA 1150 compatible motherboard and would just like to upgrade from a less powerful CPU.
Pro Efficient power use
When comparing to CPUs in a similar price range such as the AMD 8350, this Intel chip is more efficient for power use. That means less heat and a lower power bill. While newer generation Intel chips may have a slight advantage here, they will be more expensive as well, so this makes a good choice if heat, power and efficiency are a concern in this price range.
Pro Good choice for budget builds
At under $200 the 4460 makes a for a good mid range build. It will handle any casual game or even most AAA games without issue, though some that are really CPU intensive (such as Civ 5) may see some bottleneck.
Pro Easily overclocked
Being that this chip requires liquid cooling in order to not burn itself into oblivion it is quite easy to overclock the chip in order to get a better performance than the stock speeds. The chip is not locked, meaning it can be overclocked as high as one can get it to go without locking up.
Pro Good speed for the price
Coming in at under $250, this chip performs quite admirably when compared to Intel's offerings. While not quite as good as an i7 4770k, the price for this AMD chip is about $100 lower.
Cons
Con No hyperthreading
Even though this is a quad-core device, there is no hypethreading built into the chip meaning any apps or games that can take advantage of the multiple cores through hyperthreading will be unable to see that performance using this chip.
Con Can not overclock
For those that would like to squeeze a little more power out of their CPU by overclocking, that is not an option with this CPU.
Con Will need a specific motherboard
This chip needs a motherboard that has a 220w rating, which means there will be few created making them difficult to find and slightly expensive.
Con Uses a lot of power
Due to how much power this chips need to perform there is only a small selection of compatible motherboards. This means that anyone with an older AMD compatible board will not be able to use this chip. It also means there will be less variety in good boards to purchase.
Using a lot of power also has the downside of a higher electric bill if using the PC a lot as well as more opportunity for the chip to wear itself out early (of which there have been quite a few reports of.
Being that this has a high rate of power consumption there is quite a lot of heat produced by this chip. It runs really hot. Running hot is such an issue that it is highly recommended to use this with liquid cooling, which adds to the overall price of using this chip.