AMD FX 8350

t103Ninja · 10 Sep 2013 at 20:34

hey guys,
so ive been skipping around for the past few weeks wondering what build i should be going with ive mainly been thinking about i5's and i7's but from what ive been reading and from what i want to do i think that the 8350 might do what i want it to do for more money

current build idea:
FX 8350
16gb ram (not sure what speed i should get or what the 8350 would even support)
probaly a GTX 770 maybe SLI
as far as a PSU goes i dont really know what watts i would need, i know an 8350 is more power hungry and i would like to keep my options open for SLI

so my question is will an 8350 get the job done?
i looking to play and record in 1080p with dxtory, so obviously there will be video editing/rendering aswell
what power supply would i need to power everything? (bare in mind i might be going SLI)
and whats a good board for AMD? i want to be able to overclock and of course have support for SLI

pastymuncher · 10 Sep 2013 at 20:59

If you give us a budget i am sure the speccing guru's will put a build together for you.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:18

The thing that's putting me off the 8350 for you is the SLI part..

I found this:

As much as I hate to break this to you. Yes, your CPU is the bottleneck. Even a i7-3770k isn't fully capable of utilizing dual GTX 770s properly until around the 4.4-4.5Ghz mark. SLI eats IPC for breakfast. And that is something the FX-8350 does not have. You won't notice good scaling on dual high end GPUs with AMD unfortunately. Single card, that would be different. But dual cards, yeah.

And BF3 multi-player eats CPUs for lunch. It is a highly CPU bound situation, that really does show whether your processor is capable of it or not. Even super high end (3930k+) struggle with it without a fair overclock. The FX-8350 will flounder in BF3, while inherently causing a CPU bottleneck in the process with SLI. Combine those two, and you are in for a world of hurt.

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1420963/fx-8350-paired-with-evga-sc-gtx-770-sli/10

I have also seen instances from forum members here that only have 50% CPU optimization because the games they are playing don't support AMD's 'hyperthreading' properly..

I don't think the 8350 is right for you.

PowerPie5000 · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:28

Doomedspeed said:
The thing that's putting me off the 8350 for you is the SLI part..

I found this:

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1420963/fx-8350-paired-with-evga-sc-gtx-770-sli/10

I have also seen instances from forum members here that only have 50% CPU optimization because the games they are playing don't support AMD's 'hyperthreading' properly..

I don't think the 8350 is right for you.

Or maybe it's because most modern games only utilize up to 4 cores effectively? I'm sure you'll notice a similar thing happening with 6 core/12 thread Intel chips too (and AMD CPUs don't have Hyper-Threading). The comment in your link about a 3930k struggling with BF3 is absolutely laughable... My i5 3570k & Radeon 7950 Boost run it silky smooth at the highest settings

.

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:29

Lots of people are playing BF3 multiplayer very smoothly with AMD 8350s on Crossfire/SLI. A lot of people say this stuff without ever actually trying it. I do agree that an overclock is needed to get the best out of it, but all 8350s should reach 4.5GHz with a reasonably good cooler.

Here's an example comparison of the 3570K and 8350 both overclocked, with 7970 CF:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1333027/amd-fx-8350-vs-i5-3570k-delidded-single-gpu-and-crossfire-gpu

The BF3 benchmark there has it averaging around 160fps at max settings on both. At no point do the 8350 CPU cores go above 80%, while the GPUs run at 100%.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:38

PowerPie5000 said:
Or maybe it's because most modern games only utilize up to 4 cores effectively? I'm sure you'll notice a similar thing happening with 6 core/12 thread Intel chips too (and AMD CPUs don't have Hyper-Threading). The comment in your link about a 3930k struggling with BF3 is absolutely laughable... My i5 3570k & Radeon 7950 Boost run it silky smooth at the highest settings .

Theres a lot of contradiction in this reply.. Do you want to sort it out?

It doesn't even seem like you've read this thread, let alone that one.. Its not about the CPU use in the game, its about the bottlenecking of SLI GPU's.. whether it be in a game or a benchmark..

The FX don't have hyperthreading but the way the cores are made up act in the same way. an 8350 has 4 modules each with 2 cores in that module, this is completely different to how they were previously made and how intel still make theres..

Anyway.. Teppic thank for that. It seems a bit clearer now, though its seem that the 8350 started to bottleneck the 7950's in non-optismised games. As 770's are a bit more powerful i would start to think the impact could be more noticable.. Am i right in thinking that?

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:44

Doomedspeed said:
Anyway.. Teppic thank for that. It seems a bit clearer now, though its seem that the 8350 started to bottleneck the 7950's in non-optismised games. As 770's are a bit more powerful i would start to think the impact could be more noticable.. Am i right in thinking that?

They're 7970s there, which are generally about the same as a 770.

In games that are lightly threaded you'd see more of a difference, but to be honest, games that are going to get a big benefit from SLI/Crossfire at this kind of level are mostly going to be recent ones that run fine on AMD processors. We know that BF4 runs at ultra on an 8350/7970CF set up as that's what DICE used for the 64 player demo.

It may be that in some games you can get 180fps on the 8350 and 200fps on the 3570K, but that wouldn't matter to most people since their monitor can't display that fast anyway.

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:46

It's almost as if BF3 and BF4 are the only games ever created and played by man.

EDIT : Also, that link in your post Teppic has some sketchy results, like the Dirt Showdown one.

It also got locked.

There's no point getting an FX83 if you're going SLI, I don't care what BF you play, you're saving X amount of money for worse performance (factually) when you could save money on the GPU set up to get something that doesn't bottleneck and end up with the same experience (fact).

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:50

Martini1991 said:
It's almost as if BF3 and BF4 are the only games ever created and played by man.

EDIT : Also, that link in your post Teppic has some sketchy results, like the Dirt Showdown one.

There are plenty of examples. BF3 is the game that was specifically mentioned.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:50

Martini1991 said:
It's almost as if BF3 and BF4 are the only games ever created and played by man.

Get with the times man.

Anyway.. I found these:

8350 (with balls overclocked off it) 770SLI (overclocked):
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7062552

4670k (stock) 770 SLI (stock)
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6891931

Not a massive difference. I am convinced the 8350 is good enough for SLI 770's though i'd still personally opt for the intel alternative.

Though considering the stock intel and stock 770's get a higher score than a overclocked 8350 and overclocked 770's it does make you wonder.

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:51

Doomedspeed said:
Get with the times man.

Anyway.. I found these:

8350 (with balls overclocked off it) 770SLI (overclocked):
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7062552

4670k (stock) 770 SLI (stock)
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6891931

Not a massive difference. I am convinced the 8350 is good enough for SLI 770's though i'd still personally opt for the intel alternative.

Is 3DMark a good game?

An FX8350 isn't good enough to get the most out of SLI, not if you actually play a selection of games, you'd save money on a 760 SLI and lose like no performance.
We're talking about 40 quid, you go for the 4670K every time.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:53

Martini1991 said:
Is 3DMark a good game?

Better than crysis.

I just thought it'd paint a good picture without difference coding allegiances.

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:54

Doomedspeed said:
Better than crysis.

I just thought it'd paint a good picture without difference coding allegiances.

Crysis is a pretty good game though if you ignore Crysis 2 and 3.

Heaven 3.0, a Pentium hardly bottlenecks a Titan if you run it maxed out at 1920x1080, but in actual gaming scenarios, it'd be an awful choice.
Synthetics are pathetic for working out bottlenecks.

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:54

Martini, when game benchmarks show good results for the 8350 you say they're wrong, when synthetic benchmarks show good results, they don't count, and when people who use the actual CPU say they get good results, you say they're not measuring it properly.

There's no doubt that on average an overclocked 4770K is going to give higher FPS benchmarks than an overclocked 8350 in CF/SLI. What matters is whether you can get a steady 60fps or better (or 120fps or better, if 120Hz).

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:57

Okay, so a pentium and Titan are a strapping combination then if Synthetics mean anything.

So, the AMD can push more out of a single GPU in Showdown, but magically loses the extra grunt when a second card is present? Right, that's believable.

Who's talking about clocked i7's anyway?

I'll just shovel AMD down everyone, and when they ask why they've got a bottleneck, I'll link them to BF3 and synthetics and tell them it's all okay.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:58

Martini1991 said:
Heaven 3.0, a Pentium hardly bottlenecks a Titan if you run it maxed out at 1920x1080, but in actual gaming scenarios, it'd be an awful choice.
Synthetics are pathetic for working out bottlenecks.

Heaven and 3D mark are a bit different, 3D mark actually has Graphic specific tests..

The interesting thing about those results are the Graphics scores..

Considering there the same card (overclocked on the 8350) the results are suprising)

Intel: 23436
AMD: 21212

I agree with you Martini, Overall FX and SLI is a shocking idea.

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 22:00

Doomedspeed said:
Heaven and 3D mark are a bit different, 3D mark actually has Graphic specific tests..

My point's more is that you can't take results on a base level without analysing them

Which you've just done, and shown the point entirely.
It's a bottleneck, for the sake of 40 quid, it's not worth it.

Doomedspeed · 10 Sep 2013 at 22:02

Martini1991 said:
My point's more is that you can't take results on a base level without analysing them
Which you've just done, and shown the point entirely.
It's a bottleneck, for the sake of 40 quid, it's not worth it.

Yay, analysis Prevails.

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 22:03

Some games are very CPU intensive, some are not, some are heavily threaded some or not. All that depends on the performance if the GPU isn't a limitation. The 8350 above 4.5GHz is very rarely benchmarked, but when it is, the results are hugely improved.

Martini1991 · 10 Sep 2013 at 22:04

teppic said:
Some games are very CPU intensive, some are not, some are heavily threaded some or not.

Indeed, so why wouldn't you get the consistent performer ; The i5?