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AMD Bulldozer 4.2 vs Intel i7 4.2

Jay794

Jay794

Jay794

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Joined
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Sheffield, UK
So after months of one of my friends being a "console only" gamer, he's decided to spend some cash on a new PC (he also quit drugs, if that has anything to do with it lol, maybe replacing one addition with another)

Anyways, I suspect he's going to get extremely smug because he's just ordered an AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4170 Black Edition 4.2Ghz, whereas my setup has an Intel i7 2600k, which runs stock at 3.4Ghz, he says he's not interested in overclocking his processor as 4.2 is fast enough, however, I clocked my i7 up to 4.2 (I think it's running at 4.4 at the moment, but I still need to do some stability tests)

So he's bragging because he's got 4.2Ghz for around £100, whereas I had to overclock a £200+ chip to get to 4.2Ghz, but what is the actual difference?

I would always choose Intel over AMD for processors as the general feeling I get from everyone about the latest AMD chips is they're ****, thoughts?

Which chip will perform better in say, Crysis or video encoding?
 
Simply put...you can't comparing different CPU base on the frequency/core clock alone, and different CPUs will have different architectual design and different IPC (instruction per clock). Frequency itself means very little, if the said CPU's IPC is low/slow. That's what reviews and game benchmarks is for.

Bulldozer's per core performance is so bad, that at 4.2GHz is only roughly as fast as its predecessor the Phenom II at around 3.6~3.7GHz.

And to give you another example, the per core performance of the Bulldozer at 3.6GHz in only on par with Intel's last gen's i3 540 at 3.06GHz...just look at World of Warcraft (which the game pretty much use one core only) bench result:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/143?vs=434
and is slower than the i3 2100 (3.1GHz) by a great margin:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=434
 
I'm tempted to not reply here, when it comes to a ****ing contest it's all rather silly. Also, almost any time spent reading a review would tell you your chip is vastly superior even at stock.

His chips about the match for the old (none sandy bridge) "i" chips. It's been a long time since CPU power was about speed alone.
 
Jay794 said:
Maybe I should get him to send it back then lol
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Show him the reviews, and he'll be shocked. Just tell him that imagine the clock speed being the speed you're going down the road, and the architecture of the CPU is the car size... in this case, Bulldozer will be a normal car with Sandy/IvyBridge being a bus ;).
 
Jay794 said:
Maybe I should get him to send it back then lol
Click to expand...

The FX4170 performance in games varies somewhat,and is comparable to a 3GHZ to 4GHZ Phenom II X4 at stock clockspeeds. It seems to be better in many games than an FX8150 for a single card system from what I gather.

Having said that,a Core i3 2100 would probably have more consistent performance for gaming.
 
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i have just ordered recieved my fx-8150 i know everyone is saying performance is s*** with them but looking at the reviews it is only by a few FPS so i am not to bothered and i have heard that when overclocked they are fantastic cpus if he likes AMD let him keep the CPU but if he wants a further couple of FPS then tell him to go SB/IB
 
trickynickyuk said:
i have just ordered recieved my fx-8150 i know everyone is saying performance is s*** with them but looking at the reviews it is only by a few FPS so i am not to bothered and i have heard that when overclocked they are fantastic cpus if he likes AMD let him keep the CPU but if he wants a further couple of FPS then tell him to go SB/IB
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lol but even if he must get an AMD CPU for gaming, he'd be better off getting a Phenom II X4/X6 and overclocking it to 3.8-4.2GHz...as that is as fast as Bulldozer 4-8 cores at 4.6-4.8GHz, but don't consume anywhere as much power or run as hot.
 
trickynickyuk said:
i have just ordered recieved my fx-8150 i know everyone is saying performance is s*** with them but looking at the reviews it is only by a few FPS so i am not to bothered and i have heard that when overclocked they are fantastic cpus if he likes AMD let him keep the CPU but if he wants a further couple of FPS then tell him to go SB/IB
Click to expand...

They maybe "good" overclocked but don't BD's heat up a tonne?
 
Don't point to arbitrary benchmarks, just play the same games and see what framerates each produces. That will tell you who has the better system and bragging rights.

Simple.
 
The-Plethora said:
I plan to go with AMD for my next build, as long as it gives good gaming performance who cares? the difference between 80fps and 90fps just doesnt concern me anymore.
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Except it is not difference of 80fps and 90fps, but more like minimum 25fps vs 50-60fps in CPU demanding games or CPU demanding scenes...

AMD CPUs at the moment simply don't have the grunt for holding up decent minimum frame rate...may be except if games would use 6 cores or more.
 
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