Age old question. For my use cases: 3570k or 8350. Please, no fanboys.

kn100 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:21

Hi all,

Until yesterday I was pretty dead set on getting the 3570k along with a z77 mobo for overclocking but after seeing some threads here and some benchmarks, I am considering the 8350.
For the purposes of this, assume I have the AMD 7870.
Here are the main use cases for my machine:
General productivity apps, office, web browsing, watching video, etc.
Gaming - Not any specific games really, but all at 1080p on one single panel
Encoding/rendering - (THIS is what is making me consider the AMD 8350) - I know for a fact I can make full use of all 8 cores with x264 under Linux, but I am curious to know how much faster this is than the i5.

Anyone got any opinions on this? Please, no rampant fanboyism - Only facts/benchmarks/REASONED opinions. I am not really a fan of either manufacturer however my current rig is AMD and it's been quick/reliable and as such I will consider both options equally on the merits of the silicon.

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:36

If you place priority of rendering over gaming then go FX8350.
If you place priority of gaming over rendering then go 3570k.

Pretty much that simple.

kn100 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:45

Martini1991 said:
If you place priority of rendering over gaming then go FX8350.
If you place priority of gaming over rendering then go 3570k.

Pretty much that simple.

Is there a big disadvantage with using (an overclocked) 8350 for gaming?

ATIorNvidia · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:46

The FX 8350 slightly edges out or matches a 3770K in x264, so it's a good 25-30% faster than the 3570K. If you're doing a lot of encoding then you might as well go for the 8350.

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:48

kn100 said:
Is there a big disadvantage with using (an overclocked) 8350 for gaming?

Heat/Power consumption, those odd few games were the lack of IPC can't be overcome by clock speed. (Even games a 3570k would bottleneck, the likes of DOWII and MMO's) but wouldn't be disastrous to a 7870.

kn100 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:50

ATIorNvidia said:
The FX 8350 slightly edges out or matches a 3770K in x264, so it's a good 25-30% faster than the 3570K. If you're doing a lot of encoding then you might as well go for the 8350.

I am seriously considering this! My build will work out slightly cheaper too which might mean I can get a 7950!

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:50

ATIorNvidia said:
The FX 8350 slightly edges out or matches a 3770K in x264, so it's a good 25-30% faster than the 3570K. If you're doing a lot of encoding then you might as well go for the 8350.

Can't really give a percentage like that given the overclocking potential is a lower percentage on the FX83, so when they're both going at it 100% OC'ed in rendering, the difference won't be that substantial, however the FX8350 is certainly going to edge the 3570k out, although I'd say more to the tune of ~20% (It could be lower, I'm not 100% sure)

EDIT : I'd probably take the FX8320 and get a decent 7950, put the extra money in better cooling/better SSD if I was on a budget that would allow this.

ATIorNvidia · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:52

Martini1991 said:
Can't really give a percentage like that given the overclocking potential is a lower percentage on the FX83, so when they're both going at it 100% OC'ed in rendering, the difference won't be that substantial, however the FX8350 is certainly going to edge the 3570k out, although I'd say more to the tune of ~20% (It could be lower, I'm not 100% sure)

Not really. The FX8350 on average clocks higher than the 3570K, unless you're either WCing, or have de-lidded them. The 8350 will definitely be about 25-30% faster.

kn100 said:
Is there a big disadvantage with using (an overclocked) 8350 for gaming?

The overwhelming majority of games will the GPU limited, so there wouldn't be much difference between the platforms.

There are a few (very few) games out there that require huge single threaded performance, in which case the 3570K will outperform the 8350, usually by a substantial amount. But again, this is rare in modern games.

kn100 said:
I am seriously considering this! My build will work out slightly cheaper too which might mean I can get a 7950!

Yeah, go for the 8320 or the 8350, then.

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:54

ATIorNvidia said:
Not really. The FX8350 on average clocks higher than the 3570K, unless you're either WCing, or have de-lidded. The 8350 will definitely be about 25-30% faster.

It still clocks at a lower percentage, so the percentage in performance increase is also lower than it is at stock.

FX8350 and 3570k both can do 4.6-4.8GHZ.

ATIorNvidia · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:58

Martini1991 said:
It still clocks at a lower percentage, so the percentage in performance increase is also lower.

FX8350 and 3570k both can do 4.6-4.8GHZ.

4.8GHZ 3570K's that haven't been delidded are rare. 4.8Ghz PD chips are not. Also the 3570K has more aggressive turbo at stock, so the percentage increase is a moot point.

kn100 · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:02

ATIorNvidia said:
The FX 8350 slightly edges out or matches a 3770K in x264, so it's a good 25-30% faster than the 3570K. If you're doing a lot of encoding then you might as well go for the 8350.

Martini1991 said:
Can't really give a percentage like that given the overclocking potential is a lower percentage on the FX83, so when they're both going at it 100% OC'ed in rendering, the difference won't be that substantial, however the FX8350 is certainly going to edge the 3570k out, although I'd say more to the tune of ~20% (It could be lower, I'm not 100% sure)

EDIT : I'd probably take the FX8320 and get a decent 7950, put the extra money in better cooling/better SSD if I was on a budget that would allow this.

Starting to edge outside of this forum a little bit, but I've got my 256gb SSD along with a 7200rpm disk for storage - The SSD isn't top end but it should be sufficient right?

I am considering going watercooling - I currently have a Hyper 212 evo which I plan on using with it.

Can someone clarify something for me? Is the only difference between the 8320 and the 8350 binning? as in I could (probably) quite easily run the 8320 at 8350 clocks and I'd get the same processor basically? If so I may save the £40 or so and stick that on more ram/a better graphics card.

Here's my current parts list if Anyones interested
Things I have:
Zalman z11 plus with CM Sickleflow fans
256gb SSD/More than enough HDD storage

Things I am buying:
AMD 8320/8350 CPU
<An unknown motherboard, I don't care about crossfire/sli>
8gb (2x4gb) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-018-TG
Corsair TX750w PSU/Modxtreme pro 650w (haven't decided)
AMD 7850/7870/7950 - This will depend on my budget

My budget is exactly... £565.

Smoogels · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:04

The FX 8350 is not terrible for gaming and most games are very playable. If your even a light renderer I would personally pick up a 8350

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:15

ATIorNvidia said:
4.8GHZ 3570K's that haven't been delidded are rare. 4.8Ghz PD chips are not. Also the 3570K has more aggressive turbo at stock, so the percentage increase is a moot point.

Why would they be turbo'ing if they're going 100% load?

elroberto · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:27

kn100 said:
Can someone clarify something for me? Is the only difference between the 8320 and the 8350 binning? as in I could (probably) quite easily run the 8320 at 8350 clocks and I'd get the same processor basically? If so I may save the £40 or so and stick that on more ram/a better graphics card.

Yes, got mine up to 4.6 which is the same as some 8350's. I do a lot of encoding and the performance is excellent. Though you might get a slightly better overclock with the 8350 I'd save the money and buy a better cooler. Have had no issues at 1080p in games (with a 7850 gfx card) and it flies in productivity tasks.

ATIorNvidia · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:37

Martini1991 said:
Why would they be turbo'ing if they're going 100% load?

Turbo is based off TDP as well, though. You'd be hovering between 3.5 and 3.6Ghz stock at full load.

Load isn't always a constant 100%, either.

kn100 said:
Things I am buying:
AMD 8320/8350 CPU
<An unknown motherboard, I don't care about crossfire/sli>
8gb (2x4gb) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-018-TG
Corsair TX750w PSU/Modxtreme pro 650w (haven't decided)
AMD 7850/7870/7950 - This will depend on my budget

My budget is exactly... £565.

Get the 8320 and squeeze in a 7950.

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:56

ATIorNvidia said:
Turbo is based off TDP as well, though. You'd be hovering between 3.5 and 3.6Ghz stock at full load.

Load isn't always a constant 100%, either.

I tend to see a lot of reviews have turbo disabled when comparing stuff, but from my understanding if the CPU was going fully 100% load it won't turbo, I'm pretty sure if I ran Prime 95 on my CPU at stock it'd be running 3.3GHZ not 3.7GHZ or whatever it is, it'd be doing 3.7GHZ if it was under lighter load like a game.

But in rendering/encoding I can take my cores to 100%, as I'm sure you could with the FX8350.

Even if it did turbo to 3.5/3.6GHZ, unless I'm mistaken, the percentage of overclocking is still in the favour of the 3570k, and that's again assuming that the FX8350 isn't turbo to 4.2GHZ which would again lower overclocking percentage in favour of the 3570K even more (Which going 100% I highly doubt it would)

The 3570k arguably at 3.6GHZ, has ~1.2GHZ (Upto 4.8GHZ) overclocking potential whereas the FX8350 has ~1GHZ overclocking potential (To quell the, "4.8GHZ is rare", the same as 5GHZ is rare on the FX8350, but it's still potential")

~ 1.2GHZ on the 3570k is a higher percentage overclock than ~ 1GHZ on the FX8350.

That's why I hate percentage based "It'll likely be X faster", because they're usually a fallacy.

Anyway, we'll agree to disagree, I'd pick the FX8320, but I'm not going to go overboard.

humbug · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:18

If its 3570K + 7870 vs FX-8350 + 7950 i would take the FX-8350.

Depends on what you use it for, if its for rendering and encoding the FX-8350 is better.

However there are some games where the 3570K is better, in my case thats Skyrim and Planet Side 2, yet with my x6 1090T (wich is not even as good as the FX-8350 in such games) i'm still getting perfectly good frame rates, more than playable, the Intel CPU's just get you even more FPS in those games.
Whats more there are a lot of games where the FX-8350 is just as good as Intel, a couple are even better.

So its a bit 6 and 2 threes with games, but the FX-8350 is defiantly better in the sort of productivity work you do.

Martini1991 · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:28

I've never seen a game run better on an FX8350, unless it's one of those graphs where it's GPU limited and margin of error, in which case it doesn't count, as you could run it again and have conflicting results.

The potential is there for the situation to happen, but right now with current GPU's? Never seen it.
Newer games on newer engines which can make use of the cores definitely see the FX8350 pretty much equal with the i5 ; BF3/Crysis 2.

EDIT : Show me at least 2 game benchmarks from reviews with the FX8350 ahead that isn't due to a margin of error, I don't care if it's at 800x600 to create a CPU bottleneck as opposed GPU bottleneck, as that'd prove the point that it could game better in current games if GPU's were much faster.

Phixsator · 28 Jan 2013 at 04:05

I would consider the fx8350 and here my thoughts on why.

1) While similar priced, if not a bit cheaper, than the 3570k you can get a very feature full motherboards on the am3+ platform for only 2/3 of the price it would cost you on the 1155 platform. As an example of this take a look at the sabertooth boards for each socket and compare price. So the overall cost of an entire platform change or upgrade will be much cheaper.

2) For gaming at 1080p it seems to be pretty equal within the margin of error between the two since your gpu will be the first bottleneck in like 95% of the cases. If you look at the 800x600 benchmarks the story may be different but seriously who cares? no one is playing games at this resolution and those benchmarks is only a guideline for those who well bench a lot and have this as a hoppy/job.

3) For productivity the 8350 should pull ahead of the 3570k in nearly everything even slightly modern and well threaded.

4) Futureproofing: While haswell should land on the 1155 as well the cost of those babies when they land will most likely cost you your house while im sure AMD is going to continue the low price trend when steamroller arrives to gain more ground which would be on am3+ socket which leads to a cheaper upgrade and saves you money.

Last but not least, im in no way an AMD fanboy as im currently running a Intel setup myself and am very happy with it, I just feel that for the specific price range the AMD offers the better overall deal at the moment. But things may change. Of course if your budget is bigger you might consider the i7 as it seems to have no real rival atm in overall performance.

kn100 · 28 Jan 2013 at 05:02

Phixsator said:
I would consider the fx8350 and here my thoughts on why.

1) While similar priced, if not a bit cheaper, than the 3570k you can get a very feature full motherboards on the am3+ platform for only 2/3 of the price it would cost you on the 1155 platform. As an example of this take a look at the sabertooth boards for each socket and compare price. So the overall cost of an entire platform change or upgrade will be much cheaper.

2) For gaming at 1080p it seems to be pretty equal within the margin of error between the two since your gpu will be the first bottleneck in like 95% of the cases. If you look at the 800x600 benchmarks the story may be different but seriously who cares? no one is playing games at this resolution and those benchmarks is only a guideline for those who well bench a lot and have this as a hoppy/job.

3) For productivity the 8350 should pull ahead of the 3570k in nearly everything even slightly modern and well threaded.

4) Futureproofing: While haswell should land on the 1155 as well the cost of those babies when they land will most likely cost you your house while im sure AMD is going to continue the low price trend when steamroller arrives to gain more ground which would be on am3+ socket which leads to a cheaper upgrade and saves you money.

Last but not least, im in no way an AMD fanboy as im currently running a Intel setup myself and am very happy with it, I just feel that for the specific price range the AMD offers the better overall deal at the moment. But things may change. Of course if your budget is bigger you might consider the i7 as it seems to have no real rival atm in overall performance.

Thank you for the detailed and well reasoned response.

Here's what I pulled the trigger on in the end

Roll on tuesday <3