Just swapped my 1055T for a FX-8350 - underwhelmed!

[joeyjojo]

yes and there are much better horses if you want to encode..

Not for the money, you have to spend at least £125 more to get an Intel chip that can match the 8350 in x264.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/28
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/54

 

[james_2k]

125 isnt exactly much. but even if you dont want to spend that. you have one test that it does strangely well in, but looking around it seems like its the only instance where it does very well. and im sure there are other encoding methods.

also the intel will oc like a beast. and narrow the gap in that test (and increase it in every other test)

 

[IceWind]

I cant belive be are back to this argument again.

Single Thread Performance - Intel

Multi-Thread Performance - AMD

Problem is with most modern applications at the moment such as game usually use 1 core for most of the calculation on core 2 or 3 to queue data up before passing it to memory or gpu.

But when you start to look at game the are designed for multicore performance ( such as crysis 3 ) you will see the AMD chip begin to shine above higher priced Intel chips and with the new consoles coming out at the end of the year which are based on AMD the game produced will be designs to utilise the way AMD chips work. So when these games are then ported accross to us PC gamers you will see the AMD chips pumping out a lot more performance than what they are currently.

I think its a case that the tech that AMD was simply released to early and into a market that was dominated by single threaded performance.

Im happy with my 8350 personaly. I have 2 systems one of which is a i5 ivybridge and one is my 8350 and they do perform very similar to one another, one beating one in one application the other beating the other.

Synthetic benchmarks mean nothing unless you are performing them yourself as review sites tend to lean towards what ever camp gives them the most tech to play with.

 

[james_2k]

I cant belive be are back to this argument again.

Single Thread Performance - Intel

Multi-Thread Performance - AMD

Problem is with most modern applications at the moment such as game usually use 1 core for most of the calculation on core 2 or 3 to queue data up before passing it to memory or gpu.

But when you start to look at game the are designed for multicore performance ( such as crysis 3 ) you will see the AMD chip begin to shine above higher priced Intel chips and with the new consoles coming out at the end of the year which are based on AMD the game produced will be designs to utilise the way AMD chips work. So when these games are then ported accross to us PC gamers you will see the AMD chips pumping out a lot more performance than what they are currently.

I think its a case that the tech that AMD was simply released to early and into a market that was dominated by single threaded performance.

Im happy with my 8350 personaly. I have 2 systems one of which is a i5 ivybridge and one is my 8350 and they do perform very similar to one another, one beating one in one application the other beating the other.

Synthetic benchmarks mean nothing unless you are performing them yourself as review sites tend to lean towards what ever camp gives them the most tech to play with.

really? multi thread amd?? really? really though, really? ha!

in all seriousness though, no. (except that one test, against the budget-mid range intel)

like i said before, the cinebench 11.5 linked above, my i7 920 beat that 8350 by about 1 point! and its about 100 years old

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

doesnt run away with it?? the i5 wins a lot of tests by a long way, especially the gaming ones. also the i5 can be overclocked well, much more than 10%

amd are just for chartable types who for some reason have an attachment to the company from when they actually made good cpus.

I make it 9 vs. 15 in favout of Intel.
I was unaware the (non-K) i5 3470 could be overclocked so well. I thought it could only be done via FSB which had to be kept quite close to 100 for the PCI lanes.

 

[james_2k]

but the one in that benchmark link above was the k version?

 

[kaku]

The point is that if you were speccing for a budget with a particular system usage in mind, you'd already know if you wanted to go AMD or not.

Chances are if you have to ask, you get more performance and are better off buying Intel.

The 'new consoles are all multi-core' argument is moot because by the time game development for those is getting in to full swing Piledriver will be old tech anyway.

 

[Marine-RX179]

The point is that if you were speccing for a budget with a particular system usage in mind, you'd already know if you wanted to go AMD or not.

Chances are if you have to ask, you get more performance and are better off buying Intel.

The 'new consoles are all multi-core' argument is moot because by the time game development for those is getting in to full swing Piledriver will be old tech anyway.

Exactly. I am not saying 8 cores ain't the way forward, but Piledriver simply ain't got the grunt for beating i5 on all-round gaming performance...just look at the CPU scaling results on heavily-threaded games such as BF3 and Crysis 3...with both CPUs overclocked, the FX-8 still need ALL CORES utilized to close to matching the i5 (when not held back by the graphic card(s)). AMD might one day undisputedly outright beating the Sandy/Ivy/Haswell with one of their "8 cores CPUs (if we can call it that)", but it wouldn't be the Piledriver. Finger-cross for Steamroller living up to the expectation and put AMD back on track.

 

[cheesyboy]

The point is that if you were speccing for a budget with a particular system usage in mind, you'd already know if you wanted to go AMD or not.

Chances are if you have to ask, you get more performance and are better off buying Intel.

Chances are, if you have to ask then you're likely to be buying no more than a mid-range GPU, which removes Intel's gaming advantage. That leaves the cheapest option as the best one.

It's like arguing over 120hz or 60hz monitors; the 120 has more potential to be better, but in most peoples' setups under most circumstances there will be no performance difference due to bottlenecks elsewhere.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Chances are, if you have to ask then you're likely to be buying no more than a mid-range GPU, which removes Intel's gaming advantage. That leaves the cheapest option as the best one.

2nd hand i5 2500K only going for around £100 these days (2nd Z68/Z77 boards are also cheap at around £50 or less on average), and it's lower power consumption and cooler running, and faster in any games that use less than 6 cores.

Lots of games which a overclocked 7950 deliver around 45-60fps range at 1080p, the overclocked i5 can do a solid 60fps+ to not hold it back; whereas the overclock FX8 in games that don't use 6 cores or more would have frame rate dipping down to at least 35-50fps, thus holding back even a 7950's and not its full potential. The difference between the two CPUs is with the i5, lowering the in game graphic details it can bump the minimum frame rate of the 7950 up to 55-60fps if people were willing to trade a bit of quality for performance, whereas with the FX-8, even with the graphic details turned down, the frame rate would still be stucked at the 35-50fps range.

 

[Audigex]

20% higher performance from 33% more cores. Add in the difference in clock speeds and, all else being equal, you shoudl gain 35% more performance.

Take into account memory bandwidth etc and the fact that multi-threading doesn't scale linearly and I don't think 20% better performance is too bad. Plus, as you said, you've not started overclocking yet. Comparing clocked to stock is a pointless metric: report back when you've overclocked both and see if you're a little happier then.

To be honest, unless I'm jumping two generations I don't expect insane differences nowadays - and you already had a decent hex-core chip anyway.

 

[kaku]

Chances are, if you have to ask then you're likely to be buying no more than a mid-range GPU, which removes Intel's gaming advantage. That leaves the cheapest option as the best one.

It's like arguing over 120hz or 60hz monitors; the 120 has more potential to be better, but in most peoples' setups under most circumstances there will be no performance difference due to bottlenecks elsewhere.

Budget is always going to control what you buy in the end. If I can't afford the extra £30 + motherboard costs for an i5, I'd have to go for an 8350 or 8320 regardless of performance.

Different people have different priorities in their system. If you can manage it, there's no point intentionally neutering your new build by buying in to a socket that's already at its limit and still struggling to keep up.

 

[DrBombcrater]

But it is greatly inferior in games that use 4 cores or less, when enough GPU grunt used with it (which has been proven when with GTX690 and other multi-GPU set-ups for games in general).

You might want to take a look at this article over at Anandtech, where with the singluar exception of Civilization V a stock FX-8350 manages to mostly stay within 10% or so of the Ivy and Haswell i5s even when running multiple 7970s. The FX isn't as strong overall in gaming but it does okay, particularly since (segueing nicely into the next point here) for most people frame rates above 60 are a waste.

Also, if people uses 120Hz instead of 60Hz monitor, the FX-8's weakness in the use less than 4 cores games would be VERY apparent.

Well shooting for 120Hz obvously changes the equation a bit. But I'd say that's not a consideration for most CPU buyers since 120Hz screens are still very much a tiny niche and haven't really shown any signs of becoming mainstream, particularly since they're all TN so far and plans for 120Hz IPS or VA panels seem to have been swept away in the race to 4K.

It certainly wasn't an issue for me since all my monitors are 60Hz S-PVA and in no danger of being replaced by anything that doesn't say 'OLED' on it

 

[mmj_uk]

You might want to take a look at this article over at Anandtech

If anything that article proves that there is absolutely no reason to upgrade from Phenom X6 to FX8350, an overclocked X6 is every bit as good as an FX8350 unless you spend all day encoding.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

but the one in that benchmark link above was the k version?

Not the one in the link in my post that you replied to.
Didn't even realise there was a K version of the 3470. I thought it was a 3570 that had a K version?

Also, when did this turn into another Intel vs. AMD thread?
If anything it was supposed to be a Phenom II vs. Piledriver thread, but even then that wasn't really the point.

 

[james_2k]

ah right. true it is cheap.

 

[Marine-RX179]

You might want to take a look at this article over at Anandtech, where with the singluar exception of Civilization V a stock FX-8350 manages to mostly stay within 10% or so of the Ivy and Haswell i5s even when running multiple 7970s. The FX isn't as strong overall in gaming but it does okay, particularly since (segueing nicely into the next point here) for most people frame rates above 60 are a waste.


Well shooting for 120Hz obvously changes the equation a bit. But I'd say that's not a consideration for most CPU buyers since 120Hz screens are still very much a tiny niche and haven't really shown any signs of becoming mainstream, particularly since they're all TN so far and plans for 120Hz IPS or VA panels seem to have been swept away in the race to 4K.

It certainly wasn't an issue for me since all my monitors are 60Hz S-PVA and in no danger of being replaced by anything that doesn't say 'OLED' on it

People keep forgetting things such as the FX-8350 has a much higher stock clock than the i5, which in turn means it has much lesser overclocking headroom. Also picking a few examples/games that are not as CPU intensive thus not holding back multi-GPU setup as much is hardly a good representation for the bigger picture (that's like using Heaven Bench to say a Q6600 ain't holding back crossfire 7970).

Also, I said 120Hz monitor as an example, even on 60Hz monitor, the FX-8 CPU would struggle hold frame rate as well as the i5 (if comparing both CPUs overclocked) at the sub 60fps range, particularly for CPU intensive games that use 4 cores or less. We are talking about the difference of the capability to hold frame rate at constant 50~55fps+ in majority of the games, vs random dips down to 30-40fps range, even with using just a single GPU cards such as 7850 or above. With the i5, if graphic card is the limitation for not hitting the 50-60fps range, people can drop graphic settings to push the frame rate up closer to it; but with FX-8, lowering graphic details will just drop GPU usage to lower, while frame rate remain pretty much the same due to frame rate is actually being held back by the CPU.

Yes the FX build are good for what they are at the prices they are at (not the expensive FX-8350, but the FX-6300 and FX-8320) , but considering that 2nd hand i5 2500K bundle actually cost less that those AMD parts, it makes things much more complicated in terms of value in price vs performance. Also, I certainly won't take the AMD CPU over the Intel i5 for mmos and strategy games in general, especially when both are at similar price.

 

[joeyjojo]

Also, when did this turn into another Intel vs. AMD thread?
If anything it was supposed to be a Phenom II vs. Piledriver thread, but even then that wasn't really the point.

Around post 10, which is pretty good for this forum!

 

[Davedree]

People keep forgetting things such as the FX-8350 has a much higher stock clock than the i5, which in turn means it has much lesser overclocking headroom. Also picking a few examples/games that are not as CPU intensive thus not holding back multi-GPU setup as much is hardly a good representation for the bigger picture (that's like using Heaven Bench to say a Q6600 ain't holding back crossfire 7970).

Depends which i5 you compare to though doesnt it with regards to clock comparison. ie a non k sb,ivy has, or a k sb,ivy, but clock comparison is only relevant to the silicon you own and your overclocking skills and luck, some fx can clock higher than the average, same applies to intel. non k is 4 bins higher than the max turbo, so example overclocked i5 3470 is
4co 3cor 2 core 1 core
3.2ghz + 2x 3x 4x 4x turbo ratio.
3.8 3.9 4.0 4.0

would be intersting to compare that oc 3470 against the fx8320/8350



Also like you say it depends on what games you are going to play to make a comparison. My opinion is I'm sick of the stagnation of game development, I downloaded the latest tomb raider and I really wasn't impressed by the textures and the facial detail. crysis 3 was ok but didn't impress me.
Whilst the single threaded/poorly threaded game debate of intel vs amd exists, coming from a highly overclocked amd phenom II to a i7 2600k. I've said it before the difference in performance was hit and miss for me.
Assasins creeds never played well on the amd setup, they play better on the 4.6ghz 2600k but its still a **** coded game in that you can see massive fps drops where the one thread is maxed out and the 2nd is trying to offload it. If a game is poorly coded then why do people still spend crazy money at hardware when scaling and efficiency of the game engine holds everything back, its still a pooper of a game,

Games can only scale better in the future, when the cores are utilised in the fx they provide great performance, but intel generally provides a more consistant performance.
But the amd doesn't mean its unplayable.

Also most of the game benchmarks on that anandtech are irrelevant as they are 1680x1050 1 of them is even lower resolution.


Also, I said 120Hz monitor as an example, even on 60Hz monitor, the FX-8 CPU would struggle hold frame rate as well as the i5 (if comparing both CPUs overclocked) at the sub 60fps range, particularly for CPU intensive games that use 4 cores or less. We are talking about the difference of the capability to hold frame rate at constant 50~55fps+ in majority of the games, vs random dips down to 30-40fps range, even with using just a single GPU cards such as 7850 or above. With the i5, if graphic card is the limitation for not hitting the 50-60fps range, people can drop graphic settings to push the frame rate up closer to it; but with FX-8, lowering graphic details will just drop GPU usage to lower, while frame rate remain pretty much the same due to frame rate is actually being held back by the CPU.

Yes the FX build are good for what they are at the prices they are at (not the expensive FX-8350, but the FX-6300 and FX-8320) , but considering that 2nd hand i5 2500K bundle actually cost less that those AMD parts, it makes things much more complicated in terms of value in price vs performance. Also, I certainly won't take the AMD CPU over the Intel i5 for mmos and strategy games in general, especially when both are at similar price.

If you are comparing 2nd hand intel prices against amd new then of course theres a clear winner.
I would take a new fx8 amd over a new ivy/haswell i5 because gaming isn't a priority over my work. Looking at piledriver from phenom II x6 to me is disappointing.
Building from new I don't see why people are spending crazy money on a haswell overclocking boards, like a maximus extreme vi, when haswell can't really overclock and cheaper boards can do the job too.

 

[james_2k]

because we can?