Considering an 8350... Am I as mad as a brush?

[Hades]

I'm in the middle of deciding on a fairly major upgrade. I think I will probably be going for a 7970 GPU unless the new AMD cards are significantly better. But I'm still deciding on the CPU. I am on a budget. Not a strict one, but cheaper is most definitely much better.

What Are My Requirements?
I am currently running a Q9450 socket 775 CPU at stock speeds and so would be looking for a complete motherboard, CPU and RAM refresh. I am an occasional, rather than a hardcore, gamer. My main reason for upgrading is in preparation for Elite Dangerous next yesr.

What Are My Current Thoughts?
Almost all advice on the forum seems to be to go with Intel when performing a complete refresh. But I keep leaning towards an AMD 8350 for the following reasons:

* An i7 is out of my budget.
* An i5 seems the logical choice. However...
* An 8350 has twice the number of cores and appears to have performance which, while not quite up to an i5, seems adequate.
* I expect to keep this next upgrade for at least 3 years and will probably be overclocking it, possibly under water.
* Given that the 8350 seems to offer sufficient performance, the extra 4 cores could potentially be very useful in a few years time. I suspect it will then be handed down to my son and so continue in service for a long time after that. I definitely see the future of gaming as highly parallel processing where more cores will be utilised.
* I use several VM's on my machine... again more cores is beneficial here.
* Although we don't know the specs for Elite Dangerous yet, David Braben's previous Frontier was very physics based. So I'm taking a guess that there will be a lot of mathematical calculations required in a massive universe and if anyone is likely to try to use multiple cores then he would be it.

Are my reasons sound? Am I nuts? For most people I would recommend an i5 or i7 but I keep getting drawn back to the large number of cores on the AMD. Yes I know it gets trounced by an i7 in most tasks.

 

[kaku]

It's not just about multi-core vs. single core. Think of it like this:

8350 - you're betting your money that future games will utilise high numbers of relatively slower cores. Bear in mind that even if this were true, you'd still be unlikely to see a performance lead over a current-gen i7. You would probably see slightly higher performance vs a current-gen i5, or comparative performance for a lower price.

i5 - you're betting that the jump towards multi-core engines won't be so drastic, and that games in the next few years will use four or less cores. You get the performance increase now, but you pay a little more for it. The gap between the i5 and 8350 might close in the future, but the performance increase you get before is what you pay for.

i7 - you said it's out of your budget, but obviously it's the best "money no object" choice.

So you pretty much pick a horse and back it. Either the i5 or an 8350 is going to be huge upgrade from what you have at the moment, but don't fool yourself that the 8350 is a performance choice - it's definitely the budget offering.

You mentioned you're a casual gamer, at what point would you consider a frame rate 'unplayable', or bad enough to annoy you?

 

[humbug]

The FX-8350 is as good as the i5 in most things, not all things, but sometimes the FX-8350 is also faster than the i5, sometimes as fast as the i7.

The only time the i5 / i7 is notably faster is with old DX9 and most MMO games like Planet side 2, and yet the Frame rates you get from the FX-8350 are more than enough to be playable.

More games should starting to use 8 cores, one or two already do, so in the near future the FX-8350 could be the faster chip for an increasing number off AAA titles, especially now that AMD are in all the game consoles with an 8 core chip.

personally, for their money, i would chose the FX-8350 over the i5, i would like the i7, but i also feel its to expensive and not worth the money.

As for VM's, i just build a 32GB FX-8350 server test bed for a colleague who has 8 VM's running on it already, with the intention to ramp that up, his comment to me was "its awesome"

 

[Kobi]

2 spot on comments. Unbiased and true. Kaku made the great point of frame rate. If consoles are around 30fps, I myself am usually happy with ~60fps. For a lot of games the 8350 is more than capable of this, say on average ~80-90fps(Higher when games use The extra cores). While the i5 will be 110+fps. I'm just taking these figures off the top of my head, but you get the point. While the i5 is much better for gaming, the 8350 is more than enough for me. (And currently I've got 2 i7's)

VM's OK n the other hand, I've no idea what they are, so someone can enlighten me about that.

 

[gpuerrilla]

The i5 is better until you factor in £. Value wise I would plump for that chip too, I am torn between an upgrade myself (with little spare cash) and an 8320 based rig or a ps4 is gnawing away at me.

Let us know what you decide and feed back when you have tried it out so us other 8320 ponderers can get some real feedback.

 

[humbug]

2 spot on comments. Unbiased and true. Kaku made the great point of frame rate. If consoles are around 30fps, I myself am usually happy with ~60fps. For a lot of games the 8350 is more than capable of this, say on average ~80-90fps(Higher when games use The extra cores). While the i5 will be 110+fps. I'm just taking these figures off the top of my head, but you get the point. While the i5 is much better for gaming, the 8350 is more than enough for me. (And currently I've got 2 i7's)

VM's OK n the other hand, I've no idea what they are, so someone can enlighten me about that.

Virtual Machines.

Its splitting one computer or server into two or many, litrally dedicating CPU Cores, Threads or just processing power, Hard Drive space and RAM memory to make up another machine within the machine, independent from each-other and with their own OS and so on.....

You can build a cluster of independent servers with just one rig, even get them to communicate with each other as if they are on a network spread across all corners of the World.

Thats what i built with an FX-8350, 32GB of RAM and an Asus Sabertooth 990FX rev-2 Motherboard.

 

[Orch]

I believe the advice is normally go for the 8320 over the 8350, its cheaper and will normally clock the same. That's what I'm doing anyway.

In my research I haven't seen enough evidence to warrant the premium of an i5. The 8320 seems like great bang for buck. Sure an i7 would be lovely, but the real value is an 8320.

That's my 2 pennies from what I've read anyway.

 

[gpuerrilla]

I believe the advice is normally go for the 8320 over the 8350, its cheaper and will normally clock the same. That's what I'm doing anyway.

In my research I haven't seen enough evidence to warrant the premium of an i5. The 8320 seems like great bang for buck. Sure an i7 would be lovely, but the real value is an 8320.

That's my 2 pennies from what I've read anyway.

I'm with this guy. I would love an i7 but wallet rules im afraid.

 

[Orch]

Exactly that. I think the overall pecking order is pretty clear (despite the arguments ) but its a case of finding the best performance for your money. An 8320 and decent overclocking mobo is just over £200, that to me is some great performance for money I'm happy spending.

 

[humbug]

I agree the FX-8320 is a good choice, its the same as the FX-8350 but lower clocked, some say the 8350 is higher binned and capable of higher overclocks, no idea if its true, something to keep in mind when they are priced pretty close.

 

[Phixsator]

I would personally never consider an I5. I dont feel you get the value you pay for it not to mention the good quality boards are a bit more expensive than the fx990 (granted the fx990 are generally not as exciting). Its a completely different story with the i7 however as im sure most of us can agree on which would be a worthy purchase if one has the money.

I can tell you OP that an fx8350 at 4.8ghz or higher is pretty damn fast and it also speaks more to my geeky side for unexplained reasons than my previous I7 system did. I guess its the whole go nuts policy that AMD has.

EDIT: Most 8350s should be able to hit 4.8 on very good air or water. Im not sure about the 8320 myself as i have never worked with one but the general thought is it can hit the same speeds.

 

[Orch]

Nice to see one of these threads giving real world balanced advice for a change.

I've tempted fate now haven't I, benchmarks in coming!!!!

 

[Phixsator]

Nice to see one of these threads giving real world balanced advice for a change.

I've tempted fate now haven't I, benchmarks in coming!!!!

The times are changing my friend. Did you say benchmarks? i loove benchmarks.. im gonna go cook some right now? How would you want them? 1024x768? 1600x900? Im ready baby im ready!!!

 

[dfour]

The other factor you could consider is upgrading later. If intel follows its usual stance it will change the socket so you will have to buy another motherboard as well as the new chip while amd is committed to the AM3+ platform (at least for a while longer) so the next chip iteration should also just pop in and work in your present board.

 

[Orch]

The times are changing my friend. Did you say benchmarks? i loove benchmarks.. im gonna go cook some right now? How would you want them? 1024x768? 1600x900? Im ready baby im ready!!!

I'm starving. Can I have a 2540 x 1600 please!

 

[Orch]

The other factor you could consider is upgrading later. If intel follows its usual stance it will change the socket so you will have to buy another motherboard as well as the new chip while amd is committed to the AM3+ platform (at least for a while longer) so the next chip iteration should also just pop in and work in your present board.

Is that written in stone? I'm certainly hoping that's the case anyway.

 

[Hades]

Thanks guys. More opinions welcome if course but so far it's nice to see I'm not mad and my research has come to a similar conclusion. Yes I would love an i7 but it's out of budget.
The i5 is the safe choice which few will criticise. The 8350/20 is taking a bit more of a chance. Looking at reviews it doesn't perform as well in some games but keeps up in others so there is the risk of buyers regret. But like has been mentioned above it appeals to my geekiness and when it shines it gives great value.

I'm in no rush but I'm currently leaving towards the AMD route and will take but more of a look at the 8320.

Either the i5 or 83x0 will be a massive upgrade from what I have.

For what it's worth I do see the future of computing on lower power CPUs with large numbers of cores.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Is that written in stone? I'm certainly hoping that's the case anyway.

Well I don't know about that one, this was mentioned the other day in a thread (with martini) so I was cautiously waiting on that one.

 

[Kobi]

Virtual Machines.

Its splitting one computer or server into two or many, litrally dedicating CPU Cores, Threads or just processing power, Hard Drive space and RAM memory to make up another machine within the machine, independent from each-other and with their own OS and so on.....

You can build a cluster of independent servers with just one rig, even get them to communicate with each other as if they are on a network spread across all corners of the World.

Thats what i built with an FX-8350, 32GB of RAM and an Asus Sabertooth 990FX rev-2 Motherboard.

Oh that's good to know! Never knew you could do that.

I'm with others too. Even though i know Intel is better for some things. My geek inside wants AMD. But i do hope they keep AM3, kind of annoying that companies don't let us know about socket's.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Wierd considering the FM2 is newer..