intel i5's vs amd FXs

[slim01]

ive seen a lot of people recomending intels for gaming over amds still, but from what i see, the intels aren't much better in performance, and are much, much more expensive... why am i wrong in thinking the amd is the better choice? am i looking at the wrong specs online?

£115 AMD fx 8320...
vs
£190 Intel i5 (any of the k's, they all perform practically the same when overclocked)...

they can both reach overclocks of over 4 ghz, so why is no1 raving about them, theyre not far off half the price!!

thanks

 

[Martini1991]

Clock for clock performance is massively in Intels favour, games that use more threads than an i5 has cores is tiny (And even games that do don't promise better end performance with both CPU's max overclock)

Intel have nothing upto the i5 4670K that I'd consider worth buying, so the FX8320 is the best price/performance CPU you can get (It's like the Phenom II's)

 

[alex_123_fra]

Clock for clock performance is massively in Intels favour, games that use more threads than an i5 has cores is tiny (And even games that do don't promise better end performance with both CPU's max overclock)

Intel have nothing upto the i5 4670K that I'd consider worth buying, so the FX8320 is the best price/performance CPU you can get (It's like the Phenom II's)

^ Pretty much this.

 

[Martini1991]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-337-AM

Spank my arse, 107 quid.

The only problem of course, is that it's seemingly the best overall performance CPU series AMD intends on producing for the while, and the FX83's are already 14 months old.

 

[almighty15]

The Intels are worth the extra money if you lay a wide range of games that has various levels of core use.

 

[slim01]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-337-AM

Spank my arse, 107 quid.

The only problem of course, is that it's seemingly the best overall performance CPU series AMD intends on producing for the while, and the FX83's are already 14 months old.

lol, oh yeah even cheaper... how MUCH more powerful would you guys say the intel is then? from a few benchies ive seen its been negligable unless its a single core application.

£107 now, i guess if the intel is still the best out there people will pay the extra, as cpu power seems to have gone nowhere in the past 2-3 years.
cant believe intel have released 2 simlar chips that have no gaming benefit over the 2500k. whats the point, they even require different sockets?

even more surprised amd are still using the am3+ for these chips and their next big one as well.

 

[slim01]

The Intels are worth the extra money if you lay a wide range of games that has various levels of core use.

how do you know which games use more than 1 core? i didnt even know many would support quad yet :S
ive noticed a 6 core one as well, with a higher clock, and again cheaper... surely thats better for gaming.

ive been out of the loop for a while i think


also, ive noticed a few games that are "designed for" amd, is that just a marketing gimick? plus im assuming thats refering more to their gpus than cpus?

 

[Martini1991]

AMD have nigh on killed off AM3+, AMD currently have no plans to replace the FX83's.

How much more powerful the Intel is depends on the game and the GPU set up.
But there is gains between a 4670K and 2500K, take DOWII, I achieve frame rates on that an i5 2500K can't, and frame rates AMD users dream of.

 

[imginy]

ive seen a lot of people recomending intels for gaming over amds still, but from what i see, the intels aren't much better in performance, and are much, much more expensive... why am i wrong in thinking the amd is the better choice? am i looking at the wrong specs online?

£115 AMD fx 8320...
vs
£190 Intel i5 (any of the k's, they all perform practically the same when overclocked)...

they can both reach overclocks of over 4 ghz, so why is no1 raving about them, theyre not far off half the price!!

thanks

You can get intel processors much cheaper than that.

The i5 4440 is £140 and is great in games.

Vs the amd 8320 which would need a big overclock and a more expensive motherboard and a bigger psu plus would use more electric.

i5 defo works out cheaper and wins in 9/10 games.

 

[alex_123_fra]

You can get intel processors much cheaper than that.

The i5 4440 is £140 and is great in games.

Vs the amd 8320 which would need a big overclock and a more expensive motherboard and a bigger psu plus would use more electric.

i5 defo works out cheaper and wins in 9/10 games.

Some of this is true but I would urge the OP to be cautious.

The i5 4440 is a locked CPU which can't be overclocked. Whilst unlikely to bottleneck single GPU setups, if you are planning dual mid/high end GPU setups, the CPU will be a limiting factor. I would also not be surprised if it starts bottlenecking single GPU setups come high end Maxwell (Nvidia) GPU releases.

In multithreaded games/applications, the locked i5 will be significantly behind an FX 8-core. Check what games you play and whether they utilise 4+ cores/threads prior to making a decision.

Re: expensive motherboard, not true. An £80 board paired with an FX8320 can achieve 4.8+GHz fairly easily.

 

[Martini1991]

Some of this is true but I would urge the OP to be cautious.

The i5 4440 is a locked CPU. Whilst unlikely to bottleneck single GPU setups, if you are planning dual mid/high end GPU setups, the CPU will be a limiting factor. I would also not be surprised if it starts bottlenecking single GPU setups come high end Maxwell (Nvidia) GPU releases.

In multithreaded games/applications, the locked i5 will be significantly behind an FX 8-core. Check what games you play and whether they utilise 4+ cores/threads prior to making a decision.

Re: expensive motherboard, not true. An £80 board paired with an FX8320 can achieve 4.8+GHz fairly easily.

Well that's a bit blanket and not an absolute truth.
Multi is more than 1, and most things are multi-threaded and not significantly slower on the locked i5.

I wish people would stop saying single threaded when they mean lightly threaded and multi-threaded when they mean heavily threaded.

Absolutes can't be made, it's all situation based.

 

[alex_123_fra]

Well that's a bit blanket and not an absolute truth.
Multi is more than 1, and most things are multi-threaded and not significantly slower on the locked i5.

I wish people would stop saying single threaded when they mean lightly threaded and multi-threaded when they mean heavily threaded.

Absolutes can't be made, it's all situation based.

I think you know what I mean. My very next sentence mentions 4+ cores/threads fairly clearly.

 

[Martini1991]

But even then, games aren't guaranteed to run better, look at RTW2, and there's graphs of that using many cores.

It's entirely situation based, games/GPU set up etc.

 

[alex_123_fra]

Yes granted. RTW2 is a bit of a dog's breakfast in the sense that different setups seem to use different amount of cores/threads to different degrees. Some have seen 2 threads, others 4, others even 6 well used threads.

Hence my advice that the OP tries to check what games he/she plays to see what benefit (if any) could be derived from an FX 8-core. The benefit of the latter is clearly only going to be noticeable in games/applications which utilise more than 4 cores/threads heavily. The closer to 8, the bigger the difference in performance is likely to be.

 

[gpuerrilla]

You can get intel processors much cheaper than that.

The i5 4440 is £140 and is great in games.

Vs the amd 8320 which would need a big overclock and a more expensive motherboard and a bigger psu plus would use more electric.

i5 defo works out cheaper and wins in 9/10 games.

/sigh

Some of this is true but I would urge the OP to be cautious.

The i5 4440 is a locked CPU which can't be overclocked. Whilst unlikely to bottleneck single GPU setups, if you are planning dual mid/high end GPU setups, the CPU will be a limiting factor. I would also not be surprised if it starts bottlenecking single GPU setups come high end Maxwell (Nvidia) GPU releases.

In multithreaded games/applications, the locked i5 will be significantly behind an FX 8-core. Check what games you play and whether they utilise 4+ cores/threads prior to making a decision.

Re: expensive motherboard, not true. An £80 board paired with an FX8320 can achieve 4.8+GHz fairly easily.

A poor post from an intel blinker boy. If people are overclocking rigs and hammering them for games the micro-watt of difference argument is laughable.

Regarding PSU you should buy a quality brand every time regardless of which team you decide to bat for. Where did this guy come from? Anyway thanks for smoothing out the factoids alex!

I think you know what I mean. My very next sentence mentions 4+ cores/threads fairly clearly.

You get used to martin. He makes mountains of molehills and loves to nitpick to suit.

As alex has both systems I think he is in a good position to decipher if the intel > AMD is plausible or exaggerated dependant on justification.

 

[imginy]

The i5 4440 is a locked CPU which can't be overclocked. Whilst unlikely to bottleneck single GPU setups, if you are planning dual mid/high end GPU setups, the CPU will be a limiting factor. I would also not be surprised if it starts bottlenecking single GPU setups come high end Maxwell (Nvidia) GPU releases.

Same can be said for 8320 only much more often, I can think of loads of games where the 8320 would bottleneck a single gpu.

Very few games would be held back by a locked i5 4440 and at least with the i5 you can just pop it out and put something faster in if need be.

If you have enough of the 8320 holding you back what options do you have?

 

[gpuerrilla]

The 8320 can be had for slightly over a ton which is insane performance/price.

Show me anywhere that an overclocked 8320 @ over 4.5Ghz (which they pretty much will all do) is not cutting the mustard in games?

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Show me anywhere that an overclocked 8320 @ over 4.5Ghz (which they pretty much will all do) is not cutting the mustard in games?

This^

Just because some old games can cause the 8320 to bottleneck a single GPU, does not mean they are unplayable or even have bad frame rates.

imginy, can you name some games where the 8320's bottlenecking a single gpu would be noticeable or even make the game unplayable?

 

[alex_123_fra]

Same can be said for 8320 only much more often, I can think of loads of games where the 8320 would bottleneck a single gpu.

Very few games would be held back by a locked i5 4440 and at least with the i5 you can just pop it out and put something faster in if need be.

If you have enough of the 8320 holding you back what options do you have?

At stock clocks maybe so. Show us some proof of the 8320 bottlenecking a single GPU when properly overclocked (4.8 GHz+). I don't think the list will be large. You are also forgetting that over the last 12 months more and more games are heavily utilising more than 4 cores/threads.

In terms of taking out the i5 4440 and putting in something faster, yes you could. You could put in a 4670k. That will be a little better. You will still face the same issue when >4 threads are heavily used. Your other alternative is a 4770k. Sure, but you'll pay £150 more for that than you would on an FX8320. I'd personally spend that cash on a GPU.

 

[Martini1991]

There's a few games that give less than desirable performance.
If you were using 3D via Tridef, the AMD CPU's would be giving you less than desirable performance too.

But if we're using the "Do you need anymore" logic, we wouldn't be running the GPU set ups that we do.

Since most people don't use the type of set up I use (Or other people) AMD CPU's would be fine, it's for those higher end ones that they're not fine for (Hence why I only really start pimping out the Intel chips in budgets that can support it)