Thinking of switching from Intel to AMD

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 11:55

Going to be buying a 290Pro soon as the Non Refs are out, but ive been increasingly thinking of while im at it, swapping my i5 2500K @4.4ghz and Asrock Ex4 Gen3 mobo + Ram for an AM3 Asus Mobo and an AMD 9370.

While im at it, i will probably forgo my Kuhler 920 and put a H100 in its place, and probably go with some Team Group ram, 2400mhz.

Anyone running anything like the following

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-350-GI
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-361-AM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-050-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

Any thoughts on the above and what kinda temps im going to be looking at? the other option is to put something like an Alpenfohn K2 Mount Doom in to cool it all.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:10

The Giga is a fine board just make sure you have the very latest bios on it.

The rest? looks fine to me mate.. If the latest on Mantle is true then it will kick all ass.

Highlights (claimed)
Completely changes the landscape for multicore CPUs. In Mantle, the GPU will almost always be the bottleneck - you can underclock an 8350 to 2GHZ and still have a 290x be the bottleneck.

Edit. The Kuhler 920 is every bit as good as the H100 mate. I would use the extra money for something else. Air coolers don't tend to work as well on FX chips due to the contact plate usually being smaller than the block of a LCLC. Temps? just keep the package under 70c and you'll be fine.

Boomstick777 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:12

Get the GPU, wouldn't bother with the CPU though, a sidegrade tbh, high power consumption / heat. Better to wait until later next year, when AMD and Intel roll out their latest CPU's. They will probably offer a worthy upgrade to the 2500K.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:14

Boomstick777 said:
Get the GPU, wouldn't bother with the CPU though, a sidegrade tbh, high power consumption / heat. Better to wait until later next year, when AMD and Intel roll out their latest CPU's. They will probably offer a worthy upgrade to the 2500K.

That's absolutely not true, sorry.

8 core FX when utilised properly in anything modern will easily trounce the 2500k.

Martini1991 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:15

Boomstick777 said:
Get the GPU, wouldn't bother with the CPU though, a sidegrade tbh, high power consumption / heat. Better to wait until later next year, when AMD and Intel roll out their latest CPU's. They will probably offer a worthy upgrade to the 2500K.

Intel and AMD's 2014 looks pretty crap.
Intel is just a Haswell refresh, AMD is only APU's (Great APU's, however)

I agree that I wouldn't be going from a 2500K to an PD 8 core.

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:18

I cant find the fittings for the AM3+ Boards for my Kuhler

not in the packaging anymore, hence the reason to swap coolers, however i reckon a refurbed h100 would be a good swap, i have 2 enermax pwm fans on my Kuhler 920, i could get another 2 and have 2 on the H100, gotta be better cooling at that point?

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:18

Martini1991 said:
Intel and AMD's 2014 looks pretty crap.
Intel is just a Haswell refresh, AMD is only APU's (Great APU's, however)

They're both pretty much at a brick wall. Intel have gone die shrinking mad for reasons anything other than a desktop (the mobile market) and AMD have basically just sat firm waiting for their CPUs to get the support they need.

Anything more from either company right now when it comes to the desktop market is a waste of money that will see hardly any return.

What AMD have done is nothing short of marvellous. Just stubbornly keep banging out FX CPUs until they are worth having, keep the prices low which means $0 in research and wait until your own API makes anything else not worth having.

Very, very clever.

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:20

SiDeards73 said:
I cant find the fittings for the AM3+ Boards for my Kuhler not in the packaging anymore, hence the reason to swap coolers, however i reckon a refurbed h100 would be a good swap, i have 2 enermax pwm fans on my Kuhler 920, i could get another 2 and have 2 on the H100, gotta be better cooling at that point?

Oh OK then yes that would make more sense.

The H100 pretty much has the same volume internally as the 920. The 920 just has a double thick single rad as opposed to a single thick double length rad.

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:21

Also what about this mobo instead

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-559-AS

Read ASUS are the better brand for AMD chips?

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:22

SiDeards73 said:
Also what about this mobo instead

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-559-AS

Read ASUS are the better brand for AMD chips?

If that's 8+2 then yes I would prefer Asus myself. I'm using two Asus boards in both of my rigs (both running 8320).

Hagar · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:23

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £143.99
1 x Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £139.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2400HC11CDC01) £71.99
Total : £367.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Good price on FX8350 and Sabretooth this week.

What impresses me most is that I have had my 8350 for over a year now and the price on preorder was only about £15 more than it is currently on offer.

Martini1991 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:23

You're spending a lot of money for little return on the CPU side in gaming, it's entirely not worth it, it'd be better to slot an i7 3770K in (Which still, isn't worth it), and that's factually better.

Boomstick777 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:25

Martini1991 said:
I agree that I wouldn't be going from a 2500K to an PD 8 core.

Martini1991 said:
You're spending a lot of money for little return on the CPU side in gaming, it's entirely not worth it, it'd be better to slot an i7 3770K in (Which still, isn't worth it), and that's factually better.

Yeah it's a pretty pointless upgrade, OP should just wait it out until next year. New CPU's are coming, and much more a worthy upgrade...

Martini1991 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:26

Boomstick777 said:
Yeah it's a pretty pointless upgrade, OP should just wait it out until next year. New CPU's are coming, and much more a worthy upgrade...

Doesn't look like anything worth while is coming out next year.
AMD seemingly have nothing but Vishera, and Intel have a Haswell refresh (Whatever that entails)

Kaveri will be good, but it's not i5 2500K upgrade material.

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:29

I was watching the Mantle stuff last night, and the DICE guy reckons Mantle will use more cores if you have them available, so kinda seems a no brainer to me if the AMD chips are currently around as good as what i currently have on most games, then anything with Mantle its going to really excel if i have double the amount of cores to use also no? coupled with a R9 290, surely the Mantle stuff is going to really shine on a rig built from components they are specifically targetting with their API?

ALXAndy · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:30

Logically and theoretically it's an upgrade.

In gaming? not much will change until Mantle. But that doesn't make it a side grade just because of gaming.

At a CPU computational level the 8 core FX is a better, faster and more productive CPU than the 2500k. When buying a CPU you need to look at everything it can do, not just gaming. Otherwise what would be the point of any 2011 CPU?

So I maintain, it's an upgrade.

Martini1991 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:33

SiDeards73 said:
I was watching the Mantle stuff last night, and the DICE guy reckons Mantle will use more cores if you have them available, so kinda seems a no brainer to me if the AMD chips are currently around as good as what i currently have on most games, then anything with Mantle its going to really excel if i have double the amount of cores to use also no? coupled with a R9 290, surely the Mantle stuff is going to really shine on a rig built from components they are specifically targetting with their API?

I'd at least wait until this stuff is out before jumping ship, get the R9 290 when the third party ones come out.

I'm looking forward to mantle, but If it's going to work on my i5 4670K, I'm not going to jump ship for one game.

Mantle put the R9 290X as the bottleneck even with an FX83 at 2GHZ, that's amazing, but it's an AMD event, you only have half the story, it could perform the same on the i5, it could perform worse.

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:36

Yeah i hear what your saying mate, but if the AMD chip is on par with what i have, and will perform roughly the same as what i have in every day to day life and other games, then its a side grade for those aspects, however IF the Mantle stuff is true, then surely for any game adopting Mantle im going to be in a better place right? so overall it is an upgrade in part, at the very worst its the same as what i have. And ultimately we all like shiney new things right?

Boomstick777 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:36

This maybe useful for the OP to decide whether it's worth switching motherboard / CPU etc for a chip that overall performs pretty much the same but consumes more power.

Identical overall performance,
Performs better in single-threaded tasks,
Comes with HD 3000 GPU,
Needs less power

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/436/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-2500K.html

SiDeards73 · 14 Nov 2013 at 12:40

Thanks for that Boom. I still fancy swapping though just for a change haha

But i hear what your saying, its arguably a like for like swap over that will generate more heat and use more power. But its new and shiney!