Thinking of switching from Intel to AMD

[Make]

Thanks all for the replies.

Basically it boils down to this, i want a new GPU, as you can see im running at 6950 Toxic, its been a lovely card but its time to move to something new, so im going for an Non Ref R9 290 Pro when they are released. I had decided on this before i watched or read up on any of the Mantle stuff.

Funnily enough i was toying with the idea of buying a PS4, which works out around the same price as a R9 290, but i own a PS3 which i hard play on, and figured the money would be better spent on the PC. So hence the R9 290 decision.

Now a few people said i would need to overclock my CPU to make sure i did not bottleneck the GPU, so i pushed the CPU to 4.4ghz, and its fine. So anyhow i see the Mantle stuff and it got me thinking, AMD are in the new gen consoles, their hardware is going to be pushing games for the next few years, the Mantle stuff looks awesome but we know relatively little on it, but what i did see last night is that it really benefits from more cores if you have them and if its the program has been coded to use them. Also currently the cost of an AMD cpu is much cheaper than the Intel counterpart on a relatively even keel of performance overall.

I mainly only play MMO's and FPS games, seeing as DICE are onboard with Mantle and a fair few upcoming Frostbite3 Engine games peak my interest (DA Inquisition, SW Battlefront) i figure AMD may hell have a bit of an ace up their sleeves with this whole concept.

So if i swap now to AMD, im not really losing anything performancewise, as i figure where the CPU might underperform on some games, the new GPU will overcompensate for me instead.

So thats basically it in a nutshell, as its a big GPU upgrade, swapping CPU at the same time i shouldnt really notice any loss in performance i reckon.

You will not get a loss in performance, but as your 4.4ghz will not be bottlenecked by the card you will buy, there is absolutely no point in buying a different CPU.

Well, you might experience a loss in some old games. I don't know.

In any case, there is no point upgrading CPU today as mantle is far away and it will be a lot cheaper when it comes out. Upgrading now gives you NO benefit.

 

[DarkTheSupreme]

As well in games you mean?

EDIT : SiDeards73, the 2500K will 1 up the FX83 in MMO's, they're not threaded well, and core for core performance isn't up to the same standard as Intel.

Sorry, yeah. I mean in comparison to the 3570k. It was still getting ok frames but I found it impossible to maintain 120 FPS in BF4, no matter what settings I used.

 

[mmj_uk]

It's a backward step, 2500K/3570K/4670K are still better than anything AMD have to offer if you overclock them to around 4.5ghz.

 

[teppic]

Metro 2033 for instance performs much better on an 8350 than my 4670K even at 4.6GHz. I wish people wouldn't make such broad generalisations and declare them as fact.

 

[Martini1991]

Metro 2033 is a weird one, it predates even the Thuban's doesn't it?

 

[teppic]

I think they're around the same time. It's one of the games that has performed better on an 8350 than a 3770K in benchmarks, though it seems to need more than 4 cores (or HT) to run properly.

I'd put money on Mantle running significantly better with 8320s than with 2500Ks, the code absolutely doesn't move everything to the GPU, it's just much more optimised for multithreading.

 

[SiDeards73]

From how I understand it. It will talk directly to the gpu however it will also use more cores to queue up more jobs. So more cores means less time the gpu has to wait for new jobs. Ontop of that it seems multiple gpus in a system will obviously process more work meaning year your cpu will definitely be the bottleneck if you only have 4 cores as opposed to 8. This is all in relationship with mantle and means nothing else though.

 

[gpuerrilla]

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.

Eh? What is getting released next year i.e. 2014 that will be any better?

Intel announced delay in broadwell, AMD not looking like any PD for 8 core...

 

[gpuerrilla]

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?

You will never - EVER - change martins mind on this topic. Invest that energy on something more positive!

 

[gpuerrilla]

TDP does not equal power consumed.

Factor in the graphics card(s) and a comparable overclock and there is little significant difference in power draw with either system.

The major difference is single or multithread performance.

EDIT My FX8350 running prime at 4.6GHz on eight workers and also running heaven benchmark on a 6950 grahics card at the same time, peaked at 380W at the wall socket

Boom and some others on here do not understand power consumption entirely. It has been touched on in a couple of threads, your talking a small amount of pennies maybe pounds over the spread of a year, and that's if you have it flat out.

 

[ALXAndy]

Metro 2033 is a weird one, it predates even the Thuban's doesn't it?

I get 12% CPU core use in 2033 and 18% in Last Light. They're both utterly and totally GPU bound.

 

[nikki5974]

well ive gone from an i5 2500k and i7 3820 to an amd 8350 and im very impressed with my amd loads better than the i5 and the i7 for the price i paid so what if intel wins the benchmarks,in everything ive used all 3 cpu's for AMD is better

 

[Marine-RX179]

Boom and some others on here do not understand power consumption entirely. It has been touched on in a couple of threads, your talking a small amount of pennies maybe pounds over the spread of a year, and that's if you have it flat out.

One issue with this topic is there OP inquiring about "upgrading from a i5 2500K to a FX8", not "which is a better CPU". Most people agreed is it is pointless move considering the (unnecessary) effort and cost involved for such a "side-grade", while Andy is keen as ever banging how great FX8 is
and how poor i5 is, at the cost of potentially pushing the OP toward wasting money for a downgrade (tiny tiny upgrade for 8 threaded games, HUGE downgrade for any games that don't).

Simply put-
Choosing between i5 2500K and FX8: both can be good choice, depending on the usage
Moving from i5 2500K to a FX8: bad idea, unless people really got money laying around and want to set up a 2nd system for the sake of difference and playing around.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Ignore.

 

[ALXAndy]

One issue with this topic is there OP inquiring about "upgrading from a i5 2500K to a FX8", not "which is a better CPU". Most people agreed is it is pointless move considering the (unnecessary) effort and cost involved for such a "side-grade", while Andy is keen as ever banging how great FX8 is
and how poor i5 is, at the cost of potentially pushing the OP toward wasting money for a downgrade (tiny tiny upgrade for 8 threaded games, HUGE downgrade for any games that don't).

Simply put-
Choosing between i5 2500K and FX8: both can be good choice, depending on the usage
Moving from i5 2500K to a FX8: bad idea, unless people really got money laying around and want to set up a 2nd system for the sake of difference and playing around.

Nonsense. Show me the data you're pulling out of thin air and quoting as fact.

Because all of the data around you on this forum completely disagrees with you.

 

[mmj_uk]

Metro 2033 for instance performs much better on an 8350 than my 4670K even at 4.6GHz. I wish people wouldn't make such broad generalisations and declare them as fact.

...and about 9 out of 10 other games will be anything up to 40% faster on the overclocked i5 due to the superior single thread performance, why cherry pick the few situations where AMD's slower but more numerous cores excel?

An overclocked i5 has roughly the same multithreaded performance as any Piledriver give or take a few percent but blitzes them in single thread performance.

 

[Martini1991]

Metro 2033 should be far more gpu heavy, I was there when it came out, launch day dx11 5870 owner here.

 

[BurntProc]

Arma felt about the same on i5 and fx to me. Neither could get stable fps over 60 so both are pretty pants. Also:

http://www.techspot.com/review/712-arma-3-benchmarks/page5.html

4770k is a few fps better than the fx.

NS2 does feel worse on my overclocked FX compared to stock i5 though - all older games are fine - and modern games (farcry3 and bf3 are the only ones I have) feel much better on OCed FX then OCed i5.

Although, given the cost of moving platform, a second hand 3770k?!

 

[gpuerrilla]

One issue with this topic is there OP inquiring about "upgrading from a i5 2500K to a FX8", not "which is a better CPU". Most people agreed is it is pointless move considering the (unnecessary) effort and cost involved

I am not encouraging such a move - merely pointing out the usual bad advice or exaggerated worthless mentions. Power consumption with relevance to OC'ing on these systems is moot!

 

[~>Dg<~]

any i5 from sandy up is faster than any current 8 core cpu once oc.

benched them and a guy on my ts now has just upgraded from a 8320 @ 4.5 to a i5 3570k he says in games its quite a lot better.

arma is faster on intel as is 99 percent of games.

for those who actaul think about it take as many benchmarks as possible not some that favour amd or intel then look. intel control gaming regardless of what people say.