How is the FX 8350 for games?

[Guest]

Brother of a friend of mine asked me to build him a pc, I could keep it in his budget of 800 euro by getting an AMD FX 8350, without a custom cooler.

With that I could have enough money left over for a R9 290, he is planning to buy a 120 hz monitor in the future, would he be able to pull constant 120+ fps?

The games he plays are CS:GO, Cod and LOL.

I told him Intel was better but that AMD isn't bad either.

[H4X3R]

No, for those games better single core performance is vital. In tf2 my fps went up by 100 when going from the 8350 @ 5.1ghz to the 5820K at stock (3.3ghz).

He will be able to play cs go, lol and such games at 120+ so a 144hx monitor would be beneficial.

[Guest]

No, for those games better single core performance is vital. In tf2 my fps went up by 100 when going from the 8350 @ 5.1ghz to the 5820K at stock (3.3ghz).

Oof, good to know.

[Guest]

With an Intel it would be 930 euro, worth it I suppose

[H4X3R]

With an Intel it would be 930 euro, worth it I suppose

Definitely. I suggest an i5 4460 and a h81/h97 mobo and then you can fit in a gtx 970 / r9 290x

[The Crazed Child]

I wouldn't. The 8350 has a terrible stock cooler

[Guest]

Definitely. I suggest an i5 4460 and a h81/h97 mobo and then you can fit in a gtx 970 / r9 290x

No need, with that budget he can get a 4690K with a CM 212 Evo, but the GPU would be a 280X

[Guest]

I wouldn't. The 8350 has a terrible stock cooler

That is what I feared too.

[ShadowCaptain]

I would get an i5 4440 or 4460 and a b85 motherboard, and get a 970 or r9 290

[Guest]

I would get an i5 4440 or 4460 and a b85 motherboard, and get a 970 or r9 290

But would it not be better to get a 4690K and just get a better gpu later?

[JoaoPRSousa]

I wouldn't. The 8350 has a terrible stock cooler

And thats why aftermarket coolers exist.

[The Crazed Child]

And thats why aftermarket coolers exist.

No, the OP said that he doesn't want an aftermarket cooler

[Faceman]

PCPartPicker part list: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/dYXpNG
Price breakdown by merchant: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/dYXpNG/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€162.39 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PERFORMANCE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€50.31 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (€73.66 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€59.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€52.90 @ Caseking)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  (€315.73 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case  (€39.17 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (€58.25 @ Hardwareversand)
Total: €812.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-04 13:01 CET+0100

 

For 120Hz+, having an overclockable i5 will definitely come in handy... but an FX8 is not the way to go.  It has atrocious single core performance, so it just absolutely tanks in some games, and you can forget about pushing a consistent 120fps.  Not to mention, will bottleneck a high end GPU.

[Guest]

PCPartPicker part list: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/dYXpNG

Price breakdown by merchant: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/dYXpNG/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€162.39 @ Home of Hardware DE)

Motherboard: ASRock H97 PERFORMANCE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€50.31 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (€73.66 @ Home of Hardware DE)

Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€59.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€52.90 @ Caseking)

Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  (€315.73 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case  (€39.17 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (€58.25 @ Hardwareversand)

Total: €812.31

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-04 13:01 CET+0100

Netherlands though

[Faceman]

Netherlands though

PcP doesn't have a netherlands region, so I used the closest thing.  This is to give you a rough idea.

 

For 120Hz+, having an overclockable i5 will definitely come in handy... but an FX8 is not the way to go.  It has atrocious single core performance, so it just absolutely tanks in some games, and you can forget about pushing a consistent 120fps.  Not to mention, will bottleneck a high end GPU.

[ShadowCaptain]

But would it not be better to get a 4690K and just get a better gpu later?

 

Not really, honestly the gaming performance of the 4460 vs the 4690k is not that much, unless you are doing some crazy OC, there is not realy any difference

[FizzyFantom]

To answer your initial question, the FX 8350 is fine for gaming in general. Intel CPUs perform better in single threaded tasks like gaming, but AMD CPUs are very capable and certainly won't wreck your experience as some Intel fanboys might want you to think.

I think the AMD FX 8320 would be worth considering, as you could get it with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for the same price as an FX 8350 and OC it to achieve the same performance.

 

In tf2 my fps went up by 100 when going from the 8350 @ 5.1ghz to the 5820K at stock (3.3ghz).

I would really love to see this, please post us some benchmarks

[Faceman]

To answer your initial question, the FX 8350 is fine for gaming in general. Intel CPUs perform better in single threaded tasks like gaming, but AMD CPUs are very capable and certainly won't wreck your experience as some Intel fanboys might want you to think.

I think the AMD FX 8320 would be worth considering, as you could get it with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for the same price as an FX 8350 and OC it to achieve the same performance.

 

I would really love to see this, please post us some benchmarks

People think they are getting a good deal when they buy FX, and they are not.

 

If you enjoy games like MMOs(ArcheAge, WoW, Guild Wars2, World of Tanks, Planetside2 etc..) DayZ, ARMA2, ARMA3, Dead Rising 3, Indies, RTS, Emulators, etc.. the FX will be unplayable unless you think 15-20fps is acceptable when action starts.

 

Then there are other games that are playable, but no where near as fluid as they would be on Intel.  A few examples are: Starcraft, Skyrim, Civilization V, Assassin's Creed.

 

Then there are a lot of games where the FX will perform similar to Intel, provided you're using a 60Hz Monitor and don't see the bottleneck happening. 

 

----

---

"Average frametimes did not do AMD’s processors any justice either. As we already said the game was fluid with i7 and i5’s, and somewhat playable with the i3 processor line. When we switched to FX CPUs not only did we have worse framerate but the gameplay was simply put, laggy."

 

These are just a few games, and obviously skewed towards Intel, but my point is to try and illustrate that some games run very poorly on the weak cores on FX processors.

 

 

The modern i3s beat the FX8 in the majority of games.

 

Benchmarks:

http://www.hardcorew...-4340-review/2/

http://www.hardwarep...8-games-tested/

http://www.tomshardw...cpu,3929-7.html

http://www.anandtech...w-vishera-95w/3

http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/14

 

 

"To put it nicely, the FX-8370E is a true middle-of-the-road CPU. Using it only makes sense as long as the graphics card you choose comes from a similar performance segment.

Depending on the game in question, AMD’s new processor has the potential to keep you happy around the AMD Radeon R9 270X/285 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or 660 Ti level.

A higher- or even high-end graphics card doesn’t make sense, as pairing it with AMD's FX-8370E simply limits the card's potential."

 

"This is a huge result – it wasn’t until we used a Haswell core CPU that the R9 280X  was able to deliver consistent frame times and a 60 FPS frame rate in Assassin’s Creed IV. All three AMD CPUs we used – even the FX 8350 – and the Ivy Bridge Core i3 would deliver a sub 60 FPS frame rate, with frame spikes throughout the benchmark run.

In this case, the Core i3 4340 allows the R9 280X GPU to run at maximum potential, just like the Core i5 (and Core i7 would)."

 

"Pop over to the gaming scatter, though, and the picture changes dramatically. There, the FX-8350 is the highest-performance AMD desktop processor to date for gaming, finally toppling the venerable Phenom II X4 980. Yet the FX-8350's gaming performance almost exactly matches that of the Core i3-3225, a $134 Ivy Bridge-based processor. Meanwhile, the Core i5-3470 delivers markedly superior gaming performance for less money than the FX-8350. The FX-8350 isn't exactly bad for video games—its performance was generally acceptable in our tests. But it is relatively weak compared to the competition.

This strange divergence between the two performance pictures isn't just confined to gaming, of course. The FX-8350 is also relatively pokey in image processing applications, in SunSpider, and in the less widely multithreaded portions of our video encoding tests. Many of these scenarios rely on one or several threads, and the FX-8350 suffers compared to recent Intel chips in such cases. Still, the contrast between the FX-8350 and the Sandy/Ivy Bridge chips isn't nearly as acute as it was with the older FX processors. Piledriver's IPC gains and that 4GHz base clock have taken the edge off of our objections.

The other major consideration here is power consumption, and really, the FX-8350 isn't even the same class of product as the Ivy Bridge Core i5 processors on this front. There's a 48W gap between the TDP ratings of the Core i5 parts and the FX-8350, but in our tests, the actual difference at the wall socket between two similarly configured systems under load was over 100W. That gap is large enough to force the potential buyer to think deeply about the class of power supply, case, and CPU cooler he needs for his build. One could definitely get away with less expensive components for a Core i5 system."

 

"The FX-8370E stretches its legs a little in terms of minimum frame rates, particularly in SLI, however it is handily beaten by the i3-4330."

 

 

You should read through the link above, but here is the conclusion.

 

"Conclusion

 

If you've made it this far, congrats and thank you very, very much for reading. I appreciate it genuinely.

 

Okay, so let's conclude. Yes, Intel won 5-2, but that's meaningless. Looking at benchmarks for the sake of looking at benchmarks doesn't

help us. What helps us is seeing where the 4670K wins massively and where the 8350 wins massively. 

 

Gaming

In gaming, the 4670K wins. This is said by Linus, said by AnandTech, said by Bit-Tech, said by Tom's Hardware, said all around the internet

except for at Tek Syndicate. If you are going for a gaming PC, go with the 4670K.

 

Video Editing and 3D Rendering

Yes, there are benchmarks where the 8350 beats the 4670K, however, what is important is that these two are almost neck and neck.

Some sites have the 8350 ever so slightly faster, some have the 3570K/4670K as ever so slightly faster. At the end of the day, it's too close to call.

However, the extra IPC that Haswell offers should help in a wider variety of situations, so I would award this to the 4670K. 

 

Calculations

This one goes to the 8350 which demonstrates a higher performance with calculations throughout due to its higher core count. It beats Intel convincingly

in most calculation benchmarks. 

 

So, what does this mean?

 

This has been said in the introduction, but I will say it again. I am not an Intel fanboy, which is why I went out to research instead of screaming that Intel

is better. I have suggested AMD in the past, their Athlon 64 was better than the Pentium 4, their Athlon 64 x2 was better than the Pentium D. However,

I genuinely dislike the promulgation of false information, especially to people who are asking for help selecting new parts. 

 

If you're an AMD fanboy, you're not going to like it, but Intel's 4670K is better than AMD's 8350. Regardless of however you look at it, in most situations,

the 4670K wins, but it isn't just that, its far superior IPC gives it such an advantage in most every day tasks, which are mostly still single-threaded. 

 

The AMD 8350 is good for certain workloads, but apart from those workloads, it is simply terrible. Its IPC, which is weaker than the i7 920's, which is

5 years old, is simply too weak to put it as any sort of real competition to the 4670K. 

 

I hope that this clears up some of the misconceptions here. Yes, AMD had their time, their Athlon 64 was better than the Intel Pentium 4, however,

those days are well and truly over. If, in this day and age, you recommend an AMD processor for any usage apart from calculations, you are either

being a fanboy or just plainly ignorant of the facts which say that the 4670K is superior. 

 

Of course, this is not to say that nobody should use AMD, but, if you suggest an AMD build for someone else, especially if you suggest an 8350

against a 4670K, know that you are suggesting a worse option, especially for a gaming PC. To argue that the 8350 is competitive with the 4670K

across the board is delusional and just plainly wrong. Yes, you are wrong. 

 

So that's it guys, for most people, the 4670K is the better option compared to the 8350 and the information shows it. 

 

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read my little article. I hope I have helped you see what the statistics say about these two processors.

I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have written. Cheers :)"

 

Also, when people say that the FX8 is a less expensive option, they are wrong.  In order for the FX8 to be viable, it needs to be overclocked, which means you need a motherboard with at least 8+2 VRM phase design, and more expensive cooling solution.  This makes it cost the same, if not more than a locked i5 processor which will beat the FX8 in every single game, no matter how high the FX is overclocked.  I'm not arguing that the processor is less expensive on AMD's side, but the ancillary components needed end up making it cost the same as a locked i5.

 

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jsYCzy

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jsYCzy/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($124.99 @ Amazon)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($74.98 @ OutletPC)

Total: $229.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-19 22:28 EST-0500

 

Vs.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TPL4pg

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TPL4pg/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($40.00 @ Amazon)

Total: $214.99

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 04:22 EST-0500

[rentaspoon]

Looking at some online benchmarks the minimum FPS is 130 at certain points for CS:GO and LOL is 110 - 130 at stock speeds.

Personally I would offer the price of a 4690k with a high end GPU AND then show him the price of the high end GPU and 8350 just so he has a idea of good and great

[JoaoPRSousa]

No, the OP said that he doesn't want an aftermarket cooler

The Intel isn't good either way.

[MF Patrick]

People think they are getting a good deal when they buy FX, and they are not.

 

If you enjoy games like MMOs(ArcheAge, WoW, Guild Wars2, World of Tanks, Planetside2 etc..) DayZ, ARMA2, ARMA3, Dead Rising 3, Indies, RTS, Emulators, etc.. the FX will be unplayable unless you think 15-20fps is acceptable when action starts.

 

 

This is not true.

I have a Phenom II X4 955 and I get more than 15-20FPS in the majority of those games. That means that a CPU like the 8350 gets at least 50% more FPS than I get.

WoW and GW2 = I never go below 60 FPS.

Planetside 2 is fairly stable at 60. It has some random drops but nothing too bad.

DayZ is everything but stable but most of the time I have 60FPS. It drops down to 40 sometimes but it's playable.

ARMA 2 runs without any problems.

ARMA 3, 35 FPS in single player. 25 in a full alterlife server.

So that 15-20 FPS story is false.

 

To answer the OP, the FX 8350 is fine when it comes to gaming but you can get a lot better with a few extra euros.

If you are not a streamer/video editor on budget, the 8350 is not the right CPU for you.

Just go with the 4690k and you'll get better performance in gaming.

[Faceman]

This is not true.

I have a Phenom II X4 955 and I get more than 15-20FPS in the majority of those games. That means that a CPU like the 8350 gets at least 50% more FPS than I get.

WoW and GW2 = I never go below 60 FPS.

Planetside 2 is fairly stable at 60. It has some random drops but nothing too bad.

DayZ is everything but stable but most of the time I have 60FPS. It drops down to 40 sometimes but it's playable.

ARMA 2 runs without any problems.

ARMA 3, 35 FPS in single player. 25 in a full alterlife server.

So that 15-20 FPS story is false.

 

To answer the OP, the FX 8350 is fine when it comes to gaming but you can get a lot better with a few extra euros.

If you are not a streamer/video editor on budget, the 8350 is not the right CPU for you.

Just go with the 4690k and you'll get better performance in gaming.

Hate to spoil your theory, but a Phenom actually has a lot better single core performance than an FX, so for those specific games that are CPU bound, it will run MUCH better on a Phenom than FX.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_tbR-eKlrQ

^2 man grouping result in Guild Wars2.  Raiding = not going to get acceptable frame rates.

 

 

ARMA3 BF4 Results.  There is no FPS counter, but you can see how badly this processor performs.

 

DayZ Online Results:  This is online with the guy running up a hill doing nothing, only getting 28fps.  As soon as he gets in a firefight or enters a town, boom, down to the 10s.

 

Standalone(not online) results

[Mooshi]

Travel into the future and grab the consumer stuff from Intel post X99 that makes more sense and has DDR4 that's actually impressive.

[FizzyFantom]

People think they are getting a good deal when they buy FX, and they are not.

 

If you're an AMD fanboy, you're not going to like it, but Intel's 4670K is better than AMD's 8350. Regardless of however you look at it, in most situations,

the 4670K wins, but it isn't just that, its far superior IPC gives it such an advantage in most every day tasks, which are mostly still single-threaded. 

I never accused you of being an Intel fanboy, and I'm certainly not an AMD fanboy (though I doubt you'll believe me). I accept that Intel outperforms AMD CPUs in heavy single threaded loads, which generally helps in gaming, but your comments on AMD CPUs are coming close to scaremongering.

 

You examples of benchmarks show how AMD performs, but you don't show how an Intel CPU performs in the same tests, proving nothing other than that AMD performs like this in these situations.

I'm simply stating that buying an AMD CPU won't cripple your PC in gaming in the way that some people like to suggest. It seems that industry experts also agree with me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu8Sekdb-IE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu8Sekdb-IE

 

OP, I definitely recommend you get an Intel CPU if you can fit it inside your budget, but if you buy an AMD FX CPU it certainly won't cripple your gaming experience. Best of luck with whatever you choose

[Jack.EXE]

Go with an FX6300 & a faster GPU, that makes the most difference.