The 8 core showdown and analysis thread.

[ALXAndy]

Lol are you mad? Maybe if you have a decent budget you'd afford it

 

Erm. Pardon? you seem to be awfully confused. This Xeon retails for £700. The AMD is £110.

 

As for a decent budget.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/175175-the-big-purple-monster/?hl=purple+monster

 

That's my rig there. Does it look like I can't afford it? lmao, I've got six rigs.

[maazster]

I got mine in the UK. There were two, but the other was Sandybridge so slightly slower. Make sure you check your board for compatability, check for the V2 Xeon (which are Ivy) and make sure you see one with 20mb cache as that indicates it can handle 8 cores.

 

Either that or study the Xeons a bit, and compare them with the ES. They're never quite the same but you can usually get a close match. Apparently Asrock are the best.

 

Edit. ES2 on these chips usually indicates V2, or Ivy. ES is Sandy.

Alright, on ebay all the xeon engineering samples are from the US

[ALXAndy]

Alright, on ebay all the xeon engineering samples are from the US

 

Bummer are you in the UK then?

 

There was a place in China selling the CPU I have. TBH I reckon the guy I got it off got it there. They're £210 though, and unless you're into low volts and so forth it's not worth that much IMO.

[maazster]

Bummer are you in the UK then?

 

There was a place in China selling the CPU I have. TBH I reckon the guy I got it off got it there. They're £210 though, and unless you're into low volts and so forth it's not worth that much IMO.

Yeah I live in the UK

[ALXAndy]

Ignore. Was a weird Xeon...

[gigabyte]

How do you confuse a complete fucking idiot?

 

890-3459890=u0jn[-0843589890-348750-

An idiot that have the best job in the world 

[D3MON]

Like I havent been pointing this out only to be told by intel fanboys how dota 2 plays so well on thier dual core...
great review and writeup, ive got a billion screenshots of cpu usage in my "stuff" gallery proving as much,NO you will not get better performance, but youll have cpu threads free to do other things in the background. may have to look for a xeon myself in any case.

[AlexGoesHigh]

Far Cry 3 may use the same engine as Crysis 3

ehh, i think that's a very big typo you have there AFAIK, crysis 3 runs on cryengine while FC3 runs on duna, very different engines

 

nice review none the less, also kind of ridicules how the xeon got beaten in performance, though for using that much at idle, its amazing

[Sintezza]

Still not bad showing for the FX

 

Im still happy with my FX8350 which can run 4.8ghz on 1.44V stable, i got one from before the FX9000 bindings.

For Virtualization that AMD architecture is so damm nice.

But yeah a 8 core xeon will be nice aswell for Virtualization.

 

Next week i will replace my mobo for the Asus crosshair V Formula Z.

Still fun to see that all the 8 cores 16 Threads of the Xeon exaly get used in the game.

 

Now i´m getting a bit currious because i´m running Windows 7 as main OS., would Windows 8.x realy be an improvement for multicore cpu´s?

I run windows 8 in a virtual machine with 2 cores, and it runs like a champ.

Hmm never realy thought about that..

I have readed some articles about it, Windows 8 with improved scheduler over windows 7, which would be a positive effect for AMD FX cpu´s, but they still haven´t convinced me, cause i hate the god game windows 8.x ui.

I know that in Linux the AMD FX8350 realy runs great

[Mclegendary]

This could make cpus like the opteron 3280 a good choice for budget gaming. 8 cores at 2.4ghz for the same price as a 760k, and am3+.

[ALXAndy]

Still not bad showing for the FX

 

Im still happy with my FX8350 which can run 4.8ghz on 1.44V stable, i got one from before the FX9000 bindings.

For Virtualization that AMD architecture is so damm nice.

But yeah a 8 core xeon will be nice aswell for Virtualization.

 

Next week i will replace my mobo for the Asus crosshair V Formula Z.

Still fun to see that all the 8 cores 16 Threads of the Xeon exaly get used in the game.

 

Now i´m getting a bit currious because i´m running Windows 7 as main OS., would Windows 8.x realy be an improvement for multicore cpu´s?

I run windows 8 in a virtual machine with 2 cores, and it runs like a champ.

Hmm never realy thought about that..

I have readed some articles about it, Windows 8 with improved scheduler over windows 7, which would be a positive effect for AMD FX cpu´s, but they still haven´t convinced me, cause i hate the god game windows 8.x ui.

I know that in Linux the AMD FX8350 realy runs great

 

Windows 7 got along fine at the beginning because at the time it launched CPUs like the quad core I7 920 were king, with many people still using core 2 duos and quads. However, at that time it was mostly 2 core support and thus the OS did fine. It was never coded to thread and use more than 4 cores, not properly at a kernel level.

 

When BF3 came out the problem with the OS became apparent. People were complaining that by using Hyperthreading on their I7 that performance was actually worse than on an I5. The issue was explained as core parking. Basically the OS was not using certain parts of the CPU properly, thus, cores were going lame. The fix? a bodge to park the cores. A bodge never truly makes something work properly, hence why the AMD FX CPUs were always derped on Windows 7. Microsoft made a patch for it, then pulled the patch because it was flaky.

 

With Windows 8 AMD spent a lot of time talking to Microsoft to make sure the FX CPUs would work properly. They now do. Thus, if you are running anything more than 4 cores and you want it to work properly without hacking bodging or patching then simply switch to Windows 8.

 

Lots of games and apps run far better in Windows 8. There was also an issue with 7 where the FX CPUs would basically dump their cache mid operation causing lags. It never truly worked properly on AMD.

 

So yeah, basically Windows 8 was a lot more than just that awful horrible Metro rubbish. Massive portions of the kernel were completely written. AMD did it basically by getting Microsoft using their CPUs for the Xbone. That was where it all started tbh, and why it's more a case of luck than game devs actually wanting their games to run great on a PC.

[Sauron]

It's sad to see the xeon be nerfed so hard by the ultra low clock speed. It would be much more expensive than the 8320 normally, too, which means it isn't a great option in general. If it had even just double that clock speed (which it is most certainly capable of) it would destroy the 8320 as any cpu that is so expensive should. Very interesting post anyway, great job

[Kukielka]

@gigabyte

[ALXAndy]

It's sad to see the xeon be nerfed so hard by the ultra low clock speed. It would be much more expensive than the 8320 normally, too, which means it isn't a great option in general. If it had even just double that clock speed (which it is most certainly capable of) it would destroy the 8320 as any cpu that is so expensive should. Very interesting post anyway, great job

 

Oh I've had it all since I posted this thread. "Clock the AMD to 2ghz, then run the tests again" blah blah blah. This *IS* Intel's 8 core CPU. The clock speed is their choosing, not mine. This is what you get for £700 and more, but hey Intel are great and they rule etc etc.

 

This thread does so many things and answers so many questions that it's not even funny. A £100 AMD CPU should not even be able to beg at the heels of a £700 Intel yet it conclusively beat it in every test I ran, only losing in one and by about 3 frames per second.

 

This is why AMD are still in business. Because any one with an ounce of intelligence can see what is happening here. £100 CPU gives £700 a bloody nose. And then I had "Well the AMD doesn't come out of the box with that clock". Nope, sure doesn't but for £150 you can get one with a stock clock of 5ghz lmao.

 

Dear oh dear.

[juretrn]

Looking at these results, only one thing went through my head: How raped would the AMD be if the Intel chip had the same clock?

[gigabyte]

@gigabyte

nooo I'll just rather keep on going like this

[ALXAndy]

Looking at these results, only one thing went through my head: How raped would the AMD be if the Intel chip had the same clock?

 

But it doesn't.

 

And nothing can be done to change it. God bless Intel.

[juretrn]

But it doesn't.

 

And nothing can be done to change it. God bless Intel.

Haswell-E?

[Sauron]

Oh I've had it all since I posted this thread. "Clock the AMD to 2ghz, then run the tests again" blah blah blah. This *IS* Intel's 8 core CPU. The clock speed is their choosing, not mine. This is what you get for £700 and more, but hey Intel are great and they rule etc etc.

 

This thread does so many things and answers so many questions that it's not even funny. A £100 AMD CPU should not even be able to beg at the heels of a £700 Intel yet it conclusively beat it in every test I ran, only losing in one and by about 3 frames per second.

 

This is why AMD are still in business. Because any one with an ounce of intelligence can see what is happening here. £100 CPU gives £700 a bloody nose. And then I had "Well the AMD doesn't come out of the box with that clock". Nope, sure doesn't but for £150 you can get one with a stock clock of 5ghz lmao.

 

Dear oh dear.

 

So much truth in this ^^

[Huginn]

 

So much truth in this ^^

 

Indeed, but sadly most people won't realize it. I'm not a fanboy, but I can't understand the hate towards AMD. People are surprised that when they compare a €300 i7 4770k to a €126 AMD FX 8320 the i7 gets ahead? I can fry an FX 8320, buy a new one, and still have enough money left to buy a Hyper 212 EVO. What I'm trying to say is: Intel delivers best performance, AMD best price/performance. 

All that aside, very nice test OP, you've put a lot of effort in it. Topic deserves a sticky imo.

[FellTheSky]

.Too bad it there was no 4790 in the mix to compare a middle point. I guess i will look for the 4790 scores on the web

nice review, im actually impress with RAGE using so many cores, what other games are using that engine?

[Whaler_99]

FYI on Intel Engineering sample chips - they are NOT production chips, but samples only. They may or may not work as expected, at the frequencies claimed, utilize all cache, etc. Also, unless you are provided one by Intel, typically to OEM's for testing, it is illegal to own or buy/sell these samples. Yes, you see em for sale on Ebay - but technically it is illegal. The ones from China, I highly suspected are NOT true Intel ES chips, but simply stamped as such...

 

Just some info for those not aware...

[Sintezza]

Still i like those tests.

 

Maybe i gonne switch to windows 8.1, i got tons of iso´s laying arround so yeah

[Faa]

But, we can clearly see that the "Four cores is enough" argument belongs where it should be left; in 2010. Things have changed, consoles have changed, the ports over to PC have changed.

Before I explain your errors;

Open prime95, you see in resource monitor the UI takes 4 threads and they barely use anything of the cpu, give 4 workers in for example like I did above, so in total 8 threads since the ui threads barely take anything just forget about them and we have 4 threads to deal with. 4 threads meaning that they only can be executed on 4 cores at the same time nothing more but taskmanager showed loads on every core there because threads are switching rapidly from cores and Windows logs this. It's tricking you that's all.

Another point; taskmanager calculates the cpu usage complety differently as you can see 50% load when I only stressed 4 cores of the 12 available but as you notice the process is only taking 33% of the CPU. Have a look at the maximum frequency which is 137% so 50/137% -> 33% cpu load which equals what prime95 actually uses since its the only process that actually used something of the CPU.

Doing now with all 12 threads, total cpu usage 137%? Got the point?

 

 

No surprise. I've tested BF3 on the AMD and it wanted at least six cores with residual load over anything more.

 

Nope, 4. Made the CPU hit its limit here;

Showing us some core loads means nothing if the engine is on 4 threads that was switched through all of your cores, and the trashthreads you could chunk them all to one core and it wouldn't cause any performance loss. Testing should have done like I've done for BF3, no offensive but not like this lol

Another flaw I found, in Crysis 3 you made the GPU hitting its limit making the CPU wait on the GPU thats why the loads have been very low. If you'd look at this video, his 3770K was running at 84% and the gpu's around 50/50/50% load he used some program which made the CPU hit 100% and the gpu's were moved from 50 to 70% each giving a 30 fps gain.

Don't forget this, even if the game takes advantage (meaning more performance) of more than 4 cores, there's no lineair scaling going on for example I found in WD that 4 cores gave 60 fps and with all cores just a silly 15% gain (pure cpu bound scenario avoiding gpu cap). Here's the video; youtube.com/watch?v=A-ipzwdtGyE

Parallelism will be always crap in games, it's about how well it is multithreaded not just only about how much, games will never magically saturate 8 threads to make AMD somehow equal to Intel i5's/i7's. 

[Faceman]

@Faa I was waiting for you to enter the conversation