AMD Athlon X4 860K vs Intel Pentium G3258?

[That Norwegian Guy]

Any idea if this issue carries over to their A88X line? I was thinking of getting an A88X PC-MATE...

 

Hard to say, but I think it will be better this time around. MSi were fairly new to the m-ITX form factor on FM2. I'd chance it, and if it persists just RMA it.

 

But the AsRock FM2+ boards are in very high esteem from what I hear, so those could be worth a try instead. AsRock's philosophy is, if they have to save money, they'll do it on PCB layer count/ thickness rather than components, because it doesn't affect longevity as much (also they have their patented high density PCB process as well so it doesn't hurt them)

[rentaspoon]

Not only that, because Intel has higher minimum demands of board partners' choice of caps, chokes etc. AMD lets motherboard makers do pretty much what they want. Thus, cheap AMD boards are cheaper than cheap Intel boards, but have higher fail rates. A good example is the MSi FM2 line-up, pretty much every MSi FM2 motherboard, especially one of the mini-ITX A78 or A85 variants, (forget which specific one as the board doesn't exist in support anymore) have such a high RMA rate that some etailers were refusing to stock them near EOL even if their suppliers had it on hand.

I bought one of those from Multicom late last year, they had 87 of them in stock when I did. Almost 2 weeks later I had to RMA it (board was electrically dead, didn't even start with the two screwdriver method) and contacted them, they refunded my money immediately and said I didn't have to return the board. When I looked at the site they had 0 in stock and a week later the product was gone altogether. When I asked why (I still wanted a new one since it was the cheapest ITX option) they said they had returns of over 60% on that board.

I can't find anywhere that says Intel has higher standards, care to share this info? I know AMD are more open than Nvidia.

As for cheaper boards I have no issue with my MSI 970 GAMING

60% failure could be a bad batch and could stretch out to other boards of the same design.

Just put this here as well, happens to Intel and AMD no matter if they are cheap.

http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-x99-motherboard-goes-up-in-smoke-for-reasons-unknown_150008

Have a look at this as well

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Most-Reliable-Hardware-of-2013-528/

[Opcode]

Any details on when that's coming? I need to plan ahead...

It won't be until some time after Carrizo releases for the desktop as the Athlon's are just binned APU's that have a faulty GPU.

[dvw24]

Austin Evans made a video about these two CPU's 

 

Pentium seems so be a better choice.

[Opcode]

Austin Evans made a video about these two CPU's 

 

Pentium seems so be a better choice.

According to his tests the Pentium isn't that much better than the 860k. He should of done the smartest thing to prevent any criticism and run them both overclocked, clock for clock. He was only able to achieve 4.4 GHz with his 860k meanwhile most people can drag the 860k up to 4.8 GHz on upper 1.4 volts. The extra 300 MHz across the cores would of evened out quite a few of his benchmarks as there was literally hair differences. The fact that Intel plans on not releasing lower end chips for 2015 (Celeron, Pentium, etc). The upcoming 960k may take over the best budget spot on the market completely. That's if AMD can pull off the 30% increase in IPC that we've been seeing in SiSoft tests and with other rumors.

[i_build_nanosuits]

According to his tests the Pentium isn't that much better than the 860k. He should of done the smartest thing to prevent any criticism and run them both overclocked, clock for clock. He was only able to achieve 4.4 GHz with his 860k meanwhile most people can drag the 860k up to 4.8 GHz on upper 1.4 volts. The extra 300 MHz across the cores would of evened out quite a few of his benchmarks as there was literally hair differences. The fact that Intel plans on not releasing lower end chips for 2015 (Celeron, Pentium, etc). The upcoming 960k may take over the best budget spot on the market completely. That's if AMD can pull off the 30% increase in IPC that we've been seeing in SiSoft tests and with other rumors.

he also missed the most important aspect with such a cpu being a dual core and gaming: Frametimes and micro-stuttering...cause it's great to be able to mesure accurately the minimum, maximum and average FPS recordings but those won't tell all the story...from my experience the G3258 stutters a lot even though the framerates are somewhat high you do feel that the CPU is just barely enough all the time and you do feel a lot of stutering and hitching while playing demanding games and this points directly at the bad variations in frametimes which won't happen nearly as much on a quad-core CPU wheter it's AMD or intel's.

In short: a 50FPS average can be smooth and it can also be very hitchy, the FPS won't tell everything and any users will be able to see and feel the micro-stuttering and hitching while playing a 3d video game.

[JoshM]

Yet an Intel motherboard will live 2-3 years longer (personal experience with componentry on said platforms, especially cheaper boards) and the 3570K outperforms the 8350 by quite a bit.

 

CPU bottleneck will come quicker to AM3 than LGA1155. 3570K at 4.5Ghz (average OC which at least 50% of chips can get) still isn't bottlenecking SLi GTX 980s, but an 8350 does. (Not to mention PCIe lanes, unless you have the ASUS Sabertooth Rev 2.0 board for AM3+)

Well thats not true, as seen in the recent release of games they are more multithreaded (can't even use a dual core on some), if they keep heading down this path it would make sense to have a multithreaded cpu. 

For the record an FX9370 will not bottleneck GTX 980 sli and the only time I would upgarde is if i need more power from 2011 platform or wanted 3 way sli/ crossfire. Right now my needs and budget don't support this.

I have an intel build and an AMD both good and both reliable, that said I have had less problems with my AMD build..

[That Norwegian Guy]

Well thats not true, as seen in the recent release of games they are more multithreaded (can't even use a dual core on some), if they keep heading down this path it would make sense to have a multithreaded cpu. 

For the record an FX9370 will not bottleneck GTX 980 sli and the only time I would upgarde is if i need more power from 2011 platform or wanted 3 way sli/ crossfire. Right now my needs and budget don't support this.

I have an intel build and an AMD both good and both reliable, that said I have had less problems with my AMD build..

 

Fair enough, I meant that there will be bottlenecks on games that use less than 4 cores, but beyond that, if the developers make the threading really spread out and not just token 10% on secondary cores, then in the future the 8350 may make a 'comeback' of sorts. I don't think there's any hope for The Witcher 3 or The Division though, but Star Citizen at least claims they are trying for up to 6 thread utilization.

[JoshM]

Fair enough, I meant that there will be bottlenecks on games that use less than 4 cores, but beyond that, if the developers make the threading really spread out and not just token 10% on secondary cores, then in the future the 8350 may make a 'comeback' of sorts. I don't think there's any hope for The Witcher 3 or The Division though, but Star Citizen at least claims they are trying for up to 6 thread utilization.

Yeah and to be honest its not like it can't handle single threaded games, i haven't had any games held back because of the cpu. 

[Faa]

I can't find anywhere that says Intel has higher standards, care to share this info? I know AMD are more open than Nvidia.

He has no source to back such claims up, so it's pretty much BS. Thing is it all boils down to releasing your new CPU's under a new platform, that way you can force motherboard manufacturers to improve the VRM where as with AMD most cheap 40$ boards can't even handle a 8350. The 9590 works only on a handful of boards, if AMD decided to release that under a new platform, pretty much ALL boards would work flawlessly on them. Another thing is, only high-end boards are getting topnotch VRM and considering 8350's consume a lot more power which stresses the VRM that would just is playing a role too. I mean on Z97 boards most of them are still mediocre 4 phases because there's simply no need for anything better and if you want a board with better VRM you're paying a premium. Now with X99 we all know the 5960x is a massive power hog when overclocked, every X99 board is designed to keep a 5960x stable at whatever clock. All of them are using 6/8 phases and most importantly IR3550 60A mosfets. Regardless of AMD or Intel, motherboards are getting better and better while getting cheaper just like TV's orsomething, it just has little to do with AMD or Intels standards. We get new PWM controllers, mosfets, redesigned chokes, higher rated caps, more motherboard gimmicks like more pcb layers BS, every year orso. It's not like Asus/Gigabyte are like "Ah AMD nice new cpu's, we won't make boards for it". They will get the same quality/BS/features etc Intel motherboards currently have IF amd releases a new platform.

Afaik VDR12.5 is an Intel spec, which AMD uses as well, PSU atx spec same goes for AMD, you get the point. Besides those basic specs aren't for extreme overclocking. A good example would be the PSU spec which is 5%. So on the 12V you can only be 5% off or above it so the minimum comes down to 11.4V & maximum of 12.6V - such a PSU thats within the spec won't pull an LN2 overclock on the CPU & 4 GPU's out. Something like a z97 pro 3 from Asrock will guarantee you that it will work at stock perfectly fine but it won't pull 7GHz at all but the Asrock pro3 is VDR12.5 certified.

 

 

Not only that, because Intel has higher minimum demands of board partners' choice of caps, chokes etc. 

The fact that you only managed to bring caps & chokes up says enough you're just guessing here. Logically the requirements would be higher on AMD boards than LGA1150 boards because their CPU's consume more power and a good example is X99.

 

 

AMD lets motherboard makers do pretty much what they want. 

Source: 9gag.com

[-iSynthesis]

Other games like Battlefield, Far Cry 4, and Crysis 3 as well.

As far as i know, fc4 even requires a quad core processor, it will not start on a dual core.

[i_build_nanosuits]

As far as i know, fc4 even requires a quad core processor, it will not start on a dual core.

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/cpu_mainboard/far_cry_4_does_not_support_dual-core_processors/1

In recent years AMD has offered very good budget gaming performance with a part like the Athlon X4 760K and the newer Athlon X4 860k,

with Intel Rocking the budget gaming world by offering a overclocking ready Pentium CPU in the form of the Pentium G3258.

Sadly now increasingly more games will simply require 4 cores, making the Pentium G3258 unsuitable for some future titles.

Ubisoft has made no secret of Far Cry 4's system requirements, with an Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 955 listed as the minimum

CPUs supported, so those who bought the game with a Dual core CPU will have to upgrade their hardware before playing. Another high-profile

new release, Dragon Age: Inquisition, also requires a quad core CPU and cannot be played on dual-core machines.

 

BTW...CoD: AW does that as well...and many games that do work are barely playable on lowest possible settings from my experience (Watchdogs, crysis 3 and Dead Rising 3)

 

Another good quick reading:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/Far-Cry-4-Does-Not-Support-Dual-Core-Processors-Budget-Landscape-Shifting