CPU Choices

[kevin34ct]

Ok so I've been going through the forums looking for stuff to read through and every time someone mentions they are using an AMD processor, there are people constantly telling you to dump AMD and use Intel.  Why can't anybody just talk about the positives.  I for one love AMD and can't stand the Intel people bashing my decision.  So what if my CPU choice isn't as powerful as you're Intel.  I think it's my choice or theirs, to use what CPU they like.  I've been an AMD backer since the K6 series.  For the price of the CPU's they are good enough.  AMD has a solid line of CPU's, yes there have been bad processors, but Intel has had the same problems.  Could us AMD fans get solid answers on AMD builds without having someone tell us to switch to Intel?

[Prysin]

3 minutes ago, kevin34ct said:

Ok so I've been going through the forums looking for stuff to read through and every time someone mentions they are using an AMD processor, there are people constantly telling you to dump AMD and use Intel.  Why can't anybody just talk about the positives.  I for one love AMD and can't stand the Intel people bashing my decision.  So what if my CPU choice isn't as powerful as you're Intel.  I think it's my choice or theirs, to use what CPU they like.  I've been an AMD backer since the K6 series.  For the price of the CPU's they are good enough.  AMD has a solid line of CPU's, yes there have been bad processors, but Intel has had the same problems.  Could us AMD fans get solid answers on AMD builds without having someone tell us to switch to Intel?

Everyone on these forums will tell you i'm an AMD fanboy, and i wont deny that. However the thing is.... you're wasting money.

 

FX makes sense vs Haswell on the lower end, but since a skylake i3 is so fast that it competes with a FX 8350 in even the most multi-threaded software there is no reason to get FX anymore.

 

Same with Athlons and APUs... 400USD and below. Roll an Athlon or APU. They're great in that price range. Above said price range and you can just pack it up and go with intel. AMD aint worth it. Why? because you end up in the price range of a i3 6100. Which is objectively better then the majority of AMD products availible atm.

[Dabombinable]

 

4 minutes ago, Prysin said:

Everyone on these forums will tell you i'm an AMD fanboy, and i wont deny that. However the thing is.... you're wasting money.

 

FX makes sense vs Haswell on the lower end, but since a skylake i3 is so fast that it competes with a FX 8350 in even the most multi-threaded software there is no reason to get FX anymore.

 

Same with Athlons and APUs... 400USD and below. Roll an Athlon or APU. They're great in that price range. Above said price range and you can just pack it up and go with intel. AMD aint worth it. Why? because you end up in the price range of a i3 6100. Which is objectively better then the majority of AMD products availible atm.

Don't forget that if its an APU based laptop, you can normally get far better price/performance/watt than you would with an Intel based laptop-still though, I wouldn't recommend anything CMT based at the moment as the Zen APU (and CPU) when they roll out will utterly wreck them while not being 4-5 years old.

[vorticalbox]

4 minutes ago, Prysin said:

Everyone on these forums will tell you i'm an AMD fanboy, and i wont deny that. However the thing is.... you're wasting money.

 

FX makes sense vs Haswell on the lower end, but since a skylake i3 is so fast that it competes with a FX 8350 in even the most multi-threaded software there is no reason to get FX anymore.

 

Same with Athlons and APUs... 400USD and below. Roll an Athlon or APU. They're great in that price range. Above said price range and you can just pack it up and go with intel. AMD aint worth it. Why? because you end up in the price range of a i3 6100. Which is objectively better then the majority of AMD products availible atm.

source of i3 vs 8350? just fancy a read lol

[Prysin]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

 

Don't forget that if its an APU based laptop, you can normally get far better price/perforamnce/watt than you would with an Intel based laptop-still though, I wouldn't recommend anything CMT based at the moment as the Zen APU (and CPU) when they roll out will utterly wreck them while not being 4-5 years old.

nop. Kaveri/Carrizo, aslong as you get a laptop with dual channel RAM has better perf per watt in all but the most brutal CPU tasks. Especially gaming is way better.

Intels HD 4600 and HD 530 is 15w... AMDs R7 (512sps) is 12-15w depending on clock speed. Yet AMDs R7 graphics is MUCH stronger. Also, supports freesync, has notably more efficient h.264 and h.265 playback due to clever GPU acceleration.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, vorticalbox said:

source of i3 vs 8350? just fancy a read lol

Its similar with Haswell i3 in games-it takes an FX 9590 to compete with one-which is utterly ridiculous. At least Bulldozer/Vishera isn't Pentium 4 bad though.

1 minute ago, Prysin said:

nop. Kaveri/Carrizo, aslong as you get a laptop with dual channel RAM has better perf per watt in all but the most brutal CPU tasks. Especially gaming is way better.

Intels HD 4600 and HD 530 is 15w... AMDs R7 (512sps) is 12-15w depending on clock speed. Yet AMDs R7 graphics is MUCH stronger. Also, supports freesync, has notably more efficient h.264 and h.265 playback due to clever GPU acceleration.

Mentioning the RAM being dual channel reminded me to tell you that my Phenom II P920 was running its DDR3 1066 in single channel, so it is inexcusable for DDR3 1600 to be slower with an A8 4555M.

[Prysin]

2 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

source of i3 vs 8350? just fancy a read lol

 

 

 

 

LAPTOP i3 6100TE vs FX 8350

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1645

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

It's not worth going AMD at this point. What you're referring to is happening when are people asking for upgrade advice or new build advice. 

 

Otherwise, the community is quite helpful. IMO

[Prysin]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Its similar with Haswell i3 in games-it takes an FX 9590 to compete with one-which is utterly ridiculous. At least Bulldozer/Vishera isn't Pentium 4 bad though.

Mentioning the RAM being dual channel reminded me to tell you that my Phenom II P920 was running its DDR3 1066 in single channel, so it is inexcusable for DDR3 1600 to be slower with an A8 4555M.

clock speeds of your Phenom?

Also, A8 4555m is a bottom end Quad. whilst the P920 is a middle to high end quad... Even if from different "generations", it is obvious that the higher clocked, full fledged core P920 would be faster.

 

Try run the same test against a Kaveri SKU, like say a 7850k or 7870k...

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1497?vs=203

 

again, Phenom II isnt that much faster. One of the reasons PII prolly does better is probably due to TDP. Many AMD APUs have configurable TDP. and the OEMs set them to the lowest setting. Because then they dont need to invest money into cooling. This is another flaw of current gen AMD mobile solutions... They are sucking up too much to the OEMs. Not that they have much choice given their financial situation.

 

[SeanAngelo]

28 minutes ago, kevin34ct said:

Ok so I've been going through the forums looking for stuff to read through and every time someone mentions they are using an AMD processor, there are people constantly telling you to dump AMD and use Intel.  Why can't anybody just talk about the positives.  I for one love AMD and can't stand the Intel people bashing my decision.  So what if my CPU choice isn't as powerful as you're Intel.  I think it's my choice or theirs, to use what CPU they like.  I've been an AMD backer since the K6 series.  For the price of the CPU's they are good enough.  AMD has a solid line of CPU's, yes there have been bad processors, but Intel has had the same problems.  Could us AMD fans get solid answers on AMD builds without having someone tell us to switch to Intel?

cuz Intel is love. Intel is life.

[Prysin]

3 minutes ago, SeanAngelo said:

cuz Intel is love. Intel is life.

Intel is blackmail. Intel is lies

[vorticalbox]

53 minutes ago, Prysin said:

 

 

 

 

LAPTOP i3 6100TE vs FX 8350

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1645

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how about in stuff like virtual machines? i really don't game on my PC that much.

[Prysin]

9 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

how about in stuff like virtual machines? i really don't game on my PC that much.

would be faster then a i3 and maybe, just maybe an i5 there. But that is mostly due to me not being sure VM is turn even enabled at lower end intel SKUs

[Dabombinable]

53 minutes ago, Prysin said:

clock speeds of your Phenom?

Also, A8 4555m is a bottom end Quad. whilst the P920 is a middle to high end quad... Even if from different "generations", it is obvious that the higher clocked, full fledged core P920 would be faster.

 

Try run the same test against a Kaveri SKU, like say a 7850k or 7870k...

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1497?vs=203

 

again, Phenom II isnt that much faster. One of the reasons PII prolly does better is probably due to TDP. Many AMD APUs have configurable TDP. and the OEMs set them to the lowest setting. Because then they dont need to invest money into cooling. This is another flaw of current gen AMD mobile solutions... They are sucking up too much to the OEMs. Not that they have much choice given their financial situation.

 

Just look at the comparison, and the P920 was the worst Phenom II X4 made by AMD: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare_CPUs/AMD_AM4555SHE44HJ,AMD_HMP920SGR42GM/

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, Prysin said:

would be faster then a i3 and maybe, just maybe an i5 there. But that is mostly due to me not being sure VM is turn even enabled at lower end intel SKUs

so i'm cool then  the most demanding game i play is euro truck sim 2, rest is vm's and coding my little hands off lol

[Sintezza]

If you want to run a couple of vm´s simultanously?

Then a FX83xx will be a great chip for that.

The only downside of the FX cpu´s is that they dont have intergrated graphics, so if your goal is to run Linux as your host operating system, and you want to install windows in a KVM container or what not, passing trough a physical gpu.

Then you are going to need 2 gpu´s to do that.

If you just want to run a couple of vm´s simultanously on a windows host, then you basicly fine with a single gpu.

 

Intel cannot realy compéte for this kind of workloads wenn it comes to price to performance.

However, if you dont have 2 gpu´s, and your goal is to run a linux host + kvm windows container with pci-e passtrough then you need 2 gpu´s.

If you dont have 2 gpu´s, then an i7 or Xeon E3 with igpu could endup cheaper overall.

 

Also wenn it comes to gaming, most AAA titles nowdays are more gpu bound then cpu bound for that matter.

So if you just play a game so now and then, then a FX chip is totaly fine.

 

[i_build_nanosuits]

2 hours ago, kevin34ct said:

 -I've been an AMD backer since the K6 series.  

-For the price of the CPU's they are good enough.  

-AMD has a solid line of CPU's

-yes there have been bad processors, but Intel has had the same problems. 

-Same here, but my FX-8320 was a big let down

-no, they are not...not anymore...they are based on a now nearly 10 years old architecture that was put togheter with server purposes in mind, they have noting to do in a gaming rig

-no, the only competitive CPU they have is the cheap athlon 860K which is a 80$ CPU that is actually worth it's price.

-Yeah i had a pentium 4

[Nena Trinity]

2 hours ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

-Same here, but my FX-8320 was a big let down

-no, they are not...not anymore...they are based on a now nearly 10 years old architecture that was put togheter with server purposes in mind, they have noting to do in a gaming rig

-no, the only competitive CPU they have is the cheap athlon 860K which is a 80$ CPU that is actually worth it's price.

-Yeah i had a pentium 4

Nope the FX-6300 is a better buy, I have both Athlon X4 860K and FX-8370 and the X4 cannot handle modern games well at all... (gotta buy a new board or a new CPU for my FM2+ rig it seems not sure if to grab the A10-7890K, Athlon X4 880K or just a new board lol. The A10 will let me run Ashes of the Singularity better and maybe other DX12 titles but the 880K is cheaper... Yet buying a new board I may be able to beat the 880Ks 0.2GHz increase so new board or A10? (And the Excavator based on most be bad it is even cheaper than 860K! )

 

Edit:

860K does not even manage Witcher III at 60fps which my FX can!

 

 

[i_build_nanosuits]

1 hour ago, Nena360 said:

Nope the FX-6300 is a better buy, I have both Athlon X4 860K and FX-8370 and the X4 cannot handle modern games well at all...

yes...but the athlon is cheaper and that's why it make a decent option for super budget rigs...FM2+ boards are dirt cheap as well.

Going with the FX-6300 and a decent overclocking AM3+ motherboard for it (and most likely an aftermarket cooler) put you again in a spot where you could probably sneak an i3-6100 and a cheap H series motherboard for around the same price...and this i3 in games is better than even your 8370.

[Prysin]

4 hours ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

-Same here, but my FX-8320 was a big let down

-no, they are not...not anymore...they are based on a now nearly 10 years old architecture that was put togheter with server purposes in mind, they have noting to do in a gaming rig

-no, the only competitive CPU they have is the cheap athlon 860K which is a 80$ CPU that is actually worth it's price.

-Yeah i had a pentium 4

FX 8320 was OK. But the biggest dissappointment is the "FX stutter".... i am fine with 60-80 FPS "max" in most games at 3440x1440p, however that stutter is so fucking annoying.

Then again, its not REALLY worth getting haswell over it. Haswell may be faster by a longshot in synthetic benchmarks, but FPS wise you gain little. More importantly you get rid of the fucking stuttering. But FPS wise, depending on the game of course, there aint enough of a difference to jump from Piledriver 6 or 8 core to Haswell i5... i7 yes, but even then you are sorta wasting money imo. Unless you go Haswell-E.

 

Bulldozer came out in October 2011 for servers. November/december 2011 for FX desktop.

even if we assume 2-3 years development time, it still aint 10 years. Not even nearly. It is 7-8 at the very most, counting from "conception" to "final release".

 

Athlon 845 (excavator. Should have near sandy single core perf) came out last week. I read what an Anandtech writer said on twitter, and given their replies they will probably have a in depth review of the desktop excavator part coming out this coming week or so (it was "in the test bench" at thursday/wednsday)

845 MSRP is 69.99 USD, taking the previous 70 USD spot from the 860k

 

If it actually DO match sandy in IPC, well.... 70 bucks for the equivalent of a locked lower end sandy i5 is def worth it.

 

Also, the upcoming Bristol Ridge APUs will use AM4, and be based off of Excavator (BR comin summer?).... so even if you wait, you can grab a cheapo APU with decent performance, get a good AM4 mobo and wait for ZEN to come out.

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

yes...but the athlon is cheaper and that's why it make a decent option for super budget rigs...FM2+ boards are dirt cheap as well.

Going with the FX-6300 and a decent overclocking AM3+ motherboard for it (and most likely an aftermarket cooler) put you again in a spot where you could probably sneak an i3-6100 and a cheap H series motherboard for around the same price...and this i3 in games is better than even your 8370.

although, you need to add an * here...

The Skylake i3 6100 is undeniably amazing for its price. BUT, to get the full potential you need 2666MHz DDR4 or faster RAM. As was shown by digital Foundry. The difference in terms of performance is that with slow RAM, its like a faster Haswell i3. With faster RAM it is closer to a Haswell i5 (locked), and consistently so.

However, Intel being the dickheads they are locked faster RAM behind the Z chipset. Which costs more. Dragging the price up.

 

The price difference between 2133MHz DDR4 and 3000MHz DDR4 is like 13 bucks MAX. But it can yield you 10-20% better minimum FPS, consistently.

 

 

Also, you do not need badass AM3+ boards for OCing FX6... but you will need the following:
Heatsink on VRM

4+1 125w TDP VRMs minimum, preferably 8+2 140w.

You'd also want a mobo capable of 2133 or 2400MHz DDR3, as higher RAM speeds helps deliver more consistent minimums and helps A LOT on FX stutter (ive tested it myself).

And no MSI boards what so ever. As all of them sucks on the AMD side.

 

So with those requirements you get

ASRock 970m Pro3 mATX -> 55-60 USD

4+1 Phase 125w VRM w/heatsink. Youtube videos show it handling FX 8350 at 4.4GHz... should handle a FX6 at 4.3GHz and 1.43v atleast.

2400MHz RAM supported.

 

Biostar TA970 mATX -> 60-70 USD

4+1 phase 125w VRM w/heatsink. VRM throttling protection. According to Overclock.net posts, it is good to go with a mildly OCd FX 8350.

 

Gigabyte GA970-UD3P ATX -> 65-85 USD

8+2 phase 140w VRM w/heatsink. Easily capable of 4.5GHz on a FX 8350.

Supports 2133MHz RAM.

 

 

Those are the three SOLID choices for budget AM3+.... Unless you find something on sale/buy used.

 

As for cooling. 4.3GHz is possible on stock cooler aslong as you stay under 1.42v....

ATM i got a Noctua NH-D9L cooler on my FX 8320, and it can handle the FX 8320 running 4.62GHz at 1.47v.... although it is balancing on the edge of its capacity.

A Hyper 212 will be more then capable of handling the FX 8350 even at moderate OCs.

[i_build_nanosuits]

23 minutes ago, Prysin said:

- FX 8320 was OK. But the biggest dissappointment is the "FX stutter".... i am fine with 60-80 FPS "max" in most games at 3440x1440p, however that stutter is so fucking annoying.

- But FPS wise, depending on the game of course, there aint enough of a difference to jump from Piledriver 6 or 8 core to Haswell i5... i7 yes, but even then you are sorta wasting money imo. Unless you go Haswell-E.

- Bulldozer came out in October 2011 for servers. November/december 2011 for FX desktop.

even if we assume 2-3 years development time, it still aint 10 years. Not even nearly. It is 7-8 at the very most, counting from "conception" to "final release".

- I was not having any stuttering issues...but i was getting fairly low minimum FPS in many games and the GPU load was often all over the place pointing out a CPU bottleneck and i was only using a GTX 780 @ 1920x1080..My FX was also heavily overclocked (4.6ghz)

- Again that will depend on what GPU you are using...if anything higher-endish you will get CPU limitations in many games and a faster CPU even a locked core i5 will be worlds better. (i tested both, i know...check my youtube channel if you want to see lots of CPU testing in games.)

- You do realize that even 7 or 8 years is an awful long time in terms of CPU and technologies right? Especially when the design you start with is full of fatal flaws.

[i_build_nanosuits]

10 minutes ago, Prysin said:

The Skylake i3 6100 is undeniably amazing for its price. BUT, to get the full potential you need 2666MHz DDR4 or faster RAM. As was shown by digital Foundry.

DF tested with an overclocked Titan X @ 1080p...come on...of course in such a CPU starved scenario you WILL see better performance with faster RAM...but for normal users who are bright enough NOT to pair a 100$ dual-core CPU with an overclocked top-end 1000$ graphics card...normal ram is more than fast enough.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I understand the allegiance, I had been using AMD almost exclusively since the K6 also. It's just that FX isn't too competitive with i5/i7/Xeon at the higher end anymore for gaming. I didn't particularly like choosing to Intel when I built my current system since my heart will always be with AMD, but I wanted the best performing cpu for the money (just like I did when I bought the K6, Athlon XP, Athlon 64x2, and Phenom IIx4 965) and this time around it was Intel. I really hope Zen is a success because I want to be able to go back to AMD in the future without making compromises.

[Prysin]

Just now, i_build_nanosuits said:

DF tested with an overclocked Titan X @ 1080p...come on...of course in such a CPU starved scenario you WILL see better performance with faster RAM...but for normal users who are bright enough NOT to pair a 100$ dual core CPU with a 1000$ graphics card...normal ram is more than fast enough.

you notice faster RAM even with a GTX 950. Ive tested.

Although at GTX 950 levels, you only see 2-3 FPS better minimums.

 

However, with DDR3, the difference between 1600 and 2400 MHz (if we take mobo compatibility out of equation) is only 6 USD at most.

Thing is though, getting faster RAM has no downside other then investment cost. Some games like Ryse Son of Rome and Fallout 4 show larger bonuses to minimum FPS.

 

Yes i am aware of what DF used to test with.

I myself has tested with a GTX 950, HD 7950, 2x HD 7950 CF, R9 295x2 (single GPU) and R9 295x2 (CF).

 

Stuttering is prevalent with all but the GTX 950.... cuz its so weaksauce. Crossfire obviously makes it worse. Crossfire with Bridge (HD 7950s) is notably more horrible then the 295x2 which uses a PLX chip that gives it x8 PCIe Gen2 connection between the chips.

 

Any CPU at the lower end benefits from faster RAM. Using Nvidia cards with their much less CPU intensive drivers helps further. In some cases my GTX 950 gets close to my HD 7950s scores. But only in a very few cases. (GPUboost boosting really high?)

 

Incase you wonder. Bandwidth of SLI bridge is 1GB/s, AMD CF bridge is 900-950MB/s, PCIe Gen2 is 8GB/s for X8 and 16GB/s for X16.... so naturally, XDMA Crossfire is wastly superior to SLI/CF bridges. Although, Nvidia does use some PCIe bandwidth for SLI communication, it is very little.