hardware AMD Processors

[Patalayus]

Greetings everyone, I'm just curious about AMD processors and their performance compared to their Intel counterparts. I feel like there is a very strong stereotype with them and it seems that they are somewhat inferior to Intel's modern processors. I'm just wondering if anyone using an AMD processor could enlighten me on how they preform and if they really are as terrible as my friends make out. I am currently using an AMD GPU (RX 480 8GB) and so I know that AMD can make very good GPUs but I'm not sure what their current line up of CPUs consist of and whether they are actually any good compared to the current line up of Intel CPUs. I also am aware of the new AMD Zen CPUs making an appearance in the near future and so I am curious also to what some of your guys opinions are on that as well. Thanks, Patalayus. 

[Heavygun1450]

AMD's FX series of CPU's is 5 years old which is old for a processor. Their 8 cores processors are slower than intels quad core processors. AMD's CPU's dont use a newer architecture or smaller manufacturing process. Which means, More power draw, More Heat, Less overclocking potential. Why pick AMD's proessors when you could get one of intels quad cores for the same price as AMD's. Intel's CPU's will overclock better, Have much better gaming performance, Have higher single core performance, And use less electricity and overclock better. Zen will update upon the FX series and will be a pretty decent line of new CPU's.

[Godlygamer23]

Intel is ahead of AMD when it comes to IPC and single threaded performance. And most games prefer around four fast cores versus eight slower cores, but this criteria applies to Intel's CPUs as well where the more expensive server-grade chips can actually perform worse in video games than the mainstream counterparts due to the lower clock speed. 

 

That being said, my experience with AMD CPUs is limited, although I do have an APU in my server which seems to be doing just fine. Just to give an idea of what I do with the server: It runs two Minecraft instances, transcodes Plex content, and also deals with file transfers. 

[Funtron5000]

There's a legitimate issue with Bulldozer (FX processors) IPC (instructions per clock) as well as it's multi-threading not being truly multi-threaded. I believe it's only one floating point unit per core. But, this means that even with higher clock speeds, those CPU's can't compete with Intel of lower clock speeds.

 

On the other side of things, the Athlon/APU models are different. They typically have 4 physical cores and aren't too bad on IPC. They still can't compete with Intel's performance though. However, these processors are cheap, and so are their motherboards (typically). With these, people are able to make reasonable PC's for not too much. These are also able to be overclocked without needing a special SKU of processor or motherboard. 

[Enderman]

 

 

This is why zen needs to be good ^^^

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, Funtron5000 said:

On the other side of things, the Athlon/APU models are different. They typically have 4 physical cores and aren't too bad on IPC. They still can't compete with Intel's performance though. However, these processors are cheap, and so are their motherboards (typically). With these, people are able to make reasonable PC's for not too much. These are also able to be overclocked without needing a special SKU of processor or motherboard. 

AFAIK, the APUs are based around Bulldozer as well. 

[SlyTroopah]

Depends on the process. IF your gaming, intel hands down will beat amd. Its not about multi cores, all about single core performance (single threaded performance). AMD has very nice multi core but poor single core performance.

[Funtron5000]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

AFAIK, the APUs are based around Bulldozer as well. 

I thought Excavator was a different thing as that has had some changes over the years.

[ArmswieldTheHero]

As the owner of an FX-8350 I can proudly say that I FUCKED UP. I mean yay blender renders shit fast. Naaaay some games chug like like crazy -points at you, ESO, DKS1, Dolphin Emulator, Distance, and firewatch-

[Patalayus]

Ah okay, thanks for the help guys its really cleared things up

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, Funtron5000 said:

I thought Excavator was a different thing as that has had some changes over the years.

Quote

AMD Excavator Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD to succeed Steamroller Family 15h for use in AMD APU processors. On October 12, 2011, AMD revealed Excavator to be the code name for the fourth-generation Bulldozer-derived core.

Quote

Excavator has been confirmed to be AMD's final revision of the 'Bulldozer' family, with two new microarchitectures replacing Excavator a year later.^[6][7] The next generation sister architectures will be the x86-64 Zen and AArch64 K12 architectures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excavator_(microarchitecture)

Edited September 11, 2016 by Godlygamer23
Corrected error in second quote at "Zen" where it stated "Zenand" instead.

[Heavygun1450]

I found this pretty amusing

 

[SlyTroopah]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

 

Go to the "Thread Performance" in the drop down menu top right. - This is the KEY to gaming when it comes to which cpu's will perform better.

 

You first look at the core count (anything past 4 is over kill for gaming currently and wont help much.) then you look at the single threaded performance.

 

Any un-optimized game seems so run better on Intel than AMD BECAUSE optimization mainly (for cpus) refers to how good/many multi cores it can use.

[Funtron5000]

2 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excavator_(microarchitecture)

Well, I'll be. But, it doesn't seem like Excavator or even Steamroller was ever used in an FX CPU.

[SLAYR]

13 minutes ago, Heavygun1450 said:

AMD's FX series of CPU's is 5 years old which is old for a processor. Their 8 cores processors are slower than intels quad core processors. AMD's CPU's dont use a newer architecture or smaller manufacturing process. Which means, More power draw, More Heat, Less overclocking potential. Why pick AMD's proessors when you could get one of intels quad cores for the same price as AMD's. Intel's CPU's will overclock better, Have much better gaming performance, Have higher single core performance, And use less electricity and overclock better. Zen will update upon the FX series and will be a pretty decent line of new CPU's.

Something like the 8350 is actually faster then something like an i5 6500, or some 6600ks if you can use the threads, but they still aren't worth buying.

7 minutes ago, SlyTroopah said:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

 

Go to the "Thread Performance" in the drop down menu top right. - This is the KEY to gaming when it comes to which cpu's will perform better.

 

You first look at the core count (anything past 4 is over kill for gaming currently and wont help much.) then you look at the single threaded performance.

There are plenty of games that use 8 threads now, it isn't just for overkill like it was a few years ago.

 

Also passmark is not too great of a benchmark since it they don't seperate multithreaded and singlethreaded, others like Cinebench, or userbenchmark are much more reliable.

[manikyath]

somewhere between the release of haswell and today amd's processors basicly became irrelevant in terms of buying 'new'.

 

and hopfully the release of zen will change that, keeping fingers crossed that it'll do as promised.

 

(and fyi: that new is in quotemarks because at some point you can no longer call a 4 year old product new...)

[SlyTroopah]

Just now, SLAYR said:

Something like the 8350 is actually faster then something like an i5 6500, or some 6600ks if you can use the threads, but they still aren't worth buying.

There are plenty of games that use 8 threads now, it isn't just for overkill like it was a few years ago.

 

Also passmark is not too great of a benchmark since it they don't seperate multithreaded and singlethreaded, others like Cinebench, or userbenchmark are much more reliable.

I disagree 100% - IFFFF the game is build for multi threads. They 8350 cannnn peform better. If you wanted to run EVERY game of par and better in most all cases. Go with intel.

[Streetguru]

28 minutes ago, Patalayus said:

 

AMD's cores are like 50% slower than intel's current generation, although in practice for the most part in gaming it doesn't really matter too much if you've got an FX 8 core at 4+ghz unless you're trying to run things at 144hz
 

However, for the money at least for new parts they're the best performance per dollar sometimes, but that market is shrinking.

 

the 990FX chipset gives you a ton of PCI-e lanes for a capture card rig

 

the 8300 is $109 on sale for a chip that can match a ivy/sandy bridge i7 with an OC, so it's fine if all you care about is multi-threaded performance

and the Athlon 845 is super cheap for a 4 thread CPU for gaming

and the 5350 on the AM1 platform is just nice for a cheap chip

[SlyTroopah]

To truly test how much better INTEL is VS AMD - Play a very un-optimized game and see how much more fps you receive with Intel. ARMA 3 for instance - This specific game I switched from and 8320 8 core, to a i3 6100. I received a massive fps increase - Stil unplayable during certain instances I upgrade to the i5 6600k - I am now able to reach the 60+ fps mark with ease and rarely drop below it.

 

Pardon my tired grammar.