AMD and Intel CPU Research Questions

[Guest]

I am saving $2000 to build my first gaming rig sometime between January and June of next year. I will use it mainly for gaming but I will also to listen to FLAC files. I am not brand specific, because I am more focused on reliability. I have heard a lot of AMD vs Intel debates and am trying to avoid it in this thread. My previous desktop PC platforms for gaming used Intel's Pentium II, Pentium III, and Pentium 4. My previous Dell XPS laptop used the Intel Core2 Duo and my current HP Pavilion laptop uses the Intel Core i7-2670QM. I have looked at both the AMD FX 8150 (3.60 GHz with a Turbo Boost to 4.20 GHZ) and Intel Core i7-3770K (3.50 GHz and a Max Turbo to 3.90 GHz). Most people are saying Intel is the better choice. From my current perspective, the FX 8150 seems to be more powerful than the i7-3770K. Can someone explain to me what factors are involved in choosing either an AMD or Intel gaming CPU? How does one perform better than the other?

 

[noob2222]

Vcore isn't needed to remain stable, its just easier to fake the numbers.

Im at 1.344V and running 4.7 ghz. Stock turbo v-core is 1.412V Im under-volted and overclocked, but I have no way to test power draw.

you have to tweak the other voltages, not just crank the v-core and post stupid numbers because you did a stupid overclock.

 

[sarinaide]

^ Of course, SB and IB can be oc'd a bit as well. But FX8150 going from what - 3.6? to 4.0GHz is just 10% speed bump. If it does show a higher increase than 10% in Cinebench multithreaded, then it's probably due to the front end being better able to keep the pipes filled.

Just out of curiousity, what temps and Vcore does the 8150 generate at 4GHz under Prime95 loads? We already know the power draw increases much more rapidly with oc frequency at load and idle, than just about any other chip on the market, so that indicates a big spike in Vcore needed to remain stable.

I have been able to run stable prime 95 at around 1.315v ~=-5%, with my cooling its around 33* idle and mid-high 40* under full load. It was the initial BD blue print to run at 4ghz all models with up to 4.5 TBoost, with 2 billion transistors intended in the FX 8XXX series it should have easily been able to run overclocks stable beyond the 5ghz barrier. Ideally the rated benches should be at 4ghz, at those clocks the penalty from branch miss-predicts are substantially less. Some would argue it is unfair, but it wouldn't if that was intended stock. On a engineering level it would have been a feat on its own, I would hazard a guess that Piledriver is Zambezi full, but way to late, then again has GF perfected the 32nm process now.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Lol you were supposed to avoid this

 

[fazers_on_stun]

^ Think the OP meant AMD vs. Intel flamewars. So far this thread has been informative and civilized, right??

Come to think of it, the OP seems to have disappeared..

 

[xa376]

If I were you I wouldn't waste over half your budget on a cpu when the fx-8150 can do everything you want it to and more. Invest that savings into a gtx 690 graphics card and I can GUARANTEE you will play every game currently made and every game made for at least another year on the MAX settings easily.

fx-8150
gtx 690
1000 watt psu
nice case
ssd
8 gigs ram
ASUS mobo

 

[rds1220]

If I were you I wouldn't waste over half your budget on a cpu when the fx-8150 can do everything you want it to and more. Invest that savings into a gtx 690 graphics card and I can GUARANTEE you will play every game currently made and every game made for at least another year on the MAX settings easily.

fx-8150
gtx 690
1000 watt psu
nice case
ssd
8 gigs ram
ASUS mobo

So wrong in so many ways. First off all yes the Bulldozer can run all games but not very good. The Phenom II and pretty much all recent Intel CPU's will out perform the Bulldozer. Secondly there is no need to get a GTX 690 it's a waste of 1000 dollars. The GTX 680 or 670 will do fine. Not to mention that at higher resolutions the Bulldozer will bottleneck higher end GPU's. There is no need to get a 1000 watt PSU either if you really need alot of power a good quality 750-800 Watt PSU is fine. If the main purpose is gaming there is no point in getting a crappy Bulldozer.

 

[amuffin]

If I were you I wouldn't waste over half your budget on a cpu when the fx-8150 can do everything you want it to and more. Invest that savings into a gtx 690 graphics card and I can GUARANTEE you will play every game currently made and every game made for at least another year on the MAX settings easily.

fx-8150
gtx 690
1000 watt psu
nice case
ssd
8 gigs ram
ASUS mobo

 

[rds1220]

More like

 

[gamerk316]

You mean fps or stuttering? AFAIK Scott Wasson's article is the only one investigating stuttering vs. CPU choice. While gameplay is good with 60+ fps average, smoothness is also a consideration, as lags and stutter can be distracting. Hopefully he'll have a later article with more CPUs and games tested..

From AT:

http://imageshack.us/a/img685/4306/atgamebench8150vs2500k.png

Exactly. I've suspected such a phenomina for years, and its about time someone bothered to look at frame latencies. Shows how IPC can have a significant impact on gameplay, even if FPS appears stable over a 1 second timespan. Thats where BD runs into problems.

 

[sarinaide]

It reminds me of just how bad anandtechs benches have become, bordering on lunacy.

 

[Guest]

And what if Intel helped to fund development of said games?

for $2000, how much are you putting into graphics?

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4438/core_i7_3960x_with_4_way_crossfirex_hd_6970_performance_analysis/index5.html

would be nice if they included the I5 there.

Sorry for the slow response. I am looking at a video card that uses DDR5 memory with a cost between $200 and 400. However, I am told that it is not easy to compare graphics card based on specs. I will look and see the reviews for graphics cards when I get ready to order the parts.

 

[Guest]

^ Think the OP meant AMD vs. Intel flamewars. So far this thread has been informative and civilized, right??

Come to think of it, the OP seems to have disappeared..

I haven't disappeared. I have been busy continuing my research on other components along with other personal matters.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

^ Well Piledriver should be out in about 3 weeks, if you decide to go AMD. I would suggest the 8350 instead of the 8150, but I seriously doubt it'll be enough of an improvement to get up to i5-2500K or i7-3770K levels in gaming.

My specc'd rig in my sig cost $2400, but that includes a 27" monitor and a 2.1 AL speaker system and Soundblaster recon3D. Assuming you don't need those, actual price including a HAF 932 case and 1KW OCZ Platinum PS and LG Bluray burner and 128GB Corsair SSD and a 600GB Raptor HD and three 2-TB storage drives, plus the listed stuff, was about $1800.

I would have gotten a 680 video card instead of the HD 7970 but got tired of waiting on NV's 'paper launch'.

 

[rds1220]

^ Well Piledriver should be out in about 3 weeks, if you decide to go AMD. I would suggest the 8350 instead of the 8150, but I seriously doubt it'll be enough of an improvement to get up to i5-2500K or i7-3770K levels in gaming.

My specc'd rig in my sig cost $2400, but that includes a 27" monitor and a 2.1 AL speaker system and Soundblaster recon3D. Assuming you don't need those, actual price including a HAF 932 case and 1KW OCZ Platinum PS and LG Bluray burner and 128GB Corsair SSD and a 600GB Raptor HD and three 2-TB storage drives, plus the listed stuff, was about $1800.

I would have gotten a 680 video card instead of the HD 7970 but got tired of waiting on NV's 'paper launch'.

Probably not. Even if the Piledriver has the performance increase AMD is claiming it still will put it at the level of the first generation I core processors. That would still be pretty far behind Intel.

 

[Guest]

Well I am now leaning toward Intel. I am probably going to hold off until Haswell is released in March or April of next year, unless by some miracle AMD's FX 8350 outperforms the Intel i5-3570k.