AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[cowboy44mag]

I have been following this topic as well as many other threads and I think that a lot of people are forgetting that the average consumer isn't going to see a difference between the latest i7 and Piledriver systems. Every time anyone posts a topic on AMD, be it questions on Phenom, Piledriver, or Steamroller within 3 posts you have Intel fan boys crawling all over it telling anyone who will listen that AMD is worthless and they should "upgrade" to Intel. I just read a post from someone with a Phenom II 980 BE asking for overclocking help for playing Crysis 3. There were at least 5 Intel fan boys saying a 980 BE can't play Crysis 3. They are flat out lying and full of crap because I play Crysis 3 at ULTRA settings with my old, out of date lowly 965 BE without any choppy game play. But the Intel "experts" say that is just not possible.

The average consumer is going to get a desktop because on top of normal computing (ie word processing, Power Point presentations, internet / Facebook) they want to video game. The average user isn't producing movies, music videos, or coding software on their home PC. If you pit a new Piledriver system next to a new i7 system both having good quality high end components and run a game BF3, Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, ect at ultra settings the human eye isn't going to pick up the difference between the two platforms. If you run software in the background to show the small FPS difference between the two then you can "see" the performance edge of the i7. Taking into consideration the i7 is over $100 more than the Piledriver and high end Intel motherboards average $200 more than high end AMD motherboards why does the average consumer need an Intel build? Yet in post after post Intel fan boys recommend going Intel even if the person is an average consumer.

Steamroller will be a marked improvement over Piledriver, be it 15% or as high as 30%. By the end of this year software companies are going to be making video games based on AMD hardware which means the new generation of games are going to be highly multi-threaded. Steamroller will run the new generation of video games very well. As far as "hardcore" computer users go, if you need a server in your home then maybe Intel is a better buy.

Intel fan boys have to be careful how they are coming across in all these different threads. If you have an Intel system and are happy with it that's great, but don't bash someone who is happy with their AMD build. If your at a car show admiring a beautiful 1960's muscle car and someone with a sweater vest strolls over and makes fun of the car because it can't go as fast as his Lamborghini what is going to be the first thought you have.... what a douche bag. Does the Lamborghini have more raw power? Yes. In the real world outside of a closed environment race track testing facility, in bumper to bumper traffic and 75 mph freeways where are you going to be able to use all that power you spend so much money for? An i7 in closed environment benchmark test (most of which are skewed to favor Intel) does well vs Piledriver. In actual real world computing the differences are much less noticeable, but the price difference is real sticking point.

 

[de5_Roy]

Spoiler

Not a i3 and not integrated graphics

I don't use FX, haven't in a while and Trinity is the first time I used a APU and the results are good enough to build a ITX system which doubles as a HTPC or Media center and gamer all kept with my Home theatre setup. Since I don't need a GPU I offset power and can run a 300W PSU with ease, Since I heard SeaSonic will have a 200 and 250w Platinum Fanless coming soon and Richland out in June, I am happier than a pig in mud.

Well I do have a 32 Thread dual Xeon cruncher which has 580's and a 7970 for the best of both worlds. I am not sure about the others, I have said the i3 is only tangible when you factor in a discrete graphics solution but i3 vs APU in HTPC/Gaming lite trim the APU consumes more power but outputs far more at a lower cost. I factored this in the local costings and Intel ITX boards are significantly higher than the A85 ITX from Asrock. I also have a NAS running on these boards due to the 7 SATA ports which is a very neat offering. Don't shoot the messenger because I have found that a "lowly" APU is capable of delivering my needs and lets me pwn noobs in BF3 at the same time

PS: I tweaked the CFG file and dropped settings to complete lowest possible, at 800x600 BF3 is on steriods, get accused of aimbotting and hacking but its just a case of serious FPS and low latency, it may look bad but at the end of the day winning and killing plenty is the object of the game

exactly. choose your field (igpu powered gaming) wisely and amd looks better.
a little bit on the higher prices of intel's mini itx boards. took a peek at newegg prices, they have the cheapest h61 based mini itx boards going at nearly half the price of the solo a85x asrock mobo. quite a few of the h61 mini itx boards are cheaper than amd's mini itx mobos. i assumed they'd have fm2a55 based mobos but they don't ( don't know if they were ever on sale). prices don't look better(for amd) until you compare them against z77-based mini itx boards or some of the higher end b75 or h77 boards.
edit: i am actually surprised at the lack of fm2-a55 mini itx motherboards. i was pretty sure at least 1 from each vendor will be available on newegg.

 

[sarinaide]

Spoiler

Not a i3 and not integrated graphics

I don't use FX, haven't in a while and Trinity is the first time I used a APU and the results are good enough to build a ITX system which doubles as a HTPC or Media center and gamer all kept with my Home theatre setup. Since I don't need a GPU I offset power and can run a 300W PSU with ease, Since I heard SeaSonic will have a 200 and 250w Platinum Fanless coming soon and Richland out in June, I am happier than a pig in mud.

Well I do have a 32 Thread dual Xeon cruncher which has 580's and a 7970 for the best of both worlds. I am not sure about the others, I have said the i3 is only tangible when you factor in a discrete graphics solution but i3 vs APU in HTPC/Gaming lite trim the APU consumes more power but outputs far more at a lower cost. I factored this in the local costings and Intel ITX boards are significantly higher than the A85 ITX from Asrock. I also have a NAS running on these boards due to the 7 SATA ports which is a very neat offering. Don't shoot the messenger because I have found that a "lowly" APU is capable of delivering my needs and lets me pwn noobs in BF3 at the same time

PS: I tweaked the CFG file and dropped settings to complete lowest possible, at 800x600 BF3 is on steriods, get accused of aimbotting and hacking but its just a case of serious FPS and low latency, it may look bad but at the end of the day winning and killing plenty is the object of the game

exactly. choose your field (igpu powered gaming) wisely and amd looks better.
a little bit on the higher prices of intel's mini itx boards. took a peek at newegg prices, they have the cheapest h61 based mini itx boards going at nearly half the price of the solo a85x asrock mobo. quite a few of the h61 mini itx boards are cheaper than amd's mini itx mobos. i assumed they'd have fm2a55 based mobos but they don't ( don't know if they were ever on sale). prices don't look better(for amd) until you compare them against z77-based mini itx boards or some of the higher end b75 or h77 boards.
edit: i am actually surprised at the lack of fm2-a55 mini itx motherboards. i was pretty sure at least 1 from each vendor will be available on newegg.

At this juncture AMD ITX and M ATX are limited to the FM socket, the only ITX boards I can get are;

1- ASRock A85X ITX
2- ASRock A75 ITX
3- MSI A75 ITX

While there is a H61 ITX it comes down to features and what you get in that price tag relative to the A75 and A85 chipsets and the difference is discernable enough. I do require the 7 SATA's and the functionality of having 3 way output. The big miss is wireless but its not the end of the world. The A85 has Dual Channel up to 2600OC support and the full speed PCIe.

Intel's Z77 itx offerings are either similarly priced or more expensive, the ASUS offerings are more espensive than full ATX FM2 boards with a massive array of features and connectivity. I needed 7 SATA's and intel are giving me 4 on H77 and Z77 iterations.

I looked at the i3 3225, the i5 3330, i5 3570T and none were better flexible without the need for discrete graphics. The problem here for me to even match the APU's graphics I'll need a $50 HD6500 grade part and for that about it will push the cheapest intel option to $200, pair it with a APU and I get the option of DG which just extends performance so its catch 22. While the A10 has a little high power usage the absence of a Jaguar based option this was make do.

I do however intend on building a gaming spec system shortly, havent' don't a Socket 2011 in a whiile and I am tending on that notion. As for my APU experience, I find myself in the impressed box and it looks like something that is legitimately gold going forward. I have said this and no matter what form the APU takes nobody has a answer too it right now and that is in itself very impressive.

 

[de5_Roy]

^^ 100w(at least) from an a10-5800k isn't just a 'little high', especially in sff. instead, a10-5700(65w) is much more palatable. you lose the easy oc and a few hundred mhz but save quite a bit of heat. you also retain all the shaders from 5800k, so igpu-gaming keeps much of 5800k's performance.

 

[sarinaide]

^^ 100w(at least) from an a10-5800k isn't just a 'little high', especially in sff. instead, a10-5700(65w) is much more palatable. you lose the easy oc and a few hundred mhz but save quite a bit of heat. you also retain all the shaders from 5800k, so igpu-gaming keeps much of 5800k's performance.

I am just waiting on the A10 6700, It basically is obliterating my 5800K on 100w being only 65w, couple power feature toys thrown onto it and its looking like the win win situation. I am looking to lose the Prodigy too but I feel bad abandoning my project. I have custom made a drive rack for seven drives and it fits all within the profile of the chassis including up to the same hight as the motherboard tray. I am working on a customed front panel as I need to move the tray down to accomodate a H100i which I have already replaced the tubing with orange tubing, I have already done the glow and the dark orange fan blades. I have ordered the custom Orange window side panel where I will do a lot of LED work to. I have used Bitfenix cable extenders, they already have individual sleeved orange cables. I would like to finsh the DeviousOrange before going onto my next build which will be a full on gaming system.

 

[-Fran-]

Well, de5_Roy is totally correct on that point. 100W for SFF is kind of ridiculous to be honest. The enclosures and PSUs for them have big constraints and trade offs to them.

I have my beloved A8 3850 to prove it, hahaha. I just bought the Gemin M4 (low profile, 100W support) that fits in my SFF case and finally the A8 dropped from 60°c under load to 45°c. I might be able to return it to the default clock speeds (had to UC it a little).

And the lack of ITX for APUs is stupid to say the least. The great advantage of them is having decent GPU and decent CPU in a tiny space! The microATX FF is good, but not the best choice IMO. The only ITX design I loved, but came out too late, was Asus' ITX: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/F1A75I_DELUXE/

Prices are high as well; don't know why to be honest, but the trend is hurting AMD IMO. The combo APU + MoBo is in the same league as i3 + Z75 or G2220 + low profile GPU + H61.

Cheers!

 

[truegenius]

^ :lol: i just saw this

"The era of 'you just need a dual core' is now ending." .- palladin9479

Since I heard SeaSonic will have a 200 and 250w Platinum Fanless coming soon and Richland out in June, I am happier than a pig in mud.

you mean this

but i am feeling like this

because last time i saw (at my place) that a10 chip costs equal to my 1090t
and cheap a55 boards for >60$ and good overclocking a75/85 boards costs a fortune

though a8 (k10) chip costs less but they don't overclock well

 

[sarinaide]

Well, de5_Roy is totally correct on that point. 100W for SFF is kind of ridiculous to be honest. The enclosures and PSUs for them have big constraints and trade offs to them.

I have my beloved A8 3850 to prove it, hahaha. I just bought the Gemin M4 (low profile, 100W support) that fits in my SFF case and finally the A8 dropped from 60°c under load to 45°c. I might be able to return it to the default clock speeds (had to UC it a little).

And the lack of ITX for APUs is stupid to say the least. The great advantage of them is having decent GPU and decent CPU in a tiny space! The microATX FF is good, but not the best choice IMO. The only ITX design I loved, but came out too late, was Asus' ITX: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/F1A75I_DELUXE/

Prices are high as well; don't know why to be honest, but the trend is hurting AMD IMO. The combo APU + MoBo is in the same league as i3 + Z75 or G2220 + low profile GPU + H61.

Cheers!

It is true, the A-Series was not intended for ITX hence the slower transition of boards and the limited ITX manufacturers following. This will change as I know that Jaguar based APU's will make the SFF market, from what I gather it will first hit in BGA format but there will be LGA socket down the line. This will be gold for me and needs, a low powered APU for HTPC/Media setup and a low powered NAS.

I have a LP HD6670 that I throw in if I want extra bang but I am first waiting for the AMD drivers to mature further before I consider making it a fixture.

 

[de5_Roy]

Spoiler

^ :lol: i just saw this

"The era of 'you just need a dual core' is now ending." .- palladin9479

Since I heard SeaSonic will have a 200 and 250w Platinum Fanless coming soon and Richland out in June, I am happier than a pig in mud.

you mean this

but i am feeling like this

because last time i saw (at my place) that a10 chip costs equal to my 1090t
and cheap a55 boards for >60$ and good overclocking a75/85 boards costs a fortune
though a8 (k10) chip costs less but they don't overclock well

and amd's oft-championed, 'price-performance king'(!!) fx6300 cost how much again...?

It is true, the A-Series was not intended for ITX hence the slower transition of boards and the limited ITX manufacturers following.

Spoiler

This will change as I know that Jaguar based APU's will make the SFF market, from what I gather it will first hit in BGA format but there will be LGA socket down the line. This will be gold for me and needs, a low powered APU for HTPC/Media setup and a low powered NAS.

I have a LP HD6670 that I throw in if I want extra bang but I am first waiting for the AMD drivers to mature further before I consider making it a fixture.

well, there's (possible, based on rumors n leaks) good news and bad news, and then better news.
good news - upcoming kabini apus will take care of low power, low heat segment (against atoms). you trade off higher performance igpu though. imo lp has a long overdue refresh, and boy the refresh it's getting at last.
bad news - if intel couples gt2(like it's doing with haswell i5/i7) or gt3 (not gt3e) igpu with core i3 cpus, amd will have stiffer competition in sff. it won't flip the igpu-gaming performance hierarchy but will denitely close the gap a bit along with less heat. not to mention only top two amd apus get to keep all of their shaders unlike gt2 which will have all 20 eus for all cpus throughout the core -i lineup. gt3 will defnitely flip things, but will cost more even if it's with core i3. worse, if oems use mobile gt3e in their sff pcs, like they currently do with mobile cpus. core-i -R cpus (the ones with gt3E, possibly) will represent best of both, but intel will gut people's wallets for those (i'm willing to bet that some sff users will actually opt for these instead of amd). it'll likely remain this way until...
the better news - kaveri. i think it'll make it's presence known in a big way. people might not have to choose less heat for higher price or stronger igpu and more heat for less price. additionally, intel's long standing incapability to smoothly playback 23.976fps videos and substandard driver support will help kaveri's case further. only a few catches though. if amd decides to maintain the same 100w power limit while maximizing performance like they did with llano, trinity and richland, there will be a slight chance for intel. amd will also have to rein in voltage jump (thus higher power use) during bluray playback. i've seen this on all gcn based cards, even titan uses less power than gcn cards for playing blurays - that's ridiculous. other than these minor bits, kaveri is gold. even still..... amd has to supply kaveris in a consistent manner so that glofo's 32nm problems don't repeat (first llano, then zambezi)... again with their 28nm.

 

[-Fran-]

because last time i saw (at my place) that a10 chip costs equal to my 1090t
and cheap a55 boards for >60$ and good overclocking a75/85 boards costs a fortune
though a8 (k10) chip costs less but they don't overclock well

and amd's oft-championed, 'price-performance king'(!!) fx6300 cost how much again...?

Actually, the FX6300 here in Chile is the best gang for your buck if you can spend ~25 bucks more on your budget over an FX4300; that's why getting the FX4300 is better sometimes, cause you can get a decent HSF as well, haha. Also, I'm pretty sure it will OC fine, but maybe not in the same league as the fine-binned FX8350. For reference, the FX8350 is [strike]almost 80[/strike] 102 bucks more than the FX6300, haha.

In a related note, something I noticed in the FX4300 and the MSI MoBo: looks like the modules can be unlocked as well. Has someone seen anything about that somewhere?

Cheers!

EDIT: Removed spoilers, haha.
EDIT2: The real difference is $102USD, darn.

 

[8350rocks]

Spoiler

^ :lol: i just saw this

"The era of 'you just need a dual core' is now ending." .- palladin9479

Since I heard SeaSonic will have a 200 and 250w Platinum Fanless coming soon and Richland out in June, I am happier than a pig in mud.

you mean this

but i am feeling like this

because last time i saw (at my place) that a10 chip costs equal to my 1090t
and cheap a55 boards for >60$ and good overclocking a75/85 boards costs a fortune
though a8 (k10) chip costs less but they don't overclock well

and amd's oft-championed, 'price-performance king'(!!) fx6300 cost how much again...?

$129 in the states.

 

[de5_Roy]

$129 in the states.

didn't ask you for a reason. i understand the urge to point out, though.

 

[griptwister]

Ooohhh... just found this on facebook! Should be good!

http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-developer-summit-2013apr24.aspx

 

[esrever]

AMD just release kabini for embedded systems. Strange that they aren't releasing consumer chips first.

 

[juanrga]

^^ 100w(at least) from an a10-5800k isn't just a 'little high', especially in sff. instead, a10-5700(65w) is much more palatable. you lose the easy oc and a few hundred mhz but save quite a bit of heat. you also retain all the shaders from 5800k, so igpu-gaming keeps much of 5800k's performance.

The 35W difference is mostly due to being a K series. If you don't overclock then the power consumption will be very close to the 5700.

 

[juanrga]

This will change as I know that Jaguar based APU's will make the SFF market, from what I gather it will first hit in BGA format but there will be LGA socket down the line. This will be gold for me and needs, a low powered APU for HTPC/Media setup and a low powered NAS.

Jaguar SOCs are being sold in the embedded market. Prices range from $49 to $72.

 

[jdwii]

OFF TOPIC:

The HD7990 represents enthusiast level, and trust me when I say an enthusiast building a 7990 based system is not going to give a continental about power and noise it uses and there are reasons for that;

1) Surveys suggest that most owners of these cards will use some form of water cooling which has a much higher accoustic level than the card, to compound this they are likely to be watercooling the GPU's so sound and the extra power is hardly a feasible criteria.

2) AMD got very serious with its beta drivers, considering it's beta and more improvements are to come, Crossfire is no longer a legitimate arguement.

3) The extra power corrolates into 90FPS in BF3 at enthusiast level resolutions, this mark was sizeably above the GTX690 and made the Titan look like childs play, so for that added power corrolated into substantial performance and now AMD all but has a card to control the $1000 mark by a comfortable margin.

Nvidia won the last generation, AMD has won this won. To make the nut even sweeter is the fact that AMD's never settle bundle with the HD7990 includes 7 top end titles in the cost so even at $1000 factor in 7 games with it which easily comes to $50-60 per game is a very good bargain imho.

The fact that it uses more power when providing equal performance(maybe 5-10% more while having latency issues still higher then Nvidia) means the design needs a bit of work and is slightly behind Nvidia's design. But overall its not bad but its way to late, And honestly even if i had the money and wanted to buy a 1000$ card i wouldn't buy it being how old the series is i'd hold out until the 8000HD series or Nvidia's next solution, Just not as engaging to me compared to a 6990 during its timeframe. Never really cared to spend 1000$ on a dual card solution but that's me i'd rather stick to 1 beast card, i'm sure this is why titan is so popular anyways sorry for going off topic.

As for steamroller i'm sure its going to be 15-20% faster on average and while being 10-15% more beneficent on power i'm still wondering about TSMC vs Global foundries(32nm vs 28nm) and how its going to affect the end product from the change. Also is it still using SOI or Bulk that might have a huge difference on clock speeds even with RCM.

 

[Cazalan]

Jaguar SOCs are being sold in the embedded market. Prices range from $49 to $72.

They should show up on boards like this any day now. That platform was always more geared towards embedded with BGA only parts.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131843

 

[juanrga]

The fact that it uses more power when providing equal performance(maybe 5-10% more while having latency issues still higher then Nvidia) means the design needs a bit of work and is slightly behind Nvidia's design. But overall its not bad but its way to late, And honestly even if i had the money and wanted to buy a 1000$ card i wouldn't buy it being how old the series is i'd hold out until the 8000HD series or Nvidia's next solution, Just not as engaging to me compared to a 6990 during its timeframe. Never really cared to spend 1000$ on a dual card solution but that's me i'd rather stick to 1 beast card, i'm sure this is why titan is so popular anyways sorry for going off topic.

It uses more a bit more power because is a larger card with more RAM. It run so hot as Nvidia but is more quiet. The 7990 is faster than the 690 and Titan. In some game that I have seen the 7990 gives up to 200% increase in performance over both!!!!

You have a faster card, less noisy, much more RAM, better dual, and bundle promo.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

At the $1000 price point, power use and heat are no issues.
Noise, should be a low as possible.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thermal designs important in high end, and the argument of water blocks doesnt change the option of not using one conveniently.
Having a quiter solution needs to be addressed IMO as well, just like their drivers, which are being addressed.
The samples sent out earlier to testers using the original designs showed poorly in their tests of earlier cards, and would never be used by their partners, mistake again, and shows a lax attitude if their halo product makes too much noise as well.

But, if its coil whine, I have a bone to pick with any tester

 

[de5_Roy]

The 35W difference is mostly due to being a K series. If you don't overclock then the power consumption will be very close to the 5700.

not even close. i was talking about load consumption at stock, which is at least 35w higher i.e. without any overclock. when overclocked, a10-5800k can use as much as 30w+(than stock) on average, higher on load. not suitable for sff.

It uses more a bit more power because is a larger card with more RAM. It run so hot as Nvidia but is more quiet. The 7990 is faster than the 690 and Titan. In some game that I have seen the 7990 gives up to 200% increase in performance over both!!!!

You have a faster card, less noisy, much more RAM, better dual, and bundle promo.

it uses more power because of more vram and 'card size'? then why isn't titan(250w) using 375w? it has same 6gb of vram (on the pcb) just like 7990. this isn't the same as radeon 6670/7750 with ddr3 vs gddr5. you need to get more information on gpu, board, vram tdp and board power limits.
it's less noisy because of the cooler design (3 axial fans), the components don't produce any less power. it's actually a bit worse because the coolers dump all the hot air inside the case, unlike gtx 690, which blow part of the heated air out of the case.
7990 definitely has the raw performance and potential. but the card design and software support is really lacking(long way to launch) and amd's launch timing is terrible. try this for angles: nvidia launched their gtx690 (almost a year) before they made fcat available for reviewers and before frame time analyses was as widespread as it is now.
actually titan(6gb) has the most amount of vram available to a high perf. consumer gpu, not 7990. 7990 has 3gb per gpu. it says right there in the first page of the review. doesn't seem like you read the review(s), only looked at the longer 'bars' in fps charts..... :lol:
if you need more info, check out graphics cards section of the forum.

 

[sarinaide]

Anywho I tried to find out more about the mystery of the HD7750 in Dual Graphics support and apparently its not so much myth, AMD were testing this as they want to retire all old Turks based parts and the 7750 is now cheap and offers passive cooling. The 7750+7660D delivered as high as 25% higher performance than the 6670+7660D so this is obviously in view of AMD extending its DG patent even further. They do expect that Kaveri will be able to support updated HD8650/60 Discrete cards which offer around the same performance as the 7750/70 on less watts.

 

[truegenius]

and amd's oft-championed, 'price-performance king'(!!) fx6300 cost how much again...?

all time champion fx-6300 !
well it is easier to find a nail in heystack rather than fx-6300 in market
so currently i have no price info about fx6300 :/

though to give an idea, fx-6100 is available for $120-130
fx-8150 for ~$200
fx-8350 for ~$220
and for a board like ASUS M5A97 R2.0 ~$125 is the cost

 

[de5_Roy]

well it is easier to find a nail in heystack rather than fx-6300 in market
so currently i have no price info about fx6300 :/

though to give an idea, fx-6100 is available for $120-130
fx-8150 for ~$200
fx-8350 for ~$220
and for a board like ASUS M5A97 R2.0 ~$125 is the cost

i had that impression already... just needed to verify it. i'll add: the few places that carried fx6300 (possibly for a very limited amount of time, or preorder), they were priced higher than fx8000 cpus. geddit? higher, as in between fx8350 and core i5 3570k. you could get a core i5 3550 for less than fx8350 with a cheap b75 or z77 mobo (eg. asrock z77 pro4) and handily out-game a non existent fx6300. so much for price/performance. :lol: speaks volumes about amd's execution.