AMD FX-8350 Review: Does Piledriver Fix Bulldozer's Flaws?

[esrever]

[citation][nom]murambi[/nom]its like buying a lorry without an engine and placing a 4 * 4 engine to run it. sure it will move but........ you get my point?[/citation]
wasting money for no reason, gotcha.

 

[murambi]

Benchmarking winrar is fine by me but benchmaking autodesk with a 200 dollar processor simply just doesnt make much sense

 

[bjaminnyc]

The value prop for the 8350 is outstanding. I'm curious why there's so little mention of AMD's commitment to it's customer base. They've kept the AM3+ socket, meaning a significant upgrade without a complete rebuild for those who passed on Bulldozer.

This chip as is nearly as fast as intel's Flagship for

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]razor512[/nom]Another thing to test is the shared core performance loss. Since the FX chips are essentially 4 hyper threaded cores, the load on 1 core will have a significant impact on the performance of the other core next ot it, for example have cinebench do a single threaded run and set the affinity to the first core, then using another application, (eg prime 95), have it also only do 1 core then repeat the test, each time changing which core prime 95 uses, you will see that depending on which core it uses, it prime 95 uses a core on the same core module, it will lower the cinebench score a lot more than if it uses a core that is not on the same core module. (A phenom II CPU will not have this issue)PS a core I7 has this issue also, but a core I5 and other non hyper threaded intel chips do not have this issue. The main difference is that intel tells you that it is a 4 core CPU running 8 threads instead of lying and saying 8 cores running 8 threads.Because of the bahavior of the current FX chips, I don't see how they can call it 8 cores.Can you call a building 2 houses if both share the same living room?[/citation]

FX is extremely different from Hyper-Threading. To call the modular architecture similar to Hyper-Threading is ridiculous. Hyper-Threading is a very different tech and there truly are eight integer cores in every Zambezi die (every Vishera die too unless they're making multiple types of dies this time). The scaling issue comes from an architectural flaw/bottle-neck that will be rectified in Steamroller, the insufficient x86 decoders.

Furthermore, Hyper-Threading gives what, 15-30% highly threaded performance, best case scenario? The worst case scenario for FX is around 60% scaling and best case is around 80%. Steamroller will bring it up to ~100% like it is for CPUs that aren't using much sharing and/or SMT. Heck, it's not like AMD is the only one, Pentium D and Core 2 didn't always scale perfectly either and it's not like Intel said that in the core count either (besides, AMD has been saying that Bulldozer wouldn't have 100% scaling for almost a decade, so it's not like they kept it a secret). It's called an eight-core CPU because it has eight cores. They don't necessarily have perfect scaling, but there are eight cores.

 

[loops]

I got mixed feelings about this. Cost and having a choice over an i5 is nice. The single threaded issue and power use makes me want to shy away.

I am not holding my breath for a really big increase in programs using more than a few cores.

Multicore won't help you in a world where the apps aren't threaded. -- Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Microsoft

With the market going mobile, will single thread programs be with us for longer than some of us want?

 

[sugetsu]

Single threaded programs are on their way out. I think that AMD has made a bet on single threaded apps going extinct in the near future.

 

[bjaminnyc]

This chip as is nearly as fast as intel's Flagship for

 

[falchard]

Ohh Mmm Gee, it actually competes and in the single area I want a PC. 3D software rendering. Now I actually have a reason to get an AMD again this time around. Well maybe on thei next process node shrink.

 

[mousseng]

Let me preface this with the fact that I'm really pleased that AMD is finally making forward progress in terms of overall performance - but I think it should be reiterated that this is what Bulldozer should have been. They're going to have to make some serious gains with Steamroller to be able to step back in the market and get back on track. I still don't think the FX-8xxx line is really suitable for most people (possibly a good drop-in option), but I'd certainly be interested in getting one and playing around with it for a while to see what it can really do.

I do think these results bode well for the FX-43xx line, however, so I'm off to go find some review of that.

 

[Guest]

I thought Vishera was supposed to have a quad-channel memory controller. Is that not the case?

 

[blazorthon]

I thought Vishera was supposed to have a quad-channel memory controller. Is that not the case?

That was never the case. Vishera is just a tweaked Zambezi and that is all that it was supposed to be. It only has one dual-channel memory controller. Quad-channel memory on AMD systems requires a G34 socket system (Magny-Cours, Interlagos, etc.)

 

[ohim]

Why wasn`t there any Windows 8 test ? I thought it would be helping the AMD CPU a bit with new optimisations , and if we are talking about real life situation and PC usage why the hell do people still care about Sisof sandra / 3d mark or other benchmarking applications ? When i make a computer i want to see how it does in normal applications not some stupid benchmarks that i`ll never ever run or install in my pc. And last .. Itunes .. seriously ? Thought that only apple crazy guys use that crap. I`ll buy this CPU just to give my support to AMD and as a fan, this was the CPU i`ve been waiting to change my old PII 940. for 100$ less dollars i get a CPU that runs farily close to the I7-3770 (i don`t mind the energy wasted, i just hate intel making my laptop for instance run like crap on Win8 when their GPU is active due to driver support, they actually had the guts to tell me that the nvidia GPU was to blame for low performance of their GPU *that they don`t make drivers for win8*).

 

[ohim]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]I think what I took from this was that while they improved on the per core performance, it still pales in comparison to Intel's per core performance. When thread count mattered, it's 8 cores allowed it to beat all the 4 Core chips without hyperthreading, but still lost to hyperthreading, which shouldn't happen so easily.[/citation]
Your comment would be right if they asked for an 8 core CPU the double the price of an 4 core CPU, but since we talk about very different architectures that probably in the future will differ even more, we don`t really care if it has 8 - 16 or 100 , if the price is right for the performance why do you care how many cores it has ?

 

[Guest]

overengineered, overpriced, is really 4 core, power hungry turd
single thread performance is getting worse, just 50% of core i5
Phenom II x4 and Core i3 are better chips
newegg shows msi intel z77 board $45 and asus amd 990x board is $110
amd costs more to build and amd chipset doesn't have pcie 3.0 and native usb3 like intel
not looking good at all for amd
amd cratering imminent --warning-- --warning--

 

[LORD_ORION]

One thing I would like added is Virtualization benchmarks.

I'm certain many of Tom's readers, like me, have their own little private network at home.

Does an 8350 make more sense over Intel for running some Virtual Box machines on your desktop?

I have 4 machines in my home lab... clearly I can get rid of them now. But which way to go?

 

[sugetsu]

One thing I would like added is Virtualization benchmarks.

I'm certain many of Tom's readers, like me, have their own little private network at home.

Does an 8350 make more sense over Intel for running some Virtual Box machines on your desktop?

I have 4 machines in my home lab... clearly I can get rid of them now. But which way to go?

Aren't Virtualization programs like virtualbox or vmware multi threaded anyway? If that's the case then an i7 or the new FX chip should be what you need.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]LORD_ORION[/nom]One thing I would like added is Virtualization benchmarks.I'm certain many of Tom's readers, like me, have their own little private network at home. Does an 8350 make more sense over Intel for running some Virtual Box machines on your desktop? I have 4 machines in my home lab... clearly I can get rid of them now. But which way to go?[/citation]
Feedback noted. I'll see if there's a story we might be able to dedicate to this.

 

[sugetsu]

Feedback noted. I'll see if there's a story we might be able to dedicate to this.

Cangelini, whats your opinion on this processor when it comes to the adobe CS6 suite? I am better off with an i5? I can't afford the i7 at the moment.

 

[cangelini]

Cangelini, whats your opinion on this processor when it comes to the adobe CS6 suite? I am better off with an i5? I can't afford the i7 at the moment.

Which parts of CS6? Really, it depends on whether the task you're performing is threaded or not (some of what you'd do in the Creative Suite is, some isn't).

 

[sugetsu]

Premier pro, Photoshop, after effects, indesign, adobe acrobat, lighting room, media encoder. Those are mostly the ones I'll be using the most.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]fredbone[/nom]overengineered, overpriced, is really 4 core, power hungry turdsingle thread performance is getting worse, just 50% of core i5Phenom II x4 and Core i3 are better chipsnewegg shows msi intel z77 board $45 and asus amd 990x board is $110amd costs more to build and amd chipset doesn't have pcie 3.0 and native usb3 like intelnot looking good at all for amd amd cratering imminent --warning-- --warning--[/citation]

Overengineered doesn't make sense, it's not overpriced, it's not really a quad core, it's single-threaded performance is an improvement over its predecessor, it's single threaded performance is more than 50% of even the fastest i5, Phenom II and i3 are not better unless you want to buy a lower end computer, Newegg doesn't have any Z77 board for $45 and even if it did it would be a junk board (the cheapest AMD boards are around that price anyway) anyway, PCIe 3.0 is no big deal, and USB 3.0 not being native is no big deal. Other than power consumption, everything that you mentioned was either false or exaggerated.

FYI, the cheapest Z77 board on Newegg is an MSI board, but it has a $90 price tag and that's on sale, not its normal price. The cheapest 990X/990FX boards might be a little more expensive than this, but they all have more features such as two or three PCIe x16 slots and more SATA 6Gb/s ports, so it's not like they're inferior values just because of their slightly higher prices. Regardless of any of that, AMD has like two dozen other chipsets that can have a variety of many great boards for far lower prices anyway.

 

[3ogdy]

Will definitely consider the FX8350. Where I live Intel's CPUs are about $7 more expensive than AMD's latest and greatest.
I think my next configuration will sport the FX8350. AMD is NOT letting us down again..
Thanks AMD for releasing more desktop processors worth buying. I already know how I'm gonna use this CPU...gaming, multitasking, video&audio encoding...
Even with the temperature issues that the FX8350 has,....I still see it as a PROGRESS in the desktop CPU area....so I strongly believe these guys deserve my money for the chip.
Keep up the good work, AMD! I'm rocking a Phenom II X4 965 & the HD6950 together with 16GB DDR3 1600. I love the eyefinity configuration and games play really smooth.
I've only had Intel computers until my current build...and I'm definitely NOT going back ...I'm sick of Intel.

 

[Guest]

Why wasn't this chip tested under Win 8? It has been very clear since the first Bulldozer chips arrived, that Win 8 handles the FX chips much better. I'd like to see what Vishera can do under Win 8.

 

[bwcbwc]

[citation][nom]dscudella[/nom]I would have liked to see more Intel offerings in the Benchmarks. Say an i3-2120 & i3-3220 for comparisons sake as they'll be cheaper than the new Piledrivers.If more games / daily use apps start using more cores these new AMD's could really take off.[/citation]

That's one thing to compare, but the chip that competes in the Core i3's price range is the FX-6300, which also has the advantage of lower power envelope than the 8320. If you estimate about 3/4 of the performance of the FX-8320, to go with about 3/4 of the power consumption, you could be looking at a very competitive chip vs. Intel's low-end stuff. Instead of using 50W more, 6300 might come down to about 30W more while clearly beating the i3s (and maybe approaching i5-2400) on performance.

The other thing I missed in this review was a Sandy-bridge processor in the power efficiency comparison. It's one thing to demonstrate how FX-8320 beats 2500k in the benchmarks, and Ivy Bridge thrashes the FX architecture in efficiency, but it looks like FX-8320 efficiency is getting into the 2500k's efficiency levels when you recognize that the greater power consumption of the 8320 comes with better performance. Hoping for a review update or a future review that includes this. Pet peeve of mine here: It always bugs me when the CPUs in the power comparison don't match the CPUs in the performance comparison.

 

[mapesdhs]

blazorthon writes:
> Why mention i7s, let alone Extreme Editions, if you want to talk about single threaded performance? Heck, i3s and i5s can
> match them in that. ...

Very true, my oc'd results with i3 550, etc. show this nicely.



> Furthermore, most, modern professional software most certainly can be highly-threaded, so of course that plays a
> huge role here.

Yes indeed, though it does vary a lot. , for example, responds strongly to a high clock rate.

Some apps don't have their main interface threaded though, so single-core speed definitely helps there. As someone pointed
out, this is why an oc'd 2500K is still such a nice choice, though for highly threadable tasks the 2600K/2700K is worth the
extra cost IMO.

Ian.