AMD FX Vs. Intel Core i3: Exploring Game Performance With Cheap GPUs

[najirion]

[citation][nom]Outlander_04[/nom]Its advisable to learn to draw your own conclusions from the data presented . These tests in this article show that if you built two computers using these respective processors and a graphics card to the level of a 6950 [ which is not going to be an option in a budget build ] then you wont notice any difference in gaming performance . But the AMD will be cheaper , will run applications faster , will remain more responsive in general use and can be overclocked to increase performance even further .While Cleeve has concluded that the intel is the better buy for gaming everything he said about the intel is also true for the AMD . You also get an upgradable platform , and you get a far better set of mb features right now[/citation]

Fx-8150 cheap??!? You call a 200+ wattage-processor on full load CHEAP?!
Are you running your computer on FREE ENERGY?? hahahaha!
you're ridiculously HILARIOUS!!!
you can get the "same performance" (referring to your "conclusion" that there's not much gaming performance) from i5-2500k for HALF THE WATTAGE OF FX 8150..

Cheap you say?
Current prices are the following:
FX- 8150: $249.99
i5-2500k: 224.99

uhhh.. i assume you know basic math

 

[Outlander_04]

[citation][nom]najirion[/nom]Fx-8150 cheap??!? You call a 200+ wattage-processor on full load CHEAP?! Are you running your computer on FREE ENERGY?? hahahaha!you're ridiculously HILARIOUS!!! you can get the "same performance" (referring to your "conclusion" that there's not much gaming performance) from i5-2500k for HALF THE WATTAGE OF FX 8150..Cheap you say?Current prices are the following:FX- 8150: $249.99i5-2500k: 224.99uhhh.. i assume you know basic math[/citation]

This is a comparison of the FX 4100 and the intel i3 3100 as a budget gaming cpu . Im not sure why you are mentioning the 2500K and the FX 8150 , or why you think they are relevant .

The FX 8150 retails for $20 more than the 2500K because for many tasks it performs significantly better than the 2500k . Some times it performs better than the 2600k . The price seems quite reasonable .

The FX is capable of using a lot of power , especially when overclocked . But the figures you quote are at 100% load and that's a situation that almost never happens . Games wont do it . Only some synthetic stress testing tools . So the FX is NOT going to use that much more power than the intel .
Anandtechs testing of FX cored opterons revealed they handled more threads and more data with less power than equivalent sandy bridge cored xeons . If your house had an intel gaming pc and mine had an Am3+ gaming pc by the end of the year you'd not be able to tell any difference in the power bills .

But if you are worried about it go replace a standard light bulb in your house with a low energy LED or fluoro and you'd have more than covered the difference in power consumption . ONE bulb . Till you do that you dont have any credibility on the power consumption issue .

But then as I said earlier this article is about the FX 4100 and intel i3 2100 . The performance in games is near enough identical . But if you are building on a budget and using a budget board the AMD will give you way better features . The FX will also be a better cpu for general use thanks to being able to run 4 real threads which will keep it more responsive . It will be a way better encoding/transcoding cpu and it will probably also utterly thrash the intel in games once its overclocked to the 4.5 or 4.6 GHz most people are able to get on the stock cooler .
Anyone with any tuning credentials at all would buy the FX for that reason alone

Only a fanboy could think the intel was a better choice

 

[najirion]

*sigh* die hard fan boys indeed.

read this:
AMD Or Intel: Which Offers Better Gaming Performance?

now you tell me if Don Woligroski are one of Tom's Hardware "experts" or just another "fanboy"

 

[najirion]

There's a very noticeable comment he made in the last page of article which is highlighted. It should really be interesting to you and other "fanboys"

i3-2100 and FX 4100 were included in that article so don't tell me it's not related.

 

[Outlander_04]

[citation][nom]najirion[/nom]*sigh* die hard fan boys indeed.read this:AMD Or Intel: Which Offers Better Gaming Performance?now you tell me if Don Woligroski are one of Tom's Hardware "experts" or just another "fanboy"[/citation]

I agree with you . That's an incredibly important article for anyone building a computer with a $110 cpu and a $600 graphics card .
Of course no one actually does that , but hey, dont let reality cause you to change your opinions .

THIS current article compares configurations someone might actually build and the i3 is NOT noticeably better as a gaming cpu , and its worse in most applications benchmarks .
And then you can OC the FX 4100 and swing the performance even further towards the AMD .

 

[rickzor]

Great article!
Although i only feel bad and mad that intel makes new innovative sockets just to kill them afterwards. RIP sk1366 and sk1156

I hope this intel socket lasts a bit longer.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]Outlander_04[/nom]I agree with you . That's an incredibly important article for anyone building a computer with a $110 cpu and a $600 graphics card . Of course no one actually does that , but hey, dont let reality cause you to change your opinions . THIS current article compares configurations someone might actually build and the i3 is NOT noticeably better as a gaming cpu , and its worse in most applications benchmarks .And then you can OC the FX 4100 and swing the performance even further towards the AMD .[/citation]
People actually do. One such person posted on the forums here a couple days ago wondering if an i3 will be enough for his 7970 until he can later upgrade to an i5-2500k. He didn't have all the funds for his whole system he wanted, but figured it's better to get the gaming card of his dreams before the CPU, and he's right.

Another reason people care about what chip is actually faster, when there is a GPU bottleneck is because we tend to upgrade Video cards far more often than CPU's. I personally tend to upgrade my CPU 1 time per 2-3 video card setups. By the time someone is done with their CPU, there is a good chance they will be using one of those high end video cards. It's also quite possible or likely that by the time you are done with your CPU purchase, you'll need the extra CPU power.

If the cost is the same, which in this case they are, it only make since to choose the faster CPU, even if the slower CPU can do the job now, because in the future, we may very well need the extra speed.

 

[sonexpc]

If possible should compare also the AMD APU with FX-4100 and i3-2100 .... the A6-3650 looks like in the same price level but looks have better performance than both....

But any way thanks for the review!

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]sonexpc[/nom]If possible should compare also the AMD APU with FX-4100 and i3-2100 .... the A6-3650 looks like in the same price level but looks have better performance than both....But any way thanks for the review![/citation]
If you compared the onboard graphics, I'm certain AMD would look good there. AMD options are likely good for gaming laptops and entry level gaming due to their APU's.

 

[Guest]

Didn't read other comments, so don't shoot me.

I like the article, but one thing no one ever points out in the reviews is that not only are AMD's CPUs cheaper, so are their mobo(s)

The Biostar (got it btw, great board) lists $50 cheaper on Newegg (checked a few minutes before posting), plus has slightly better specs than the ASUS P8P67 Pro.

--Just a quick note, I love intel processors, but can't afford one at this point in time

 

[mhokett]

nice to see a review with a more realistic pairing of cpu and gpu. It lets people see what they are reall y getting when they buy budget equipment. wish i had been able to read this 3 months ago when I was putting together a budget build.

 

[Guest]

wouldnt it be better to just spend an ext $50 on a better graphics card in the first place?
i.e. I was under the belief that the graphics card did almost everything in most games these days?
What sort of trade off between CPU and GPU is there in a game?

 

[bartholomew]

[citation][nom]andywally[/nom]wouldnt it be better to just spend an ext $50 on a better graphics card in the first place?i.e. I was under the belief that the graphics card did almost everything in most games these days?What sort of trade off between CPU and GPU is there in a game?[/citation]
+1 to that!

 

[Outlander_04]

It would also be better to spend $100 more on the processor , and $200 more on the graphics card , and $200 more on an SSD , and $50 more on better psu ............

But some people build to a budget

 

[ngoy]

[citation][nom]TheinsanegamerN[/nom]Great article. I will point out that battlefield 3 was still being hampered by the GPU. however, this finally settles a bet with my freinds. AMD is still good for gaming for the price. I for one switched from a sandy bridge g850 to a fx-4100 and can already see the difference in games like civ5. speaking of which, could you run those tests in lowest possible graphics settings with a nice card, so we can see what happens when the cpu IS the bottleneck?[/citation]

So let's get this straight. You went from an Intel SB platform,with a 2/2 processor, to the half baked fx 4100 (4/almost 4 or 4/3.625 or whatever it is supposed to be) that you had to buy a new motherboard for, even after seeing all the benchmark results, instead of just buying an i3-2100 or an i5 and swapping out the chip on your mb. And you mention one of the few games that actually utilizes more than two cores to try to exemplify how much better the 4100 is. Just perusing benches shows that the the 8150 barely matches a i3-2120 most of the time. And in non gaming situations the 4100 loses out the majority of the time to the i3. So I would say you either have a draw in your bet at the best, and comparing everything else you actually lost.

 

[demonhorde665]

this was said in the skyrim benchmarks section

"There’s almost no differentiation between CPUs. Average frame rates are dismal, though, so let’s see how these competing platforms fare when the settings are lowered to facilitate better performance."


you guys at tom's must be the biggest pampered rich boys ever ... dismal ... ??? looked to me the averages you got were roughly 40 fps on this particular benchmark , that's a shot better than my comp can pull (i average 35 , highs of 50's lows on 20-24 range) with settings maxed and i'm running a radeon 5770 with a amd athlon 64 X2 5000+ (oced to 3 ghz) , and 6 gigs of ram. 35-40 fps is hardly what i'd call dismal , infact that is quite playble , my system is quite playble on this game granted it could be better , i just think you guys are stoking people into wanting more all the time. not to mention making us less fortunates feel like goobs with your insulting tone in that statment.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Anonymous[/nom]How about testing an A8 against any i3 ,i5 or i7 with integrated graphics?The AMD integrated graphics card is 3x better than any integrated Intel GPUOr how about testing an octocore from AMD against an octocore from Intel? 200$ vs 4000$Most people are completing ignoring that all Sandy Bridge CPUs with the exception of the octocore,sorry hexacore because Intel disables 2 on purpose to prevent them from competing with Xeons...have integrated GPUswhich are all very poor in performancewhile AMD dedicated half of their CPU dice to the GPU space which is the equivalent of my 5670 card[/citation]

The top graphics for Llano is equivalent to the Radeon 5550, maybe half of the 5670, not even close to your claims. As for everyone complaining about Intel board prices? The difference between them and AMD isn't that bad if you get the right boards. There are awesome Z68 boards for well under $130 and similarly good H67 boards between $60 and $80. There are more overpriced Intel boards just because Intel is more common than AMD, but well priced Intel boards do exist.

AMD is ONLY good for low and lower mid-range budget systems if you're a gamer. AMD works great for highly multi-threaded environments, but gaming is not well-threaded most of the time. Once you go to the 6950 or so, there are no AMD processors that can compare to Intel in recent games. What if you do a massive overclock? Well, that will extend the range of the AMD quad core chips, but not by much, and will increase the power usage through the roof. A stock i5 will meet or beat the most highly overclocked AMD processors in gaming while using between 50% and 100% less power. With such large power usage differences, the electrical bill actually adds up to significant amounts of $ after a year or two.

In the low end, all Intel processors worth buying have 65w TDPs, all decent AMD processors have 95 or 125w TDPs there. Overclocking the AMD processors just to meet the Intel chips will obviously increase the already much higher power consumption greatly. Remember, higher clock rates use far more power than even somewhat lower clock rates.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]williehmmm[/nom]The current price thing on the CPU recommendation list shows the i3 2120 at $128 and the i5 2400 at $190, so $62 extra. or 42% more, and for that you get 14% extra performance with the i5 2400 over the i3 2100, based on this - http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 20-10.htmlAnd as the FX 4100, is even cheaper at $110, and can match the i3 2100, why not get that.Dollar per fps, the i3 & FX are so much better value. They are not the best chips, but they are the best value, in terms of price to performance.[/citation]

The i5 can multitask better than the i3 and all i5s can be overclocked around 25% or so over stock by intuitive manipulation of the Turbo Core BIOS options. i3s can't be overclocked this way and can only be improved slightly by the BLCK. For example, at 105MHz BLCK, the i5-2400 can be overclocked to hover between 3.78GHz and 3.99GHz. I'm not saying that the FX-4100 isn't a good value, but you are underestimating the value of an i5.

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Microcenter sells the i5 2400 for $150, I just bought an i5-2500K for $190. Also, they give $50 discount for motherboard if you buy an i5-2500K, so it ends up being even a better deal. The FX4100 is still just a dual core CPU... layer on an OLD discontinued PII-X4 and the problem with Bulldozer gets worse. Luckily for AMD, the PII X4 CPUs are quickly being bought up and there won't be any more AMD is losing to AMD anymore. Hell, even their "8 core" 8510 loses out to the X4 sometimes.You are right, these are not the best chips for gaming, but they are quite good for typical users... even older X2 CPUs are fine for typical internet folks. They are faster than my aging Q6600, but a better video card and SSD can do wonders.Compare AMD's best FX 8150 at $260 to the $190 i5-2500 or even a 2400 and all the FXs are left in the dust, by a wide margin. I think the bottleneck could be in the chipset as ALL fastest AMD CPUs reach about the same limit (refer to older FX review).PS: I give AMD points for having the most bad-ass locking CPU box art.[/citation]

The FX-4100 is a true quad core part. The difference is that some resources are put together and shared between two cores. Core 2 did a less extreme thing like this by sharing the L2 cache between two cores. Core 2 Quads had two dual core dies, each shared the L2 between the two cores on each die but not between the two dies. FX shares more resources between each module. AMD skimped on some resources and what they do have often has poor performance, but the chips are still true 4/6/8 core CPUs. As has been stated, the bottleneck here is FX's deplorable performance per core when compared to any desktop Intel processor made in the last three or four years. FX IPC is worse than Core 2 and Phenom II, which is worse than Nehalem, which is worse than Sandy. FX being tiers below Sandy in this sense is why it performs so bad. AMD throws in large numbers of cores in an attempt to make up for their failure with Bulldozer, it only works in highly threaded workloads, of which gaming and most other work is not included anyway.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Outlander_04[/nom]The FX 8150 games as well as a 2500K at 1080p , and often beats the 2500K in applications The FX 4100 is a match for the i3 2100 in these tests .I think you'd have to be an intel fanboy to even suggest that intel are somehow better , when performance per dollar is usually lower[/citation]

The FX-8150 is not better than an i5-2500K at 1080p and most software is not well threaded (single and dual threaded being the most common) so the FX chips don't come close to Intel's Nehalem, let alone Sandy for most work. Intel also has similar performance per dollar most of the time, if you know what you are doing.

[citation][nom]williehmmm[/nom]This shows that AMD does compete. Only marginally trailing the i3. And when overclocked, we see it match the i3. The i3 cannot overclock.And AMD does this, whilst being cheaper for the consumer to buy. Meaning you pay less to get the same result.The FX is the best value cpu between these 2. Although the G860 is even better value, but again can't be overclocked.[/citation]

The FX-4100, when overclocked, will use as much as double or even more power than the i3. Over even just a year or two, that adds up to make the FX cost more than the i3 in the long run. I don't know about you, but I don't replace my computer every year to make up for the extra cost of higher power usage.

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]I find it hard to believe you've missed the obvious point, which is to see where the GPU bottleneck occurs over different tiers of graphics card power. So assuming you're not completely incompetent, I'm only left to conclude your self esteem is so low that it's bolstered by lame attempts at being clever on a news forum?Good lord, you have my pity.PS- This isn't a graphics card review. Or are you suggesting that CPU scaling magically changes based on the graphics card vendor?[/citation]

I thought that Nvidia cards were slightly more tolerable of weaker CPUs than Ati/AMD cards. In fact, I could have sworn that you said this too. The CPUs are still in the same order, just with slightly more performance each. Of course, the Nvidia card would probably negate any money saved from choosing an AMD CPU/Nvidia card setup over the Intel/AMD card setup. The AMD/Nvidia setup would probably also use a lot more power, increasing it's cost over that of the Intel/AMD setup within a year or two.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Todd Sauve[/nom]"Not only are we happy to address reader feedback, but we also take great pleasure in exploring areas of performance that might otherwise get ignored."OK then! Here is a challenge that many, many of us want explored. Will the new AMD FX CPUs work properly in the older AMD 890 series motherboards with the bios upgrades that Asus, Gigabyte, MSI assured us would work and made available in the summer of 2011?I have a Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H motherboard and they claimed that this was indeed possible with their bios upgrade. But no tech site has yet to explore this question and there are probably thousands of us who have these motherboards and want to know the truth!So, will Tom's dig out the answers for us or not?Todd Sauve[/citation]

That is a question that you should ask your motherboard's manufacturer because it is up to them to support new CPUs or not. Some 800/700 chipset boards support FX, many don't. Motherboard manufacturers need to update their BIOS to use FX. It would be irrelevant for Tom's to devote an article to this. To find out, jsut go to your board's manufacturer's website.

[citation][nom]Outlander_04[/nom]Really? 1080p gaming on a 2500k or FX 8150 is so close you wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you already knew what the hardware was . and in many applications the FX is a faster more powerful cpu . In encoding tasks it is often faster than a 2600k In a budget rig where you are spending 500 - 550 the FX 4100 is both cheaper and better than an i3 2100 . Sure theyre the same at stock clock speeds , but only the intel is locked . You can increase the performance of the FX 4100 by 30% on the stock cooler .The big power issue scare the intel fanboys seem to like pointing out ..... replace one light bulb in your house with an energy saving LED bulb and you have more than covered that .And the suggestion that intels tech is ahead? Who is selling 28 nm processors ? Its not intel . They are at 32 nm and are not going to be at 22 nm for another 7-8 months at the earliest[/citation]

AMD is not selling 28nm CPUs, they have 28nm GPUs. Intel has better technology, deal with it. AMD tries to make up for their inferior technology by putting more and more cores on the CPUs and that just doesn't help most people, including us gamers, too much. Intel had 32nm CPUs when AMD was moving into 45nm. Intel is moving into 22nm now, AMD is still with 32nm and doesn't seem to be changing that anytime soon. Besides, the power usage difference adds up to dozens of dollars every 18 to 24 months if you pay around the USA's national average power bill per KW like most people do.

[citation][nom]sonexpc[/nom]If possible should compare also the AMD APU with FX-4100 and i3-2100 .... the A6-3650 looks like in the same price level but looks have better performance than both....But any way thanks for the review![/citation]

We are comparing CPUs, not integrated graphics. All Llano CPUs are similar in performance to similarly clocked Athlonn IIs and thus are behind even FX.

 

[_zxzxzx_]

AMD will always be the budget option until they find some breakthorugh I guess...

 

[MegamanEXE]

Ah, it feels good when something you buy has better reviews, I love my i3-2100. Just need a better graphics card though.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]_zxzxzx_[/nom]AMD will always be the budget option until they find some breakthorugh I guess...[/citation]

AMD CPUs are all beaten by cheaper Intel CPUs in gaming until you go down to unlockable Semprons in the sub $50 range. Even then, AMD only wins there because Intel doesn't bother with a market THAT low end on the desktop side without skipping directly to using Atoms. For example, a $70 Pentium chip will beat the $100 or so FX-4100 until it is overclocked to where it uses between three and four times more power. Even then, it will be too close. Then the FX only wins in applications and matches the Pentium in gaming.

Going further up the latter, we have the i3s that meet or beat everything from AMD. Sure, you could overclock a Phenom II to the point where it beats an i3, but again, power usage. Then you also need a CPU cooler that makes up the difference in price and a motherboard that can handle it.

Going further, well AMD has nothing further in gaming performance so Intel wins by default. It's unfortunate, but AMD is not really a better option for any budget in gaming desktops and only wins in work that uses all of the threads, IMHO not all work does and some of it that does doesn't really need the extra performance. I don't care if my archives extract in 5 minutes or 3 minutes, either way I'm doing something else while it runs in the background. AMD is better in the considerably smaller markets that demand highly threaded performance and many of them will just use a more expensive i7 or Xeon instead, locking AMD mostly into low budget highly threaded markets and people who don't know any better.

If AMD had their Piledriver cores out and they can at least match Nehalem in IPC, well then they can have a serious winner there so long as it doesn't use too much power. IE get those 8 cores down to 95w when they're at 3.2GHz or so. Also only charge 25-40% less than Intel. Then they are competitive in more high end markets. With some of the problems with BD being fairly easy to fix, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD can make up for lost ground with relative ease and catch up to Nehalem or get between it and Sandy, but that's still just wishful thinking until I see it happen.

 

[jessterman21]

AMD CPUs are all beaten by cheaper Intel CPUs in gaming until you go down to unlockable Semprons in the sub $50 range. Even then, AMD only wins there because Intel doesn't bother with a market THAT low end on the desktop side without skipping directly to using Atoms. For example, a $70 Pentium chip will beat the $100 or so FX-4100 until it is overclocked to where it uses between three and four times more power. Even then, it will be too close. Then the FX only wins in applications and matches the Pentium in gaming.

Going further up the latter, we have the i3s that meet or beat everything from AMD. Sure, you could overclock a Phenom II to the point where it beats an i3, but again, power usage. Then you also need a CPU cooler that makes up the difference in price and a motherboard that can handle it.

Going further, well AMD has nothing further in gaming performance so Intel wins by default. It's unfortunate, but AMD is not really a better option for any budget in gaming desktops and only wins in work that uses all of the threads, IMHO not all work does and some of it that does doesn't really need the extra performance. I don't care if my archives extract in 5 minutes or 3 minutes, either way I'm doing something else while it runs in the background. AMD is better in the considerably smaller markets that demand highly threaded performance and many of them will just use a more expensive i7 or Xeon instead, locking AMD mostly into low budget highly threaded markets and people who don't know any better.

If AMD had their Piledriver cores out and they can at least match Nehalem in IPC, well then they can have a serious winner there so long as it doesn't use too much power. IE get those 8 cores down to 95w when they're at 3.2GHz or so. Also only charge 25-40% less than Intel. Then they are competitive in more high end markets. With some of the problems with BD being fairly easy to fix, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD can make up for lost ground with relative ease and catch up to Nehalem or get between it and Sandy, but that's still just wishful thinking until I see it happen.

Seriously. By the time AMD finally makes a quad-core CPU with better performance than the i3-2100, Intel will release a Haswell i3 for under $150 and blow gamers away yet again.

 

[blazorthon]

Seriously. By the time AMD finally makes a quad-core CPU with better performance than the i3-2100, Intel will release a Haswell i3 for under $150 and blow gamers away yet again.

Probably, but unless the low/mid end gaming needs Haswell performance to keep up with low/mid end GPUs (I highly doubt it), the AMD CPUs may be viable again. Will they be viable? I don't know. To be honest, despite it being fairly easy to fix most of Bulldozers problems and get a huge performance boost/power usage drop, I am not sure if AMD can hold it together and get it done. AMD has shown serious weakness and unless they fix their staff problems, they probably will get ground under the dirt by Intel. An unfortunate outcome, but it's becoming more and more likely if AMD doesn't get moving.