AMD FX vs older i7

[G_S]

Heya,

I'm currently running an Intel i7-920 @ 3.8GHz on an Asus P6T Deluxe v2 motherboard, but I'm planning to upgrade soon. I'm tempted to try out an AMD based system just for some variation, but I was just wondering if there's really much to be gained with an AMD FX-8350 compared to my i7.

I'm also planning on building a full water cooling system at the same time, which means I'd be able to overclock the FX quite a bit, but I should also be able to hit 4GHz+ with my current i7.

I'm mainly looking for improved performance for gaming usage, cause even now, my rig is generally fast enough for everything else I use it for.

So, for gaming, would an FX-8350 be a noticeable upgrade over my i7-920?

Cheers.

 

[gear999]

I personally haven't tried the i7 920 or FX 8350 but as far as I know, there should be no noticeable difference, if any at all.

 

[hunter315]

An i7-920 @ 3.8GHz is going to be notably better than an 8350 in many things. Anand has a good number of overlapping benchmarks for those two, you see the stock 920 and 8350 coming in reasonably close together in many of their benchmarks
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=47

Now factor in your i7 920 being at 3.8GHz instead of 2.66 GHz, a 42% OC will turn a lot of those numbers in favor of the i7 920, I don't know if you would get the performance boost that you are hoping for in, and in many things you may take a performance hit.

The first generation of i7s was a big leap that AMD never really caught up to with a giant leap of their own.

 

[spentshells]

It's a waste for you. Wait for broadwell

 

[mdocod]

The 8 core PD parts are closer in performance to the 6 core gulftown era stuff overall, only trailing in FPU performance.

 

[LookItsRain]

Not worth the money to switch.

 

[logainofhades]

Depending on what your GPU is, your money would probably be better spent there. Going to FX would be a waste of $$$.

 

[G_S]

I'm planning on new graphics as well. To be honest, no matter which CPU option I go for, I'll probably end up replacing more than I'm keeping. Problem with my current platform is the lack of USB3.0 and Sata 3.0, but there are ways around that though. As I'm not getting any parts just yet, I may wait and see if AMD releases a new FX soon (Steamroller may improve things a bit).

 

[DubbleClick]

If amd even closely catches up to I7 4790k performance in the next few weeks, I'd be very surprised.

 

[LucoTF]

I'm planning on new graphics as well. To be honest, no matter which CPU option I go for, I'll probably end up replacing more than I'm keeping. Problem with my current platform is the lack of USB3.0 and Sata 3.0, but there are ways around that though. As I'm not getting any parts just yet, I may wait and see if AMD releases a new FX soon (Steamroller may improve things a bit).

Yeah I recently picked up a PCIe x1 usb 3.0 card for my Asus P6T

Do you have HT on or off btw?

 

[G_S]

I'm planning on new graphics as well. To be honest, no matter which CPU option I go for, I'll probably end up replacing more than I'm keeping. Problem with my current platform is the lack of USB3.0 and Sata 3.0, but there are ways around that though. As I'm not getting any parts just yet, I may wait and see if AMD releases a new FX soon (Steamroller may improve things a bit).

Yeah I recently picked up a PCIe x1 usb 3.0 card for my Asus P6T

Do you have HT on or off btw?

I have HT on. I've recently had to replace my old Corsair P128 SSD, due to wear, so I've replaced it with a Samsung 840EVO (no point getting hardcore on Sata 2.0), and I can really tell that the interface is slowing the drive down. The RAPID software does seem to help a bit though, so the performance of the new drive is really nice compared to the old one. But if I'm going to keep this motherboard/cpu combo for another few years, I may just go all-out and get the Plextor m6e PCIe card SSD to get around Sata bottlenecks.

 

[LucoTF]

It should still be much faster than a HDD though

As you've already bought the evo what about a pcie to sata III controller?

 

[G_S]

It should still be much faster than a HDD though

As you've already bought the evo what about a pcie to sata III controller?

Yeah, it's an option, but I think if I'm going for a PCIe controller card, I'd rather go with the Plextor solution. For my mechanical drives, 2TB each, a Sata 2.0 controller is more than fast enough, it's only for my boot drive I'd need faster controller speed anyway.