AMD vs Intel and DirectX12

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JimmyzzzX

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Aug 14, 2012
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I'm building a new rig and I'd like your opinion on what CPU I should buy.

I'm kind of stressed with the budget and I'm thiking of buying the FX 8350 cpu. I'm mostly interested in video editing but I'd also like to have a good gaming performance.

People say that with the DIrectX12, games will be able to work on multiple cores therefore making octa-core AMD processors powerful enough to handle games with a stable framerate at ultra settings (with a high-end GPU, of course).

Is this true?
Will this also work with one year or two year old high end games?
Should I consider buying an AMD CPU or should I stick to an Intel one for better gaming performance (as Intel CPUs are known for being better in single-threaded performance)?

This question actually refers solely to a gaming build as I believe an i5 of 220+ dollars is not capable of handling video editing as good as an octa-core FX. That's why I'd like to know whether DX12 will make AMD CPUs more powerful in single-threaded applications and video games so that I'll buy a CPU able to handle both video editing and video games.

Sorry for the long post and thaks in advance for any help.
 
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Mr5oh

Mr5oh

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I equate this to AMD fanboys hoping that DX12 will save AMD. Intel is further along in technology, performs better, and is more efficient. I see no reason to buy an 8350 at this point.

Even on editing software that does take advantage of all 8 cores, the difference between an 8350 and I5 is not really that large of a difference.
 
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Th3-Hunter333

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Dec 15, 2014
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This is not "intel fanboyism" and quite frankly its pointless to even use that line.

Its been proven again and again that intel is ahead in architecture by far.

P.S. There has been many people switch from the fx 8350 over to intel and have realized this (I am one of them)

Another side note, most everything i5 and up is outrunning the 8350 by a good mile in everything now days
 
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JimmyzzzX

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People, please. I need a proper answer to a serious question. Stop talking about fanboyism, explain your views in detail and suggest CPUs if possible. You still haven't given me an answer and you're fighting each other like you're 5.
 
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Bem-xxx

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Intel performs better with single-threaded applications. AMD performs better with multi-threaded applications and with multitasking, it handles many threads or applications at once without slowdowns. At 4k the FX 8350 runs better than the i7 4930K/5960X in not CPU bound games (mostly multiplats consoles games), but at 1080p with games like Arma runs very crappy. Also you cannot upgrade the FX 8350 (the FX 9xxx is an overclocked FX8350).
 
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Th3-Hunter333

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Well i will put it like this, i use to own the 8350 with my current gtx 970 (same clock speeds)

When i upgraded to my now current 5820k, my framerate literally doubled in every single game i play now..
Arma is an exception (it tripled here)

I.E. i struggled to keep 60 frames in 90% of every game i played with the 8350 (no matter what settings/tweaks)
Games such as battlefield series (hardline/4/3), Arma 3 and 2, nosgoth, warface, heroes and generals, etc etc.

Now after the upgrade (the only thing i switched is the processor/motherboard/ram/cpu cooler because obviously those are what i have no choice to change to make a switch to intel), my framerate in every single game listed above is 100 to 120 (with the exception of arma which hangs in the 60 to 80 range because of horrible optimization)

 
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Gam3r01

Gam3r01

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jaguarskx

jaguarskx

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There is already a discussion about this topic in the following thread. Perhaps you can find your answer there. It is pretty much all speculative at this point in time though...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2730080/amd-cpus-gaming-intel-direct-x12.html


I have not really bothered reading up too much about DirectX12 since I have no plans on upgrading from an i5-4670k anytime soon. But here is what I know...

- DX12 can make it easier to developers to design games to take advantage of multiple cores. While easier it will still be more complex compared to designing a game to run on 1 or 2 cores.This can potentially benefit gamers who prefer Intel since their 6 core i7 CPUs are not insanely expensive.

- DX12 allows for higher draw call processes (basically the number of things that can be drawn on the screen), but it benefits both AMD and Intel CPU.

- DX12 incorporates Vulkan which is the successor to Mantle which, if used properly, can allow games to run better on lower spec PCs and laptops. This benefits both AMD and Intel.
 
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synphul

synphul

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Like jaguarskx said, it will benefit both. The biggest benefits will be with the weakest cpu's. Dx12 goes to a more low level hardware approach, leaving the cpu from having to get involved sorting out many of the things the drivers control at the moment. By going straight to the gpu, the cpu load is lightened while the gpu can be used more effectively. If a cpu is currently struggling, bottlenecking while running the game code plus sorting out the gpu via the drivers and dx11, then dx12 will free it up some and reduce that bottleneck.

What it won't do is change how fast or strong a particular cpu is, those are written in stone on the cpu chips themselves the minute they left the production plant. It won't make a weaker cpu stronger than a cpu it was competing against before dx12. If a cpu (like i5/i7) wasn't really struggling to begin with, the gains of dx12 won't be as noticeable as on an fx 8350, fx 6xxx or i3 where they need the additional boost to make use of what power they do have.

Intel having a higher ipc (instructions per clock processed) than amd doesn't mean it's only better at single threaded applications. It means it's stronger at the foundation and multiplied throughout the range of core/thread usage. Which is why intel cpu's are competing/beating amd cpu's with twice as many cores.

Not too many multitasking benchmarks out there unfortunately, but here's one. Playing a game while encoding video and the i5's and i7's (as well as the xeon some refer people to the 1231v3), intel easily beats out the 8 core fx chip.
http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/9

Here's another.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/5

Here the 8350 is no faster at video conversion than the older i5 4670k. Or at the povray multithreaded benchmark. On first pass of x.264 hd encoding the i5 easily beats the fx 8350. On second pass the 8350 only manages 2.7fps more than the 4670k (stock).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7189/choosing-a-gaming-cpu-september-2013/5

People assume that having 8 cores and 8 threads the fx cpu's should easily beat intel's quad core quad thread cpu's and intel are only better at single threaded processing which isn't true. The fx aren't a 'bad' cpu, just not as strong as intel in many cases and amd knows that. That's why they've slashed their prices to put them in line with their performance, they perform a bit less and cost a bit less.
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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I wouldn't use Passmark scores to decide on a gaming CPU simply because there is no game in existence that scales nearly that well across 8 cores. Most productivity software doesn't even scale that well, likely due to bottlenecks that present themselves when the FX CPUs need to do floating point math because there is only one FPU for every 2 cores. Even with DirectX 12, I don't see the relative performance between CPUs changing all that much, as developers still aren't going to be able to paralellize their engines to scale that well across 8 cores. The FX CPUs might see a bit of a boost due to being able to handle more draw calls than with DirectX 11, but that's about it, the rest of the game's functionality will still run into the same bottlenecks on AMD CPUs unless the developers paralellize those parts of their game engine as well.
 
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jaguarskx

jaguarskx

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Passmark is not really taken seriously as a benchmark since it is synthetic and does not truly represent how effective the CPU compared to actual programs or games. Also, you cannot simply rely on one benchmark to determine what the overall performance of a CPU could be.

Since this is a topic is about games I'll will provide some game benchmarks from Techspot.com. Most of the games they becnhmarked includes a CPU benchmark, but not all. For example, their Metal Gear Soli does not include CPU performance. You can click the following link to see their reviews.

http://www.techspot.com/features/gaming/gaming-benchmarks/


I will start off with a Homeworld Remastered. It is an OpenGL game and does not use DirectX. It's not as popular as DirectX, but there are a few games that still uses OpenGL like the upcoming Doom game coming in 2016. Also, I am skipping Batman Arkham Knight because when the game was released the PC port had severe performance issues with massive FPS issues like reported instances of single digit FPS performance with a GTX Titan X ($1,000). It was so bad that Warner Brothers stopped selling the game soon after it was released back in June. I think it was finally re-released in late September. Hopefully they will never allow Iron Galaxy to do another PC game port again. It did not affect me because Batman Arkham Knight is not the type of game i would play.


!!! EDIT !!!

I updated the benchmark results for Dragon Age: Inquisition because I linked the wrong one. The original one was for 1280 x720 resolution which showed a very large performance difference between AMD and Intel CPUs. I have replaced it with benchmarks for 1920x 1080 resolution which now shows much closer performance results.

http://www.techspot.com/review/970-homeworld-remastered-benchmarks/page4.html

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http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html

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http://www.techspot.com/review/962-evolve-benchmarks/page5.html

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http://www.techspot.com/review/956-dying-light-benchmarks/page5.html

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http://www.techspot.com/review/921-dragon-age-inquisition-benchmarks/page6.html

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http://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page5.html

CPU_01.png
 
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NightAntilli

NightAntilli

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Jun 12, 2014
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There have not been enough benchmarks to determine what AMD CPUs will be doing. As of right now, an Athlon 860k will beat an FX-8350 under DX12, which is weird. This is based solely on the Ashes of the Singularity benchmark. For some reason, no one decided to test AMD CPUs with the Fable Legends DX12 benchmark.

You're safe on the Intel side. On the AMD side, the performance is not as bad as people would like you to believe, but, Intel is superior under DX11 all the way, and under DX12 there is no real indication right now that this is going to change. Even though it should change, you probably shouldn't count on it.

If you're on a budget, I wouldn't go for anything else other than the Athlon 860k. Or, Go Intel, or just wait a year for Zen.
 
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jaguarskx

jaguarskx

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Minor edit to my post above.

I updated the benchmarks result for Dragon Age: Inquisition because the original one I posted was for 1280 x 720 resolution instead of 1920 x 1200 resolution. Results now show the performance between AMD and Intel CPUs are very close to each other rather than Intel CPUs dominating AMD CPUs at the lower resolution.
 
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ehtz28

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Most people who dismiss the FX platform are not looking at the whole picture. At the moment the AMD FX is no match for intel cpus. However the FX procesors are under utilized. It is an architecture way ahead of its time. I have my doubts when people say it could not beat an i5 or i7 running Vulcan/DX12 if there is no optimized software out there that could take full advantage of 8 physical cores.
 
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