AMD Vs Intel for extreme multitasking and performance (but not too much $$$)

[Guest]

I have heard all the stories, watched all the videos and got yelled at by all the fan-boys (or girls) on the Intel vs AMD front and only one thing has been made clear; that is nothing is clear. So here I am for some professional advice on this burning question:

I have a somewhat unusual workload consisting of: Gaming at highest settings, tab fiend with dozens of tabs, 3D design in multiple programs, slicing massive 3d files for my 3d printer, watching hi res videos, playing physics intensive games at ridiculous settings, and all usually in a combination of multiple of these all at once. I'm also planning on getting into video and photo editing, programming, and some physics simulations (I'm a physics major). Again, multiple at once.

I know intel generally outperforms AMD and has better single core benchmarks, but more programs and games are gaining support for multiple cores--so perhaps 8 AMD cores could be more useful to me. It's all quit confusing. Any ideas on what I should do? I'm thinking a high end AMD FX 8 core CPU, say 8350, 8370, 8370e, 9370 or 9590. Or, an intel 4790k or 5820k, or even 5930k? (I will overclock whatever CPU I get as much as I can). Also thermals and power consumption are not an issue.

So if anyone knows which would be the best option, or at least has some suggestions, please help me.

( Please no fan-boy/girl opinions or "you should get intel because I've always bought intel and love it" type arguments. I'm here for facts and fact informed opinions.)

Thank You.

 

[X79]

An i7 CPU along with either 16GB or 32GB 1866Mhz RAM or above will you do just fine.

5930K, sure thing.

Even if it's expensive, you sound like you need it anyway. So I don't think you'll enjoy trying to

get superior performance, while saving money. So take your pick.

 

[andy_Man]

Intel is just so much better performance per core that it's worth it you spend a bit more and get an intel with more cores. I am a huge AMD fan, but they can't compete on high end cpu's. The architecture is fundamentally different also, how system resources are accessed by the different cores.

For what you are doing it sounds like you want to step up tot he x99 platform.

 

[James Mason]

Hands down an i7 4790k outperforms an FX8350 in all tasks.
It's just pure fact.

But you start to reach some huge price difference when you get to the intel i7 5xxx and amd FX9xxx series. and the performance gained for money spent starts to drop really hard as well.

A lot of the improvment difference will depend on what you have now.

 

[WildCard999]

Toms CPU Hierarchy Chart: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

 

[Calculagator]

Things are objectively more clear than you make them out to be. AMD is fine for budget computing/gaming, but if you need "extreme" performance, you need Intel.

1. Clock for clock, an i7 beats FX in basically every benchmark. Since both can OC to about 5 GHz, it only makes sense to compare at like clocks:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1260?vs=697

2. AMD advertises 8 core CPU's, and while they do have 8 integer processors, they only have 4 floating point processors. Expect your performance to take a nose dive on AMD if you need anything other than integer crunching for your physics simulations. Most programs that can use all 8 cores of the FX series can also take advantage of Intel's hyperthreading.

3. AMD has completely dropped out of the high end computing market. While they still market their CPUs to gamers and enthusiasts, they no longer make any server or workstation chips, and it is not on any of their roadmaps to do so (except perhaps low-power server chips).

I really don't hate AMD. They have solid budget options, but they have not been competitive at the high end for quite some time. I hope that changes, but as things stand right now they just can't compete. Because of this, you should not expect to see high-end computation programs being optimized for AMD cpus. Massively parallel programs will use GPUs and everything else will use Intel Xeons.

Whether you should go with the 4790k or the x99 platform depends on your budget and how much that extra time you spend waiting for your computer to finish is worth.

 

[andy_Man]

That chart is for gaming. For gaming there is no reason to go past an i5-4690k. However, if you want more than 4 true cores for intel you have to go to the x99 platform.

 

[WildCard999]

That chart is for gaming. For gaming there is no reason to go past an i5-4690k. However, if you want more than 4 true cores for intel you have to go to the x99 platform.

"Gaming at highest settings, tab fiend with dozens of tabs, 3D design in multiple programs, slicing massive 3d files for my 3d printer, watching hi res videos, playing physics intensive games at ridiculous settings, and all usually in a combination of multiple of these all at once."

High-End Gaming & Multi-Tasking.

 

[spdragoo]

It's also going to depend on which GPU you're pairing up with your CPU, & what resolution, refresh rate you're planning on using. Pairing an i7, for example, with a lowly GTX 750Ti & expecting quality gaming at 4K resolutions is going to be a disappointing experience.

The big question, though, is what kind of budget you're looking at, & whether you're completely replacing hardware or just going for a minimalist upgrade of CPU/motherboard. If your monitor is limited to 60Hz refresh rate, then as long as you're paired with the right GPU an AMD FX-8xxx will be more than sufficient for your needs. "Tab-fiending" & the file work will also generally see more benefits from more/faster RAM & an SSD.

So, again, a) how much do you need to get/replace, & b) what's your budget?

 

[Guest]

OH, sorry, I should have specified, this will be a new system build. I'm running a ~5 year old all AMD PC that somehow has survived me until now. My budget is max $2000 Canadian (~$1650 US), though the lower to $1500 Can (~$1230 US) the better. My build will be 100% SSD, no mechanical drives (I've had too many fail), with an m.2 slot or pcie ssd spacee for when nvme/superfast non-sata drives become available. I'm planning to have 16GB of ram with space to upgrade to 32/64GB eventually at 1866MHZ+. Graphics card a GTX960-970 or R9 290/290x. Or a cheap sub $150 card for now and a R9 390x whenever it comes out.

 

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

I built a custom workstation for a guy who had a similar work load a while back (much much larger budget though) and you need to ignore all the advice above. What you need is a proper work station, not a gaming focused rig.

For physics simulation and your 3D work you're going to need a lot of ECC RAM. Assuming of course you care about not having additional random errors put into your research (errors that could possibly hurt your publication during peer review). 32GB is gonna be the minimum I'd recommend and some simulations take more than that. Without knowing more about your specific use case I can't tell you more than that. Plus you can use the excess RAM as a RAM disk for photo work.

This means CPU wise you're realistically looking at a Xenon 12XX v3 on a LGA1050 server motherboard.
You could also use an fx8XXX on AM3+ as the chipset does support ECC RAM and a handful of AM3+ motherboards have ECC support enabled. For heavily multithreaded tasks (simulations, photoshop, rendering, basically your important tasks) an overclocked fx8XXX will perform about as well as a xenon 1230 V3 while being about $100 cheaper. However, no AM3+ or LGA1050 MB that has ECC enabled supports more than 32GB of RAM as far as I know.

So... here we are at a crossroads. Do you need more than 32 GB of RAM for your use case? If so... you need a Xenon E5 solution and you're going to be spending around $1.5-2.5k for an entry level system (about $800 for 64 GB of RAM, $500-1k for CPU, $200-300 for MB, then case, GPU, etc).

If not, a xenon e3 1230 v3, MB, RAM, etc should run you about $1k before GPU.

 

[Guest]

I built a custom workstation for a guy who had a similar work load a while back (much much larger budget though) and you need to ignore all the advice above. What you need is a proper work station, not a gaming focused rig.

For physics simulation and your 3D work you're going to need a lot of ECC RAM. Assuming of course you care about not having additional random errors put into your research (errors that could possibly hurt your publication during peer review). 32GB is gonna be the minimum I'd recommend and some simulations take more than that. Without knowing more about your specific use case I can't tell you more than that. Plus you can use the excess RAM as a RAM disk for photo work.

This means CPU wise you're realistically looking at a Xenon 12XX v3 on a LGA1050 server motherboard.
You could also use an fx8XXX on AM3+ as the chipset does support ECC RAM and a handful of AM3+ motherboards have ECC support enabled. For heavily multithreaded tasks (simulations, photoshop, rendering, basically your important tasks) an overclocked fx8XXX will perform about as well as a xenon 1230 V3 while being about $100 cheaper. However, no AM3+ or LGA1050 MB that has ECC enabled supports more than 32GB of RAM as far as I know.

So... here we are at a crossroads. Do you need more than 32 GB of RAM for your use case? If so... you need a Xenon E5 solution and you're going to be spending around $1.5-2.5k for an entry level system (about $800 for 64 GB of RAM, $500-1k for CPU, $200-300 for MB, then case, GPU, etc).

If not, a xenon e3 1230 v3, MB, RAM, etc should run you about $1k before GPU.

That sounds like where I am probably going. I7 or xeon, and whatever else fits in my budget. Not sure about EEC ram, if it is much more expensive than non ecc. at least I may start with normal, spend money elsewhere, and upgrade later if that would work. BTW sorry for taking so long to respond. My current PC crapped out a couple times and I forgot I had asked this question while I was fixing it.
Thank you.

 

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

Life happens.

ECC RAM is IMO essential for simulations, professional rendering, etc. Yes it's somewhat more expensive. But, a small increase in capital cost compared to losing hours or even days of simulation or rendering time from a random memory error is well worth the cost. If one does these things professionally anyways. If you're not using the PC for research but rather class work, you can almost certainly get away with non-ECC RAM.

You can switch from non-ECC RAM to ECC RAM on some LGA 1050 motherboards, and on any AM3+ motherboard that supports ECC RAM. But you'll need a xeon CPU for ECC RAM to work on an intel motherboard. Just make sure that before you buy anything, you're definitely going to need to know exactly how much RAM you're gonna need, how many threads your most demanding program uses, is GPU acceleration something your programs use (and what GPUs are best for that acceleration), and more. Once you know what you need, then you'll be ready to purchase parts or purchase a PC.

Happy building.

 

[Guest]

Life happens.

ECC RAM is IMO essential for simulations, professional rendering, etc. Yes it's somewhat more expensive. But, a small increase in capital cost compared to losing hours or even days of simulation or rendering time from a random memory error is well worth the cost. If one does these things professionally anyways. If you're not using the PC for research but rather class work, you can almost certainly get away with non-ECC RAM.

You can switch from non-ECC RAM to ECC RAM on some LGA 1050 motherboards, and on any AM3+ motherboard that supports ECC RAM. But you'll need a xeon CPU for ECC RAM to work on an intel motherboard. Just make sure that before you buy anything, you're definitely going to need to know exactly how much RAM you're gonna need, how many threads your most demanding program uses, is GPU acceleration something your programs use (and what GPUs are best for that acceleration), and more. Once you know what you need, then you'll be ready to purchase parts or purchase a PC.

Happy building.

Thank you for your information, but the kind of research, editing, and error sensitive work I'll be doing will probably be secondary to normal use and it wont be too intense. I'm still a university student and if I really need a more powerful system I'm sure I can access some of the ones at my university. (Also my budget has shrunk an amount). I will do a xeon and ecc system if I can find what I need at a good price though. Can you suggest a xeon around the 4790k's price-point and a good $200 (preferably mitx) ecc capable motherboard?
Thank you.

 

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

There are no itx server boards that support more than 16 GB of RAM. There are some extended itx (DTX) server boards that do. To be honest, I'm not a fan of mITX for rigs that are going to be used for rendering because the cooling isn't really there. However, if you want one, I'd suggest this one with a Xenon 1231 v3 CPU.

However, if you're not intending on doing a lot of rendering, research, etc on your rig there's really no need to use a server board and a xenon and ECC RAM won't matter for relatively light work. In that case go with a simple i7 4790k and whichever z97 motherboard that has features that you like.