Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2012 (Archive)

[Memnarchon]

If you look at intel cache speed, it is magnitude faster.

I was wondering about this, I did a test myself and you were right:

 

[damric]

^^ is that remotely fair (as close as possible) comparison? looks like high o.c. athlon v.s. barely o.c. fx with... is that ddr3 1333 ram vs athlon rig's ddr3 2400?
what are you using to cool the athlon and what psu are you using? from the fx specs from the screenshot, it looks like the fx is running at stock settings.

The only things relevent are the RAM latency of the Athlon vs the L3 latency of the FX. I'm trying to refute the Tom's Hardware claim that lack of L3 cache hurts the Athlon's performance, I'm saying that fast ram makes up for lack of L3, since FX's L3 is so slow.

Athlon cooled by $30 Cooler Master air cooler FYI.

 

[RedJaron]

Intel is able to hit its L3 nearly as fast as AMD is hitting its L2? That's painful there.

 

[Sakkura]

^^ is that remotely fair (as close as possible) comparison? looks like high o.c. athlon v.s. barely o.c. fx with... is that ddr3 1333 ram vs athlon rig's ddr3 2400?
what are you using to cool the athlon and what psu are you using? from the fx specs from the screenshot, it looks like the fx is running at stock settings.

The only things relevent are the RAM latency of the Athlon vs the L3 latency of the FX. I'm trying to refute the Tom's Hardware claim that lack of L3 cache hurts the Athlon's performance, I'm saying that fast ram makes up for lack of L3, since FX's L3 is so slow.

Athlon cooled by $30 Cooler Master air cooler FYI.

Hmm, wouldn't overclocking the FX CPU reduce the cache latency?

 

[damric]

^^ is that remotely fair (as close as possible) comparison? looks like high o.c. athlon v.s. barely o.c. fx with... is that ddr3 1333 ram vs athlon rig's ddr3 2400?
what are you using to cool the athlon and what psu are you using? from the fx specs from the screenshot, it looks like the fx is running at stock settings.

The only things relevent are the RAM latency of the Athlon vs the L3 latency of the FX. I'm trying to refute the Tom's Hardware claim that lack of L3 cache hurts the Athlon's performance, I'm saying that fast ram makes up for lack of L3, since FX's L3 is so slow.

Athlon cooled by $30 Cooler Master air cooler FYI.

Hmm, wouldn't overclocking the FX CPU reduce the cache latency?

Overclocking the CPU core affects L1 and L2, and overclocking the CPU-NB affects L3, so yes. But for some reason most FX owners dislike overclocking CPU-NB which always puzzels me. I ran my FX-4100 with 3GHz NB without issue...

All this according to http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/AMD_FX_Performance_Tuning_Guide.pdf

 

[Sakkura]

So that could at least widen the gap between L3 and main memory a little. Still, the slow L3 looks like an important thing to bear in mind when comparing FX with Athlon/A-series.

 

[damric]

And also when comparing to an intel platform. It's sickening how much better the cache works on any recent intel CPUs compared to AMD...

IMO they should have just made more/faster L1 and L2, and just left off the L3 on the FX chips and they would run so much better.

 

[Wisecracker]

For some reason on the FX, clocking the IMC/NB does not quite match the gains in bandwidth seen on the PhIIs (or, roughly 5-6% increase in BW for each 10% increase in clock speed above stock clock 2000MHz).

If I haven't lost my mind, I believe I got roughly 14GB/s with the IMC/NB at 25-2600MHz on the PhIIs I tested (likely with 1600MHz RAMs). My 750K gets 17-18GB/s at 4.6GHz - 2500MHz UNB - 2400MHz Cas10 RAMs (with a 'thermal margin' of 19C or so).

That was roughly 19% above the default UNB (Gigabyte FM2+ ITX) of 1600MHz. Latency dropped from 58ns to 50.7ns.

 

[Xed32]

Xeon E3-1230 V3 ? It's like a cheaper i7 without the useless onboard graphics and has enterprise class durability, low power consumption and hyperthreading.

 

[AnEwG]

This is a limitation of Tom's current methodology for recommending the 'best gaming CPUs'. They really should update their old game benchmark titles to include measures for the more current trend of having 4-8 core usage in gaming.

Yeah, like include the brand-new Elder Scrolls Online. Great example of how multithreaded new games are, look at how the FX-8350 trounces Intel...

Pick and choose, clearly multi-core software/games development is the TREND, does not mean all games are that way today

Cherry picking a new title that is poorly optimized to start with across different platforms and using the same benchmark over and over again in his/her arguments.

 

[logainofhades]

Yep, gotta love fanboys, on both sides. They can be quite amusing.

 

[Sakkura]

Cherry picking a new title that is poorly optimized to start with across different platforms and using the same benchmark over and over again in his/her arguments.

It's not cherrypicking when I'm not using it as a general measure but as a specific counterexample.

 

[vertexx]

I've been heads down most of this week - looks like this news is a day or 2 old. Devil's Canyon CPU prices/specs:

http://wccftech.com/intel-core-i7-4790k-4690k-pentium-g3258-preorder-unlocked-pentium-g3258-specifications-confirmed/

 

[Sakkura]

I really don't understand why they don't put a K on the overclockable Pentium.

 

[damric]

What does K stand for anyway?

like mmm k, it overclocks?

 

[Onus]

Hmmm, the article does not specify that the Pentium is unlocked, but does specify that the other two are.

 

[vertexx]

Yes, the Pentium overclocks - several other articles out there - Anandtech and Techpowerup. Seems like the big debate now is whether it will be a paper launch in June or whether they will actually be available.

 

[Antaredja Kartasasmita]

Kinda sad they dont sell the Athlon X4 750 in here, havta buy the A10-5800k that cost $40 more, and I dont even use the IGPU

 

[lunyone]

Kinda sad they dont sell the Athlon X4 750 in here, havta buy the A10-5800k that cost $40 more, and I dont even use the IGPU

What about the x4 760? If not an option than the FX 6300 would be my next option, but it all depends on cost though.

 

[logainofhades]

Yes, FX 6300 would be a much better choice over any A10.

 

[Antaredja Kartasasmita]

Kinda sad they dont sell the Athlon X4 750 in here, havta buy the A10-5800k that cost $40 more, and I dont even use the IGPU

What about the x4 760? If not an option than the FX 6300 would be my next option, but it all depends on cost though.

Nope, they dont even START to sell ANY athlon that was newer than the onldest 2008 sempron piece of crap, I dont get the distributor in my country, while ANY country enjoys cheap great AMD cpus while my country does not, Im kinda sad

As for the FX 6300, I didnt get it because of huge TDP, and my home's electricity is going psycho-bonkers crazy, and at that time (2012) my oldie procie kinda died and need a cheapy cheap procie and mobo, and I had the 6670, I dual graphic do hickeys, well I just cant leave the A10 alone so I bought new mobo calles A88x-g45 which the sound manager wont just work and it was superbly silent,

Although the FX-6300 is a great CPU for start/AMDers, I just cant afford more for changing CPUs


Also everything in my country that relates to Pc have 20% more price than anywhere else, I hate capitalism (No shitstorm please)

 

[logainofhades]

It probably isn't capitalism that is to blame. It is probably import taxes in your country, just saying. Australia, for instance, suffers from huge price difference, on components, vs US.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You may also be able to buy it off ebay and ship overseas, or use a freight forwarder.

 

[Antaredja Kartasasmita]

So that explains why, I live near aussie (Indonesia) where they still sell perfectly refurbished Pentium 1 for those cheap people who can get an iPhone 5s but not a PC

Also I dont trust buying off ebay because its a lotta more work to do than just buy alternative stuff-do-hickeys, and its allotta more do this-that thingy to get even a Flashdisk to your hand personally if it comes to your country, like customs and stuff, thats why I dont buy online except for digital stuff like redeemable code or some sort of stuffnuggets,

FYI, most stuff in my country needs confirmation if you want to buy anything, the distributor ain't working their butts off to do something they do, and 60% of stuff they sell on America, dont go down here, and you need to wait 2-3 months for something that's released to get here, and if you want to buy it, too bad son, its outta stock ,like America never got outta stock

Moar information: 90% of games here is cheap pirated game which doesnt work 30% of the time and cost roughtly 10$ per game, its tough to find real original game here, either you preorder online to certain distributor who cant even take cash on delivery and take only credit card, or you buy it on Origin/Uplay/Steam, which the vouchers are even rarer than genuine stuff in here, and costs 50% more, This country is crazy on technology, except for gadgets, the stuff here is fast growing and nearly everyone HAS to have it, even farmers got a cheapo one that costs roughly $50, well maybe its their will but come on, we need some pump on the computer type of market, not just gadgets and other things

 

[de5_Roy]

@Antaredja Kartasasmita: since you already bought a socket fm2+, a88x chipset motherboard, intel options are moot. your best choice is either of the available kaveri a10 apus - 7850k or 7700k. amd launches cpu-only skus but those are usually further down the cycle.