FX 83, i5 4670k,or i7 4770k for next gen gaming?

[Sackboy]

I don't how many times this has been posted but I was just wondering what would be the best processor for next gen gaming. I know there is hardly any games right now that use more than 4 cores or hyperthreading but it's hard to ignore the fact that future games will probably start utilizing more cores especially with the upcoming release of the XBox One and Ps4 which both have 8 core cpus. I'm planning to build a gaming PC in the next few months,most likely by winter so I'm in no rush, and I'm wondering on which cpu to get. Besides gaming I'll also be doing video and sound editing so from the 8350,i5 4670k and i7 4770k which would be the best to get?If games do start using more cores would hyperthreading in the 4770k give less,better,or similar performance to an 8350 since the 8350 has 8 real cores and the 4770k just has 4 cores and 8 threads in total?

 

[Sackboy]

For the near term future (through 2017) I would stick with Intel's higher IPC CPUs with only 4 cores rather than AMD's lower IPC CPUs with 6 or 8 cores when it comes to games. Long term future (2017+) it is difficult to say. The gaming industry has really only just begun to take advantage of 4 cores in a CPU, however, I don't believe the usage is efficient yet. For example, I have not seen any indication of any games capable of 90%+ usage for every core in a quad core CPU. It is typically lower than that; much lower especially when looking at the 3rd and 4th core.

As for designing games capable of using 8 cores, it will take time. The easy part (all things considering) is to design a game to use all 8 cores. The much harder part is to design them to make use of them efficiently. In a very simplistic example, what is the difference between an AMD 4.0GHz CPU running 100% loads on 4 cores and 0% with the other 4 cores compared to the same CPU with 50% load on all 8 cores? In terms of total IPC the two scenarios are basically the same. Of course you can say 50% load on all 8 cores is better because more threads can be prioritized, but just sticking with total IPC, the two should the same. It will take some time for developers to design games to efficiently use all (or most) of the cores in a 8 core CPU. By then, whatever CPU you buy now may no longer suit your needs and you want a new CPU for more performance. I am guessing that most gamers who buys a CPU now will want to upgrade to a new CPU in 2017 which is probably when games will finally start to be designed to somewhat efficiently use all 8 cores in an AMD CPU.

Battlefield 3 is a popular multiplayer game based on the Frostbite 3.0 engine; Battlefield 4 will use the same engine, but I am sure it will be tweaked a little bit. In multiplayer mode the game can definitely use more 4 cores and it is an example of an exception in current games, not the norm. Despite being capable of using more than 4 cores, the 8 core FX-8350 does not provide better performance than Intel's quad core i5 and i7 CPUs. The below chart shows the performance in BF3 with multiplayer which shows that the FX-8350 lagging behind Intel's quad core Ivy Bridge CPUs. This is a case where higher IPC trumps more physical cores (every 2 cores sharing the same FPU).

Note that this is a CPU performance comparison which is why the resolution is only 1280x720. Using higher resolution means the GPU's performance masks the CPU's actual performance. When comparing the FX-8350 vs the i5-3570k, the i5-3570k provides about 17FPS better performance. That's with a 4 core and 500MHz disadvantage.

When comparing the FX-4300 / FX-6300 / FX-8320 / FX-8350 performances you can see that there is an increase in performance so having more cores can help. The biggest jump is going from the quad core FX-4300 to the 6 core FX-6300 which is a 6FPS increase in performance. However, FX-4300 is running at 3.8GHz, not 3.5GHz that FX-6300 runs at. That means if both of those CPUs were running at the same clockspeed, the increase in performance due to the 2 extra core would be higher. But look at the FX-8320 which is an 8 core CPU and runs at the same speed as the 6 core FX-6300; there is virtually no difference in performance. That means BF3 (i.e. the Frostbite 3.0 engine) cannot make use of more than 6 cores. The 8 core FX-8350 provides better performance than the FX-8250 and FX-6300 only because of the additional 500MHz.

Source: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battlefield-3-PC-221396/Specials/Battlefield-3-Multiplayer-Tipps-CPU-Benchmark-1039293/

Looking back at the comparison of the FX-4300 and FX-6300, the FX-6300 represents an increase of 50% in the number of cores; 4 cores --> 6 cores. However, the difference is only about a 11% increase in performance. That means the 5th and 6th cores are not being utilized very efficiently. I will note that since the FX-4300 is clocked 300MHz higher than the FX-6300, the increase in performance should be a little better than 11%, but not much.

Let's switch focus and look at the Intel CPUs specifically the 4 core i7-3770k (Ivy Bridge) and 6 core i7-3930k (Sandy Bridge). The i7-3930k provides better performance than the i7-3770k so clearly having more core for Intel CPUs provides better performance. What's interesting is that despite the fact that the i7-3930k is running 300MHz slower than the i7-3770k and the fact that it is an older architecture; the i7-3930k provides close to a 14% increase in performance. If they both had the same clockspeed and were based on the same CPU architecture, the increase in performance would be a bit higher than 14%. This means that CPU scaling favors Intel CPUs rather than AMD CPUs; at least in Battlefield 3. However,the average gamer is not about to spend around $575 for a CPU (i7-3930k).

The take away from this post is that despite the fact that AMD's CPU have more cores, Intel's increased IPC trumps more (MOAR) cores. I would expect Intel's current Haswell generation CPUs to provide slightly higher performance than the Ivy Bridge generation of CPUs. But the article was written back in Oct 2011. For the time being I would prefer Intel's higher IPC to AMD's greater number of cores. In 2017, when I think developers will really start to take advantage more cores, the advantage in games may finally flip to AMD's favor, or at least both AMD and Intel will offer very similar performance.

If you have the money, buy Intel now for better overall performance (pre-2017). If you prefer not to spend the additional money on Intel, then just buy an AMD FX-6300 / FX-6350 / FX-8250 / FX-8350, and accept a little less performance compared to Intel CPUs.

I'm willing to spend the extra money on the 4770k. But since I'm not building my pc until the end of this year would it be better to just see how the 8350 will benchmark against the 4770k in a next gen game like BF4 (assuming people will do benchmarks)?

 

[stickmansam]

I'm willing to spend the extra money on the 4770k. But since I'm not building my pc until the end of this year would it be better to just see how the 8350 will benchmark against the 4770k in a next gen game like BF4 (assuming people will do benchmarks)?

If you're not building till then it may even be better to wait till next-gen consoles release in November to see how the consoles are and how well they actually perform. AMD may even surprise us with an early Steamroller release 😛
Maybe Ivy/Sandy will have some massive sale on it, who knows what will change in 6 months.

 

[schmuckley]

4670K ..IMO
No need for 8 threads for gaming.
IPC is what you want for framereates;and 4670K has the best available atm.

But there's games right now that utilize more than 4 cores like Crysis 3. BF4 is also rumored to use more than 4 cores possibly 6 cores

I've played Crysis 3 on 2nd highest (highest setting is glitched)with a Deneb) (4.2Ghz) and 6950...gets avg 48fps..
Hyperthreading isn't all it's cracked up to be.
4930K should be available next month. 😉 6 true cores + hyper-threading

 

[jaguarskx]

BF4 is also rumored to use more than 4 cores possibly 6 cores

Well... since BF3 can already use 6 cores I would say the "rumor" is confirmed.

 

[stickmansam]

What I want is like an i7 with 6 six real cores and no HT sold for like $400-500. That would be awesome

 

[jaguarskx]

I'm willing to spend the extra money on the 4770k. But since I'm not building my pc until the end of this year would it be better to just see how the 8350 will benchmark against the 4770k in a next gen game like BF4 (assuming people will do benchmarks)?

Since the previous generation Ivy Bridge CPUs can outperform AMD's FX CPUs in BF3. I will assume the trend will be the same with BF4. Since Intel's Haswell CPUs are anywhere between 6% - 10% more powerful than Ivy Bridge (depending on who you ask), Haswell likely widens the performance gap.

Can't remember if AMD's consumer oriented Steamroller CPUs (i.e. not the server versions) are due out in Q4 2013 or Q1 2014, so you might want to just wait can see if you have the patience. I don't really expect it to be any better than Ivy Bridge generation CPU (likely worse). However, anytime AMD can close the performance gap means the consumer generally wins (for AMD or Intel).

 

[SubinP]

What I want is like an i7 with 6 six real cores and no HT sold for like $400-500. That would be awesome

3930k is pretty damn close, it has 6 real cores with HT. The 4930k is coming out in september-ish.

 

[stickmansam]

What I want is like an i7 with 6 six real cores and no HT sold for like $400-500. That would be awesome

3930k is pretty damn close, it has 6 real cores with HT. The 4930k is coming out in september-ish.

What I want really is the 4930k cuts cuts out HT and is $100ish cheaper, simialr to how the 115x i5's are $100 cheaper than 115x i7's and only drop the HT and some cache. 6 cores is more than enough for any of my workloads

 

[nathanoakes]

There are a lot of strong arguments on both fronts. As an AMD user, and don't confuse me with a fanboy) I would say go with AMD. They are cheaper, have 8 physical cores(so if you do recording as well as playing you have 6 cores for the game and one or two for recording) are better for multitasking (take my recording example and mix it up) and are kind of future proof. Having said all of that, I have to say that the 3930k is probably the best CPU on the market where speed is concerned, but hyperthreading is a waste of time if you ask me, although I admit it helps when cores are sitting waiting for instructions. As someone who hates benchmarks because they don't show the whole picture and are mostly unfair, I hate to say it but look at them. The 8350 is not too far behind the competition and let's face it, the human eye can't even see more than around 60-70FPs so if you're expecting anything around 100+ because you have an i7, just think about it. Also make sure your monitor can display more than 60 in the first place. I would stick with AMD because they are cheaper in the long run. As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with. And taking that into account, AMD don't have PCIe3, and when they do it will require a board change but I don't even think PCIe3 is worth it, for now anyway. And like people have said, I assume that 'next gen' games will be optimised for the console's AMD architecture and because most PC games are crappy ports of console games, I have no doubts that they will start to work more for AMD's CPUs and GPUs but hey ho, Intel won't lose out on their optimisation opportunities either.

There is a lot to consider but I think AMD is the way to go for now. The 8350 is an awesome chip despite the critics and Haswell is a joke compared to Ivy Bridge which performs very similarly. At least AMD don't charge way too much for tiny performance gains. Although if you are a power freak, Intel are the way to go because of their admittedly impressive power figures with Haswell, compared to AMD's ridiculously thirsty chips.

So yeah in conclusion, 8350.

 

[thanksforthefish87]

There are a lot of strong arguments on both fronts. As an AMD user, and don't confuse me with a fanboy) I would say go with AMD. They are cheaper, have 8 physical cores(so if you do recording as well as playing you have 6 cores for the game and one or two for recording) are better for multitasking (take my recording example and mix it up) and are kind of future proof. Having said all of that, I have to say that the 3930k is probably the best CPU on the market where speed is concerned, but hyperthreading is a waste of time if you ask me, although I admit it helps when cores are sitting waiting for instructions. As someone who hates benchmarks because they don't show the whole picture and are mostly unfair, I hate to say it but look at them. The 8350 is not too far behind the competition and let's face it, the human eye can't even see more than around 60-70FPs so if you're expecting anything around 100+ because you have an i7, just think about it. Also make sure your monitor can display more than 60 in the first place. I would stick with AMD because they are cheaper in the long run. As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with. And taking that into account, AMD don't have PCIe3, and when they do it will require a board change but I don't even think PCIe3 is worth it, for now anyway. And like people have said, I assume that 'next gen' games will be optimised for the console's AMD architecture and because most PC games are crappy ports of console games, I have no doubts that they will start to work more for AMD's CPUs and GPUs but hey ho, Intel won't lose out on their optimisation opportunities either.

There is a lot to consider but I think AMD is the way to go for now. The 8350 is an awesome chip despite the critics and Haswell is a joke compared to Ivy Bridge which performs very similarly. At least AMD don't charge way too much for tiny performance gains. Although if you are a power freak, Intel are the way to go because of their admittedly impressive power figures with Haswell, compared to AMD's ridiculously thirsty chips.

So yeah in conclusion, 8350.

Just to clarify real quick, an 8350 doesn't have 8 physical cores. It has 4 physical cores each with multithreading.

With that aside though I'd mostly have to agree with you.

 

[SubinP]

There are a lot of strong arguments on both fronts. As an AMD user, and don't confuse me with a fanboy) I would say go with AMD. They are cheaper, have 8 physical cores(so if you do recording as well as playing you have 6 cores for the game and one or two for recording) are better for multitasking (take my recording example and mix it up) and are kind of future proof. Having said all of that, I have to say that the 3930k is probably the best CPU on the market where speed is concerned, but hyperthreading is a waste of time if you ask me, although I admit it helps when cores are sitting waiting for instructions. As someone who hates benchmarks because they don't show the whole picture and are mostly unfair, I hate to say it but look at them. The 8350 is not too far behind the competition and let's face it, the human eye can't even see more than around 60-70FPs so if you're expecting anything around 100+ because you have an i7, just think about it. Also make sure your monitor can display more than 60 in the first place. I would stick with AMD because they are cheaper in the long run. As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with. And taking that into account, AMD don't have PCIe3, and when they do it will require a board change but I don't even think PCIe3 is worth it, for now anyway. And like people have said, I assume that 'next gen' games will be optimised for the console's AMD architecture and because most PC games are crappy ports of console games, I have no doubts that they will start to work more for AMD's CPUs and GPUs but hey ho, Intel won't lose out on their optimisation opportunities either.

There is a lot to consider but I think AMD is the way to go for now. The 8350 is an awesome chip despite the critics and Haswell is a joke compared to Ivy Bridge which performs very similarly. At least AMD don't charge way too much for tiny performance gains. Although if you are a power freak, Intel are the way to go because of their admittedly impressive power figures with Haswell, compared to AMD's ridiculously thirsty chips.

So yeah in conclusion, 8350.

Just to clarify real quick, an 8350 doesn't have 8 physical cores. It has 4 physical cores each with multithreading.

With that aside though I'd mostly have to agree with you.

You're a little confused bro, AMD doesn't use HYPERthreading. They have 4 modules, each with 2 cores which share cache.

 

[stickmansam]

There are a lot of strong arguments on both fronts. As an AMD user, and don't confuse me with a fanboy) I would say go with AMD. They are cheaper, have 8 physical cores(so if you do recording as well as playing you have 6 cores for the game and one or two for recording) are better for multitasking (take my recording example and mix it up) and are kind of future proof. Having said all of that, I have to say that the 3930k is probably the best CPU on the market where speed is concerned, but hyperthreading is a waste of time if you ask me, although I admit it helps when cores are sitting waiting for instructions. As someone who hates benchmarks because they don't show the whole picture and are mostly unfair, I hate to say it but look at them. The 8350 is not too far behind the competition and let's face it, the human eye can't even see more than around 60-70FPs so if you're expecting anything around 100+ because you have an i7, just think about it. Also make sure your monitor can display more than 60 in the first place. I would stick with AMD because they are cheaper in the long run. As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with. And taking that into account, AMD don't have PCIe3, and when they do it will require a board change but I don't even think PCIe3 is worth it, for now anyway. And like people have said, I assume that 'next gen' games will be optimised for the console's AMD architecture and because most PC games are crappy ports of console games, I have no doubts that they will start to work more for AMD's CPUs and GPUs but hey ho, Intel won't lose out on their optimisation opportunities either.

There is a lot to consider but I think AMD is the way to go for now. The 8350 is an awesome chip despite the critics and Haswell is a joke compared to Ivy Bridge which performs very similarly. At least AMD don't charge way too much for tiny performance gains. Although if you are a power freak, Intel are the way to go because of their admittedly impressive power figures with Haswell, compared to AMD's ridiculously thirsty chips.

So yeah in conclusion, 8350.

Just to clarify real quick, an 8350 doesn't have 8 physical cores. It has 4 physical cores each with multithreading.

With that aside though I'd mostly have to agree with you.

You're a little confused bro, AMD doesn't use HYPERthreading. They have 4 modules, each with 2 cores which share cache.

AMD has an interesting design with shared cache, shared decoder and instruction pipeline(iirc). They have the regular ALU's but only have the FPU units. So the max they can scale to are 4 "full" FPU units and 8 integer units. Its not really hyperthreading. AMD slapped two cores basically chopped off stuff they didn't think needed to be doubled and called it a module. Intel on the other hand adds stuff like an extra instruction pipeline. So Intel adds stuff to get their Hyperthreading.

 

[jaguarskx]

As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with.

AMD stated AM3+ will survive into 2015, thus Steamroller will be the last AM3+ CPU. AMD CPU / APU sockets do not always enjoy long life cycles. AMD's 1st APU was socket FM1 (Llano) and it only lasted 1 generation. The Trinity and Richland APUs are socket FM2, however after just two generations, it will be replaced by socket FM2+ next year. The 4th generation APU (Vishera) will not be compatible with with socket FM2. While Vishera will physically fit in socket FM2, the current socket lacks some circuitry which makes it incompatible with Vishera (socket FM2+ APU).

Intel CPU sockets typically lasts 2 years to coincide with their "tick tock" cycle; new generation release (tick), then refresh (tock). However, Intel's 1st generation Core series (Lynnfield) was the only CPU generation that used socket 1156. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (2nd & 3rd generation) uses socket 1155.

 

[jaguarskx]

Just to clarify real quick, an 8350 doesn't have 8 physical cores. It has 4 physical cores each with multithreading.

AMD's Piledriver and Bulldozer CPUs do in fact have 8 CPU cores. However, every two cores are paired up with a single FPU in each module. The bottleneck is that single FPU when both cores need to access it at the same time.

In theory, AMD's approach would seem to be better than Intel's Hyper Threading (HT) approach because HT relies on "lull times" when the CPU is not processing anything to work on other threads. Thus, it is a 4 physical core + 4 virtual core design. However, in reality Intel's quad core CPUs (even without HT) performs better than AMD's CPU in most (not all) applications and games.

The Jaguar CPU used in the consoles does in fact have 8 independent cores, each with their own FPU which moves away from the Piledriver / Bulldozer design. However, I have read a couple of articles which stated that the 8 core Jaguar CPU is in fact two quad core Jaguar CPUs stuck together.

 

[nathanoakes]

As it has been said before, it isn't possible to accurately predict everything that will happen in the future, but given AMD's track record, the AM3+ socket in't going anywhere for 2 years at least IMO. Intel change their socket every year I think so when upgrades come along, AMD is who to stick with.

AMD stated AM3+ will survive into 2015, thus Steamroller will be the last AM3+ CPU. AMD CPU / APU sockets do not always enjoy long life cycles. AMD's 1st APU was socket FM1 (Llano) and it only lasted 1 generation. The Trinity and Richland APUs are socket FM2, however after just two generations, it will be replaced by socket FM2+ next year. The 4th generation APU (Vishera) will not be compatible with with socket FM2. While Vishera will physically fit in socket FM2, the current socket lacks some circuitry which makes it incompatible with Vishera (socket FM2+ APU).

Intel CPU sockets typically lasts 2 years to coincide with their "tick tock" cycle; new generation release (tick), then refresh (tock). However, Intel's 1st generation Core series (Lynnfield) was the only CPU generation that used socket 1156. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (2nd & 3rd generation) uses socket 1155.

Just to clarify real quick, an 8350 doesn't have 8 physical cores. It has 4 physical cores each with multithreading.

AMD's Piledriver and Bulldozer CPUs do in fact have 8 CPU cores. However, every two cores are paired up with a single FPU in each module. The bottleneck is that single FPU when both cores need to access it at the same time.

In theory, AMD's approach would seem to be better than Intel's Hyper Threading (HT) approach because HT relies on "lull times" when the CPU is not processing anything to work on other threads. Thus, it is a 4 physical core + 4 virtual core design. However, in reality Intel's quad core CPUs (even without HT) performs better than AMD's CPU in most (not all) applications and games.

The Jaguar CPU used in the consoles does in fact have 8 independent cores, each with their own FPU which moves away from the Piledriver / Bulldozer design. However, I have read a couple of articles which stated that the 8 core Jaguar CPU is in fact two quad core Jaguar CPUs stuck together.

To be honest, I'm not sure when the supposed Steamroller FX processors are coming so it will probably last longer than 2015.
On the APU subject, I was unaware of all of that since I only look at the APU parts to laugh at them trumping Intel's HD graphics. You should do it sometime. I must admit, AMD are doing very well on their APUs even if the CPU part isn't amazing.

 

[jaguarskx]

I believe server versions of Steamroller are due out by the end of the year. Consumer versions of Steamroller are likely due out in Q1 2014.

Assuming AM3+ EOL is Q4 2015, AMD has a chance to release a refresh of Steamroller in 2015. However, AMD is not Intel, and I think after the release of Steamroller AMD should simply focus on developing their next architecture.

 

[thanksforthefish87]

I believe server versions of Steamroller are due out by the end of the year. Consumer versions of Steamroller are likely due out in Q1 2014.

Assuming AM3+ EOL is Q4 2015, AMD has a chance to release a refresh of Steamroller in 2015. However, AMD is not Intel, and I think after the release of Steamroller AMD should simply focus on developing their next architecture.

After Steamroller, they're releasing Excavator. So there probably won't be a new architecture until 2016.

 

[stickmansam]

I believe server versions of Steamroller are due out by the end of the year. Consumer versions of Steamroller are likely due out in Q1 2014.

Assuming AM3+ EOL is Q4 2015, AMD has a chance to release a refresh of Steamroller in 2015. However, AMD is not Intel, and I think after the release of Steamroller AMD should simply focus on developing their next architecture.

After Steamroller, they're releasing Excavator. So there probably won't be a new architecture until 2016.

I would think that Steamroller will come out as mentioned and Excavator will come about 12-18 months after that, so in 2015.

I think AMD also wants to try a refresh/new arch tweak once a year thing going. Richland was only here since Kaveri was delayed, don't even think they needed it.