Fx8350 ($185) or I5 + MothB ($368)

[solitas777]

So I currently have an fx 4100 on ASUS M5A97 crossfired with 2 7750's one at x16 and the other x4 PCI. 16mgb of ram. 1SSD, 2 Sata HD's

I notice using guild wars the game slows down considerably. I have a motherboard that would allow me to upgrade to an AMD 8350 and it would be a relatively easy upgrade. Just switch out the chip.

However, I heard the 8350 isn't that good?

I could upgrade to an I5 3570k+ a motherboard but it would cost me double the price ($368) and would be more of a challenge for me to install. Also, I'm not sure if the power requirements would be more than my 600w power supply can handle?

What would be my best bang for my buck? I just want to play GW2 on full everything without it stuttering. I overclocked my chip to 4ghz and made the priority high for the exe but it still slows down too often for my liking. Would I see a noticeably difference with an 8350 upgrade or should I just go to the I5?

 

[AMD Radeon]

i will fo with 8350 and spend the rest on GPU

 

[ndslite]

8350 is a much better choice. It is better than te 3570k. The 8350 is 4x the performance of a 4100 so there would be a notticible performance difference.

 

[Roddfather]

I upgraded from a Phenom II X4 960T Black overclocked to 4.0 to an 8350 and overclocked to 4.5 straight away. No issues and my frame rates went up from around 45 -50 to a steady 60 on Far Cry 3 and I have been pretty pleased with the upgrade. You might also get more out of your setup though if you upgrade to a board with 16/16 or 16/8 pcie or 8/8 in crossfire. Might see a bump in frames. Toms has a few articles about that.

 

[rainbueza]

go for the fx 8350 since you already have an that board. FX 8350 is awesome. You will notice a big improvement from FX 4100. I also upgraded from 4100 to 8350 and I love it. 8350 is already great even without overclocking.

Yes they say that 8350 is not that good, but I don't believe them, as I am getting what I want with the said CPU. Gaming is depending its 70% performance on the GPU, 20& is for the processor and 10% for RAM.

8350 is great enough for gaming and for the budget.

 

[devilofdeaths]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HGpFoeubEU

 

[Orlean]

What resolution are you playing at ? You also have to consider that having two low end cards crossfired could also be a culprit. Also as you maybe have already read that that FX-4100 is just not that good of a processor for gaming especially when a CPU bound game like GW2 is in the picture.

The most logical choice financially would be to just buy a FX-8350 and drop it in. But you may want to consider a nice single GPU solution over your CF setup. Also to clear up some misinformation - How is the 8350 better than the 3570k ? Cost wise, yes I could see how it could be better because it's a cheaper alternative for the OP's concern, Better in some Multithreaded applications ? Sure. But fact is and I can show you benchmarks that the 3570k is the better overall processor especially in gaming. Although the FX-8350 is a improvement over the Bulldozer, don't get me wrong it's not a bad processor but to say that it's better bluntly is a very good way to spread the wrong information to individuals looking for a answer.

 

[skurtov]

As a current owner of an 8350, buy the chip and don't listen to much of the drama in the debate, it's asking for a fanboy war. Cost effectiveness, it is the best high end chip you can get, you sacrifice a little for the price compared to the 3570K, and in your case, you're saving over $180. That's a big chunk of money that isn't worth the jump to Intel for an overall marginal performance increase. The frame rate that you lose compared to 3570k will be negligible. Use that extra money on a better set of graphics card(s). I run a Sapphire 7870 OC edition in my build. The entire thing is a processing tank. I run Battlefield 3 with an average of 60fps on ultra, sometimes decreasing in a fragfest, but you get the idea.

 

[skurtov]

What resolution are you playing at ? You also have to consider that having two low end cards crossfired could also be a culprit. Also as you maybe have already read that that FX-4100 is just not that good of a processor for gaming especially when a CPU bound game like GW2 is in the picture.

The most logical choice financially would be to just buy a FX-8350 and drop it in. But you may want to consider a nice single GPU solution over your CF setup. Also to clear up some misinformation - How is the 8350 better than the 3570k ? Cost wise, yes I could see how it could be better because it's a cheaper alternative for the OP's concern, Better in some Multithreaded applications ? Sure. But fact is and I can show you benchmarks that the 3570k is the better overall processor especially in gaming. Although the FX-8350 is a improvement over the Bulldozer, don't get me wrong it's not a bad processor but to say that it's better bluntly is a very good way to spread the wrong information to individuals looking for a answer.

It might bet better overall, but the differences are marginal. Sure it doesn't wow with single threaded performance but when compared to that FX-4100 both chips are gonna far surpass his needs for what he is doing. Why buy yourself a Ford King Ranch when a normal f-150 will far out do the job? He should invest in a better GPU.

 

[Orlean]

It might bet better overall, but the differences are marginal. Sure it doesn't wow with single threaded performance but when compared to that FX-4100 both chips are gonna far surpass his needs for what he is doing. Why buy yourself a Ford King Ranch when a normal f-150 will far out do the job? He should invest in a better GPU.

I don't mean to start a war on whats better and I think you are misunderstanding my intentions with that post, but to bluntly say that it's "Better" without giving any reasons or information on why it's better is just wrong especially when people come here for information in the first place hoping to get the right information, thus the reason for the last of my post. While we are on the subject for the OP's needs Guild Wars 2 in this case it's just not marginally better, there's a nice gap in performance that the Intel system offers over the AMD( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html ), but again I also acknowledge the fact that he needs to look at a better GPU solution too. As far as a King Ranch and Base F-150 well I guess some people like cloths seats and some people like leather and are willing to pay for that luxury. In my case fortunately I was able to get a a King ranch for close to the same price of a normal F-150.

 

[skurtov]

I don't mean to start a war on whats better and I think you are misunderstanding my intentions with that post, but to bluntly say that it's "Better" without giving any reasons or information on why it's better is just wrong especially when people come here for information in the first place hoping to get the right information, thus the reason for the last of my post. While we are on the subject for the OP's needs Guild Wars 2 in this case it's just not marginally better, there's a nice gap in performance that the Intel system offers over the AMD( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html ), but again I also acknowledge the fact that he needs to look at a better GPU solution too. As far as a King Ranch and Base F-150 well I guess some people like cloths seats and some people like leather and are willing to pay for that luxury. In my case fortunately I was able to get a a King ranch for close to the same price of a normal F-150.

I was quick to jump the gun, and owe an apology. As for purchasing a 3570k, are you comparing Newegg prices because if you shop frugally you can find the 8350 for the $185 that the OP mentioned? If not then I have no idea how you found a 3570k for less than $200.

And the benchmark mentioned above, it mentions an octo core FX, but no mention of the processor itself. It could be an old 8150 he was testing, Zambezi, and the 8350 out performs Zambezi by a long shot. In fact taking a closer look at the benchmark you provided. The tester only tested 3.0ghz chips. Which does not include the Vishera only Zabezi, so you can discard your benchmark since it doesn't apply.

In addition I can not believe for a second that a chip that runs BF3 this well in this benchmark: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-13.html

Can only run Guild Wars at 43.8fps.

 

[Kingtr011]

from what i have seen that motherboard and cpu combination is a great price combination. it is not as good as a 3570k for pure gaming but with the 8350 the main problem you will have is that the GPU's will be holding you back upgrade to a 7870 or a 660 Ti they will out perform your current setup.

I recently upgraded from a 1090t to a 3570k and saw a massive gaming improvement alone without a GPU upgrade.

from personal experience using both AMD and Intel i recommend if you are going to just play games on the system the 3570k is a great choice and maybe upgrade to a newer high end gpu later on maybe the nvidia 700 series when it comes around

 

[Orlean]

If you are up to speed and aware of the general information, Vishera was on average a 10-15% increase in performance over Bulldozer, as you see per the GW2 benchmarks that even a Pentium and I3 outperform the older Zambezi chip so put two and two together. And it's tested at 3.0ghz for that reason CPU scaling they are showing you clock for clock numbers, that whole page is dedicated to that. As far as the BF3 benchmark it's irrelevant due to it being a Single player benchmark, multiplayer is allot more taxing. While on the subject of clock speed keep in mind that stock for stock the FX-8350 has a 600mhz clock speed advantage over the 3570k yet still lags behind most applications.

As far as purchasing a 3570k at the time of my purchase(May 2012) Microcenter was selling them at $190 with $50 off any Z77 motherboard it was only around $50 more compared to the AMD system I was looking at building at the time and to me was worth the extra money. They are selling them cheaper now http://www.microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor

 

[ccovemaker]

The 8350 will cough up 10-15 fps to the 3570K in Guild Wars so if it is worth it to you by all means go for it but the 8350 will be a solid upgrade to your 4100 as it is not only a jump in core but in clock and IPC as well.

All that said someone has got to point out that the money might be better spent on a proper graphic card as crossfiring 2 >$100 card on likely to be very useful.

Your crossfired set up barely yields a 7850 level graphics on it best day with all the bug and trouble of crossfire.

I would maybe spend the money on one solid graphics card instead.

 

[ccovemaker]

As in your 7750's have 512 Stream processors

A 7850 has 1024 but it has been proven all over this site that crossfire or SLI rarely scale 1 to 1.

So it very likely while still running a crossfired rig in all reality you do not have much going on GPU wise.

 

[TechTeen]

I have recently invested in the AMD-8350 and it was an excellent buy. Like some people have posted, I also upgraded from the FX-4100 and it makes an excellent difference. It is currently working together with the AMD Radeon HD 7870 and in all the latest games on maximum settings it is exceeding the 60fps mark. I would personally choose the AMD-8350 as it's cheap, reliable and an excellent choice for gaming and also gives you chance to do extreme overclocking in the not so distant future.

 

[solitas777]

Why does everyone keep telling me to spend it on a GPU when Guild Wars 2 is so CPU intensitve?

 

[skurtov]

Why does everyone keep telling me to spend it on a GPU when Guild Wars 2 is so CPU intensitve?

Because even your old FX-4100 is capable of processing the game modestly, but your bottleneck is your GPU, it can't handle the load, and stutters.

 

[Orlean]

Because even your old FX-4100 is capable of processing the game modestly, but your bottleneck is your GPU, it can't handle the load, and stutters.

Wrong, the FX-4000 doesn't run the game modestly at all again look at the information as you can see per this chart that the FX-4000 see's a massive improvement in frames just by increasing the clock speed from 3 to 4ghz indicating that the Processor is a big bottleneck. Try playing WvW with that processor and you are pretty much looking at a slide show, hell it even gives the 3570k a run for its money - Guild Wars 2 being more CPU intensive and also just not optimized very well.

Why does everyone keep telling me to spend it on a GPU when Guild Wars 2 is so CPU intensitve?

Because in this case it's a combination of two problems as you can see the FX-4000 isn't up to the task to run this game like you want it too. Also with crossfire setups you have the issue with if it's going to scale well, in this case two low end card compared to a more powerful single card. So my advise is upgrade the processor and if you are still not happy with the performance you are going to have to get a better GPU solution.

 

[ccovemaker]

Orleans is referring to the Guild Wars break down that Toms did.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268.html

While the chart:
http://media.bestofmicro.com/J/J/3 [...] 0clock.png
Does show a CPU bottleneck it does so while using a single 7970.

Its there to show the effect of the CPU bottleneck but can not really be compared to the OP's case since he is running 2x7750's

As I pointed out Crossfire rarely scales 1 to 1.

In that the OP's 2 7750 are going to perform some where in the middle of a single 7750 and a single 7850.

Stream processors.

7750 has 512.
7850 has 1024
the 7970 used in the test has 2048 and likely a higher clock.

The chart will not reflect your real world gain as your GPU is not nearly as capable.




Using the next chart in the story for reference.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/J/K/348032/original/CPU%20Cores.png

Here the FX 8 core processors are added to the mix with the core clocks set all at 3.0 GHZ.

This test again is set up to expose CPU bottlenecks. No one in real life who owns a 7970 will run in at 1280x1024.

Even with the cards stacked against the CPU in that testing going from the "FX-4000" to the "8000" only yielded a net gain of 10 fps min.

The caveat to this is at the time this was written the "FX" that they where referring to were all Bulldozer cores and Solitas is considering the FX-8350.

Piledriver vs Buldozer is a solid advance but as pointed out in the testing above we are not looking at a huge jump in FPS.


"solitas777 wrote :

Why does everyone keep telling me to spend it on a GPU when Guild Wars 2 is so CPU intensitve?"


That is why I stated that the FX 8350 while being a upgrade is not likely going to be as stunning as you thought.


Why did I go in favor of a GPU instead?

http://media.bestofmicro.com/J/C/348024/original/appearance%201680.png

Because depending on what resolution you game at spending that $200 budget on say a 7870 net you 2x the frame rame of a 7750 (we still have no idea how well GW2 Crossfires)


My upgrade path in Solitas's shoes would be:

1) Get a solid CPU cooler and drive the FX-4100 to what it can do. The clock speed seems to matter more from the testing than the core count.
2) Spend whatever you can on a single solid GPU say>$200.
3) If you still haven't got what you needed get the FX-8350.


Honestly the CPU and GPU are both suspect here.

 

[solitas777]

I did overclock to from 3.6ghz to 4ghz. Microstuttering completely went away and I increased framerates by 8. My min to max now is 20- 40 FPS at max settings. Whereas before it was something like 9- 33 FPS.

 

[solitas777]

By overclocking it, it seems almost like my bottleneck seems to be my processor. 7750 crossfires remarkably well in many games in a few giving me 2.5x the performance though on average its 1.5x. It's not a great card but I'd hate to throw them away considering the money I put into them, I would be bummed if this was the case.

 

[griptwister]

My advice, you could sell your mobo and CPU and make up the difference on the i5 and a intel MoBo. Also, if you happen to live by microcenter, you could get an i5 for under $180. But honestly, a FX 8350 is more than enough for your needs. It isn't the best, but it's pretty darn good! You wouldn't be disappointed, It'll own the FX4100 you currently have. Your money is better spent in a FX 8350 and a GPU IMO.

 

[mohit9206]

spend the money on an 8320. its just and underclocked 8350 you can easily overclock it.
and get the 7870 as your new graphics card by selling your crossfire 7750. it will be improvement

 

[FALC0N]

I did overclock to from 3.6ghz to 4ghz. Microstuttering completely went away and I increased framerates by 8. My min to max now is 20- 40 FPS at max settings. Whereas before it was something like 9- 33 FPS.

You can pull more than 4ghz from that chip if you wish. You should be able to hit 4.5 Ghz at least at maybe as much as 5ghz