Guess everyone hates AMD now?

[bjaminnyc]

Forum,

I'm confused. I see numerous daily posts asking for "upgrade" help. Many times these posters have somewhat capable machines with several component categories that could be addressed for a discernible upgrade. eg. Processor, MB, Vidcard, SSD, etc....

What confuses me, a poster who has an AM3+ or FX compatible board who's seeking more FPS, without fail the first reply with be you need an i5 or i7. From what I've seen most of the time OP has a Phenom x4 or x6, and a vid card that's somewhat dated.

Now I understand if budget isn't an issue, go big and get an i7 3770k + z77 for gaming. However, most people want to spend smart because they understand once you get into the top 10% of almost anything you quickly experience diminishing returns.

Does everyone on this site have Intel processors faster then an overclocked 8320 @$180? When I look at the majority of these posters builds, and the budget they state for upgrade, I can't see how investing more money in the video card, a FX upgrade (or stay x6), and possibly a SSD or superior monitor isn't going to be a bigger gaming improvement - When compared to spending the majority of the stated budget on a new CPU and MB.

Why no love for the Vishera FX? Obviously Intel does have a hand full of chips faster then the 8350/8320, typically more expensive and marginally faster with the exception of the spendy Extreme series procs. Doesn't it make sense to stick with the AM3+ when you know the socket is going to serve you for at least one more FX revision (Steamroller)?

Please help me understand why I'm wrong to still think AMD is a viable platform.

From a philosophical perspective, as builders shouldn't we try to help support AMD when it makes sense. OEM's aren't and Intel being the only player isn't good for any consumer. I currently own systems from both manufactures so no bias. (x6, i5, i7, & Xeon)

 

[jay_nar2012]

I don't hate AMD, they fill in the budget section of the CPU market and Intel fill in the performance section of the market, don't get me wrong AMD CPUs can perform very good, Intel CPUs perform better, although the performance gap isn't worth the price gap.

 

[bjaminnyc]

I don't hate AMD, they fill in the budget section of the CPU market and Intel fill in the performance section of the market, don't get me wrong AMD CPUs can perform very good, Intel CPUs perform better, although the performance gap isn't worth the price gap.

Please don't take offence to my comment because what you said is the Atypical rhetoric in the forum. I think your comment is irresponsible (once again no offense intended).

An accurate statement. Some Intel processors perform better than all AMD processors, some AMD processors perform better than nearly all Intel processors.

How is the 8xxx Vishera not a performance part? What percentage of PC gamers, or all PC owners, would you estimate have faster CPU's?

 

[osamabinrobot]

i switched earlier this year from years and years of AMD to intel and was blown away. I probably wont go back to AMD unless they really get off their ass and make some real strong forward progress, which doesnt really seem to be the case.

however, when i went to shop for a new work laptop i basically only looked at AMD because their apu performance is so much better than intel's HD whatever garbage. very cost effective and i can even play some games when im stuck on the road staying in hotels and stuff. intel has a long way to go catching up in mobile graphics.

 

[blazorthon]

i switched earlier this year from years and years of AMD to intel and was blown away. I probably wont go back to AMD unless they really get off their ass and make some real strong forward progress, which doesnt really seem to be the case.

however, when i went to shop for a new work laptop i basically only looked at AMD because their apu performance is so much better than intel's HD whatever garbage. very cost effective and i can even play some games when im stuck on the road staying in hotels and stuff. intel has a long way to go catching up in mobile graphics.

AMD is improving and anyone who is actually keeping up with the info that they give out would know that AMD's next architecture, Steamroller, is set to be a bigger improvement over Piledriver than Piledriver was over Bulldozer.

AMD's A10-5800K, a mere AP part, can compete with the more expensive FX-4170 and FX-6200 in average gaming performance despite not even having an L3 cache, being much more power efficient, and for those who'd use it, having an excellent IGP that with decent memory, can easily compete with the Radeon 6670. Compared to a similarly performing Intel setup with a lower end i3 and a Radeon 6670, the A10 is actually probably more power efficient for gaming than the Intel setup (also especially lower for idle power consumption too) if not at least as efficient despite having double the core count on a severe lithography disadvantage with far inferior cache.

 

[GhislainG]

From a philosophical perspective, as builders shouldn't we try to help support AMD when it makes sense. OEM's aren't and Intel being the only player isn't good for any consumer. I currently own systems from both manufactures so no bias. (x6, i5, i7, & Xeon)

You can buy AMD based office PCs and servers from OEMs.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

the only AMD product i would buy today is a mobile APU, and only because it has quite a good GPU muscle, compared to Intel.

I wouldnt buy an AMD pure CPU (BD/PD), nor will recommend anyone to buy either.

Their dGPU's are as good as Nvidia, and i will recommend either, depending on the users preference.

 

[quilciri]

Please don't take offence to my comment because what you said is the Atypical rhetoric in the forum. I think your comment is irresponsible (once again no offense intended).

An accurate statement. Some Intel processors perform better than all AMD processors, some AMD processors perform better than nearly all Intel processors.

How is the 8xxx Vishera not a performance part? What percentage of PC gamers, or all PC owners, would you estimate have faster CPU's?

The 8 core fx chips *can* outperform all intel chips *in highly threaded applications*. Unfortunately, video games are not highly threaded, and benefit far more from per-core performance where the intel chips shine brighter.

That having been said, AMD chips are still worth the money for a gaming machine if you are willing to overclock.

 

[blazorthon]

The 8 core fx chips *can* outperform all intel chips *in highly threaded applications*. Unfortunately, video games are not highly threaded, and benefit far more from per-core performance where the intel chips shine brighter.

That having been said, AMD chips are still worth the money for a gaming machine if you are willing to overclock.

BF3 MP and a few other games can in fact use that many threads. It'd be more accurate of you to say that most games don't use that many threads. Besides, AMD can't outperform all Intel CPUs even in fully threaded work.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

^ Plus, even if the AMD chips give almost the same average FPS as intel chips, the latency is higher there. So over a period of time, the AMD system could possibly be perceived as more jittery.

 

[blazorthon]

^ Plus, even if the AMD chips give almost the same average FPS as intel chips, the latency is higher there. So over a period of time, the AMD system could possibly be perceived as more jittery.

The chart that I posted is of average frame latency, so I'm not entirely with you on that. Intel's Pentiums have horrid frame latency compared to similarly priced AMD triple/quad/six core CPUs and in such games as BF3 MP, AMD competes quite well in average frame latency too. There are many cases where AMD is losing in this, but there are others where they are winning too.

 

[topper743]

bjaminnyc hello. I think that your observation is valid and correct. It is obvious to any who read the forums and there are a very large number of posters asking about upgrades to older systems or direction on a first time purchase. Often the poster is asking about a minor part and or a upgrade of their system and the first reply is something to the effect that they should throw out what they have and get a shiny new Intel system. What you have said is also true in that “Some Intel processors perform better than all AMD processors, some AMD processors perform better than nearly all Intel processors.” Very true. Something that I fall back on are the benchmarks and how they apply to my system usage. Since gaming applications is a big part of the forums it is easy to compare those benchmarks. If the Intel part gets 90fps and the AMD part get 86.7fps that performance is so close that the user wouldn’t know that difference except in the benchmark numbers. What is true is that is the marketing method to move new tech equipment. What is equally true is that the 8150 to a greater degree and the 8350 to a lesser degree are somewhat disappointing compared to the Phenom II’s. For the first time buyer they are a great choice. If you are like me (fair disclosure) and have a 1090T you wanted and were hoping for more performance and a reason to upgrade. Mine is clocked at 3.8+ghz for everyday use and is a great performer. I have no complaints. I was hoping that the 8150 might be >=30% more than the 1090T and I was hoping that the 8350 was going to be >=30% more that the 8150 and it was not. To chime in with you and to ask the question aloud is why do so many posters insist on singing the praise of Intel over AMD with so much emotional investment? This is especially perplexing when many of the posters have little actual experience with a new part and often use some anecdotal evidence to explain their point (I had an Uncle that had one once…). Think of all the blood spilled on these forums in the AMD v. Intel wars discussion. Same thing with ATI v. Nvidia discussions. Some of the blame has to be placed at the feet of the writers of tech articles. To be fair it has to be tough to get to reader excited because the new Intel part bests the new AMD part by 3+-fps. Some of these guys are fair and some get paid by Intel to give a favorable review. Since we are asking what kind of forums poster does this and why or what could their motivation be consider the poster above me. jay_nar2012, age 14, 2626 posts, can’t work, can’t drive, doesn’t earn money has limited tech/life experience yet pontificates on AMD v. Intel at great length, has certitude but has no Prima facie credibility and limited use of his native tongue. Yet many posters like this make post after post that influence other like type posters/users. Maybe it is herd mentality? People are so sensitive to brands and trends today that for example consider the sport shoe. Why do Nikes sell for 100s of dollars in some cases, when they are put together in sweat shops in the third world for pennies?

 

[twelve25]

It's pretty simple. At most price points, the Intel chips outperform for gaming, video and photo editing. Which are the most common requests for new builds. It's not bias, just math.

For GPU, AMD Radeon is on the other side of the equation. You rarely see a GPU question end in a Nvidia recommendation. Why? For any given budget the AMD GPU is generally the better buy.

I've rarely seen people suggest someone with a modern AMD board switch to Intel.

 

[Novuake]

Nobody should "HATE" AMD, without them Intel would have no reason to innovate and decrease prices.

Personally I support AMD whenever I don't build a high end system, every PC i own is AMD in some or other except for my gaming PC, and that has an AMD graphics card.

The home computer industry can not survive without atleast 2 companies competing.

I am routing hard for AMD, very very hard. I love how they seem like less of a corporation too. Intel is all about the money. AMD is all about the user. Atleast that is my perception.

 

[blazorthon]

It's pretty simple. At most price points, the Intel chips outperform for gaming, video and photo editing. Which are the most common requests for new builds. It's not bias, just math.

For GPU, AMD Radeon is on the other side of the equation. You rarely see a GPU question end in a Nvidia recommendation. Why? For any given budget the AMD GPU is generally the better buy.

I've rarely seen people suggest someone with a modern AMD board switch to Intel.

Gaming, sometimes. Video editing and photo editing, no, they don't. AMD wins there at any given price point.

 

[quilciri]

BF3 MP and a few other games can in fact use that many threads. It'd be more accurate of you to say that most games don't use that many threads. Besides, AMD can't outperform all Intel CPUs even in fully threaded work.

Touche, sir. However this reply is a bit misleading. To clarify further, The 8 core FX chips, esp the 8300's can outperform *all* intel consumer level chips in some, but not all highly threaded apps. Xeon chips with 8+ physical cores will of course outperform the 8 "core" FX chips, but I figured we were comparing apples to apples here.

P.S. Out of curiosity, what are these "few other games"? BF3 (and even then only BF3 multiplayer) is the only game that seems to come up by name when discussing games that use more than 2 cores.

 

[gamerk316]

Gaming, sometimes. Video editing and photo editing, no, they don't. AMD wins there at any given price point.

No, they don't. At best, the top PD chips routhley equate to a 2500k.

Secondly, and I'm seeing a trend in this thread so far: You aren't providing any metrics whatsoever to back up your statements. This is significant, since you continually point out "BF3 MP", and frankly, MP games aren't benched because of the difficulty of getting clean and valid data. So I'd REALLY like to see some numbers to back up your statements.

 

[blazorthon]

Touche, however this reply is a bit misleading. The 8 core FX chips, esp the 8300's can outperform *all* intel consumer level chips in some highly threaded apps. Xeon chips with 8+ physical cores will of course outperform the 8 "core" FX chips, but I figured we were comparing apples to apples here.

Although it's much mroe expensive, the six-core i7s don't lose to the eight-core FX CPUs in highly threaded software and even then, in most cases, the top quad-core i7s still have the win over the FX-8350. Winning in some highly-threaded workloads while losing in most, even if not by much, is still a loss. AMD also has lower prices, but much higher power consumption, so not necessarily better value if you upgrade more than once every two years or so (much sooner for people in the UK and such who have much more expensive power than those of us in the USA). I consider that to be good competition, but I won't call it better than Intel.

 

[bjaminnyc]

No, they don't. At best, the top PD chips routhley equate to a 2500k.

Secondly, and I'm seeing a trend in this thread so far: You aren't providing any metrics whatsoever to back up your statements. This is significant, since you continually point out "BF3 MP", and frankly, MP games aren't benched because of the difficulty of getting clean and valid data. So I'd REALLY like to see some numbers to back up your statements.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2012/-02-Cinebench-11.5,3143.html

Obviously a synthetic benchmark. However, the 2500k is roughly 1.5 points behind the 8350. Nevertheless, they are both relatively high end chips for 99% of all consumers. My op was in reference to the suggestion that people scrap their existing AM3+ setup for something similar to the 2500k for hundreds more (cpu+mb) than simply purchasing an FX upgrade to achieve nearly +/- the same results.

Someone a few posts back said it best. Its herd mentality. Intel may have the performance crown, shouldn't take away from the fact the 83xx aren't too far behind.

In addition there are some inexpensive killer AM3+ boards with every bell and whistle.

 

[blazorthon]

No, they don't. At best, the top PD chips routhley equate to a 2500k.

Secondly, and I'm seeing a trend in this thread so far: You aren't providing any metrics whatsoever to back up your statements. This is significant, since you continually point out "BF3 MP", and frankly, MP games aren't benched because of the difficulty of getting clean and valid data. So I'd REALLY like to see some numbers to back up your statements.

Gee, I guess the chart that I posted above is invisible, huh?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328.html
http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/14

Clearly the i5-2500K is not ahead of the FX-8350 in general productivity nor is it even on-par with the FX-8350.

It managed to beat the i5-3570K in most of Tom's tests and this is despite a significant memory bandwidth disadvantage in tests that are using RAM drives, so it's at a potential disadvantage beyond its CPU performance in such tests.

Other than a test on experiemental OpenCL support, AMD had two wins over the i5-2500K and one slight loss that's so close that it might as well be a tie (using the i5-2550K in place of the i5-2500K). Heck, it managed to beat the i7s in some workloads and it obviously beats the i5-2500K on average in fully threaded workloads.

Is this enough for you?

 

[bjaminnyc]

If you are like me (fair disclosure) and have a 1090T you wanted and were hoping for more performance and a reason to upgrade. Mine is clocked at 3.8+ghz for everyday use and is a great performer.

Your whole quote was right on the money.

My gaming / entertainment pc is a x6 as well, and I certainly can't tell any significant difference when compared to any of my Intel systems. One of which is a spec'd out 2 p xeon 12 core bad*ss. Clearly the Xeon system is vastly superior for data processing, but for end user experience no real difference. The real point is an x6 can be had for not much more than $100.

$100 x6 vs any i5 or i7 -> $ for $ not even close / & Bench for Bench not too far apart either.


I'm in the same boat also as far as the FX upgrade. I too would have liked to see a 30% improvement. Nevertheless, I'm quite pleased knowing that if not Visera then Steamroller will provide a nice performance upgrade with an investment probably around $200. Reviewers definitely like to ignore the fact AMD has looked out for its customer base by staying with the AM3+.

 

[bjaminnyc]

i switched earlier this year from years and years of AMD to intel and was blown away. I probably wont go back to AMD unless they really get off their ass and make some real strong forward progress, which doesnt really seem to be the case.

however, when i went to shop for a new work laptop i basically only looked at AMD because their apu performance is so much better than intel's HD whatever garbage. very cost effective and i can even play some games when im stuck on the road staying in hotels and stuff. intel has a long way to go catching up in mobile graphics.

What AMD product did you switch from? A 2500k is a really nice CPU, about the same performance as a 8320 < 8350. Therefore, I'm confused by your statement "you wouldn't go back." Why? Based on your experience with an Intel processor that's not as fast as an AMD part? Seems to me a very presumptuous determination.

I know my statement is troll bait, excuse me. However, its comments like that which make the ill informed jump all over my OP question.

 

[quilciri]

Although it's much mroe expensive, the six-core i7s don't lose to the eight-core FX CPUs in highly threaded software and even then, in most cases, the top quad-core i7s still have the win over the FX-8350. Winning in some highly-threaded workloads while losing in most, even if not by much, is still a loss. AMD also has lower prices, but much higher power consumption, so not necessarily better value if you upgrade more than once every two years or so (much sooner for people in the UK and such who have much more expensive power than those of us in the USA). I consider that to be good competition, but I won't call it better than Intel.

Goign for technical accuracy over pragmatism isn't helping anyone here.

Forgive me, but I don't consider a $1000 chip "consumer level". Also, while electricity is more expensive in some parts of the world than others, in the states, it averages $0.16 per kwh. With a 50w difference in the chips, you'd have to game, or otherwise run the computer as had as you can for 20 hours before it cost you even $0.16. Running a 125w amd chip over a 75w intel chip might cost you an extra $5 a year ($8 if you game 20 hours a week). Not exactly a compelling difference.

 

[blazorthon]

Goign for technical accuracy over pragmatism isn't helping anyone here.

Forgive me, but I don't consider a $1000 chip "consumer level". Also, while electricity is more expensive in some parts of the world than others, in the states, it averages $0.16 per kwh. If you game 20 hours a week, the 50w difference between the intel and the AMD chip will cost you a whopping extra $0.64 a month.

You forget idle power consumption and do you mind if I ask how you came to that number? It most certainly doesn't quite match up with mine.

Also, Why pay $1000? The i7-3930K is almost exactly as fast as the $1000 models, but is almost twice as cheap as them.

Sorry if I seem like I am going too far into semantics, I can be a little OCD about being accurate.

 

[bjaminnyc]

You forget idle power consumption and do you mind if I ask how you came to that number? It most certainly doesn't quite match up with mine.

Also, Why pay $1000? The i7-3930K is almost exactly as fast as the $1000 models, but is almost twice as cheap as them.

Sorry if I seem like I am going too far into semantics, I can be a little OCD about being accurate.

Power consumption? Really? You're talking about overclocked gaming computers with massive video cards, even bigger monitors and typically multiple drives. If power consumption was truly a concern of gamers, they'd sell the PC and console and break out the ipad. HTPC and Server environments its important.


Electricity costs me roughly $500 a month for my NY apartment . Even if guilciri's math is off by a factor of 10, its utterly irrelevant.