haswell or piledriver

[vishalaestro]

i need a recommendation for the cpu since today's games are using more no of cores is it wise to stay with amd or with intel

 

[juanrga]

Interesting thread...

Just in case anyone's still there, I'll post my 2 cents on the original "Haswell vs Piledriver" question:

As always, it comes down to the BENCHMARKS. Just because the PS4 is using an AMD 8-core CPU does not necessarily equate to the AMD desktop CPU being the best choice over the Haswell CPU (i5-4670K?).

It's POSSIBLE that upcoming games will suddenly benefit more from that AMD CPU but that's pure speculation. Speculating that future AMD CPU's and graphics cards will be the better choice due to the PS4 using AMD is fine, but there's little evidence that this is actually the case.

If you're building a new PC and are looking at a CPU that's roughly $200+ the choice is probably the i5-4670K, though I'd really love to see an 8C/8T CPU from AMD that solves some of their current flagship issues such as single-core performance.

It will be fascinating to revisit this issue in a year to see if any games based on UNREAL 4 engine that are designed for the PC and PS4 simultaneously start favoring the current AMD FX-8350 for example.

Until then, benchmarks, not crystal balls.

Except that claims are being backed up on data and common sense. Eurogamer approached a number of AAA game developers asking them whether an Intel or AMD processor offers the best way to future-proof a games PC built in the here and now. All of them opted for the AMD FX-8350 (eight threads) over the i5 3570K (four threads).

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-future-proofing-your-pc-for-next-gen

As shown in the article, a new game such as crysis 3 runs faster on an AMD FX-8350 than on an i7-3770k (both eight threads). An ultra-expensive twelve threads i7 3930K beats the FX... but the hypothetical Haswell i5-4670K (four threads again) don't be that fast, and recall the rumour that AMD will be releasing the Centurion chip for beating both the 3930K and the extreme chips. And next becomes AMD Steamroller chips...

I didn't say the FX-8350 wasn't the way to go, I said it's quite possible it was.

Your words "pure speculation" and "there's little evidence" seemed to point to the contrary...

Also, when you buy a CPU you want it to be the best performance on AVERAGE, not just for a couple games. From your own article they state the i5-3570K is the better CPU for most games now:

"the Core i5 3570K - offers four cores at 3.4GHz. In a world where single-core performance still dominates, the Intel offering is still considered the better buy"

So it's not that simple.

We're talking about SOME games in the near-future benefitting from the AMD CPU, not all or necessarily even most. And or course, most people will buy older games through Steam (or have them already) that run best on the INTEL.

That's my "common sense" argument.

Your entire post was about future gaming, wasn't? And I replied to that. If you want to discuss now current games and older games then I will repeat that I write often:

On average:
Older games --> i5
Current games --> FX or i5
Modern games --> FX.

 

[3ogdy]

If you are planning to upgrade later on, Piledriver is in an architecture AMD is committed to until 2015 (AM3+ socket) and that socket will get Steamroller and eventually Excavator, if you go with something by intel, Haswell will be their new architecture so they will commit to that for at least 2 years.

So... two more years for both?

If money is at all something you're concerned about, go with AMD, for the money you would spend on an intel system, a comparably built AMD system will have more processor and more GPU for the same money...

This is not true at all.

Also, PS4 and XBOX 720 are all running AMD hardware in their consoles, so future games will be optimized for AMD architecture anyway.

More complete nonsense for multiple reasons. Games aren't optimized for hardware at a machine level. They're optimized for hardware containers like DirectX, OpenGL, or whatever propitiatory software consoles are using. Otherwise either developers would have to write specific code for EVERY GPU, or AMD and Nvidia would have to write specific drivers for every game for that GPU to work.

But even if they were optimized for hardware, Intel and AMD CPUs are both x84-64 architecture. It's why you can install the same OS, games, and apps on a PC using either CPU. PORTING games between PC and the different console systems will become easier, because now all the consoles will be using the same architecture.

AMD's modular architecture should see performance gains here because games will know how to treat it.
Since the hardware inside the consoles has more than 4 cores, games will most likely be optimized to take advantage of that huge parallelism, which in turn favors AMD's architecture again, since the game logic would be very easy to deal with from an AMD CPU's perspective.
Intel would have to run more stuff on less cores for that matter -they do have a higher single-threaded performance, but that's not key in future games anymore - the key is to make them take advantage of as many cores as possible.
Go check system requirements for upcoming games and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[juanrga]

If you are planning to upgrade later on, Piledriver is in an architecture AMD is committed to until 2015 (AM3+ socket) and that socket will get Steamroller and eventually Excavator, if you go with something by intel, Haswell will be their new architecture so they will commit to that for at least 2 years.

So... two more years for both?

If money is at all something you're concerned about, go with AMD, for the money you would spend on an intel system, a comparably built AMD system will have more processor and more GPU for the same money...

This is not true at all.

Also, PS4 and XBOX 720 are all running AMD hardware in their consoles, so future games will be optimized for AMD architecture anyway.

More complete nonsense for multiple reasons. Games aren't optimized for hardware at a machine level. They're optimized for hardware containers like DirectX, OpenGL, or whatever propitiatory software consoles are using. Otherwise either developers would have to write specific code for EVERY GPU, or AMD and Nvidia would have to write specific drivers for every game for that GPU to work.

But even if they were optimized for hardware, Intel and AMD CPUs are both x84-64 architecture. It's why you can install the same OS, games, and apps on a PC using either CPU. PORTING games between PC and the different console systems will become easier, because now all the consoles will be using the same architecture.

AMD's modular architecture should see performance gains here because games will know how to treat it.
Since the hardware inside the consoles has more than 4 cores, games will most likely be optimized to take advantage of that huge parallelism, which in turn favors AMD's architecture again, since the game logic would be very easy to deal with from an AMD CPU's perspective.
Intel would have to run more stuff on less cores for that matter -they do have a higher single-threaded performance, but that's not key in future games anymore - the key is to make them take advantage of as many cores as possible.
Go check system requirements for upcoming games and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Eurogamer run a poll among triple-A game developers and all them selected an AMD FX-8350 chip as "the best way to future-proof a games PC built in the here and now."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-future-proofing-your-pc-for-next-gen