Is AMD FX Still Viable For a System Build? Rev. 2.0

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Zen is THEORETICALLY suppose to match haswell, and Intel just released skylake, putting them a generation behind already, and by 2016 Intel will release their next Gen. I'm also seriously doubting that Zen will live up to the hype. I keep hearing about how dx12 will make AMD cpus just as good or better than Intel processors, but I'm not sure how much fact vs fanboys that is. I'm just saying that especially with their lack of r&d money that it's hard to believe they can beat Intel. On the flipside their graphics cards aren't nearly as bad as their cpus against their competitors.
 
The FX is still relevant in workstation builds, in my opinion.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($136.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($61.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.80 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($167.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $615.51
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 07:10 EST-0500




PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($164.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-E45 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($62.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.80 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($167.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $644.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 07:15 EST-0500



The AMD build wins with price and performance. How is this not important? Gaming is a different story, but I'm just putting things into perspective. Matching the AMD in price is going to get you an i3, which lowers the performance even more. However, this also allows you to add more RAM, or an extra HDD, to get closer to the AMD total.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($107.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-E45 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($62.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Value Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($63.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.80 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($167.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $621.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 07:23 EST-0500



This build is going to outperform the AMD in Photoshop for instance, everytime. But despite having more RAM, and provided the Premiere Pro project is big enough to use the extra RAM in order to decrease render time, it's still not going to beat the AMD.

There is room for both systems in the market for a workstation build, so I think it's wrong to say that AMD is useless today. Video editing, the AMD wins, photo editing the Intel build wins. Neither of these are good at both.

Obviously gaming is different, and one persons view of "playable" is always going to upset someone else who doesn't agree with that, which is fine. This is why I used workstation applications as an example, to make it more black and white.






All the best!





 
Nobody in their right mind would pair an FX 8320 with a motherboard that lacks heatsinks for the VRM's. That's just asking for trouble. For a heavy use machine, I probably wouldn't want a 4+1 phase board either. Using mail in rebates, to prove your argument, isn't an accurate depiction either.

Upfront cost of that AMD build.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($136.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($71.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.30 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($197.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $660.01
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 11:01 EST-0500

How it should have been built, with a proper motherboard.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($136.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI 970 GAMING ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($82.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.30 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($197.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $671.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 11:02 EST-0500


Full price on your Intel setup
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($164.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-E45 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($62.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.30 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($197.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($55.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $679.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-25 11:03 EST-0500
 


AMD will probably counter by making the prices pretty low for their Zen CPUs.
 
I have a friend who bought an FX 8320(something I told him he would regret on a build with $1300) and he decided instead of Intel he wanted 32gb of ram, and all he does is game. He recently bought a gtx 980 ti and he can run arma 3 at 30 fps on medium at 1080p. I'm assuming this is due to his CPU bottlenecking his gpu, not to mention how poorly optimized the game is?

As for workstations I still think that FX is not a viable choice. Most people building workstations need goof performance, and the i7 5820k is really cheap for a workstation grade CPU. I have seen benchmarks where in multithreaded operations an i5 4690k beats an FX 9590. It really just shows how outdated the FX series is, and on the flipside sandybridge is from the same time period if my memory is correct, and my i7 3820 doesn't bottleneck my gtx 980 sli. Point is even back then AMD had a hard time back then, and now that Intel has advanced, they still haven't. This to me really kills FX series imo.

I'm still happy with my 2 6 core with hyperthreading xeons I got on eBay for $155, and they work just fine, so I guess sometimes old hardware is still a viable option. Any thoughts?
 
Mod Edit: No need to quote huge posts like that.

Yes I'm an AMD fanboy but I could care less what other people put in their systems. I am all about personal choice. I'm only an AMD fanboy because I've been using them since 1999 when I first starting building computers. I have not had one single AMD CPU fail me. That's why I'm a fanboy. Plus I like buying local when I can. I live in Washington. I built a system recently with an FX 8350 and a R9 290X. There is not a single application or game that slows this computer down. Everything runs really fast. I can run 100% of my games at 1080P on max setting and I get about 60 fps. That's my 2 cents.
 
Yes I am very well aware that 32gb is a waste. I tried to tell him that since he got it last year in November, buy he didn't care and he wouldn't listen to me when telling him that AMD was bad. To this day he is still a fan boy, despite it hurting him in the long run. Worse thing is hes trying to get our friend to buy AMD in his new PC (same budget) and have 32gb of ram. Not sure what to do lol. Anyway, how do their whole APU series processors perform?
 
APU's paired with 2133 ram are great. For grandma's surfing the Web, YouTube'n recipes, playing the odd game of Solitaire etc. Their biggest advantage is a superior igpu. But this does come at a cost, Lcache shortage etc. If adding a dgpu, you'd be better off with either the 860k in FM2+ or forgoing that socket entirely in favor of AM3+, if sticking with AMD or tossing the budget and going with Intel. The A series APU's are very good for what they do, which isn't a gaming platform.
 
I still think it comes down to the individual user and their needs. People as a whole tend to cloud their judgement with "this is what I need so everyone needs it too". A lot of people on this forum are pushing very expensive video cards with very expensive monitors, performance cases, custom cooling loops, ect, ect.... The fact of the matter is the normal average user will never see the difference between an i5, i7, or FX (6xxx - 9xxx) in just about anything they do. These are people who don't know or care about what Fraps is, do moderate to light editing and just want the best bang for their buck that will do the job. We all tend to overlook these people but they far outnumber the enthusiast gamers. Most people will never max out an FX 6 or 8 core cpu, yet most every expert will tell them they "without a shadow of a doubt need an i5 or i7 and really should get Skylake". My question is why would you tell someone who is looking for a modest computer build to do that? In mid range builds it is better to get a better GPU than sink a bunch of extra into making sure you have "Intel inside". That's not to say I don't build Intel systems either, someone comes in and is an enthusiast who wants a big GTX 980+ or R9 Fury+ and is spending more on his monitor than most spend on their entire build, yea they are getting at the very least i5 Haswell.

Every person's needs are different, and that is where Intel fanboys can be found at fault by just recommending an Intel build to absolutely everyone. Some single people in a big city environment like NY City are totally happy with a mini coupe, but out in the sticks with roads that get plowed twice a year waaay after they need to be plowed-- we need big honking 4x4 trucks and suvs. My wife and I went into the nearest city to Christmas shop and I got a lecture from some fat woman about my diesel Expedition and how I'm causing global warming (yea tell that to the 10+ feet of snow we get on average) and she is such a better person because she drives a mini coupe (that at 6'3 I wouldn't even fit in). A mini can't make it though the unplowed dirt roads where I'm from and my kids with their gear sure as heck won't fit. Everyone's needs are different, a mini coupe is perfect for her, but would be totally useless to me. Someone who is going to never do more than mid level gaming, surfing the internet, word processing... An FX build is overkill, a Intel build is way overkill and is just costing them extra for processing power they will never need. It is in this segment that the FX (Piledriver) processors are still very viable and a good value.
 
I didn't want to start a whole new thread just for this, so I figured I would just ask here. I live close to a Micro Center, so I get the benefit of some pretty insane deals on AMD CPUs. I'm working on a budget build right now; switching from an i5 6600k to an FX-6300 would literally save me $250 when factoring in the motherboard, enough to upgrade my graphics card to a GTX 980 (from a R9 380). I imagine there's no way the CPU will bottleneck enough to make this not worth it, but would you guys go for the i5?
 
With a 980? Yes. Even a 970 is at the top end of what the 6300 is capable of so the added expense of a 980 is pretty much wasted cash. It'll play just fine, the problem will arise when you get balanced or cpu aggressive games and set detail limits too high. Bottleneck. I believe amd to he a great alternative for a budget build, but when you wanna go high end performance, like a 980 gpu, it really needs the muscle an intel cpu brings, and unfortunately it also brings the premium pricing.

All it would take for Intel to bankrupt amd would be a drop in prices for 6 months. A i7 4790k at fx 8320 prices would be lethal. Or an i5 4690k at fx6300 pricing etc.

Dropping a gtx980 on a fx6300 isn't much different than sticking a blown 350 Chevy motor in a go-cart. Some things just shouldn't be done.
 


Agreed, a FX 6300 would bottleneck a GTX 980 in CPU demanding games with current DX11 support.

Intel has AMD exactly where they want them. They cant put them under or face anti trust laws, but keeping them at around 10% of the market they can keep them under their thumb and ensure no one calls them a monopoly, even though they really are when you consider the highly lucrative server market. Really Intel needs AMD to be right where they are, AMD going under would be really bad news for Intel.
 


It depends I guess on what the end user does. A $50 Pentium from Microcenter is a great budget option in my opinion, but so are AMD's lower end options, so really it just depends.
 


Agreed. While AMD competes best at the very low budget range, Intel still has excellent CPUs for the money. It all comes down to what you need.

I personally just bought a budget HTPC and went with the A8-7600 since it has superb graphics and the CPU is plenty for video watching.
 
I personally just bought a budget HTPC and went with the A8-7600 since it has superb graphics and the CPU is plenty for video watching.
Click to expand...

I love that little APU. It runs my HTPC also and does the job excellently. It's also really good at playing casual 3D games like Indi titles on Steam or HD remasters. Grandia II, Final Fantasy VII, Trails in the Sky, Tales of Zestiria, all the Y's games, and some others I can't remember. They aren't super AAA titles with Ultra graphics but they do use quite a bit of 3D functionality, especially Trails and Tales, and they look absolutely gorgeous on a big screen TV at 1080p from across the room. That little APU runs them like a champ and lets me use a small form factor Inwin case without a dGPU.
 


+1 Not long ago I built a system (mainly from spare parts I had) for the kids. They had been on my back about the new console systems out only they couldn't agree on what they wanted (my boys wanted a PS4 and my daughter wanted a Xbone). I really dislike wasting money on consoles so I built a gaming computer for the LG 720p 32" TV in their "playroom" (really supposed to be my office). It was built around the FX 6300 (which I overclocked) and a Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X. Their system maxes out games all ultra settings (for 720p) and they have all the added extras of PC gaming (modding, hugely better graphics) that you don't get on a console.
 
Consoles have their places. They're cheap. The $60 a year for Xbox live isn't the cheapest but games for gold gives you a good value for what you pay for. I'm still a PC gamer, however I actually have a good PC and had a good budget.

On the flipside, how good are the graphics on the APU processors? How do they compare with HD graphics or intel iris graphics and what not?
 
Good question. The graphics from the upper a8 and a10's are far better than Intel HD, as long as it's paired with 2133MHz ram, but I haven't seen any real comparisons with the Iris since everyone who ends up buying Skylake also buys a dgpu.
 
There A8-7600/7650 has the same iGPU as the others except the A10-78xx. It's 6 CU's at 720Mhz, so 384:24:8 for Shader:Texture:Render units. The A10-78xx models are memory starved as they are 8 CU's, the cost for an 78xx along with the DDR-2400 memory doesn't usually justify the expense. The 7600/7650 on the other hand are something like $84 USD and pair well with cheaper DDR3-2133 memory.

Graphics wise they are better then all the Intel CPU's except the super expensive one with 128MB of eDRAM bolted onto the CPU. Considering the price ranges involved here, there is just nothing that really competes with the 7600/7650 if your needing a cheap solution.

Bench's from Toms and Anandtech to compare.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-7850k-a8-7600-kaveri,3725.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k/12
 


Pretty good, roughly R7 240/250 & GT 730 grade performance (with DDR3, not the GDDR5 versions obviously).
 
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