Is the AMD FX 8350 good for gaming

[8350rocks]

Yeah, I am starting to think anyone who asks.."Intel vs AMD who wins" or something along those lines should just be referred to most of pages 2 and 3 of this thread...lol

 

[juanrga]

Yeah, I agree with you there. Some people are totally not fair to the FX. I read this review yesterday. And everything the FX did great, they were like "well it seems to be ok at this, but look at this single threaded benchmark!". So I see why if you own an FX you'd be completely pissed at some of the reviews out there.

When I actually read Tom's review on the 8350, it surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it literally nipping at the heels of the 3770k like you say, in some of the benchmarks, but it wasn't as bad at single threaded tasks like I had once thought. I reread the review yesterday since we were chatting about this and I was surprised the say the least. And Tom's does do a very fair review. They don't even use SuperPi and some of the other stuff that's not optimized for AMD.

And like I said in my last post. I'm sure 1866mhz memory does give the 8350 an improvement. I just don't think it's quite as much as some people would like to believe. Maybe it does, IDK, I haven't read as much into it as you have.

But yeah, the 8350 is really super impressive as far as multithreading goes. And in theoretical benchmarks like Sisoft Sandra(which I hate, it give my 3570k low scores), the 8350 does really well. And for only 179.99, I can definitely see why people get this processor. I'm going to be doing a build for my little nephew. He wants a cheaper gaming computer. And I think I'm going to stick an FX6300 in there. You absolutely can't beat the FX6300 for only 129.99. Can't beat it.

1) I believe that owners of a piledriver FX chip don't care about biased reviews because they are very happy with their build. I think that the point here is that future buyers can be influenced toward certain brands by biased reviews. The other day I read a typical power consumption AMD vs Intel and the AMD was looking as power hungry in the graphs... except that the AMD was using a micro-ATX and the Intel a mini-ITX. The same site has another review comparing both form-factors and found about 20W difference with the same chip, same ram, same everything! Do I need to say more?

2) To be fair, Super PI is not optimized for AMD neither for Intel. From the Wikipedia:

Super PI is single threaded, so its relevance as a measure of performance in the current era of multi-core processors is diminishing quickly.

Being singled threaded, Super PI is using roughly a 25% of your i5-3570k and a 12.5% of the FX-8350.

 

[ericjohn004]

Yeah, I agree with you there. Some people are totally not fair to the FX. I read this review yesterday. And everything the FX did great, they were like "well it seems to be ok at this, but look at this single threaded benchmark!". So I see why if you own an FX you'd be completely pissed at some of the reviews out there.

When I actually read Tom's review on the 8350, it surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it literally nipping at the heels of the 3770k like you say, in some of the benchmarks, but it wasn't as bad at single threaded tasks like I had once thought. I reread the review yesterday since we were chatting about this and I was surprised the say the least. And Tom's does do a very fair review. They don't even use SuperPi and some of the other stuff that's not optimized for AMD.

And like I said in my last post. I'm sure 1866mhz memory does give the 8350 an improvement. I just don't think it's quite as much as some people would like to believe. Maybe it does, IDK, I haven't read as much into it as you have.

But yeah, the 8350 is really super impressive as far as multithreading goes. And in theoretical benchmarks like Sisoft Sandra(which I hate, it give my 3570k low scores), the 8350 does really well. And for only 179.99, I can definitely see why people get this processor. I'm going to be doing a build for my little nephew. He wants a cheaper gaming computer. And I think I'm going to stick an FX6300 in there. You absolutely can't beat the FX6300 for only 129.99. Can't beat it.

1) I believe that owners of a piledriver FX chip don't care about biased reviews because they are very happy with their build. I think that the point here is that future buyers can be influenced toward certain brands by biased reviews. The other day I read a typical power consumption AMD vs Intel and the AMD was looking as power hungry in the graphs... except that the AMD was using a micro-ATX and the Intel a mini-ITX. The same site has another review comparing both form-factors and found about 20W difference with the same chip, same ram, same everything! Do I need to say more?

2) To be fair, Super PI is not optimized for AMD neither for Intel. From the Wikipedia:

Super PI is single threaded, so its relevance as a measure of performance in the current era of multi-core processors is diminishing quickly.

Being singled threaded, Super PI is using roughly a 25% of your i5-3570k and a 12.5% of the FX-8350.

Yeah that is very true. But personally I like it because it goes to show you how fast each core can be. And with still a large amount of single threaded programs out there, the performance of a single core is still very relevent. But I believe that in 3-4 years, single threaded performance won't matter almost at all. Everything will be about multithreading. Which is why in 3-4 years, the more cores you have the better off you'll be.

The amount of time it takes depends on how fast Intel starts making all Hyperthreaded parts. As long as they keep making a good value 4 core processor then programs and some games will stay the way they are. Once they start making all their chips with hyperthreading then programs will start to use everything that's available.

Plus, like I know everyone with an AMD likes to point out, the new PS4 IS coming with 8 cores. So now all the games will start to be designed with 8 cores. But that's just starting right now, and even the games optimized for 8 cores aren't really all that optimized and still perform at almost 100% on 4 cores. So I don't see this changing right away. It'll take 3-5 years.

So this will be the case in 3-5 years. I'm just glad that now, while I only have a 4 core processor, that this isn't the case at the moment. And literally everything I do uses 4 cores or less because I only game and surf the internet. Of course I occassionally run multithreaded benchmarks, but like I've said, my overclocked i5 beats an i7 in most multithreading tests anyways, so it doesn't matter. This is why it's important to have strong cores. I like to know that with the progarms I use, that it can't get any faster than what I'm running them with.

 

[8350rocks]

Well...probably, in less than 2 years, 4 cores will become the accepted standard...

But for now you are in great shape and a while yet still.

 

[juanrga]

Check borderlands 2 here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/cpu/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300/borderlands2.png
GPU used was a GTX680.So it quite clear that these are not any bogus links.

That's a pretty lame comment you made by saying Hitman absolution is not using Fx8350's full potential.
You expect every game out there to scale to eight cores on this date,really?Not every game engine is same,not every development is done on the same way.How many games from 2008-2012 are threaded enough to scale well across 8 cores??

And with quoting those 3DS MAX benchmarks you tried to twist things again in your favor.
Let me correct you:Idontcare tested with 3DS MAX 2013 and in that i7 3770k was the best of the three while
i5 3570k OCed was as good or better than fx8350 OCed,and for your information 3D rendering softwares can easily task all the cores to full.Just checkout what Idoncare had to say about rendering in 3DS MAX2013.There is no exaggeration here.
The 2 pics you showed out of that forum is of 3DS MAX 2011.
Priviewing things in viewport and many other things in 3DS MAX are light threaded which benchmarks never show so again i5 3570k with all round performance was capability is a pretty good choice.It would have been better if you had read that whole thread rather than just picking one thing which was a benchmark on an older version of the software.
And that thing only was quoted since you implied that an OCed fx8350 would be lot better than an OCed i5 3570k.
How many people care about which achieves the highest clock??i5 3570k is able to do at the level of 4.7-4.8 and is more responsive to frequency by design.Most people don't buy an unlocked processor to run it at stock.
In the softwares used in system builder marathon by 2013 OCed performance of i5 3570k was good 20-25% better than fx8350.The gap would reduce if more multi-threaded softwares are used even though toms did a pretty good job by running many kinds of apps which are used by many of us on a daily basis.

Nobody ever said that fx8350 was a bad chip for gaming.It is just in some cases/games it is not able to keep with i5 3570k(already quoted cases like Civilization 5,skyrim etc).In my country the fx8350 setup costs much lesser than an i5 3570k set up,so if I was money-limited and my sole purpose was gaming I would take the fx8350 and invest the rest on a better GPU.But that is not the context here.If I was not money bound and gaming is not important then i would choose whatever best suits for the tasks I do out of both fx8350 and i5 3570k.
fx8350 is a pretty solid value for the price especially for video encoding and some other heavily threaded tasks.It has full instruction set support,not cut any corners like intel with their k series processor like by not having VT-d.
Per core performance is not on par with i5 3570k.What i5 3570k has is good all round performance i.e.good single threaded as well as multi-threaded performance.I don't think any of these chips can be termed overall bad or something.
ericjohn004's point on gaming and how it is tested on some sites is right.Like many sites test on 1280*800 to show CPU side of things but that is not relevant to most.

1) I already gave you a Borderlands 2 benchmark in the same message that you are replying now. It gives a difference of about 3 FPS between the FX-8350 and the expensive i7-3770K playing at @ 1080p. Taking into account the standard error, this means a tie between the two processors.

You ask me to check Borderlands 2 at xbitlabs link. Ok. Here is a first analysis. Their 'review' was run with the AMD processors at stock speeds but with the Intel chips run with overclocked ram by about a 17% (in MHz). Moreover they used a memory kit with an Intel XMP profile #1, but they did not run any AMD memory profile (AMP).

They used a top of game ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe for the Intel chips, but a ASUS Crosshair V Formula for the AMD chips; precisely the V Formula-Z was released with improvements for the Piledriver architecture; moreover, they run Windows 8 and whereas the Deluxe is Windows 8 ready the Formula is not (only the Formula Z is Windows 8 ready). After all this they find that the i7-3770K gives about 9 FPS more than the FX-8350 playing @ 1080p. Subtract the effect from overclocked ram and you get about 7-8 FPS. Taking into account the standard error, this means again a tie between the two processors.

2) I know I said this to you before, but I will do again and the last time:

The FX-8350 is a good gaming platform albeit current games use roughly a 25-50% of the eight-core chip. An entire new generation of eight-core games is being developed thanks to future consoles such as the PS4, which is based in an eight-core chip from AMD. Sony is already selling PS4 development kits based in an eight-core FX chip to game developers. Therefore, the FX-8350 will be a better gaming platform in the future.

3) I already explained to you why the Idontcare test was biased. I asked you for a confirmation that 3DS MAX is taking all FX cores to maximum, but you have not given me any (so far as I know it is optimized for Intel chips but not for AMD chips).

4) I already answered the OC stuff.

5) You continue missing an important point I will remark this again and the last time:

Although many current applications on windows are not 'heavily' multi-threaded and do not use eight-cores chips, many FX-8350 owners like to run two or three applications at once. It is not unusual that a FX-8350 owner was gaming whereas doing some work at background.

Do you need some owner comments to be posted here?

 

[whyso]

One thing to remember is that while the fx does have 8 threads and the i5 only 4 the i5 has faster threads, making comparisons of 25% of an FX chip = 50% of an i5 problematic ("Being singled threaded, Super PI is using roughly a 25% of your i5-3570k and a 12.5% of the FX-8350.") Simply because of the fact that 20% of an i5 chip != 20% of a FX.

The difference (assuming optimized software) will only be as great as the theoretical performance difference. I know sandra is only a theoretical test but generally the results seem to scale to heavily threaded workloads fairly well (Its not a one to one ratio but rather something like 0.75). FX will probably have a better time hitting that theoretical maximum because modules> hyperthreading. But as the review shows there are a few tests where the 8350 beats the i7, in many it still looses. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-7.html

The results generally support this. On average the 8350 is pretty much right between the i5 and the i7 in multithreaded tasks (but generally closer to the i7).

 

[drinvis]

Check borderlands 2 here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/cpu/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300/borderlands2.png
GPU used was a GTX680.So it quite clear that these are not any bogus links.

That's a pretty lame comment you made by saying Hitman absolution is not using Fx8350's full potential.
You expect every game out there to scale to eight cores on this date,really?Not every game engine is same,not every development is done on the same way.How many games from 2008-2012 are threaded enough to scale well across 8 cores??

And with quoting those 3DS MAX benchmarks you tried to twist things again in your favor.
Let me correct you:Idontcare tested with 3DS MAX 2013 and in that i7 3770k was the best of the three while
i5 3570k OCed was as good or better than fx8350 OCed,and for your information 3D rendering softwares can easily task all the cores to full.Just checkout what Idoncare had to say about rendering in 3DS MAX2013.There is no exaggeration here.
The 2 pics you showed out of that forum is of 3DS MAX 2011.
Priviewing things in viewport and many other things in 3DS MAX are light threaded which benchmarks never show so again i5 3570k with all round performance was capability is a pretty good choice.It would have been better if you had read that whole thread rather than just picking one thing which was a benchmark on an older version of the software.
And that thing only was quoted since you implied that an OCed fx8350 would be lot better than an OCed i5 3570k.
How many people care about which achieves the highest clock??i5 3570k is able to do at the level of 4.7-4.8 and is more responsive to frequency by design.Most people don't buy an unlocked processor to run it at stock.
In the softwares used in system builder marathon by 2013 OCed performance of i5 3570k was good 20-25% better than fx8350.The gap would reduce if more multi-threaded softwares are used even though toms did a pretty good job by running many kinds of apps which are used by many of us on a daily basis.

Nobody ever said that fx8350 was a bad chip for gaming.It is just in some cases/games it is not able to keep with i5 3570k(already quoted cases like Civilization 5,skyrim etc).In my country the fx8350 setup costs much lesser than an i5 3570k set up,so if I was money-limited and my sole purpose was gaming I would take the fx8350 and invest the rest on a better GPU.But that is not the context here.If I was not money bound and gaming is not important then i would choose whatever best suits for the tasks I do out of both fx8350 and i5 3570k.
fx8350 is a pretty solid value for the price especially for video encoding and some other heavily threaded tasks.It has full instruction set support,not cut any corners like intel with their k series processor like by not having VT-d.
Per core performance is not on par with i5 3570k.What i5 3570k has is good all round performance i.e.good single threaded as well as multi-threaded performance.I don't think any of these chips can be termed overall bad or something.
ericjohn004's point on gaming and how it is tested on some sites is right.Like many sites test on 1280*800 to show CPU side of things but that is not relevant to most.

1) I already gave you a Borderlands 2 benchmark in the same message that you are replying now. It gives a difference of about 3 FPS between the FX-8350 and the expensive i7-3770K playing at @ 1080p. Taking into account the standard error, this means a tie between the two processors.

You ask me to check Borderlands 2 at xbitlabs link. Ok. Here is a first analysis. Their 'review' was run with the AMD processors at stock speeds but with the Intel chips run with overclocked ram by about a 17% (in MHz). Moreover they used a memory kit with an Intel XMP profile #1, but they did not run any AMD memory profile (AMP).

They used a top of game ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe for the Intel chips, but a ASUS Crosshair V Formula for the AMD chips; precisely the V Formula-Z was released with improvements for the Piledriver architecture; moreover, they run Windows 8 and whereas the Deluxe is Windows 8 ready the Formula is not (only the Formula Z is Windows 8 ready). After all this they find that the i7-3770K gives about 9 FPS more than the FX-8350 playing @ 1080p. Subtract the effect from overclocked ram and you get about 7-8 FPS. Taking into account the standard error, this means again a tie between the two processors.

2) I know I said this to you before, but I will do again and the last time:

The FX-8350 is a good gaming platform albeit current games use roughly a 25-50% of the eight-core chip. An entire new generation of eight-core games is being developed thanks to future consoles such as the PS4, which is based in an eight-core chip from AMD. Sony is already selling PS4 development kits based in an eight-core FX chip to game developers. Therefore, the FX-8350 will be a better gaming platform in the future.

3) I already explained to you why the Idontcare test was biased. I asked you for a confirmation that 3DS MAX is taking all FX cores to maximum, but you have not given me any (so far as I know it is optimized for Intel chips but not for AMD chips).

4) I already answered the OC stuff.

5) You continue missing an important point I will remark this again and the last time:

Although many current applications on windows are not 'heavily' multi-threaded and do not use eight-cores chips, many FX-8350 owners like to run two or three applications at once. It is not unusual that a FX-8350 owner was gaming whereas doing some work at background.

Do you need some owner comments to be posted here?

For the game AMD set up is already using 1866MHz RAM.These are some really non sense points you are putting mate.The whole intel xmp thing you are pointing and saying that intel set up was running at better clocks and it gained difference(8fps) becoz of that is pretty useless point.Nobody said fx8350 is a bad chip for gaming,it is that only in some games like skyrim,star craft 2,hitman absolution it fells back from the likes of i5/i7 ib processors by some amount.
Future games might be much more multithreaded in nature especially if they do physics on CPU but that doesn't mean we should not take into context what we have now.Xenon in xbox360 was a 3core 6 thread processor but still games at that time and to a long time after that didn't use that many threads simply becoz the OS and layers are much different in a console to a pc OS.Does PC have unified memory for CPU and GPU?The consoles like xbox360 could play pretty higly graphics demanding game with such low hardware by today's standard.Also 4 cores for games are not less for games what we have now and don't forget it can be overclocked as well.
I agree that users can use several programs at a point but that may not be always the case and we also have to look at performance in individual apps as well and it is not as if 4 cores can't mutli task at all.Still many of the things are single threaded and thus single threaded performance and can't be neglected for most users.It is better to see both sides of coin and acknowledge what is better for what.3D rendering on professional software scales well with cores and can tax out all cores to maximum easily which is quite obvious,Idontcare in his test also said so,you could have noticed that if you had read well.And by saying that every X or Y is not optimized for this and that doesn't change the situation.3DS MAX is a very popular 3D tool among professional and irrespective of what you think it would be used by them.Anyway his tests are pretty clear and informative and no way biased at all.I have read some of the tests done by him and I do believe his test results,you are free to differ.
I have put my points well enough in my earlier posts.I am not in support of any product or anything and will always choose the better one which would work for my type of tasks irrespective of the brand.I had made my points on the context that was gaming and also on other things and I feel I was clear enough and I did give some benches and there are quite a few which proves the point.
Enough deviation from the context.

 

[juanrga]

The difference (assuming optimized software) will only be as great as the theoretical performance difference. I know sandra is only a theoretical test but generally the results seem to scale to heavily threaded workloads fairly well (Its not a one to one ratio but rather something like 0.75). FX will probably have a better time hitting that theoretical maximum because modules> hyperthreading. But as the review shows there are a few tests where the 8350 beats the i7, in many it still looses. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-7.html

The results generally support this. On average the 8350 is pretty much right between the i5 and the i7 in multithreaded tasks (but generally closer to the i7).

I already provided a set of modern openbenchmarks showing how the FX-8350 is faster than the i7-3770k.

 

[juanrga]

For the game AMD set up is already using 1866MHz RAM.These are some really non sense points you are putting mate.The whole intel xmp thing you are pointing and saying that intel set up was running at better clocks and it gained difference(8fps) becoz of that is pretty useless point.Nobody said fx8350 is a bad chip for gaming,it is that only in some games like skyrim,star craft 2,hitman absolution it fells back from the likes of i5/i7 ib processors by some amount.
Future games might be much more multithreaded in nature especially if they do physics on CPU but that doesn't mean we should not take into context what we have now.Xenon in xbox360 was a 3core 6 thread processor but still games at that time and to a long time after that didn't use that many threads simply becoz the OS and layers are much different in a console to a pc OS.Does PC have unified memory for CPU and GPU?The consoles like xbox360 could play pretty higly graphics demanding game with such low hardware by today's standard.Also 4 cores for games are not less for games what we have now and don't forget it can be overclocked as well.
I agree that users can use several programs at a point but that may not be always the case and we also have to look at performance in individual apps as well and it is not as if 4 cores can't mutli task at all.Still many of the things are single threaded and thus single threaded performance and can't be neglected for most users.It is better to see both sides of coin and acknowledge what is better for what.3D rendering on professional software scales well with cores and can tax out all cores to maximum easily which is quite obvious,Idontcare in his test also said so,you could have noticed that if you had read well.And by saying that every X or Y is not optimized for this and that doesn't change the situation.3DS MAX is a very popular 3D tool among professional and irrespective of what you think it would be used by them.Anyway his tests are pretty clear and informative and no way biased at all.I have read some of the tests done by him and I do believe his test results,you are free to differ.
I have put my points well enough in my earlier posts.I am not in support of any product or anything and will always choose the better one which would work for my type of tasks irrespective of the brand.I had made my points on the context that was gaming and also on other things and I feel I was clear enough and I did give some benches and there are quite a few which proves the point.
Enough deviation from the context.

1) Either you didn't read the post that you are answering or you grossly misinterpreted it.

2) I notice there is no answer to my questions again.

3) I already corrected several of your points before. No worth to repeat.

 

[whyso]

The difference (assuming optimized software) will only be as great as the theoretical performance difference. I know sandra is only a theoretical test but generally the results seem to scale to heavily threaded workloads fairly well (Its not a one to one ratio but rather something like 0.75). FX will probably have a better time hitting that theoretical maximum because modules> hyperthreading. But as the review shows there are a few tests where the 8350 beats the i7, in many it still looses. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-7.html

The results generally support this. On average the 8350 is pretty much right between the i5 and the i7 in multithreaded tasks (but generally closer to the i7).

I already provided a set of modern openbenchmarks showing how the FX-8350 is faster than the i7-3770k.

I don't know about intel crippling amd but look at it this way. Its virtually the same thing as physx and nvidia (which is disgusting but nothing new). The fact that intel performs so well is because it spends so much money developing compilers. Intel has said they hire more software engineers that hardware engineers and that is also the reason for their success. These compilers are like drivers, if you develop the best and cheapest and easiest to use and support them then your cpu is going to do the best. AMD is not spending this money so they show less gain. This does make intel's igp drivers horrendously bad in comparison.

Maybe, in those openbenchmark tests the 8350 does well (I don't really understand them and their accuracy since EVERY other test i've seen out there shows amd losing to the i7 in x264 encode first pass and winning slightly in the second pass) but openbenchmark is a fairy vague site. The reviews are done on completely different systems. Generally when you do a comparison you throw out the extreme outliers on either side. Generally if you are looking for accuracy anandtech, tech report, toms hardware, etc. would be better.

 

[juanrga]

I don't know about intel crippling amd but look at it this way. Its virtually the same thing as physx and nvidia (which is disgusting but nothing new). The fact that intel performs so well is because it spends so much money developing compilers. Intel has said they hire more software engineers that hardware engineers and that is also the reason for their success. These compilers are like drivers, if you develop the best and cheapest and easiest to use and support them then your cpu is going to do the best. AMD is not spending this money so they show less gain. This does make intel's igp drivers horrendously bad in comparison.

Maybe, in those openbenchmark tests the 8350 does well (I don't really understand them and their accuracy since EVERY other test i've seen out there shows amd losing to the i7 in x264 encode first pass and winning slightly in the second pass) but openbenchmark is a fairy vague site. The reviews are done on completely different systems. Generally when you do a comparison you throw out the extreme outliers on either side. Generally if you are looking for accuracy anandtech, tech report, toms hardware, etc. would be better.

1) Software compiled with the Intel compiler or the Intel function libraries has inferior performance on AMD and VIA processors. The reason is not that the processors are inferior. The reason is that the compiler or library can make multiple versions of a piece of code, each optimized for a certain processor and instruction set, for example SSE2, SSE3, etc. The system includes a function that detects which type of CPU it is running on and chooses the optimal code path for that CPU. This is called a CPU dispatcher. However, the Intel CPU dispatcher does not only check which instruction set is supported by the CPU, it also checks the vendor ID string. If the vendor string says "GenuineIntel" then it uses the optimal code path. If the CPU is not from Intel then, in most cases, it will run the slowest possible version of the code, even if the CPU is fully compatible with a better version.

Several people have complained about this behavior for years, but Intel have refused to change their CPU dispatcher. If Intel had advertised their compiler as compatible with Intel processors only, then there would probably be no complaints. The problem is that they are trying to hide what they are doing. Many software developers think that the compiler is compatible with AMD processors, and in fact it is, but unbeknownst to the programmer it puts in a biased CPU dispatcher that chooses an inferior code path whenever it is running on a non-Intel processor. If programmers knew this fact they would probably use another compiler. Who wants to sell a piece of software that doesn't work well on AMD processors?

Here you can see a demonstration using VIA processor and PCMark. Using the biased suite the VIA processor seems to be inferior to the Intel chip, until you change the vendor ID string to "GenuineIntel", then the VIA processor wins the Intel processor

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/07/atom-nano-review/6/

AMD has won a court case against Intel by the compiler cheating

http://www.osnews.com/story/22683/Intel_Forced_to_Remove_quot_Cripple_AMD_quot_Function_from_Compiler_

There are more biased benchmark suites such as SYSMARK

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/20/nvidia-amd-and-via-quit-bapco-over-sysmark-2012/

Look what Intel has been doing with 3DMark Vantage as well

http://techreport.com/review/17732/intel-graphics-drivers-employ-questionable-3dmark-vantage-optimizations

2) I already showed how the Anandtech reviews are particularly bad... but google "Anandtech bias" and google query predictions script will suggest you four or five typical search strings 🙂 I don't need to say more.

 

[SamGriffiths]

i have more or less decided im getting it but is it good fo gaming? can it handle games like battlefield 3 etc on medium-high settings. im going to do a lot of multitasking in the background but this is the main thing.

is it any better than the i5 3470 or I5 3570K? i dont care about performance per watt or overall price, just how fast it performs

EDIT: this time for performance per watt and overall price, is it any better then the i7 3770k cpu?

Save money, get the FX-6300.

 

[whyso]

I don't know about intel crippling amd but look at it this way. Its virtually the same thing as physx and nvidia (which is disgusting but nothing new). The fact that intel performs so well is because it spends so much money developing compilers. Intel has said they hire more software engineers that hardware engineers and that is also the reason for their success. These compilers are like drivers, if you develop the best and cheapest and easiest to use and support them then your cpu is going to do the best. AMD is not spending this money so they show less gain. This does make intel's igp drivers horrendously bad in comparison.

Maybe, in those openbenchmark tests the 8350 does well (I don't really understand them and their accuracy since EVERY other test i've seen out there shows amd losing to the i7 in x264 encode first pass and winning slightly in the second pass) but openbenchmark is a fairy vague site. The reviews are done on completely different systems. Generally when you do a comparison you throw out the extreme outliers on either side. Generally if you are looking for accuracy anandtech, tech report, toms hardware, etc. would be better.

1) Software compiled with the Intel compiler or the Intel function libraries has inferior performance on AMD and VIA processors. The reason is not that the processors are inferior. The reason is that the compiler or library can make multiple versions of a piece of code, each optimized for a certain processor and instruction set, for example SSE2, SSE3, etc. The system includes a function that detects which type of CPU it is running on and chooses the optimal code path for that CPU. This is called a CPU dispatcher. However, the Intel CPU dispatcher does not only check which instruction set is supported by the CPU, it also checks the vendor ID string. If the vendor string says "GenuineIntel" then it uses the optimal code path. If the CPU is not from Intel then, in most cases, it will run the slowest possible version of the code, even if the CPU is fully compatible with a better version.

Several people have complained about this behavior for years, but Intel have refused to change their CPU dispatcher. If Intel had advertised their compiler as compatible with Intel processors only, then there would probably be no complaints. The problem is that they are trying to hide what they are doing. Many software developers think that the compiler is compatible with AMD processors, and in fact it is, but unbeknownst to the programmer it puts in a biased CPU dispatcher that chooses an inferior code path whenever it is running on a non-Intel processor. If programmers knew this fact they would probably use another compiler. Who wants to sell a piece of software that doesn't work well on AMD processors?

Here you can see a demonstration using VIA processor and PCMark. Using the biased suite the VIA processor seems to be inferior to the Intel chip, until you change the vendor ID string to "GenuineIntel", then the VIA processor wins the Intel processor

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/07/atom-nano-review/6/

AMD has won a court case against Intel by the compiler cheating

http://www.osnews.com/story/22683/Intel_Forced_to_Remove_quot_Cripple_AMD_quot_Function_from_Compiler_

There are more biased benchmark suites such as SYSMARK

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/20/nvidia-amd-and-via-quit-bapco-over-sysmark-2012/

Look what Intel has been doing with 3DMark Vantage as well

http://techreport.com/review/17732/intel-graphics-drivers-employ-questionable-3dmark-vantage-optimizations

2) I already showed how the Anandtech reviews are particularly bad... but google "Anandtech bias" and google query predictions script will suggest you four or five typical search strings 🙂 I don't need to say more.

? That was several years ago (more than three) and there is no evidence that that is occuring any more. We can't look into an incident in the past and assume that it is occuring to the present.

I can type _______ bias (anything in the blank) into google and get something. If anything I would say techreport is fairly biased. There amd stuttering article used a stock 7950 vs a highly overclocked 660ti (and bashed amd) and often they make comparisons of non-stock models.

 

[ericjohn004]

Anyone that thinks an 8350 is future proof needs to wake up. Yes the 8350 is a great processor, but do you really think you can have ANY cpu for 3-4 years and it still be competing? The answer is a big NO! I hear all this talk about the future. But in the future people will have way better processors than an 8350 and a 3570k. I know I'll have something better.

So the argument that AMD is more "future proof" really gets thrown out the window because nothing is future proof. I know the PS4 is COMING out, meaning it's not out yet so the games for it aren't even out. And even games that are optimized for 8 cores, aren't optimized enough because you still can't see an advantage on an AMD chip yet. Maybe that'll change, but it won't be within 2013. And by 2014 we won't even be talking about an 8350 anymore. It'll be old news. The 3570k is almost already old news with Haswell coming out.

With the VERY minor performance improvement from Haswel I hope AMD gets a nice leg up this way Intel will have to match them. We get better products with competition. Anyone who hates AMD, hates great deals on hardware and high performance CPU's. I love me some AMD and I hope they drastically improve IPC so they'll compete even closer to Intel in the future.

 

[juanrga]

? That was several years ago (more than three) and there is no evidence that that is occuring any more. We can't look into an incident in the past and assume that it is occuring to the present.

Your answer is vague and I do not know to what are you referring to, but if you mean the biased CPU dispatcher on Intel compiler, I can sure you that it continues cheating today

http://koukishinneko.com/tag/intel-compiler-patcher/

The only difference now is that the US Federal Trade Commission obligated to Intel to introduce a footnote disclaimer in its description

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Criticism

 

[8350rocks]

Anyone that thinks an 8350 is future proof needs to wake up. Yes the 8350 is a great processor, but do you really think you can have ANY cpu for 3-4 years and it still be competing? The answer is a big NO! I hear all this talk about the future. But in the future people will have way better processors than an 8350 and a 3570k. I know I'll have something better.

So the argument that AMD is more "future proof" really gets thrown out the window because nothing is future proof. I know the PS4 is COMING out, meaning it's not out yet so the games for it aren't even out. And even games that are optimized for 8 cores, aren't optimized enough because you still can't see an advantage on an AMD chip yet. Maybe that'll change, but it won't be within 2013. And by 2014 we won't even be talking about an 8350 anymore. It'll be old news. The 3570k is almost already old news with Haswell coming out.

With the VERY minor performance improvement from Haswel I hope AMD gets a nice leg up this way Intel will have to match them. We get better products with competition. Anyone who hates AMD, hates great deals on hardware and high performance CPU's. I love me some AMD and I hope they drastically improve IPC so they'll compete even closer to Intel in the future.

The future proof sentiment comes from the direct upgrade path to steamroller without a socket change...not from the FX8350 being so superior it will be around for 3-4 years and be dominant then. That would be fool's errand to assume. But steamroller will be AM3+ socket, so you can upgrade directly.

 

[8350rocks]

? That was several years ago (more than three) and there is no evidence that that is occuring any more. We can't look into an incident in the past and assume that it is occuring to the present.

Your answer is vague and I do not know to what are you referring to, but if you mean the biased CPU dispatcher on Intel compiler, I can sure you that it continues cheating today

http://koukishinneko.com/tag/intel-compiler-patcher/

The only difference now is that the US Federal Trade Commission obligated to Intel to introduce a footnote disclaimer in its description

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C%2B%2B_Compiler#Criticism

Cinebench still runs on ICC...you left that one out.

 

[juanrga]

Sony is selling PS4 development kits based in an eight-core FX chip.

I wonder if one of those kits has been used by Epic Games for the unreal 4 demo that they presented some days ago.

 

[bigj1985]

All this arguing about which processor is superior or if AMD can keep up with Intel is a moot point. Current Sandy/Ivy bridge chips destroy all FX chips when both processor are at same clocks. Why same clocks? Because both have identical overclocking capabilities and therefore they should be compared as such. Most people don't buy an unlocked CPU to leave at stock

An i5 at the SAME CLOCK as an FX 8350 will absolutely smoke it in anything using 4 cores or less and most likely come slightly behind or even mildly ahead in some multi threaded aps.

An i7 at the SAME CLOCK as an FX 8350 will DEMOLISH the FX is virtually everything outside of a very few select programs. And it will do all of this while using HALF the power and a POS $25 heatsink from NewEgg. Meanwhile smoke bellows from the H100 attempting to quench the power hungry beast of an FX chip.

Lets quit acting like these chips are even in the same league here.

1) Comparing a stock FX to an overcloked Intel chip is biased.

2) The FX has superior overclocking capabilitites. It is easier to overclock, more stable, and has the world record on overclocking.

3) Rest of your points were addressed before as well.

1) Who ever said anything about copmparing an overclocked Intel with a stock FX? I made it blatantly clear that the chips should be measured up at the same clocks when comparing performance. Not sure where you got this from.

2) Superior overclocking abilities using what? Liquid Nitrogen? Does anyone give a Hoot about liquid Nitrogen? no. They don't. No1 uses extreme cooling methods like that for an everyday 24/7 gaming/productivity PC. Both chips have pretty much the same OC abilities when it comes to using modern conventional cooling systems. Most people can maintain a 4.8-5.0ghz OC on an FX. No1 is getting a 5.6 ghz overclock on a 24/7 FX. It's just not happening aside from a very few extremely lucky peices of Silicone. Hell a bet most people can't even maintain a 5ghz OC on an FX under air. And no an FX is "Not more Stable" when it's overclocked that's just BS talk.

3) No they weren't

 

[mohit9206]

is fx-8350 good for gaming ? YES
is it better than i5 for gaming ? NO
WHY ? because it gives lower performance than i5 while consuming more power.
so should you buy fx-8350 for gaming ?
YES if you already own an older AM3 setup it will be a good upgrade
NO if you own either Intel rig or are building a new pc specifically for gaming.

 

[bigj1985]

All this arguing about which processor is superior or if AMD can keep up with Intel is a moot point. Current Sandy/Ivy bridge chips destroy all FX chips when both processor are at same clocks. Why same clocks? Because both have identical overclocking capabilities and therefore they should be compared as such. Most people don't buy an unlocked CPU to leave at stock

An i5 at the SAME CLOCK as an FX 8350 will absolutely smoke it in anything using 4 cores or less and most likely come slightly behind or even mildly ahead in some multi threaded aps.

An i7 at the SAME CLOCK as an FX 8350 will DEMOLISH the FX is virtually everything outside of a very few select programs. And it will do all of this while using HALF the power and a POS $25 heatsink from NewEgg. Meanwhile smoke bellows from the H100 attempting to quench the power hungry beast of an FX chip.

Lets quit acting like these chips are even in the same league here.

Ok, OC either one of those to 5.2-5.6 GHz....then talk about OC'ing potential being equal.

They are equal. Under conventional cooling methods. 99% of people are not able to maintain any type of stability outside of a quick benchmark run with an FX running at 5.2-5.6 ghz. It's NOT happening. I know for a fact stability and heat issues make it extremely difficult to even get an 8350 to run at 5ghz w/o extreme cooling methods.

I know most 2600k owners can easily reach 5 ghz with 24/7 stability. So yes, all in all under practical cooling chips are pretty much on equal ground

 

[griptwister]

is fx-8350 good for gaming ? YES
is it better than i5 for gaming ? NO
WHY ? because it gives lower performance than i5 while consuming more power.
so should you buy fx-8350 for gaming ?
YES if you already own an older AM3 setup it will be a good upgrade
NO if you own either Intel rig or are building a new pc specifically for gaming.

+1

 

[juanrga]

1) Who ever said anything about copmparing an overclocked Intel with a stock FX? I made it blatantly clear that the chips should be measured up at the same clocks when comparing performance. Not sure where you got this from.

Your insistence on comparing Intel and AMD chips only at the same clocks include the case (already made in several 'reviews' presented here) where the AMD chips are run at clock speeds but the Intel ones are overclocked.

Let me be clear on this, comparing two overclocked chips where the Intel chip is more overclocked than the AMD chip is biased as well.

2) Superior overclocking abilities using what? Liquid Nitrogen? Does anyone give a Hoot about liquid Nitrogen? no. They don't. No1 uses extreme cooling methods like that for an everyday 24/7 gaming/productivity PC. Both chips have pretty much the same OC abilities when it comes to using modern conventional cooling systems. Most people can maintain a 4.8-5.0ghz OC on an FX. No1 is getting a 5.6 ghz overclock on a 24/7 FX. It's just not happening aside from a very few extremely lucky peices of Silicone. Hell a bet most people can't even maintain a 5ghz OC on an FX under air. And no an FX is "Not more Stable" when it's overclocked that's just BS talk.

Using everything from pure air up to LN2. "Overclocking" incudes any overclocking from basic overclocking to extreme overclocking.

Like it or not, but the AMD FX has the world-record on overcloking with its eight-cores working above the 8 GHz. World-record does not mean that you will be achieving that at your home, but gives an indication of the superior overclocking capabilitites. I also explained about this before.

 

[whyso]

1) Who ever said anything about copmparing an overclocked Intel with a stock FX? I made it blatantly clear that the chips should be measured up at the same clocks when comparing performance. Not sure where you got this from.

Your insistence on comparing Intel and AMD chips only at the same clocks include the case (already made in several 'reviews' presented here) where the AMD chips are run at clock speeds but the Intel ones are overclocked.

Let me be clear on this, comparing two overclocked chips where the Intel chip is more overclocked than the AMD chip is biased as well.

2) Superior overclocking abilities using what? Liquid Nitrogen? Does anyone give a Hoot about liquid Nitrogen? no. They don't. No1 uses extreme cooling methods like that for an everyday 24/7 gaming/productivity PC. Both chips have pretty much the same OC abilities when it comes to using modern conventional cooling systems. Most people can maintain a 4.8-5.0ghz OC on an FX. No1 is getting a 5.6 ghz overclock on a 24/7 FX. It's just not happening aside from a very few extremely lucky peices of Silicone. Hell a bet most people can't even maintain a 5ghz OC on an FX under air. And no an FX is "Not more Stable" when it's overclocked that's just BS talk.

Using everything from pure air up to LN2. "Overclocking" incudes any overclocking from basic overclocking to extreme overclocking.

Like it or not, but the AMD FX has the world-record on overcloking with its eight-cores working above the 8 GHz. World-record does not mean that you will be achieving that at your home, but gives an indication of the superior overclocking capabilitites. I also explained about this before.

If comparing overclocking we are comparing max overclocking (or max safe overclocking). If one is a better overclocker than that should be taken into account. This is why amd gpus are generally superior to nvidia gpus. They have more overclocking headroom and scale better with overclocking. Generally we can boost a gcn gpu by a greater % than a kepler gpu at max overclocks. There is nothing biased against this at all.

The FX was only working one or two cores at that speed. It was running at over 2 volts. It was using liquid helium. thats hardly consumer representitive.

 

[8350rocks]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1318995/official-fx-8320-fx-8350-vishera-owners-club

There is a detailed information section in the first post showing stable overclocks and benchmarks run at that frequency as well as system settings, OS, mobo, BIOS, chipset, etc.

The top every day 24/7 OC is 5.6 GHz on FX8350. He uses H110i cooling with push/pull setup to keep it cool. Temps are documented.