AMD set to slash FX CPU pricing on September 1

[rancherlee]

Maybe everyone else will get Microcenters 99-119$ 8320 pricing soon. The 8320 I just picked up last week is quite happy running 4.2g @ 1.25v so the process has matured nicely, turbos 4.8 at the stock 1.425v (1.404 actual). I wouldn't be surprised if they have a 95w 8320 now.

 

[jumpncrash]

you can find some very fast 256GB SSDs (like the MX100) for as low as $115 at newegg, I think now it's a reality that someone buying an $50 MB would consider using an SSD, because it have a huge impact on performance, unlike investing more on the motherboard.

even AM1 have sata III right?

Yes, 2 ports

 

[AtenRa]

you can find some very fast 256GB SSDs (like the MX100) for as low as $115 at newegg, I think now it's a reality that someone buying an $50 MB would consider using an SSD, because it have a huge impact on performance, unlike investing more on the motherboard.

even AM1 have sata III right?

The vast majority will go for 1TB HDD that only cost $60. That is 4 times the capacity at almost half the price vs the SSD.

 

[Sweepr]

The vast majority will go for 1TB HDD that only cost $60. That is 4 times the capacity at almost half the price vs the SSD.

Cheap MB+CPU combo and an a rather fast SSD is becoming more and more common these days. SSD over faster CPU has has been repeated like a mantra by some forum users.

 

[AtenRa]

Cheap MB+CPU combo and an a rather fast SSD is becoming more and more common these days. SSD over faster CPU has has been repeated like a mantra by some forum users.

For enthusiasts and power users maybe, for all the rest which they are the vast majority, HDD Capacity rulzzz.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

For enthusiasts and power users maybe, for all the rest which they are the vast majority, HDD Capacity rulzzz.

I know this may seem unthinkable -- but some people run BOTH! Holy cow!

I run the OS on the SSD and a hard drive for storage/media. They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[RussianSensation]

For enthusiasts and power users maybe, for all the rest which they are the vast majority, HDD Capacity rulzzz.

Only the uninformed would now buy a system without an SSD. I can tell you my E6600 stock + 120GB Vertex 3 SSD ran circles for every day office, internet and video tasks compared to an i7 3635QM laptop with a mechanical drive. Take any i3 or AMD APU and pair it with any modern 120/256GB SSD, and it will make a 4960X @ 5Ghz with a 7200 rpm hard drive feel slow. On an SSD I can have 100 tabs open in Firefox/Chrome and there is hardly a slowdown. Try opening 30-40 active tabs and run an antivirus on a 7200 rpm drive - even an 8 core Hw-E won't save you from horrible constant lag.

Once you use an SSD for 3-4 months, it's so frustrating using a system with a mechanical drive, you want to rip your hair out. For every day use, the SSD gives the largest single boost over any other system component. Everything is so much smoother with it.

 

[AtenRa]

I know this may seem unthinkable -- but some people run BOTH! Holy cow!

I run the OS on the SSD and a hard drive for storage/media. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I was talking about low-price, low-end PCs sold. I haven't said they are mutually exclusive. People doesn't spend more for SSDs when they are low on budget. They prefer the higher capacity of the HDDs at lower cost.

Also most low-end low-price PCs sold are with mechanical HDDs, so SATA-2 to SATA-3 really doesnt make much difference.

 

[AtenRa]

Only the uninformed would now buy a system without an SSD. I can tell you my E6600 stock + 120GB Vertex 3 SSD ran circles for every day office, internet and video tasks compared to an i7 3635QM laptop with a mechanical drive. Take any i3 or AMD APU and pair it with any modern 120/256GB SSD, and it will make a 4960X @ 5Ghz with a 7200 rpm hard drive feel slow. On an SSD I can have 100 tabs open in Firefox/Chrome and there is hardly a slowdown. Try opening 30-40 active tabs and run an antivirus on a 7200 rpm drive - even an 8 core Hw-E won't save you from horrible constant lag.

Once you use an SSD for 3-4 months, it's so frustrating using a system with a mechanical drive, you want to rip your hair out. For every day use, the SSD gives the largest single boost over any other system component. Everything is so much smoother with it.

You really dont have to tell me how fast the SSDs are, all of my personal PCs use them. But the truth is that still the vast majority of users they still prefer 1TB HDDs over 256GB SSDs when we are talking about low budget systems.

 

[RussianSensation]

You really dont have to tell me how fast the SSDs are, all of my personal PCs use them. But the truth is that still the vast majority of users they still prefer 1TB HDDs over 256GB SSDs when we are talking about low budget systems.

But if we are talking about a low budget system, then get a G3258 + SSD. Why even discuss FX? The strength of the FX is video encoding, rendering, compression - people who run those tasks surely can afford a 2-4TB drive and an SSD. If you just want a basic PC but have no $, get 3258 and then when you finally have money, just put in a used i5/i7.

The price drops on FX series will entice users in 3rd world countries who can't afford Intel i5/7 to upgrade but I doubt it's going to be that effective unless the price drops are very aggressive. IIRC 8350 came out at $279 and even now at $150 hardly anyone wants it. AMD needs to drop the 9590 to $149 and only then it has a chance against an i5 4690K.

Put it this way, no AMD CPU should cost above $200 since an overclocked i5 would beat any FX in most tasks while using less power. Maybe AMD can sell the 9590 with a free 120 GB SSD or 8GB of DDR3, then it might sell better. Alternatively, AMD could offer a 10% discounts on the entire purchase if one gets any FX AMD CPU+AMD ram+SSD+videocard.

 

[AtenRa]

Once you use an SSD for 3-4 months, it's so frustrating using a system with a mechanical drive, you want to rip your hair out. For every day use, the SSD gives the largest single boost over any other system component. Everything is so much smoother with it.

I dont want to derail the thread but you over exaggerating,

Im on vacation and im using the last week or so everyday an A10-7850K @ 4GHz with 8GB ram and 1TB 7200 64MB HDD SATA-6. I can tell you that everyday usage is the same as with my main PC back home that has a Core i7 3770K @ 4.4GHz and 256GB SSD.
The only time i feel the difference is when i boot to Windows and when i open applications. Yes it takes a couple of second more with the HDD but not something i want to rip my hair off.
Also Surfing with lots of tabs is the same no difference felt here.

 

[AtenRa]

But if we are talking about a low budget system, then get a G3258 + SSD. Why even discuss FX? The strength of the FX is video encoding, rendering, compression - people who run those tasks surely can afford a 2-4TB drive and an SSD. If you just want a basic PC but have no $, get 3258 and then when ili have money, just put in a used i5/i7.

The price drops on FX series will entice users in 3rd world countries who can't afford Intel i5/7 to upgrade but I doubt it's going to be that effective. I think 8350 came out at $279 and even now at $150 hardly anyone wants it. AMD needs to drop the 9590 to $149 and only then it has a chance against an i5 4690K.

There are a lot of low budget FX6300 and FX8320 builds for Gaming that use 1TB HDDs. You really have to understand that not everyone needs or are willing to spend more for the SSDs even now that prices are lower than ever.

 

[RussianSensation]

I dont want to derail the thread but you over exaggerating,

Im on vacation and im using the last week or so everyday an A10-7850K @ 4GHz with 8GB ram and 1TB 7200 64MB HDD SATA-6. I can tell you that everyday usage is the same as with my main PC back home that has a Core i7 3770K @ 4.4GHz and 256GB SSD.
The only time i feel the difference is when i boot to Windows and when i open applications. Yes it takes a couple of second more with the HDD but not something i want to rip my hair off.
Also Surfing with lots of tabs is the same no difference felt here.

I don't know. I usually have Adobe PDF, various word documents, excel files and a lot of tabs open, with youtube in the background. It is really frustrating to perform these basic tasks on a mechanical drive even with an i7.

Anyway, the problem with the FX is lack of performance against a budget i5. It gets killed in general user multi-tasking and games. Even when FX8350 is overclocked to 4.8Ghz, it's still "slow" against an i5:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/4

Add to this horrendous power consumption and I just can't see how AMD can sell any FXs for anything other than $150 and below even for their flagship 9590 model. But then I think to myself that with today's landscape a CPU lasts 4 years easily. So if I spend just $90 more, I get an i5 4690K that once overclocked to 4.6Ghz+ will leave the FX for dead. Over 4 years of ownership, $90 is not a lot of money and the difference will get smaller once you consider power usage and the type of cooling that you'd actually need to cool down a 4.7-5Ghz FX9590.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Anyway, the problem with the FX is lack of performance against a budget i5. It gets killed in general user multi-tasking and games. Even when FX8350 is overclocked to 4.8Ghz, it's still "slow" against an i5.

Again, you are speaking in general terms which do NOT apply to all users. An i5 is a better CPU than an FX for playing games. An FX 8350 is a better CPU for tasks like video editing/encoding. It really depends on what the user is going to use the PC to do.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Once you use an SSD for 3-4 months, it's so frustrating using a system with a mechanical drive, you want to rip your hair out. For every day use, the SSD gives the largest single boost over any other system component. Everything is so much smoother with it.

I couldnt agree more. I cant understand how people would even accept HD performance today. Unless they ofcourse cant afford anything else.

75-200 IOPS is just deadwater. 3-4x performance gains the last 35 years.

 

[soccerballtux]

I couldnt agree more. I cant understand how people would even accept HD performance today. Unless they ofcourse cant afford anything else.

75-200 IOPS is just deadwater. 3-4x performance gains the last 35 years.

dunno what your all's problem is, I've been doing that for years. I regularly have about 30 chromes open, I've got 5 PDFs, pidgin IM, firefox with facebook open all the time, IE with another gmail account open all the time, youtube in the background, etc, no lag. It sounds like you need RAM.

I was doing all that on windows XP back in the day with a single core AMD processor with no lag. It's about the RAM

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

I couldnt agree more. I cant understand how people would even accept HD performance today. Unless they ofcourse cant afford anything else.

75-200 IOPS is just deadwater. 3-4x performance gains the last 35 years.

Hard drives have their place. With the constant rewriting that occurs for projects on the World Community Grid -- I would never want to subject a SSD to that type of constant abuse. Even a cheap hard drive can perform a lot more writes/re-writes than even the best SSD's. Obviously, the SSD will always provide more speed and are great for running apps.

 

[Erenhardt]

dunno what your all's problem is, I've been doing that for years. I regularly have about 30 chromes open, I've got 5 PDFs, pidgin IM, firefox with facebook open all the time, IE with another gmail account open all the time, youtube in the background, etc, no lag. It sounds like you need RAM.

I was doing all that on windows XP back in the day with a single core AMD processor with no lag. It's about the RAM

It may be you just a patient man

 

[Phynaz]

Hard drives have their place. With the constant rewriting that occurs for projects on the World Community Grid -- I would never want to subject a SSD to that type of constant abuse. Even a cheap hard drive can perform a lot more writes/re-writes than even the best SSD's. Obviously, the SSD will always provide more speed and are great for running apps.

I currently have 14 SSD based systems running WCG. The writes aren't an issue. Seems your information about SSD is out of date. I suggest you read this http://techreport.com/review/24841/introducing-the-ssd-endurance-experiment

 

[JimKiler]

I am excited for new 8 series 95watt CPU's. I have an AM3 with my Phenom X4 955 currently and i would only upgrade to something that is not 125watts as those fans are very loud and i value some peace and quiet.

I am not saying i will definitely upgrade but it would be nice to have more options.

 

[alexruiz]

I have to ask,
has anyone here USED a SSD with a SATA II system?

Yes, I mean used in real life, not read all the babbling on the web about "half the speed"
Ok, if you have used a SDD with a SATA II system (that discards most of the armchair CTOs) How would you compare it to a system system with SATA III?
It makes practically no difference! The SSD biggest advantage over the HDDs is seek times, and regardless of SATA II or SATA III, the seek times stay the same.
SATA III vs SATA II with SSD matters only if transfering a lot of files from SSD to SSD, which again most of the armchair CTOs are not doing. Heck, those doing a lot of SSD to SSD transfer are using thousand-of-dollars PCI-E SSDs!

The talk of AM3+ being obsolete is blown out of proportion. Yes, it is not up to date in features, but how many of those features really hamper performance?
* PCI-e 3.0? Proven at 2% or so with a R9 290X vs PCI-E 2.0
* No native USB 3.0? True, but the third parties have solutions as good as the A75/A85/A78/A88 chipsets.
* No SATA express? True, but how many are using it?
* No M.2 native. Who uses a M.2 SSD in a desktop?

Furthermore, even the motherboards with SB710 (SATA II) vs the SB950 (SATA III) the performance difference for SATA is practically academic. It will make a difference when we get 1TB SSD for $100, but for now, a SSD on SATA II vs SATA III is virtually the same.

Would we like to have a AM3+ platform fully up to date? Absolutely!
Is it a deal breaker? No, not at all, not in 970/990FX motherboards. In the 760G boards, the issue is not even SATA II vs SATA III, it is the DX10 HD3000 graphics. You either FM2+, or need to get a discrete GPU for anything other than office work.

On the original topic, looking forward to the discounts

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

I currently have 14 SSD based systems running WCG. The writes aren't an issue. Seems your information about SSD is out of date. I suggest you read this http://techreport.com/review/24841/introducing-the-ssd-endurance-experiment

I'm not out of date -- For me, its probably my desire to be a cheapskate. I did burn up quite a few SSD's on the grid over the years (although most were crappy OCZ units).

But I've gotten to the point -- why bother spending $80 - 100 on a decent SSD (Samsung)? I can buy a new generic hard drive for $25 from GoHardDrive and get years out of it (which is what I've been doing).

And AlexRuiz..... it is so true. Most of these newer technologies will probably be great in the future -- but we really can't see any performance benefit in current real world environments. Right now, most of them are marketing jingles to sell new parts.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hard drives have their place. With the constant rewriting that occurs for projects on the World Community Grid -- I would never want to subject a SSD to that type of constant abuse. Even a cheap hard drive can perform a lot more writes/re-writes than even the best SSD's. Obviously, the SSD will always provide more speed and are great for running apps.

You're right. I change my checkpoint frequency from 60 seconds, to 3600 seconds, on an SSD drive system, to mitigate wear.

Before I learned how to do that, I took a 30GB OCZ Agility SSD from 100% life to 75% life in around a month or two doing DC. 9TB written.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I currently have 14 SSD based systems running WCG. The writes aren't an issue. Seems your information about SSD is out of date. I suggest you read this http://techreport.com/review/24841/introducing-the-ssd-endurance-experiment

5-9TB a month writes, isn't an issue for you?

 

[Essence_of_War]

I have to ask,
has anyone here USED a SSD with a SATA II system?

Yes. I just put a 512GB Crucial MX100 in an 8-core Mac Pro 3,1 (caps at SATA 3 Gb/s) and it flies.