Are AMD processors worth considering for mid to high end?

[2is]

For ultra setting...maybe,but as I said a budget gamer won't be reaching for ultra.

Hardly relevant. Ultra vs anything else has little affect on CPU performance. If your CPU isn't good enough for ultra, it's highly unlikely it will be good enough for anything else either since most everything else will simply put less load on the GPU not CPU

 

[MrTeal]

Why do these discussions always come back to gaming? Gaming is something most computer users simply do not do, certainly not at the level that an A8 would bottleneck.

For everyday usage, the A8 is just fine. I much prefer it over the i3 for the cost. For mid-range use the 8320E is an amazing bargain and the 8370E is basically a Sandybridge i7 for the price of a low-end Haswell i5.

After this, yes, it's all about Intel. But by the time we're getting past i5 levels it's really not mid-range anymore...

Qué?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1340?vs=287
In a couple benchmarks the 8370E pulls even with the 2600k, but in most it's 20-50% slower, with outliers putting it half as fast. It's a lot closer to a 2500k than a 2600k, not that the 2500k is a bad chip by any stretch.

 

[frozentundra123456]

One can make a case (weak IMO) for FX for a budget gaming system where you are adding a discrete gpu anyway, but the value for a mainstream casual use system is highly compromised by the lack of an igp, forcing you to either live with motherboard graphics or add a discrete card, adding more cost and increasing power usage of an already power hungry cpu.

All you have to do is look at the market place to see this. What market share AMD manages to hold onto outside of gaming is due to the APUs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why do these discussions always come back to gaming?

Because the Intel fan club wants them to, since that's one of the areas that Intel CPUs beat AMD CPUs in. I'm with you though, for value for a basic desktop browser, an AMD A8/A10 quad-core is more than adequate, in the vast majority of cases.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

@MrTeal

...ouch. Okay, so it's just a slightly better value than the same-priced chip rather than an absolute landslide. Still would rather have an 8370E than a 2500K though, especially because I do a lot of compiling and GCC loves it some threads.

Also, I am habitually wary of benchmark results given Intel's compiler shenanegans over the last decade or so. Phoronix seems to show Vishera suddenly getting a LOT more attractive relative to Sandybridge/Ivybridge when both are using code put out by GCC rather than ICC.

@VirtualLarry

Figures. I'm trying not to be too much of a fangirl myself, though, so as not to be hypocritical

 

[Erenhardt]

Qué?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1340?vs=287
In a couple benchmarks the 8370E pulls even with the 2600k, but in most it's 20-50% slower, with outliers putting it half as fast. It's a lot closer to a 2500k than a 2600k, not that the 2500k is a bad chip by any stretch.

You can add 10% to fx if you break the tdp limit or go with old 125W fx, not TDP limited 95W revision:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=287

But fx for gaming is bad. As bad a i3-6100:

 

[VirtualLarry]

But fx for gaming is bad. As bad a i3-6100:

Well... at least AMD's 8-core FX CPU is performance-competitive with Intel's dual-cores.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

And I'm not using this for bloody gaming, and neither are any of my customers! I do Gentoo so only CPU grunt really matters for me, and my customers just need something that isn't an utter piece of junk that they can count on being "good enough" for 5 years or so on a low-income budget.

 

[AtenRa]

Well... at least AMD's 8-core FX CPU is performance-competitive with Intel's dual-cores.

No, the Intel dual core is only competitive in single thread performance and power consumption. In Mutli-Thread/Multi-Task and Gaming the 8-core FX is better in the latest games.

What all those Core i3 reviews doesnt show in the gaming benchmarks is the high stuttering and how unplayable some times the game is with the Core i3. For older games and older MMOs the Core i3 is fine, when the game can use more than 2-3 threads the situation changes.

 

[myocardia]

No, the Intel dual core is only competitive in single thread performance and power consumption. In Mutli-Thread/Multi-Task and Gaming the 8-core FX is better in the latest games.

You mean like here, with the cheap little i3 destroying AMD's best CPU, with the FX running WAY overclocked?

What all those Core i3 reviews doesnt show in the gaming benchmarks is the high stuttering and how unplayable some times the game is with the Core i3. For older games and older MMOs the Core i3 is fine, when the game can use more than 2-3 threads the situation changes.

Please, clue us in to the professional reviewer who said such a lie. I mean, i3s complete four threads at a time, just like AMD's most expensive (more expensive than the i3, actually) APUs, so obviously all of AMD's APUs also stutter when gaming, correct?

edit: Wow, I had no idea that AMD was having to sell their fastest, most expensive APU for so little money. Kind of sad. I guess if it was half as fast as the i3 at anything besides zipping files, people would be buying it, and the price would be higher. I hereby retract the "more expensive than the i3" claim.

edit #2: In an attempt to make this post somewhat on-topic, no, AMD processors are not anywhere near "high-end". However, the FX 8 and 9 series do in fact make good showings for their price in the midrange, if you aren't a gamer, and are wanting to do a lot of the two things that people actually buy 'bigger/badder' CPUs to do, namely encoding/transcoding video, or running multiple virtual machines.

 

[AtenRa]

That should be enough for now,

Ryse Son of Rome
1080p High
Win 10 Pro 64bit
Catalyst 15.11Beta

 

[TheELF]

Ryse on haswell G1820 celeron and GTX650
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oBZQ_kBwE
Nope,once again you claim the I3 to be worse then a celeron...just not the case.

 

[AtenRa]

Ryse on haswell G1820 celeron and GTX650
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oBZQ_kBwE
Nope,once again you claim the I3 to be worse then a celeron...just not the case.

I dont see frame-times in that video but only fps at less than 720p desktop mode.

edit:

If you want to see the fps,

 

[TheELF]

I dont see frame-times in that video but only fps at less than 720p desktop mode.

It is in 720p and whatever the frametimes are, FPS never drops below 30 so you can Vsync at 30 and get smooth gameplay,there is no way an i3 is slower.

Also parts with completely flat lines in your graph for the i3...
it's pretty obvious that there is something wrong with the way you do things.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

How is it going to get worse?
The current gen consoles are here to stay for at lest another 3-4 years and dx12 will get rid of the driver thread so one less thread the duals will need to handle.

DirectX 12 isn't going to save obsolete tech. Dual cores are pretty much obsolete circa 2014 and up (I bought my G3258 to play old games).

The majority of new games are being developed for 4 threads or more CPUs -- and a G3258 can only process 2 at a time. Many games won't even install on a dual core soon (Farcry 4 already started the trend -- although you can hack the game to run rather poorly).

The i3 6100 is a much smarter purchase in the long run.... considering that some G3258 Cpu's can't achieve an overclock to the 3.7 Ghz that the i3 6100 comes out of the box at. It's probably the best extra $60 you can spend right now. Plus, the i3 runs multithreaded games considerably better where the G3258 chokes.... yet single threaded performance remains good on both. It's about balance and I find the G3258 overall is too lopsided toward single threaded stuff only.

 

[TheELF]

DirectX 12 isn't going to save obsolete tech.

It was made for obsolete tech though,the athlon 5150 in the consoles for instance.
It's not about saving the duals but Dx12 will give them a boost.

Many games won't even install on a dual core soon (Farcry 4 already started the trend -- although you can hack the game to run rather poorly).

This is with stock speed and it runs better then the so called quad x4 860.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT638ErboU

Farcry was the first of the crappy console ports that did nothing.
Ps4/xbone run the os on the first two cores so games start on the third core,it's just a setting they neglected to change!

And for the trend,inquisition got patched to only run one worker thread instead of 3 on duals,COD BOps 3's day one patch was the exact same fix changing from 3 to 1 worker threads,so the trend if there is any is to use common sense and less threads.

 

[AtenRa]

Also parts with completely flat lines in your graph for the i3...
it's pretty obvious that there is something wrong with the way you do things.

There is something wrong and that is with the FX8150 not the Core i3 6300, the flat lines should of been in the FX8150 as well, ill re-run the benchmark again.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

It was made for obsolete tech though,the athlon 5150 in the consoles for instance.
It's not about saving the duals but Dx12 will give them a boost.

Pure wishful thinking.

The cat cores in the consoles can process quadruple (8) the threads per clock cycle that a G3258 (2) can. Dual cores are at the end of their usable life for gaming -- it's just the way it is.

http://wccftech.com/death-gaming-dual-core/

I also own a 760K -- and your supplied video ignores the minimum frame rate/stutters. The G3258 may peak with higher fps, But a 760k / 860k drops less frames/stutters than my G3258 and indeed provides an overall better gaming experience on multithreaded games.

Let me quote EuroGamer's Review of the G3258:
However, the rest of our titles show the challenge of running multi-threaded software on a dual-core processor. Curiously, it's not really the frame-rates that are the problem - as you can see from the results table, the Pentium puts in a respectable enough performance in many cases. The issue is one of consistency - games are now built typically with four threads or more in mind. Dropping down to two - no matter how fast they are - causes latency and stalling issues that manifest as highly unwelcome stutter during gameplay.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-pentium-g3258-review

I own a G3258 -- and the bottom line is it looks amazing on paper, but once you start playing modern games it does hit a brick wall. The i3 6100 is a much better investment. The G3258 is a great chip, but really only excels at single threaded gaming only.

 

[Phynaz]

The majority of new games are being developed for 4 threads or more CPUs -

Wrong again. The majority of games - as in the number - are still and will continue to be lightly threaded.

You are attempting to call the large budget AAA games "the majority", of which they are actually the minority.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Wrong again. The majority of games - as in the number - are still and will continue to be lightly threaded.

You are attempting to call the large budget AAA games "the majority", of which they are actually the minority.

You can waste your money any way you see fit. But a dual core doesn't make economic sense for a gamer with common sense. Most people would prefer a CPU that can run everything, not just single threaded stuff.

Tom's Hardware:
Games, on the other hand, have taken longer to "get there." With a primary emphasis on graphics performance, it's not surprising that single-threaded engines still exist. However, spawning additional threads and utilizing a greater number of cores allows ISVs to implement better artificial intelligence or add more rigid bodies that can be affected by physics. Increasingly, then, we're seeing more examples of games exhibiting better performance when we use quad-core processor.

Eurogamer:
However, the rest of our titles show the challenge of running multi-threaded software on a dual-core processor. Curiously, it's not really the frame-rates that are the problem - as you can see from the results table, the Pentium puts in a respectable enough performance in many cases. The issue is one of consistency - games are now built typically with four threads or more in mind. Dropping down to two - no matter how fast they are - causes latency and stalling issues that manifest as highly unwelcome stutter during gameplay.

WCCF Tech:
The days of gaming on a budget seem to be coming to an end. More and more games now require quad core CPUs to perform efficiently or even start up for that matter.

http://wccftech.com/death-gaming-dual-core/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-pentium-g3258-review
https://steamcommunity.com/app/209660/discussions/0/617320628288708612/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427.html

 

[TheELF]

I also own a 760K -- and your supplied video ignores the minimum frame rate/stutters. The G3258 may peak with higher fps, But a 760k / 860k drops less frames/stutters than my G3258 and indeed provides an overall better gaming experience on multithreaded games.

And your pictures show (a review from a year and a half ago with) the first mantle game ever,riddled with bugs up to today,having performance issues even on a lot of very high end systems.
Have you seen STAR WARS Battlefront? Same engine, also multiplayer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxabPfijyQ
And Thief,have you ever played Thief with your 760k? Unlike the included benchmark that it has the game itself runs almost exclusively on a single thread.

 

[AtenRa]

Have you seen STAR WARS Battlefront? Same engine, also multiplayer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxabPfijyQ

Hell, i get the same performance with the A8-7600 on the iGPU at 1080p Low (Scale 60%).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wrong again. The majority of games - as in the number - are still and will continue to be lightly threaded.

You are attempting to call the large budget AAA games "the majority", of which they are actually the minority.

Uhm, the "majority of games", is written for consoles. The current crop of consoles, have 8 threads. Thus, most current games ARE being developed to be threaded.

A handful of lightly-threaded indy games excepted.

Heck, even mobile-phone games, are written for multiple threads these days.

 

[cbn]

I also own a 760K -- and your supplied video ignores the minimum frame rate/stutters. The G3258 may peak with higher fps, But a 760k / 860k drops less frames/stutters than my G3258 and indeed provides an overall better gaming experience on multithreaded games.

Back when I looked at all the frame time variance charts Tom's tested for that review, the G3258 actually beat the 750K 4 out of 7 times:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37175841&postcount=65

No one brings terrible frame times of pentium? Very strange to see people give any weight to average fps numbers these days.

Pentium OC G3258 actually won 4 out of 7 games (in terms of frame time variance) against OC Athlon x4 750K in the Tom's test:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36517046&postcount=17

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36517050&postcount=18

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36517071&postcount=19 (<---Here is where I tallied results)

,...but one of the newer games Thief there was a large discrepancy in frame time variance favoring OC Athlon x4 750K.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36873247&postcount=30

Unfortunately Thief was very new at the time (it was the newest game in the test I believe). My conclusion (after comparing Thief to the oldest game to scale quad core in the test, Metro Last Light) was that is was probably a driver issue.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36875563&postcount=49

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, I see the pentium having the same problem as the FX, surprisingly, although just in the opposite direction. The problem with both is that they are not well balanced. They are very good in some games, and quite poor in others. An i5, i7 or overclocked hex core intel is very good in *both* highly threaded games and games that require fast single thread performance. An i3 is kind of in between, but personally I would not want to go below an i5 for gaming these days.