Best AMD chip for playing games

[TeknoBug]

I will tell you all day long the 8350 is not the best choice for gaming, but I will never say it's junk, or not good enough for most games, that's the difference.

as I said, it's easier to justify the cheaper AMD CPUs like 760k-6300 and even the 8320... but,

without him exposing his budget and the rest of the PC configuration there is simply not enough information to really say it fits better than the 4570 as the choice for a gaming CPU, because you like or not the 4570 can be significantly faster in a few games (and you and the OP might not play these games, which would be great I guess) and the 1150 platform is better with ultra cheap motherboards.

Last year I ordered an i5 3570K and ended up getting a i5 3550 by mistake and the shipper refunded the difference (I ended up paying $180) and even a locked binned down i5 still kicked my FX 8320's ass, plus I have an ASRock board that lets me go past 3.7GHz with that particular CPU (I went 3.9-4GHz on all cores). Even cheaper i5's are still a better choice.

 

[Arkaign]

A low budget user will not opt for the Highest End GPU like 290X or GTX780Ti. The majority of gamers have way lower GPUs than those high-end and thus making the GPU to be the limiting factor in 1080p gaming most of the time.

Example, a Haswell Celeron G1820 is more than enough to get 98% of the performance of a Core i5/7 in ~95% of games when using a HD7790.

Shocking for 2014 but it is a fact.

Hmm. Maybe 95% of games is true, maybe not. I know someone with a Haswell Pentium and 7850, and it's really erratic for gaming. Some stuff is great (Skyrim runs fine, so does Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3). At the same time, BF3 and BF4 both stutter enough to make it not fun, GTA4 is basically unplayable, and many games are extremely mediocre, when I know they should be easily smooth with a 7850. He only has a 720p TV (1366x768 res for PC input), runs high detail with low AA. It's very hit or miss. He's saving up for a 4570 and cooler on my advice (the stock fan is ... crap).

I had a nearly identical setup for my HTPC, and didn't have trouble even with 1080p, and that was an FX6350. Every game ran extremely well. I upgraded to a 4770 non-K + CM 212+ primarily for undervolting and lower power use during regular media usage, but had no real complaints with a single 7870 + 6350 for any game at all. Was my 4GB 770SLI 4.8Ghz 3770K better? Sure. But honestly that just lets me do heaps of mods and 1440P with generous AA. It's icing, but not necessary to have fun.

 

[AtenRa]

Hmm. Maybe 95% of games is true, maybe not. I know someone with a Haswell Pentium and 7850, and it's really erratic for gaming. Some stuff is great (Skyrim runs fine, so does Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3). At the same time, BF3 and BF4 both stutter enough to make it not fun, GTA4 is basically unplayable, and many games are extremely mediocre, when

Thats why i said 95% of games will play just fine. BF3 and BF4 need at least 4 threads and Ivy/Haswell Pentiums will not be playable.

 

[Red Hawk]

What is the OP asking ? Don't see him asking what the best chip for playing games is

As for the amd vs intel nonsense. I have an i7 ivy and a 8350. Both are paired with 7970 cards , 8gb RAM and OS installed on SSD's. When gaming I can barley tell them apart. The i7 wins by being slightly quicker in games like Civ5. 3d games like fps , I honestly can't tell them apart

So yeah stop talking nonsense

Then why did you respond to a post about Intel chips first? If the OP is looking for a good chip for gaming, we would be remiss not to point out that i5s tend to perform better at the same or lower price as the 8350.

Are you saying that all the benchmarks showing the i5 as better than the 8350 are wrong? If anything's nonsense, it's your subjective user experience, not the objective tests run by dozens of review sites.

 

[AtenRa]

Then why did you respond to a post about Intel chips first? If the OP is looking for a good chip for gaming, we would be remiss not to point out that i5s tend to perform better at the same or lower price as the 8350.

Are you saying that all the benchmarks showing the i5 as better than the 8350 are wrong? If anything's nonsense, it's your subjective user experience, not the objective tests run by dozens of review sites.

First of all the OP may get those two CPUs at better prices than the US or he may as well get a replacement from older Phenoms.

Secondly, Review sites rarely benchmark Gaming CPU scaling at 1080p and at high Image Quality settings most people would run those games. User experience is different simple due to that little difference.
Also, davie jambo repeatedly have said that in benchmarking his Core i7 is faster than his FX8350.

 

[tential]

Was there a reason the OP wanted an AMD processor? I feel like maybe OP thought they needed an AMD processor for Mantle or something. The best choice is Intel for processors.

I'm happy to switch brands for ANYTHING as long as it's best performance/price ratios. Right now Intel is the best CPU. Maybe AMD will get that privilege again (but who am I kidding that doesn't look like it's going to happen). I'd pick AMD for GPU though if cryptocoin mining hasn't destroyed their pricing still.

You're better off even picking up a cheap nehalem/sandybridge processor off Ebay before going AMD at this point.

 

[Headfoot]

I know we all -including myself- like to blow things outa proportion but ffs atmost the a10-7850k is $20-30 over price -historically at least. This price however, does reflect the advances and features kaveri has, need I remind you:

a10-7850k as compared to 6800k
cpu perf single/multi - ~-7% / 10%
gpu perf ~20%
gpu compute perf upto 100% if not more [very scenerio dependent]
power ~20%

true audio dsp block
gcn based gpu with mantle support
better memory subsystem.
hsa support
opencl 2.0 support
huma & hq technology

source: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_a10_7850k_apu_review,1.html

point being kaveri isn't just about gaming or computing.

What does that having to do with gaming? Who cares about a igpu for gaming on a budget over $300

 

[erunion]

Let me tell you a wee story. There was a man from Scotland that had an 8350 and a 7970 combo. He was very happy with this and it ran all games at the highest settings or close to the highest settings at 60 fps.

But he kept reading on the internet how AMD were junk and his CPU was no good. So at about this time a year ago he got a big bonus from work and decided to spend it on a shinny new i7 CPU and motherboard. This was very expensive but you know it would make games run faster so it was worth it

Imagine this man from Scotland's horror when not only did it feel not as good as his 8350 but the frame rates in games were more or less the same !

The internet is littered with people saying that their configuration "runs all games just fine". But clearly an 7970 is going to provide tangible gains over a 6670. That is why we rely on empirical evidence, ie benchmarks.

I'm sorry you experienced buyers remorse, and I realize you are simply trying to help others avoid the same thing. But it was a subjective experience, others aren't going to react the same way you did. Another member could as easily write that they are happy with their i7.

P.S. Using benchmarks for the programs you use, rather than other peoples subjective experiences, could have helped you make better a decision

 

[TreVader]

The 8320 is $40 less than the cheapest haswell i5 and if you're going to buy intel it's ridiculous not to go with haswell.


The i5 is a great CPU but to compare the 8320 to a 4670K is ridiculous considering the massive price difference. The 4330 is $180 vs $140 for the 8320.


As long as you're not playing strategy games, the 8320 will be better than any comparable i3 and most i5. All the guys telling you the FX is a bad cpu are cherry picking single threaded benchmarks that run the FX at stock agaisn't an OC'd 4670K, which is not a realistic comparison

 

[erunion]

AMD CPUs are too inconsistent to recommend. In any CPU intensive game, they fall on their face.

Edited to fix embed

 

[2is]

The 8320 is $40 less than the cheapest haswell i5 and if you're going to buy intel it's ridiculous not to go with haswell.


The i5 is a great CPU but to compare the 8320 to a 4670K is ridiculous considering the massive price difference. The 4330 is $180 vs $140 for the 8320.


As long as you're not playing strategy games, the 8320 will be better than any comparable i3 and most i5. All the guys telling you the FX is a bad cpu are cherry picking single threaded benchmarks that run the FX at stock agaisn't an OC'd 4670K, which is not a realistic comparison

Cherry pick? Shall we compare full reviews and see who's cherry picking? Let me know if you want to play.

 

[davie jambo]

The internet is littered with people saying that their configuration "runs all games just fine". But clearly an 7970 is going to provide tangible gains over a 6670. That is why we rely on empirical evidence, ie benchmarks.

I'm sorry you experienced buyers remorse, and I realize you are simply trying to help others avoid the same thing. But it was a subjective experience, others aren't going to react the same way you did. Another member could as easily write that they are happy with their i7.

P.S. Using benchmarks for the programs you use, rather than other peoples subjective experiences, could have helped you make better a decision

it's not really that bad , I bought another 7970 , case , psu and made another PC out of it. So now I have an 8350 &7970 and an i7 & 7970

I have one in my livingroom and the other in my man cave. Probably game more on the intel but use the amd one more for general computer tasks

I was just trying to point out that there is not much difference between the two CPU's on gaming when using a high-ish GPU and both of them will be fine for 1080p 60fps gaming. Sure the intel is better but it's not like the AMD chip is terrible

 

[Maximilian]

Games should come with a new system requirement, threads, or cores used or whatever. This would stop people posting single/dual threaded games built on an ancient engine as relevant benchmarks.

 

[SithSolo1]

Older review, no haswell chips

Newer bench, can't read russian so I don't know if these were single or multiplayer results

Any games going forward built off the CryEngine 3+ or Frostbite 3+ engines should see similar scaling. Newer titles are trending multiple threads, 1-2 thread games are slowing being phased out.

 

[NTMBK]

Any games going forward built off the CryEngine 3+ or Frostbite 3+ engines should see similar scaling. Newer titles are trending multiple threads, 1-2 thread games are slowing being phased out.

This. And it's not just engines- DirectX 12 is much more multithreaded too:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/directx/archive/2014/03/20/directx-12.aspx

 

[Bman123]

The consoles are 8 core/thread whatever and use like 6 for gaming and 2 for the OS itself right? You would think that games will start taking advantage of the extra threads since the clock speed on the consoles is so low and they are amd chips.
I'm wanting to build a gaming PC but I don't want to throw way money, its a tough choice to make right now for me. When I look at benchmarks I see the i3 haswell beating the the fx6300 left and right and the i5 beats the fx8 series

 

[TeknoBug]

The consoles are 8 core/thread whatever and use like 6 for gaming and 2 for the OS itself right? You would think that games will start taking advantage of the extra threads since the clock speed on the consoles is so low and they are amd chips.
I'm wanting to build a gaming PC but I don't want to throw way money, its a tough choice to make right now for me. When I look at benchmarks I see the i3 haswell beating the the fx6300 left and right and the i5 beats the fx8 series

Yes I don't see why not, even cell phones (like my Moto X) does that with assigning cores to certain tasks. It would probably make Windows way more responsive and other things web browser, Office and such would respond even when the CPU is under load by something else.

I'd give it at least 2 years before we start seeing games regularly take advantage of more than 2-4 cores, also Half-Life/source engine has taken advantage of more than 4 cores since 2004!

 

[tential]

Let me tell you a wee story. There was a man from Scotland that had an 8350 and a 7970 combo. He was very happy with this and it ran all games at the highest settings or close to the highest settings at 60 fps.

But he kept reading on the internet how AMD were junk and his CPU was no good. So at about this time a year ago he got a big bonus from work and decided to spend it on a shinny new i7 CPU and motherboard. This was very expensive but you know it would make games run faster so it was worth it

Imagine this man from Scotland's horror when not only did it feel not as good as his 8350 but the frame rates in games were more or less the same !

You need a TON more context. What games was he playing? What resolution?
If he was playing League of Legends/Dota then obviously there was no need to upgrade.
If his FX-8350 was OC'd very well and he didn't OC the new core i7 then it wouldn't matter.
If he is playing a game OPTIMIZED for multithreaded performance, and he OC'd hard then his FX wouldn't have too much of a disadvantage on the i7 line. Look at the Battlefield 4 benchmarks. The FX-8350 is behind the i7 line but only be 10 FPS or so.

The reason you are getting "attacked" from all sides is that you are not posting any "factual" information. There is no hard data in your post what so ever. It's as you say, and as I have bolded a STORY.

There are times when yes, you can pick up an FX processor. Are you planning on playing a heavily optimized game like Battlefield 4 which supports Mantle? Then yes, FX could would for you. Are you playing a nonintensive game like Dota/LoL? Then yes FX can work for you.

Also, consider pricing. Remember prices aren't the same worldwide. So sometimes the FX lineup may be the best choice for a person who may have to pay a TON more of a premium for intel in his country than we would in the US.

How I look at it is like this. If you know the exact games you're playing and how they perform then the FX lineup can be a good pickup for you. But if you play a WIDE variety of games, games that may be unoptimized, play CPU intensive games (MMO, RTS, etc.) then in AMERICA, where the FX-8350 is $200 it doesn't make sense to pick it up when intel processors are at that same price. To further put the nail in the coffin, Intel Processors from 3 years ago are still out performing the FX line. They hold their performance value longer.

But it ALL depends on pricing in your country. So if you're from outside the US and you have different intel/AMD pricing then AMD can be a better deal for you. Inside the US, 95% of the time, intel is the better choice. AMD is too niche in the areas where it performs well for it to be worth saving $70-100 today, only to need an upgrade far sooner down the line.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Games should come with a new system requirement, threads, or cores used or whatever. This would stop people posting single/dual threaded games built on an ancient engine as relevant benchmarks.

So Diablo 3 or starcraft or ES Online or World of Tanks or a host of other MMOs are not relevant benchmarks? Whatever games one plays are indeed relevant benchmarks. Like it or not many games still rely on fast single threaded performance. The fact that their game engines somehow offend you does not change the fact that they exist. That is also why an i5 is a better choice for gaming. It gives similar or sometimes still better performance in multithreaded games, and does not fall down in poorly threaded ones, while being more efficient in the process.

 

[Stingercjc]

I like how when someone asks a question about which AMD processor to buy half the replies are saying to go Intel and then an all out benchmark screen shot war takes place. Now the OP has to sift through 3 pages of bull crap because of it to try and find a legit answer to their question.

Bravo people. Bravo.

 

[flatty]

FX8350 without discussion, it will handle 2-3 years more, add to this that AMD decent motherboards are cheaper than Intel similar

 

[Maximilian]

So Diablo 3 or starcraft or ES Online or World of Tanks or a host of other MMOs are not relevant benchmarks? Whatever games one plays are indeed relevant benchmarks. Like it or not many games still rely on fast single threaded performance. The fact that their game engines somehow offend you does not change the fact that they exist. That is also why an i5 is a better choice for gaming. It gives similar or sometimes still better performance in multithreaded games, and does not fall down in poorly threaded ones, while being more efficient in the process.

An FX chip will do well in multi threaded games and average in single threaded.

An i3 will do average in multi threaded games and well in single threaded. Yeah i5 is better than both (mostly) no argument there.

The trend for future games is for more concurrency so more threads where possible, the FX chips will cope well with this whilst still giving good enough performance in less threaded games. i3's will choke with these future games. Its dual core E8xxx vs quad core Q6600 all over again. Q6600 will play every game today, an E8xxx wont manage the same feat with the same settings as the quad.

 

[escrow4]

FX8350 without discussion, it will handle 2-3 years more, add to this that AMD decent motherboards are cheaper than Intel similar

It already gets spanked by a Haswell i3 in Thief, and AM3+ is 100% dead in the water and no cheaper than Intel if you go for a locked i5 and B85/H87 (which is still faster). Games still need single threaded grunt.

 

[Headfoot]

This is fairly clearly yet another post made just to stir the pot. Been an awful lot of them lately. Notice that the OP hasn't come back and it just devolves to the same old same old

 

[frozentundra123456]

This is fairly clearly yet another post made just to stir the pot. Been an awful lot of them lately. Notice that the OP hasn't come back and it just devolves to the same old same old

Yea, I tend to agree. Even if one sticks to topic, the FX 8350 is so clearly ahead with a discrete card that a few minutes of basic Googling would answer the question. At one point we had three threads with basically the same purpose.