Deciding between Intel and AMD processors ... what do you think?

dud

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
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I can't believe that I am even considering buying an AMD chip but after conducting a "best value" analysis I am finding myself drawn back to the brand.

Background: I am currently running (don't laugh) a 7 year old Opteron-based desktop. I was planning to replace said system so during the BF and Cyber Monday deals I built (on Newegg's website) an i5 and i7-based desktop to replace the Opteron. Life got in the way and I never pulled the trigger on either system. The sales are over now and the price of the systems has risen over $100 each.

Today I receive an advert from NE with mediocre deals at best but what catches my eye is a deal on a 6 core Vishera chip for $90. I do a quick comparison on CPU World between the Vishera and a Haswell i5 and find the following:


Chip Price Overall Performance

Vishera $90 1

Haswell i5-4670K $240 1.26



Here is the link: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/439/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4670K.html



Am I missing something here? The most intensive thing that I do is casual gaming (currently playing W of Warships). Is the i5 really worth the $150 premium over the Vishera? I had hoped to build a system that would last about 5 years but if I could build an AMD-based system for considerably less that might remain viable for 3 years then why not?

Please chime in whether you are an Intel, AMD or neither fan. I am neutral in the matter and just looking at price/performance. I assume that the Intel vice AMD comparison has been debated to great lengths so how about we just focus on this specific comparison.

Thanks to all you computer enthusiast who respond ...
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,001
126
This is the area AMD is good, bang for the buck. Can you find benchmarks of that particular game?
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
The 4670K is significantly faster. Specially in gaming.

Do you intent to overclock?

Also you missed the deals. Its pretty wrong to compare a 4670K to a FX6300. You be better off comparing an i3 or so to a FX6300.
 
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LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
126
I can't believe that I am even considering buying an AMD chip but after conducting a "best value" analysis I am finding myself drawn back to the brand.

Background: I am currently running (don't laugh) a 7 year old Opteron-based desktop. I was planning to replace said system so during the BF and Cyber Monday deals I built (on Newegg's website) an i5 and i7-based desktop to replace the Opteron. Life got in the way and I never pulled the trigger on either system. The sales are over now and the price of the systems has risen over $100 each.

Today I receive an advert from NE with mediocre deals at best but what catches my eye is a deal on a 6 core Vishera chip for $90. I do a quick comparison on CPU World between the Vishera and a Haswell i5 and find the following:


Chip Price Overall Performance

Vishera $90 1

Haswell i5-4670K $240 1.26



Here is the link: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/439/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4670K.html



Am I missing something here? The most intensive thing that I do is casual gaming (currently playing W of Warships). Is the i5 really worth the $150 premium over the Vishera? I had hoped to build a system that would last about 5 years but if I could build an AMD-based system for considerably less that might remain viable for 3 years then why not?

Please chime in whether you are an Intel, AMD or neither fan. I am neutral in the matter and just looking at price/performance. I assume that the Intel vice AMD comparison has been debated to great lengths so how about we just focus on this specific comparison.

Thanks to all you computer enthusiast who respond ...

6 core Vishera?

No.

8 core Vishera, or go with Intel.

FX-8320, for example.

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FD8320FRHKBOX-FX-8320-FX-Series-Processor/dp/B009O7YU56
 

dud

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
7,635
73
91
The 4670K is significantly faster. Specially in gaming.

Do you intent to overclock?

Also you missed the deals. Its pretty wrong to compare a 4670K to a FX6300. You be better off comparing an i3 or so to a FX6300.



I did miss the "deals". I do not intend to overclock initially but would like the option.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/443/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8320_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4670K.html


The 8320 is only about 18% slower. but is $100 less. Interesting ...

Those tests are rubbish tho. Specially for gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1402?vs=1261

And the gaming benches are still mainly GPU limited.

Fallout 4 example.
f4_cpu_nv.png
 
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TheELF

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2012
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Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
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Vishera (Piledriver) has roughly similar per-thread performance to an Intel chip from 2008-2010. There's a value proposition there if you do mostly/only stuff that needs total throughput, with per-thread performance being irrelevant (i.e. encoding, compression), but games and many day-to-day tasks benefit significantly from fast cores. For your use cases, look at Haswell and Skylake i3's. An i3 6100 will have more total throughput than a 6-core AMD CPU (especially a stock one) while also being nearly twice as fast per thread. You can also get a smaller power supply, fewer /quieter fans, and build it in a smaller case, because it will draw a fraction of the power to do the same work. Motherboards for it will be more feature-rich.
 
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Aug 11, 2008
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+1 to what Yuriman said.

Also, I dont look at the cost of the cpu in isolation. I assume you are building an entire new system, so even a hundred dollar difference is only about 10% of the system cost. Plus a system should last several years so even a hundred dollar intital cost seems a lot, but is really minimal.

Personally, I would not look at FX6xxx right now. I would either go i3, FX8xxx, or i5/i7.
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,001
126
I game all the time on my FX, don't listen to them. It often lags behind in benches, but in almost all games is perfectly playable. There may be better choices at other budgets for a gaming-first / only type of system. Sometimes I get the impression that people are so used to suggesting Intel that they don't read the OP's needs in these kinds of threads. An Intel or FX will probably do everything you need, OP. If you're on a budget, this is where the FX excels. If you have a Microcenter near by the FX8320e can be had for about the same price as the FX6xxx you are considering.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,000
3,357
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If you only going to play World Of Ships, then get the Core i3 6100.

If you want to play more demanding 2015-2016 DX-12 games get the FX8320 and OC to 4.4GHz.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
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The benefit of going with the i3-6100 is that in a couple years, you can drop an i5 or i7 in the board, and get a large performance boost.

The FX-8320/8350 will not be upgradeable later on.

Personally, that's what I would do. Put together a Skylake i3 system now, with the idea of upgrading it later when you need more performance.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
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If you only going to play World Of Ships, then get the Core i3 6100.

If you want to play more demanding 2015-2016 DX-12 games get the FX8320 and OC to 4.4GHz.

Nothing point to DX12 doing any favours for the FX. Despite you try to make this the next "wait and see" setup for the FX chips.

AshesOftheSingularity-Bench.png
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
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In terms of value for money, older intel processors such as the Xeon X5687 provide tremendous value for money.
 
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Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
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I game all the time on my FX, don't listen to them. It often lags behind in benches, but in almost all games is perfectly playable. There may be better choices at other budgets for a gaming-first / only type of system. Sometimes I get the impression that people are so used to suggesting Intel that they don't read the OP's needs in these kinds of threads. An Intel or FX will probably do everything you need, OP. If you're on a budget, this is where the FX excels. If you have a Microcenter near by the FX8320e can be had for about the same price as the FX6xxx you are considering.

I find "It may be slower but who really cares?" to be a pretty weak argument. With an i3 6100 coming in around the same price as an FX-8xxx (smaller PSU, cheaper motherboard, cooler, fewer fans), it's hard to recommend an FX for anything but a specific-use box where the FX's strengths show through (e.g. VMs).

OP mentions he does not intend to overclock, which is one of the few selling points the FX chips have over locked Intel CPUs (which you can, with the right motherboard, overclock anyway).

OP did not mention his use-case, but I'm assuming a general purpose machine.

P.S., I'm not an Intel fan. I do very occasionally put together AMD APU-based systems for friends and family where it makes sense. Heat/noise/power use/size/connectivity are often just as important to the user experience as raw processing power, and are part of my consideration here.
 
Mar 10, 2006
11,715
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The benefit of going with the i3-6100 is that in a couple years, you can drop an i5 or i7 in the board, and get a large performance boost.

The FX-8320/8350 will not be upgradeable later on.

Personally, that's what I would do. Put together a Skylake i3 system now, with the idea of upgrading it later when you need more performance.

This.
 

Azuma Hazuki

Golden Member
Jun 18, 2012
1,532
866
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To the OP: use the right tool for the right job.

At this point, the only real use cases for AMD's products are:

1) Linux use, wherein GCC's binaries tend to MYSTERIOUSLY run better on AMD hardware than the same programs compiled by ICC, especially if you run Gentoo. You want an FX6/8 series for this.

2) Heavily, heavily multithreaded work. Again, you want an FX8000-series, preferably an 8370E if you can get it.

3) Low-mid-range gaming on IGP, in a space/power-constrained machine. The A8 and A10-7000 series appear to be the sweet spot for this.

If single-thread is important or your workload is mixed or "bursty," you will probably be better off with an Intel i3. Given the choice between a Pentium and an AMD A8, though, the A8 will provide mostly better experience.
 

Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
4,444
641
126
CPU World is garbage, that isn't anywhere near a realistic picture.

In the real world, most things run on 1 or 2 threads. Even if you game, there's only a handful of games that use more than 4 threads. Vishera's single threaded performance is atrocious compared to anything Intel has released in the last 3 or 4 years. The $40 to move up from that FX6300 to the i3-6100 is totally worth it.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
126
Windows 10 shows over 1,000 threads right now, and all I have open is Mail and Firefox...

Firefox alone is using 65 threads...
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,554
1,658
136
Windows 10 shows over 1,000 threads right now, and all I have open is Mail and Firefox...

Firefox alone is using 65 threads...

You can't use the number of threads reported by Windows as an indication of how threaded a program is. You could write something that calculates Pi to a million decimals in a single thread, but has 100 threads spawned for dealing with UI elements that never get used.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
5,154
132
106
That's still kind of crazy. How many tabs do you have going? I have Chrome, mail and a backup program running and only show 94 threads, along with other background utilities.
 

dud

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
7,635
73
91
I want to thank everyone who spent their valuable time contributing to this thread. As I previously stated, my intent was to put an i7-based system but with vendors bumping their prices back up to normal, pre-BF prices I am refocusing towards an i5. I've got a nice Fractal case, Rosewill PS and Asrock MB in my cart. Just contemplating the purchase.

Thanks again ...