Does the AMD FX line make sense

[cbrunny]

for the future of gaming, knowing that the PS4 has an 8 core AMD processor? and the Xbox720 is likely to as well.

Thinking more in line with future games being optimized for higher numbers of cores or threads. Vishera 2.0 and/or Steamroller.

 

[guskline]

Lordy, Lordy let the fun begin!:biggrin:

 

[tweakboy]

Nope!

 

[Phynaz]

No. There's already a thread about this.

Think of it this way...

Even if AMD were somehow to gain an advantage a half of decade from now, it would be on console class titles, not PC software.

In 5 or 6 years from now will you still be using the CPU you buy today? Is it worth it to take the trade off in performance for the next X number of years for something that MAY happen in the future?

Nope.

What you are describing is future-proofing. "If I get this now it will last longer / be better in the future because of X". In the 30 years of PC history it has never paid off.

 

[Greenlepricon]

Lordy, Lordy let the fun begin!:biggrin:

I'm staying out of this thread for sure... One note though is that it always makes sense for someone. Looks like gamers might be included for AMD if the current trend of games using so many threads keeps up. Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3 were two huge titles that did well with bulldozer/steamroller. Whether that makes it worth it compared to Intel for one person over the other is entirely up to them though.

 

[cbrunny]

I'm a cpu noob, for the most part. Certainly among the current/next gen. Just looking for the opinions of those that are not noobs.

I didn't see another thread around. my bad.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Lordy, Lordy let the fun begin!:biggrin:

Here we go again. Where do these threads come from??

 

[Yuriman]

Piledriver =/= Jaguar.

 

[guskline]

for the future of gaming, knowing that the PS4 has an 8 core AMD processor? and the Xbox720 is likely to as well.

Thinking more in line with future games being optimized for higher numbers of cores or threads. Vishera 2.0 and/or Steamroller.

cbunny, you can see in my sig I have 2500kd OC to 4.5Ghz. They play Crysis3 nicely as does the 8350 @ 4.6Ghz and quite frankly so does the 8150 @4.2 Ghz (Surprise, surprise!!!).

Honestly on most games the 2500ks is a bit faster than the 8350 and faster yet than the 8150. From what I have read the 3570k is the best overall gamer chip. The 3770k is a beast.
No doubt that Crysis 3 is pushing everything. In it and BF3 multiplayer the FX 8350 hangs with the 3570k/3770k

 

[Durvelle27]

Lordy Lordy. not this

 

[ctsoth]

Consider using the search function before the next time you decide to incite nuclear holocaust.

 

[Enigmoid]

for the future of gaming, knowing that the PS4 has an 8 core AMD processor? and the Xbox720 is likely to as well.

Thinking more in line with future games being optimized for higher numbers of cores or threads. Vishera 2.0 and/or Steamroller.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Not necessarily. Xbox 360 has a tri core cpu (launched in 2005). How long was it until the first pc game was optimized for three+ cores How many console ports are optimized for more than three cores (look at skyrim, runs on two cores on pc)?

8 slow cores is a PITA to code for compared to 4 cores at twice the speed (4x 3.2 Ghz vs 8x 1.6 Ghz). It takes time and effort to code for more cores neither of which is good for devs (I'd rather have them designing a great game than spending time and money trying to optimize for 8 slow cores).

Plus jaguar at 1.6 ghz is less than half the power of an ivy bridge core at 3.2 (so they can probably just port the code for two xbox 720/ps4 jaguar cores onto 1 ivy bridge core and everything will run just fine). Probably won't see a lot of games coded for 8 cores for this reason (jaguar at 1.6 ghz is really weak compared to any pc).

 

[gandya]

It takes time and effort to code for more cores neither of which is good for devs (I'd rather have them designing a great game than spending time and money trying to optimize for 8 slow cores).

what are you talking about? are you a coder?! there no difference at all(or very small), in code for 2 cores and 1000 cores, yes there is big difference from 1 core and >1, but there no way to avoid this, multi core is the future.

 

[Phynaz]

what are you talking about? are you a coder?! there no difference at all(or very small), in code for 2 cores and 1000 cores, yes there is big difference from 1 core and >1, but there no way to avoid this, multi core is the future.

Please tell us about your software development experience so you can state that there's no to very little difficulty in scaling an application - especially a game - from 2 to 1,000 cores.

An example of your work would be great showing this would be excellent.

Or you could just explain to us how you managed to break Amdahl's Law with that 1,000 core application.

 

[AtenRa]

From 2007

http://199.19.80.10/show/2352/4

Unreal 3

 

[Ancalagon44]

Please tell us about your software development experience so you can state that there's no to very little difficulty in scaling an application - especially a game - from 2 to 1,000 cores.

An example of your work would be great showing this would be excellent.

Or you could just explain to us how you managed to break Amdahl's Law with that 1,000 core application.

yeah... synchronizing that mess wouldnt be fun! Plus a lot of code just doesnt lend itself well to parallelism, unlike graphics rendering, which is embarrassingly parallel.

However, with regards to the OP's original question, AMD has already answered this by de-emphasizing their performance CPUs in favour of other technology, such a Jaguar, custom console chips, graphics, heterogenous computing, etc etc. But this was more because of the difficulty of competing with Intel, which has a far larger R&D budget. Plus AMD's screwup with Bulldozer will take years to recover from.

So does the AMD FX line still make sense? It does, for now, but I wouldnt be surprised to see that in a few years time, the consumer performance CPU market has changed considerably. If consoles are using 8 x 1.6GHz Jaguar CPUs, there really is not much incentive to own a 4.5 Ghz monster unless you need it for compiling or something.

 

[Dark Shroud]

If you're not gaming or doing CPU intensive tasks like some type of design or scientific work then you don't need anything more than an AMD APU.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Snip

In 5 or 6 years from now will you still be using the CPU you buy today? Is it worth it to take the trade off in performance for the next X number of years for something that MAY happen in the future?

Nope.

What you are describing is future-proofing. "If I get this now it will last longer / be better in the future because of X". In the 30 years of PC history it has never paid off.

Respectfully disagree on this one.

For the same price I could have had either the E8500 or the Q8200. At the time (2008 or so) everyone recommended the E8500 because of it's single threaded performance and how it would be a long time (if ever) until the quad was usable. Not to mention limited overclocking potential of the Q8xxx series.

5 years later, which can still play EVERY game at playable settings? Definitely not the dual core. Most games since 2010 have shown tangible and sometimes massive gains with a quad core. Some require it to even be playable on even the lowest of settings. A high clocked octo-core is going to be quite desirable in the near future. History repeats itself, over and over. I also had the same exact conundrum between an Athlon 64 4000+ and the X2 4200+. Most stated for gaming that the 4000+ was much better for overclocking/cooling, and that I'd have a wasted core. Spending that extra little bit for another core, albeit slower, was by far the best decision and that system is still quite fast to this day for everyday tasks.

More cores the better. Especially with a future of many-core systems.

 

[lakedude]

Respectfully disagree on this one.

For the same price I could have had either the E8500 or the Q8200. At the time (2008 or so) everyone recommended the E8500 because of it's single threaded performance and how it would be a long time (if ever) until the quad was usable. Not to mention limited overclocking potential of the Q8xxx series.

5 years later, which can still play EVERY game at playable settings? Definitely not the dual core. Most games since 2010 have shown tangible and sometimes massive gains with a quad core. Some require it to even be playable on even the lowest of settings. A high clocked octo-core is going to be quite desirable in the near future. History repeats itself, over and over. I also had the same exact conundrum between an Athlon 64 4000+ and the X2 4200+. Most stated for gaming that the 4000+ was much better for overclocking/cooling, and that I'd have a wasted core. Spending that extra little bit for another core, albeit slower, was by far the best decision and that system is still quite fast to this day for everyday tasks.

More cores the better. Especially with a future of many-core systems.

I won't go so far as to respectfully disagree, but this does come down to different strokes for different folks.

I've always chosen on the "less faster cores" end of the scale rather than "moar slower cores" and this has served me well. When dual cores were new I had a fast single core, when quads came out I had a fast dual. This has worked for me in part because games have been behind the hardware as far as using cores goes and by the time I need more cores it is time for another system (in say a year or two).

Now perhaps if I kept systems longer or if games were coded for moar cores or if my intended use was different, more cores might be just the thing...

 

[Phynaz]

Respectfully disagree on this one.

Thank you very much for the respect. It's a rare thing lately around here.

The issue I see with your argument is the AMD cores are so weak. The Intel 3770K is 20% to 50% faster at running games today than an AMD 8350K. Was the Q8200 that much weaker at the time?

I'm not willing to give up that much performance for the next 5 years hoping the 8350 catches up and surpasses it. The AMD cores are starting at too much of disadvantage.

Look at the highly threaded benchmarks where the 8350 can surpass the 3770. Even if they can get the games up to that level, in most cases it's only 10%. Again, when you made your decision, was the Q8200 only 10% stronger at the apps it did better at, let's say encoding?

I don't want to give up 20%-30%-40% performance today hoping I'll get the return of 10% - 20% performance years from now.

I'm glad your choice worked out for you. I just don't see the math working out once you place AMD's cores into the equation.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I'm no fortune teller, but I'm just going by my own experience. If I was buying today and the choice was between an Intel quad (no HT) and a Piledriver, I'd go with Piledriver. HT does make a tangible difference though, and that would make the decision very hard. Likely I'd go with the HT quad as long as it wasn't that much more expensive. I really see the difference HT makes on my Atom netbook, so I guess I'm impartial.

I guess I just see it at *more threads the better.* I was miffed at first when games like DiRT would only use 1.5 cores, as well as Source games. Performance was definitely good enough, however, my quad has heavily underutilized. But since those engines were redone, I'm seeing 75-100% CPU usage (100-160% increases) in them and the performance has skyrocketed. BF3 is the game I wanted to "future-proof" for and I'm glad the game can really use it in multiplayer. I foresee the same type of gains with 8-12 threads.

 

[Ancalagon44]

The thing is, Piledriver's single threaded performance is bad enough that compared to an Intel CPU, there is often a 50% performance difference. Compounded with the fact that Intel CPUs do not suffer a penalty for running heavily threaded code, it often means that even when a PileDriver CPU beats a 4 core Intel CPU, the difference is not that great. So with an Intel CPU, when you lose, you lose a little, but when you win, you win big.

I would actually rather buy a cheaper Intel quad core, a non K version, so that in 2 years time, I could upgrade again. The processor I can buy in 2 years time is going to be a lot faster than the expensive processor I buy now.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Not to mention Intel CPUs run within their specs, unlike FX series. And they are much much more power efficient and higher overclocking headroom.

 

[gandya]

Please tell us about your software development experience so you can state that there's no to very little difficulty in scaling an application - especially a game - from 2 to 1,000 cores.

An example of your work would be great showing this would be excellent.

Or you could just explain to us how you managed to break Amdahl's Law with that 1,000 core application.

Amdahl's Law has nothing to do with your claim, I have never claimed that 1000 cores will give you X1000 improvement. (it will not, its is obvious).
I am coder in my profession, and I am telling you there no significant difference in the code for x cores and 100X cores, what kind of example would you like to see? maybe you will be so kind, and explain why you think other wise?

yes there is big difference when writing a code for 1 cpu, or ,multi threading code, you have to be aware to many problems that cant go wrong with one cpu, but ones you get it, there no difference for how many cores you are writing your code.

 

[sm625]

Consoles do have a say in how many threads are optimal. If both consoles end up with 8 core cpus then you are going to want 8 cores. But since a PC still needs one powerful thread you will probably still want an intel. If AMD wasnt totally stupid they would have paired one super powerful core with 4-8 bobcat type cores and labeled that as FX. One core with like 8 INT clusters, two pairs of 256 bit FPUs, and a massive OoO and register file, 2M cache and all other good stuff. And then 7-8 2 issue cores with a single 256 bit cpu and only 512K cache. Such a hypothetical cpu would crush single threaded tasks, and also put out great multithreaded numbers. And after a couple years it would even have proper windows support lol.