Does the AMD FX line make sense

[frozentundra123456]

Outside of Anandtech forum members, most people do more than just game on their PCs, and in those cases the FX line is very competitive.



Personally, I don't game 8+ hours every day, so gaming isn't the most important aspect for me.

What do most people outside of anandtech users do that is so CPU intensive? Most users do web browsing, YouTube and social apps. For that you don't need an FX. A Pentium or even celeron or an amd apu is more than enough for this.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Too many unknowns really, the eight core jaguar only really makes sense if it has AVX2 support.

If it does, well FX might appear to look better from more multicore support, \overall neither Intel nor AMD currently have a real next gen cpu on the market.

Haswell will be the only real "future" proofing option, the terminology though is rather weak as nothing is ever future proof.

 

[inf64]

Thee is no AVX2 in Jaguar. There is no need for it either.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Makes sense now thanks.

Hmm, still doesn't make much sense to me.

Thinking the other way around, even though you don't pay directly for it, saving power would mean there's more money left at the end of the year for other things. Such as increasing every other budget, and maybe yours a little extra when you tell them it was you who made the savings possible.

Also, $185 parts - $120 fx-6100 - $45 mobo = $20 left for ram, which gets you 2 x 1GB DDR3, not a whole lot these days. First I'm wondering why a school needs Photoshop, but besides that, if you actually want to make those 6 cores get busy on a highres multi-layer image you run out of ram.

No, I would get $50 Celeron G530, should be plenty for the next five years for pretty much any school. I just don't believe educational software will ever need more than 2 cores.

 

[Torn Mind]

Hmm, still doesn't make much sense to me.

Thinking the other way around, even though you don't pay directly for it, saving power would mean there's more money left at the end of the year for other things. Such as increasing every other budget, and maybe yours a little extra when you tell them it was you who made the savings possible.

Also, $185 parts - $120 fx-6100 - $45 mobo = $20 left for ram, which gets you 2 x 1GB DDR3, not a whole lot these days. First I'm wondering why a school needs Photoshop, but besides that, if you actually want to make those 6 cores get busy on a highres multi-layer image you run out of ram.

No, I would get $50 Celeron G530, should be plenty for the next five years for pretty much any school. I just don't believe educational software will ever need more than 2 cores.

He paid $105 on these parts due to a sale at Newegg and mentioned the systems have 4 GBs of RAM. Due to Windows 7, there will be about 700 MBs gobbled up by the operating system. He also mentioned that the cases were mini-itx, so the motherboards would be more expensive.
It's true though, any RAM-hungry task will choke on 4GBs of RAM.

Photoshop could be used by any art-oriented class or those involved in the school newspaper.

I would be wary about the G530 long-term if this is for a high school. Its per core performance is basically the same as the FX-6100.

One thing, though, is that AMD never intended the FX-6100 to be sold at such low prices in the retail channel even with the FX-6300 replacing it. The fx-6100 came out with an MSRP of $165, and market forces forced AMD to hammer that price down.

 

[guskline]

Its worth noticing, that for the server platform. AM3+ is dead and FM platform replaces the single socket. So I wouldnt bet on anything after the current FX PD.

I tend to agree. Just as socket 1155 for Intel which serves SB/IB well gives way to sock 1150 for Haswell, I think AMD's delayed release of Steamroller likely means a different and more efficient chipset for the Steamroller. AMD made improvement from Zambezi to Vishera but Intel is so far ahead in Power management that I think the Steamroller will focus as much on power management as it does on IPC improvement. This is concsistent with CEO Rory's staments about not competing with Intel on the high end CPUs.

 

[tweakboy]

Why these threads,, AMD will always be #2 ,,,,, Intel will be #1 period, thats life and thats how it is.

Cyrix #3 lol

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Thee is no AVX2 in Jaguar. There is no need for it either.

Really no AVX2? Well that sucks.

No need for considerably more integer performance out of low IPC low clock cpu?? Since when?

 

[inf64]

Really no AVX2? Well that sucks.

No need for considerably more integer performance out of low IPC low clock cpu?? Since when?

Since this is a console for games that will be optimized to the metal,not an enthusiast class PC. There is a price limit you know and a power limit too.
Games on PS4 will run just fine,just like XBox360 and PS3 run modern games just fine today, with their POS in order cell/ppc cores and their anemic GPUs that are over 5 years old. It's called proper optimization. Also 8C @1.6Ghz Jaguar is a speedy gonzales when compared to cell/ppc stuff in previous gen console,just like 7850+ core inside the APU is crushing their GPU parts.
AVX2 brings noting earth shaking for games,it's just +30-50% performance jump in properly optimized code that can take advantage of the isa (like mutimedia applications,A/V algorithms,numeric apps).

edit:
Straight from the EA

Sony's PlayStation 4 is a major step forward for the games industry, according to an Electronic Arts executive.
Speaking yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference, EA Chief Technical Officer Rajat Taneja said that the PlayStation 4 has "8 to 10 times the power" of current-generation consoles, making it a "gigantic leap for the industry."
Polygon, a PlayStation news site, attended the event and reported on Taneja's comments.

"We no longer have to constrain our games or ration computer graphics, memory or bandwidth," Taneja reportedly said. "We can let the games really flourish [in] 1080p, 60 frames a second."
Taneja added that things that now takes "months" to develop will only "take days" with the new console.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Since this is a console for games that will be optimized to the metal,not an enthusiast class PC. There is a price limit you know and a power limit too.
Games on PS4 will run just fine,just like XBox360 and PS3 run modern games just fine today, with their POS in order cell/ppc cores and their anemic GPUs that are over 5 years old. It's called proper optimization. Also 8C @1.6Ghz Jaguar is a speedy gonzales when compared to cell/ppc stuff in previous gen console,just like 7850+ core inside the APU is crushing their GPU parts.
AVX2 brings noting earth shaking for games,it's just +30-50% performance jump in properly optimized code that can take advantage of the isa (like mutimedia applications,A/V algorithms,numeric apps).

edit:
Straight from the EA

Undoubtedly true about the hardware, but the problem with EA is not the graphics, it is the games they put out. DA2 and ME3 would have been terrible no matter how great the graphics.

 

[ShintaiDK]

EA also says cost goes up 5-10%. And here we thought it would be cheaper due to a unified platform uarch.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

EA also says cost goes up 5-10%. And here we thought it would be cheaper due to a unified platform uarch.

Costs for art assets, etc. should go up, but I would think they will be offset by the ease of porting between the platforms with the new console generation.

They're probably just saying that now to butter us up for $70 games.

 

[grimpr]

"Taneja added that things that now takes "months" to develop will only "take days" with the new console."

I think this statement pretty much sums it up, the developer tools & libraries on x86 are huge and very mature, the ease and speed of coding and debugging for the PS4 will be cut in half and maybe more compared to the previous generation, the porting to desktop PC will be a few clicks away since the PS4 games will already use all the avalaible ISA currently on Jaguar. Its gonna be cataclysmic for PC gaming, we got 2 new members in the family...

 

[grimpr]

Too many unknowns really, the eight core jaguar only really makes sense if it has AVX2 support.

If it does, well FX might appear to look better from more multicore support, \overall neither Intel nor AMD currently have a real next gen cpu on the market.

Haswell will be the only real "future" proofing option, the terminology though is rather weak as nothing is ever future proof.

You see the x86 cores and dont see that its an HSA APU with a powerfull GPU, AVX2 is totally irellevant for this SoC.

 

[Piroko]

Really no AVX2? Well that sucks.

No need for considerably more integer performance out of low IPC low clock cpu?? Since when?

Games mostly work with 32bit float operands in SISD streams to my knowledge and Videos will probably be transcoded with fixed function hardware. Does that answer your rethorical question?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Games mostly work with 32bit float operands in SISD streams to my knowledge and Videos will probably be transcoded with fixed function hardware. Does that answer your rethorical question?

If that was the case, BD/PD wouldnt lose so badly in game benches.

 

[ShintaiDK]

"Taneja added that things that now takes "months" to develop will only "take days" with the new console."

I think this statement pretty much sums it up, the developer tools & libraries on x86 are huge and very mature, the ease and speed of coding and debugging for the PS4 will be cut in half and maybe more compared to the previous generation, the porting to desktop PC will be a few clicks away since the PS4 games will already use all the avalaible ISA currently on Jaguar. Its gonna be cataclysmic for PC gaming, we got 2 new members in the family...

Thats pretty much a BS statement to put it mildly. The only sole benefit of the PS4 is that you can now use all the developer and tool base of x86.
Time however is unchanged. Actually I would claim the time needed will be far higher, due to the added complexity of the new systems power. Also why EA talks about a 5-10% price increase.

 

[inf64]

Lose so badly? In 2013 1080p+ game "benches' or low resolution 720p that nobody plays at? In most games(apart from crap engines like SC2,Skyrim) you are shader bound first and foremost. FX8350 is adequate gaming chip,not the fastest but adequate. You have members on this board that have both i5/i7 and FX in systems with high end cards that can verify this. So please stop this "badly losing in games" talk since it's nonsense.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Lose so badly? In 2013 1080p+ game "benches' or low resolution 720p that nobody plays at? In most games(apart from crap engines like SC2,Skyrim) you are shader bound first and foremost. FX8350 is adequate gaming chip,not the fastest but adequate. You have members on this board that have both i5/i7 and FX in systems with high end cards that can verify this. So please stop this "badly losing in games" talk since it's nonsense.

Take the GPU limited nonsense elsewhere informal.

 

[inf64]

Take your low resolution gaming with high end cards elsewhere Shintel. Nobody cares about gaming in a low resolution with high end rigs, except for epeen of course.

Tek syndicate's latest single GPU+CF benchmarks in Crysis 3 and FC3 on 3770K and FX. FX performs practically the same for 100$ less. That is the reality.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Take your low resolution gaming with high end cards elsewhere Shintel. Nobody cares about gaming in a low resolution with high end rigs, except for epeen of course.

Tek syndicate's latest single GPU+CF benchmarks in Crysis 3 and FC3 on 3770K and FX. FX performs practically the same for 100$ less. That is the reality.

Why do you keep posting that extremely flawed video?

And namecalling?

 

[inf64]

You misspelled my username too,it's inf64 here. So I misspelled yours .
Video is not extremely flawed.Or extremely flawed is everything that contradicts your world view? Have you ever considered you might be wrong sometimes? Or that never happens?

 

[ShintaiDK]

You misspelled my username too,it's inf64 here. So I misspelled yours .
Video is not extremely flawed.Or extremely flawed is everything that contradicts your world view? Have you ever considered you might be wrong sometimes? Or that never happens?

You actually got a username called Informal elsewhere. I dont have one called Shintel. And its pretty clear what your intention is when caling me that.

Why is that video better than the 100 other reviews showing the complete opposite? Everyone else is wrong and you are right? Is that how it works?

 

[inf64]

I don't care about other boards when I'm posting on AT forum. Please be punctuate or you will receive similar treatment. Thank you.
Also nice that you avoided to answer the question. Now we know you are never wrong.Amazing I must say.

 

[ShintaiDK]

So benches from Anandtech and others is wrong?