FX 8370 Review

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Exactly Bulldozer Win 8 vs Win 7.

People keep trying to perpetuate this unsubstantiated claim that Windows 8 will somehow magically cure FX performance problems. This is the best test that I could find. If anyone can find benchmarks from a reputable site showing a larger improvement, I would be glad to see them. Until then, the magical improvement from Win 8 just seems like wishful thinking.

Sad, but not completely unexpected -- after all, Windows is a product of the king of Misfires (Zune / Surface anybody?)

At least Linux makes an FX 8350 perform like an i7 3770k...... (Phoronix)
....Instead of a freakin' i3 (Windows). Way to go, Microsoft.

 

[mrmt]

Sad, but not completely unexpected -- after all, Windows is a product of the king of Misfires (Zune / Surface anybody?)

At least Linux makes an FX 8350 perform like an i7 3770k...... (Phoronix)
....Instead of a freakin' i3 (Windows). Way to go, Microsoft.

Linhx does, or does a different workload choice?

 

[frozentundra123456]

We get it MOTR that you hate windows. The fact remains, that it is what the vast majority of consumer and enterprise users are running. Perhaps AMD should have designed a cpu that performs well on the software most people use.

 

[Ramses]

Either way, let's round up and say the platform uses 100 watts more. Even if you game five hours (at a level that uses 100 watts more) a day at $.20/kilowatt hour that's about $26/year. I don't game near that much (35 hours a week... lol, not even close, maybe some of you do though). To me that's just not even a consideration in the grand scheme of things.

Yep.

I live in California, my wife is a full time student, and I'm not getting rich doing what I do(working from home, in front of my computer from 8-5 for work and most of the night for pleasure). I can't notice that my power bill went up from the 955BE on the previous chipset to this 8350 on a 990FX chipset. Believe me, I watch all the bills, close. It's just not that big a deal for most folks. I'm lucky if I get two hours a day gaming, and my GPU's take a heeeeck of a lot more power than this CPU and board... The power thing is only an issue on paper or to a company deploying a ton of computers imo.

And I can't get my socket temp over 45C or core temp over 38C, we have a very mild ambient year round here. So the heat bits out the window too.

It's fast, it's quiet, it's not hot, it's not running up my power bill, I've tried since upgrading is fun but I just can't find fault with the thing myself, regardless of
what the benchmarks say.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It depends on the application I suppose. The power usage of the FX would not bother me as much if it gave better performance than an i5. The sad truth is that for gaming any least, an i5 gives overall better performance and lower power consumption at the same time. The only advantage to the FX is the lower cost, and here power consumption does matter because over the course of a few years the additional power usage can negate a large portion of the initial cost savings. This changes of course if one uses a lot of the heavily multi-threaded applications where the FX is equal or faster than an i5.

But for gaming, it is like a car that is both slower and uses more gas.

 

[Ramses]

But for gaming, it is like a car that is both slower and uses more gas.

That sounds like the cars I've been most fond of in life.
Probably not a coincidence.

As to the gaming, there is a marked difference between
better and good enough. Anything over 60fps is wasted on me, uncapped
Valley extreme HD 1080P pulls 75fps. I call it good enough for two or three year old hardware.
I tend to be a year or two behind on games too, I find it economical
in a number of respects.

My Father was telling me the other day I should adjust my expectations of myself regarding health and fitness and such as I get older. I might be more content with the
FX because my expectations were not so high to begin with given it's roots.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Either way, let's round up and say the platform uses 100 watts more. Even if you game five hours (at a level that uses 100 watts more) a day at $.20/kilowatt hour that's about $26/year. I don't game near that much (35 hours a week... lol, not even close, maybe some of you do though). To me that's just not even a consideration in the grand scheme of things.

We pay 0.4x$ here. Thats already over 50$ in your example as a TCO penalty per year to select the inferiour product that also needs replacement much faster. There is zero incentive in any way to pick the FX platform.

 

[Ramses]

Fifty bucks over a year is inconsequential imo. My bill varies month to month up and down fifteen or twenty bucks. I couldn't track fifty a year if I had to.

Not that I totally disagree about starting from scratch right now, just don't think the power bit is good for anything other than arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You can also turn it around to being 100W in noise/bad indoor climate etc.

 

[AtenRa]

You can also turn it around to being 100W in noise/bad indoor climate etc.

So you spend less for heating in your long cold winder (more than 6 months ??)

 

[ShintaiDK]

So you spend less for heating in your long cold winder (more than 6 months ??)

Heard about insulation? Windows are tripple glass, walls are bricks+280mm insulation+150mm reinforced concrete. 400mm insulation in roof. Plus there is a heat recovery system for air exchange.

Its close to being zero energy home. Our power usage is below 1800Kw/h a year as well.

So the short answer is yes.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Holding the Stilt's comments about Vishera-k aside, the 8370SE does not surprise here much. Nothing to see here, move right along . . .

Now, if the Vishera-k info he posted is legit, then that is a somewhat-interesting development. Could we start seeing 5 ghz overclocks on the 8320SE?

 

[AtenRa]

Heard about insulation? Windows are tripple glass, walls are bricks+280mm insulation+150mm reinforced concrete. 400mm insulation in roof. Plus there is a heat recovery system for air exchange.

Its close to being zero energy home. Our power usage is below 1800Kw/h a year as well.

So the short answer is yes.

So you spend a fortune to build the house, the industry also spend large amount of energy to produce all the insulation, triple glasses and concrete and you care about spending $50 more per year ??

Also, even with all that insulation when ambient is sub zero, the inside house temperature will not be at human tolerable levels without some heating 24 hours per day.

 

[NTMBK]

So you spend a fortune to build the house, the industry also spend large amount of energy to produce all the insulation, triple glasses and concrete and you care about spending $50 more per year ??

Also, even with all that insulation when ambient is sub zero, the inside house temperature will not be at human tolerable levels without some heating 24 hours per day.

Who knows most about keeping a house warm in cold temperatures, the poster from Greece or the one from Denmark?

 

[AtenRa]

Who knows most about keeping a house warm in cold temperatures, the poster from Greece or the one from Denmark?

So because I live in Greece thermodynamics and physics are different than Denmark ??
But even if the house is 100% insulated and it can maintain a steady temperature without extra use of energy in sub zero climate, not everyone in the world lives in such a house or pays that much for electricity.
So to put it in rest, for his part the FX is not worth it. That doesnt mean it isnt worth it for everyone else

 

[ShintaiDK]

So you spend a fortune to build the house, the industry also spend large amount of energy to produce all the insulation, triple glasses and concrete and you care about spending $50 more per year ??

Also, even with all that insulation when ambient is sub zero, the inside house temperature will not be at human tolerable levels without some heating 24 hours per day.

It hardly cost anything extra to build this way, its actually very cheap construction method. Also older homes can be retrofitted. The investment payoff to insulate older homes is up to 25% per year.

A human itself gives out around 100W of heat.

It also works the other way around. Keeping your home cool in the summer.

So because I live in Greece thermodynamics and physics are different than Denmark ??
But even if the house is 100% insulated and it can maintain a steady temperature without extra use of energy in sub zero climate, not everyone in the world lives in such a house or pays that much for electricity.
So to put it in rest, for his part the FX is not worth it. That doesnt mean it isnt worth it for everyone else

Lets clear a few things up. Electricity isnt going to be cheaper, only more expensive. It increased what, 60% in price the last 5 years in Greece?
http://www.grreporter.info/en/greece_promises_liberalize_its_electricity_market_2015/10857

Insulation is the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your expenses. Nomatter if you live in a cold or warm place.

And wasting energy on nothing but inefficiency like the FX CPUs is like setting your money on fire, not to mention being horrible behind performance wise in anything that isnt scalling perfectly to 8 threads and being INT based.

Even AMD said the CPUs was a dud.

And I assume you use AC. Double the TCO cost for your FX. Plus the extra issues/expenses you have with noise and indoor climate due to the extra little spaceheater. And no, electricity for heating is really really terrible.

Looking on sales, its also obvious that the wast majority think so

 

[ShintaiDK]

Who knows most about keeping a house warm in cold temperatures, the poster from Greece or the one from Denmark?

Same principles nomatter if its cold or warm. Just a question if you gonna waste the power on heating or cooling.

 

[Abwx]

We pay 0.4x$ here. Thats already over 50$ in your example as a TCO penalty per year to select the inferiour product that also needs replacement much faster. There is zero incentive in any way to pick the FX platform.

Denmark is an exception in Europe, so your number cant be extended to about any other country, here in France it is between 0.1 and 0.13€/kwh, depending of your contract, given the population size i guess that Denmark is negligible when averaging Europe s prices.

AM3+ sell at least five times more than S2011 whose power consumption doesnt seem to be a problem.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Denmark is an exception in Europe, so your number cant be extended to about any other country, here in France it is between 0.1 and 0.13€/kwh, depending of your contract, given the population size i guess that Denmark is negligible when averaging Europe s prices.

So it takes you what. 18-24 months before the price difference to the faster 4690/4690K on its 5 years newer platform is payed back? Not including that the FX will need replacement much faster, adds noise/heat to indloor climate and so on.

Also France is the exception. Looked at power prices in Germany for example?

Again, why would you buy the FX?

 

[AtenRa]

It hardly cost anything extra to build this way.

You clearly jocking, 280mm insulation in the walls, 400mm insulation in the roof and triple-glass windows will raise the budget substantially.

Lets clear a few things up. Electricity isnt going to be cheaper, only more expensive. It increased what, 60% in price the last 5 years in Greece?
http://www.grreporter.info/en/greece_promises_liberalize_its_electricity_market_2015/10857

Taking electricity prices in Greece at the recession time is not the norm.

Insulation is the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your expenses. Nomatter if you live in a cold or warm place.

So you want us to spend a substantial amount of money to insulate the house and then buy more expensive Intel CPUs in order to keep the house energy usage lower and save $50 per year from the PC usage alone ???

 

[ShintaiDK]

You clearly jocking, 280mm insulation in the walls, 400mm insulation in the roof and triple-glass windows will raise the budget substantially.

It doesnt increase the budget with more than 2%. Specially insulation is rather cheap.

Taking electricity prices in Greece at the recession time is not the norm.

Yet the prices is a fact of life isnt it?

So you want us to spend a substantial amount of money to insulate the house and then buy more expensive Intel CPUs in order to keep the house energy usage lower and save $50 per year from the PC usage alone ???

Money makes money. Its much cheaper to take a loan and insulate the home than it is to do nothing. Specially when prices for all energy types is only going up. Either the saving is in heating or in cooling of the home.

The 50$ is from the PC alone. Nomatter of the home. And no, electricity is the most expensive way to heat a home if thats your next argument. Not to mention the noise.

 

[Atreidin]

Germany is also a bad example, the only reason energy is so expensive here is because of the enormous renewable energy tax. But whatever it takes to make AMD look as bad as possible, I guess.

You should see the power cost disadvantage for running AMD processors on Mars. It's astronomical!

 

[PPB]

Heard about insulation? Windows are tripple glass, walls are bricks+280mm insulation+150mm reinforced concrete. 400mm insulation in roof. Plus there is a heat recovery system for air exchange.

Its close to being zero energy home. Our power usage is below 1800Kw/h a year as well.

So the short answer is yes.

Thank god the rest of the world dont need to follow this example. The people behind the "go green" are laughing all their way to the bank meanwhile the uninformed spend that much money on trying to reach the dreaded "zero energy" spent on heating.

Only to think I have to fork that much cash on concrete walls so they can absorb heat for 6 hours of sunlight a day only to release it in the night is frightening.

Well, that explains your little obsession with power figures. It still baffles me that people that bash FX proccesors dont know you can have the power consumption in check with the correct pstate control software. Well, probably the same kind of people that went full "OMFG LOOK AT THAT IDLE POWER CONSUMPTION, IVFR BEST DESIGN DECISION EVAH!!!one!!eleventy" with Haswell reviews, when it is really because the geniuses at intel finally figured out 800mhz was good enough for a idle pstate clock (and a accordingly low vcore to accompany it, obviously), instead of 1600mhz.

TL;DR: All that effort to dismiss FX's load power figures go to the trash bin the very moment most Intel users wont even try to optimize their pstates clocks and volts for better efficiency. Pay more and plug and play are the rules for the enthusiast these days.

EDIT: Okay, now I just see blatant lies. Insulation is cheap, yep. Normal ammounts of insulation, that is. Add the absurd 15cm concrete walls (which is not cheap, ANYWHERE) and there goes your recipe to spend truckloads of money for little thermal gain. Thermal insulation, like most things in life, isnt a linear equation. And after your sweet spot (which, for the 90% of the people, is probably 26cm of insulation less than what you supposedly have), you just start to throw money away.

For example, triple glass windows are a lot pricier than double glass one, which are already a lot pricier than single glass ones. Truth to be told, if you live in such a harsh climate and sunlight is sparce, you are better off reducing you windows dimensions and changing their proportions so they become absolute squares, because area is only part of the equation, and on windy climates the ammount of openings in a window and their perimeter become absolutely the first problem regarding thermal insulation. There a lot of design decisions that can be made to get better thermal insulation in your home than going to spend that much money in insulation, concrete walls (ROFL, still cant stop laughing on this one) and triple glass windows. Likewise, with some tinkering you can have your FX power consumption in check, no need to spend that much money on an intel platform only because you are lazy enough not to touch the pstate's clocks and voltages.

EDIT2: Oh wait, it is REINFORCED concrete, even more hilarious. Now gotta expend another truckload of money just to make sure you dont have any thermal bridges because of all that reinforced concrete, LOL.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Only to think I have to fork that much cash on concrete walls so they can absorb heat for 6 hours of sunlight a day only to release it in the night is frightening.

The concrete walls got nothing to do with it. It was simply a demonstration of the wall buildup. Bricks are on the outside. The reinforced concrete is simply factory produced elements for cheap and fast construction that is maintenaince free. They are hard to drill in when you wish to mount stuff on the walls. On the other hand they are not fragile like drywall. And they are inorganic so mold cant live there. And they cant burn.

 

[AtenRa]

So it takes you what. 18-24 months before the price difference to the faster 4690/4690K on its 5 years newer platform is payed back?

You dont keep the same hardware for 5 years, why use that example ??

Not including that the FX will need replacement much faster

From how things are going, the FX will be faster in the future than dual or quad Intel CPUs. I bought my FX8350 two years ago, couple of months after i bought my Core i7 3770K. Both maintain the same performance they had two years ago. And as things are going (mantle, DX-12 etc) the FX will need to be replaced the same time as my 3770K.

Not to mention that i can play exactly the same games at the exactly the same settings on both of them. So no, the FX will not last less even than more expensive Intel CPUs.