FX chips better than i5 for video editing?

[Rickyyy369]

The results in the graph show it neck and neck with an i7. What are you looking at?

Im looking at the same graph and I see a chip that being pushed to its absolute limits, guzzling power and pumping out heat just to be able to be "neck and neck" with an i7 at stock speeds.

 

[Erenhardt]

Limits? I though someone with FX CPU would have known better...

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36757984&postcount=1

 

[SlowSpyder]

Im looking at the same graph and I see a chip that being pushed to its absolute limits, guzzling power and pumping out heat just to be able to be "neck and neck" with an i7 at stock speeds.

You have a similar set up to my system. FX plus 7970. Do you feel your system is slow in anything you do? I really like my rig, I can go above 5.3GHz when I really push it, it is game stable there. But I run it closer to 4.9GHz for day to day use. I play RPG's, hack & slash games, and strategy games at 19x12, most games I play I can get away with SSAA even (playing Diable 3 right now, FRAPS is locked at 60FPS for the most part). I don't know that an FX is better than a similarly priced Intel system, but I'm not sure it is so much worse as they're made out to be in these forums.

 

[Rickyyy369]

You have a similar set up to my system. FX plus 7970. Do you feel your system is slow in anything you do? I really like my rig, I can go above 5.3GHz when I really push it, it is game stable there. But I run it closer to 4.9GHz for day to day use. I play RPG's, hack & slash games, and strategy games at 19x12, most games I play I can get away with SSAA even (playing Diable 3 right now, FRAPS is locked at 60FPS for the most part). I don't know that an FX is better than a similarly priced Intel system, but I'm not sure it is so much worse as they're made out to be in these forums.

Im generally happy with the performance. The only reason I sometimes kick myself is that for the money I spent on the FX + cooler I could have just gotten an i7 and had a chip thats good at everything instead of hoping that developers parallelize their games or application well enough to properly utilize my CPU. I dont really have to worry about that very much anymore these days, but if I went with the i7 I wouldn't have to worry about it at all.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The OP is sticking with his Thuban, so most of this discussion is nothing but a retread of past "is it worth it to use an FX" conversations. Things have been changed marginally by the introduction of the new E chips, but not by all that much.

Fact is that FX chips can do well in some situations, just not all of them. The OP has one particular task in mind, and that task happens to be sufficiently well-threaded to work just fine on an FX. The 4790k will still be faster, but is the cost worth it? That's up to the OP.

With these new low-leakage chips, he should be able to tune an 8320E (or 8310?) to run between 4-4.5 ghz in an acceptable TDP range. He will be getting anywhere from 80-90% of the 9590's performance at about half the power consumption.

If the OP had asked for a general use + gaming CPU, I would never recommend the FX unless every "general" task and game he listed could use all those cores for something. We know that encoding/transcoding will use those cores, so the FX is worth a look.

 

[mistersprinkles]

If the OP had asked for a general use + gaming CPU, I would never recommend the FX unless every "general" task and game he listed could use all those cores for something. We know that encoding/transcoding will use those cores, so the FX is worth a look.

Well said. +1 :biggrin:

 

[Abwx]

The OP is sticking with his Thuban, so most of this discussion is nothing but a retread of past "is it worth it to use an FX" conversations. Things have been changed marginally by the introduction of the new E chips, but not by all that much.

How much exactly is that "but not by all that much".?.Set apart that an i5 would had provided him only 10-20% better perfs than his X6 in his application i only took into account the stock settings, that is, regular products, but if one wants to tweak his settings and for the record here a few numbers that were measured by Hardware.fr.

Under prime 95, wich can be considered as an extreme case, a stock 8370E consume about 80W and if voltage is tweaked it gets down to 68W, and 80W is reached only at 3.5, on Fritz at stock power comsumption is about 68W, with said voltage tweaking this would be reduced to 55W, at thoses frequencies all FXs yield thoses results, the difference is when getting well over 4GHz as at this frequency the E has only 8W advantage(115W vs 107W, but at 4.5 it has at least 35W lower possible TDP, thoses results can be duplicated by a 8320 up to 4.0.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

I think a lot of it comes down to how much he wants to overclock. As a owner of a Thuban, he probably doesn't do much of it. The Thubans were strong performers at stock clock, but generally didn't have a lot of headroom for overclocking.

The most recent FX's are downright stupid for overclocking -- it's not uncommon to be able to overclock by a 1000 Mhz..... I've never seen a Thuban that can achieve more than 400 or 500 Mhz.... And that was usually really pushing them.

At $125, it's kinda hard to argue against an unlocked eight core 8310. You can score a basic FX motherboard for $20 to $30 after rebate. That's a hell of a lot of performance for about $150 even before overclocking it.

Although, for video editing -- I still think you get more out of your money by upgrading the video card for GPU acceleration.

 

[Cerb]

SSD is surely the way to go. However, AFAIK, there aren't any good benchmarks for video editing in common programs for the task. Most of the linked are for encoding, or a single small niche program for which I'm still not exactly sure what is being measured.

 

[jhu]

Although, for video editing -- I still think you get more out of your money by upgrading the video card for GPU acceleration.

This is the correct answer, depending on the video editing software (eg, Sony Vega can use GPU acceleration).

 

[Phynaz]

After all of this bickering back and forth I have decided to stay with my Phenom 6 core and disappoint each of you.

You decided that in two hours.

Nice troll job.

 

[Loser Gamer]

You decided that in two hours.

Nice troll job.

I don't have the money to toss around. And since I won't see a huge difference why should I buy anything ?

It was more of a question to see whether I should consider it. I wasn't using your answer as a key to wallet to spend sir.

 

[DrMrLordX]

How much exactly is that "but not by all that much".?.

For point-of-reference, there's a guy over at OCN testing an 8370E @ 4.4 ghz using only 1.368v vcore. That's lower than the reference voltage for most 8350s.

I'm guessing that an E-class FX can probably do 4-4.2 ghz with a TDP of 95W, no problem.

This is the correct answer, depending on the video editing software (eg, Sony Vega can use GPU acceleration).

Well yes, once he gets the video card involved, the question of which CPU to use becomes far less significant.

 

[jhu]

Well yes, once he gets the video card involved, the question of which CPU to use becomes far less significant.

But first, he should go to the video card forum and ask which video card to use for video editing. Then after the 1000+ posts that ensues, declare that he'll stick with the original video card.

 

[SlowSpyder]

How much exactly is that "but not by all that much".?.Set apart that an i5 would had provided him only 10-20% better perfs than his X6 in his application i only took into account the stock settings, that is, regular products, but if one wants to tweak his settings and for the record here a few numbers that were measured by Hardware.fr.

Under prime 95, wich can be considered as an extreme case, a stock 8370E consume about 80W and if voltage is tweaked it gets down to 68W, and 80W is reached only at 3.5, on Fritz at stock power comsumption is about 68W, with said voltage tweaking this would be reduced to 55W, at thoses frequencies all FXs yield thoses results, the difference is when getting well over 4GHz as at this frequency the E has only 8W advantage(115W vs 107W, but at 4.5 it has at least 35W lower possible TDP, thoses results can be duplicated by a 8320 up to 4.0.

I forgot the exact numbers, but leaving my FX at the factory clocks I was able to undervolt and lower power use by something like 85 watts. That was at 4.4GHz, I'm sure if I dropped the clocks a couple hundred MHz I could have gotten huge power savings.

 

[DrMrLordX]

But first, he should go to the video card forum and ask which video card to use for video editing. Then after the 1000+ posts that ensues, declare that he'll stick with the original video card.

Zing!

I forgot the exact numbers, but leaving my FX at the factory clocks I was able to undervolt and lower power use by something like 85 watts. That was at 4.4GHz, I'm sure if I dropped the clocks a couple hundred MHz I could have gotten huge power savings.

It's interesting how bad the power scaling is on FX chips past around 4.5 ghz. On the flipside, it's interesting how good the power scaling is below 4.5 ghz . . .

 

[Abwx]

I forgot the exact numbers, but leaving my FX at the factory clocks I was able to undervolt and lower power use by something like 85 watts. That was at 4.4GHz, I'm sure if I dropped the clocks a couple hundred MHz I could have gotten huge power savings.

Well, Hfr got their stable using P 95 at 4.6 and 1.368v , for the record they also posted the results they got two years ago with their FX8350 circa 2012, on the right there is the power comsumption at the 12V rail level just before the VRMs, factor by about 0.9 to get the CPU actual TDP with Prime 95.

http://www.hardware.fr/focus/99/amd-fx-8370e-fx-8-coeurs-95-watts-test.html

 

[ultimatebob]

I don't have the money to toss around. And since I won't see a huge difference why should I buy anything ?

It was more of a question to see whether I should consider it. I wasn't using your answer as a key to wallet to spend sir.

Over a few years, you would probably recoup your upgrade costs in just the power savings of the Core i5 over the FX chip. Think about that before doing your upgrade.

 

[Abwx]

Over a few years, you would probably recoup your upgrade costs in just the power savings of the Core i5 over the FX chip. Think about that before doing your upgrade.

The numbers above says otherwise, at 3.3 the FX can be set to 68W CPU TDP with prime 95, with Fritz it would be 56W at this frequency, at stock it s 65W, at equal task you will save something like 25-30W at most with the i5 and even less in tasks, and there are quite some, where the FX is better.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Well, Hfr got their stable using P 95 at 4.6 and 1.368v , for the record they also posted the results they got two years ago with their FX8350 circa 2012, on the right there is the power comsumption at the 12V rail level just before the VRMs, factor by about 0.9 to get the CPU actual TDP with Prime 95.

http://www.hardware.fr/focus/99/amd-fx-8370e-fx-8-coeurs-95-watts-test.html

Here's a post where I messed around with power. I didn't keep going, I might have been able to save a few more watts.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36383629&postcount=169

 

[Enigmoid]

The numbers above says otherwise, at 3.3 the FX can be set to 68W CPU TDP with prime 95, with Fritz it would be 56W at this frequency, at stock it s 65W, at equal task you will save something like 25-30W at most with the i5 and even less in tasks, and there are quite some, where the FX is better.

Why do you keep using the 12V rail?

You can't use that CPU without the AM3+ platform. I understand what you are trying to do by isolating CPU power but that doesn't matter to the user. CPU power may matter if we are talking architecture but for the consumer the wall usage reigns supreme. You are looking at that chart and seeing 76W on the 12V rail. I'm looking at that chart and seeing nearly 150W on the entire system.


When you actually look at that hardware.fr chart the 8370E isn't nearly such a good chip. First their 8350 seems quite mediocre, needing 1.45V to reach 4.6 ghz. Even then it looks like the 8370E seems to gain 200 mhz at the same power consumption. Comparing the 8350 to the 8370E at 3.5 ghz and 4.0 ghz (lower clocks to save power), the 8350 only uses 4.5% and 7.0% less power respectively. Where the 8370E shines is overclocked performance.

 

[Abwx]

Why do you keep using the 12V rail?

You can't use that CPU without the AM3+ platform. I understand what you are trying to do by isolating CPU power but that doesn't matter to the user. CPU power may matter if we are talking architecture but for the consumer the wall usage reigns supreme. You are looking at that chart and seeing 76W on the 12V rail. I'm looking at that chart and seeing nearly 150W on the entire system.

When you actually look at that hardware.fr chart the 8370E isn't nearly such a good chip. First their 8350 seems quite mediocre, needing 1.45V to reach 4.6 ghz. Even then it looks like the 8370E seems to gain 200 mhz at the same power consumption. Comparing the 8350 to the 8370E at 3.5 ghz and 4.0 ghz (lower clocks to save power), the 8350 only uses 4.5% and 7.0% less power respectively. Where the 8370E shines is overclocked performance.

You should read what i wrote more closely before rewriting the story, from the post you quoted and to wich you think that you are answering to :

you will save something like 25-30W

I accounted thoses 20-25W as the difference between the two plateforms, notice that Hardware.fr reviewer publicly recommend the 4670K in a business site, that s why he was prompt to change the 4670K MB for this review, on the previous one the same test yielded 105W while at idle it was the same 44W, but let s take his miraculous 100W at load for the i5.

The FX8370 plateform is at stock and consume 62W idling with this MB :

- ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 (AM3+)

Not the most economical despite the 8370E targeting 95W MBs but let s do the calculations with this one.

Loaded the comsumption is 137W at stock settings, at Hfr tweaked settings this would be reduced by 11.5W down to 125.5W.

And this is with the Sabertooth...

Edit : Their 8350 is the one they got in 2012 when it was launched.

 

[Abwx]

Here's a post where I messed around with power. I didn't keep going, I might have been able to save a few more watts.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36383629&postcount=169

You are using Cinebench wich is not that CPU hungry, the numbers from Hfr i posted and wich show the overclocking results use Prime 95 to load the CPU, so your numbers are not comparable.

 

[janeuner]

After all of this bickering back and forth I have decided to stay with my Phenom 6 core and disappoint each of you.

Good choice. :thumbsup:

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Video editing is different than video encoding. Which do you do more of?