Help me select an FX CPU

[JDG1980]

OK. Current situation: I've got a 5-year-old system that was not particularly cutting-edge when I purchased it. It's an Athlon X2 245 OC'd to 3.4 GHz on a Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H motherboard, with 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM. It's long past time to upgrade. Ideally I'd like to go up to a good Ivy Bridge-EP workstation (E5-1650 v2), but between the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and new PSU this would cost well over $1000, and that's out of my price range at the moment. At the same time, I'd rather not drop a few hundred bucks on a cheap upgrade now only to wind up with something that is useless later on. So what I've decided to do is buy a system that I can use as my main box for now, then stuff with WD Red HDDs and repurpose as a ZFS NAS after I can afford to upgrade. This means I need ECC support, and that means AMD FX is the only option in my price range.

After looking over Micro Center's price list and reading some reviews, I've narrowed myself down to two options: low-priced and mid-priced.

The low-priced option would be a FX-6300 CPU combined with an Asus M5A97 R2.0 motherboard. This would cost $164.98 (plus tax) after discounts.

The mid-priced option would be a FX-8350 CPU combined with an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 motherboard. This would cost $324.98 (plus tax) after discounts.

My concern with the FX-6300 system is that single-thread performance might see a regression compared to my current CPU. Would the L3 cache help to make up for that? (The Athlon X2 245 has no L3.) With the FX-8350, I should at least be assured of having somewhat better performance in all tasks than my current box. The most CPU-demanding task I do is playing Dragon Quest VIII on PCSX2. This sometimes slows down on my existing system, though it's not too bad. I know that an Intel chip would probably be better in this particular task, but there are some benchmark tests on a different CPU-demanding game on PCSX2 which found that an FX-8350 is adequate. I'm not sure the FX-6300 would cut the mustard, though. How does a FX-6300 stack up to what I have now in terms of non-threaded applications? If it helps, there is quite a bit of SSE2/3 floating-point stuff in this emulation.

Does anyone have any personal experience with the parts I'm considering? Any warnings or caveats?

 

[erunion]

the only difference in single threaded performance between the two should be the base clock difference. They should have the same single threaded performance with the same over clock.

 

[Arkaign]

The 6300 will be a gigantic upgrade over your current situation.

You also might consider the 8320

 

[Headfoot]

Why do you need ECC? I'm unfamiliar with the specifics on ZFS. It seems like ECC might be overkill in a home-server situation. I assume this is a home project?

 

[AtenRa]

I would wait for AMD Kaveri to pair it with a Mini-iTX FM2+ board. OC to 4.5GHz will get you more than 50%+ single thread performance than what you have now. Later on you can use it for NAS with very low power consumption.

 

[zir_blazer]

Have you considered a LGA 1150 Xeon with a proper C226 Motherboard? You will have ECC support, and its cheaper than a LGA 2011 Ivy Bridge-E.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Get the FX6300? The FX8350 setup makes no sense.

Else look at the setup in the post above.

 

[daveybrat]

Get the FX6300? The FX8350 setup makes no sense.

Else look at the setup in the post above.

Agreed. For what the OP is doing, the FX6300 setup is more than enough.

Although i do agree that IF you can wait it out for another month or two, i'd recommend seeing what the new FM2+ socket Kaveri processors can do.

 

[guskline]

You need to add the price of new ram to your upgrade.

 

[Essence_of_War]

If you can wait, I'd 2nd all those saying wait to see how Kaveri looks on FM2+.

If you can't wait, I would go with the FX-6300 with the reasonably priced MoBo. Sabertooth is pretty, but kind of overpriced for feature set. If you really want MOAR COREZ I would check out the 8320. The 8350 is really just an overclocked 8320, and both are mutliplier unlocked anyway.

I would not expect either of those CPUs to see a performance regression in single-thread:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/121?vs=699

Check out first-pass x264, single-thread cinebench, and all of the gaming benches. They tend to be single-core performance limited, and the 6300 is on top in everything. Eyeballing it, even factoring in your OC to 3.4, the stock FX 6300 is still on top.

 

[KingFatty]

I currently have a Phenom II rig and an FX 6300 rig. The FX chip was a noticeable upgrade. In my experience, the Phenom II overclocked all to heck and guzzling tons of power was just barely comparable to the FX at default/stock sipping power. When I overclocked the FX, it was much faster than the overclocked Phenom II, not even close.

I was running my tests using Starcraft 2, which is notoriously hard on the CPU and doesn't take advantage of multiple cores much at all. So, it might be a similar behavior as your application.

But keep in mind, I bet your Athlon is a step behind a Phenom II, which is a step behind the FX. So, I would think the FX 6300 would just totally dominate in comparison to the athlon, even at stock default speed for the FX.

But you appear to overclock. If you overclock the FX, it's no contest game over the FX will really dominate compared to your overclocked athlon.

Also keep in mind that if you aren't needing a bunch of cores, the FX 6300 could be a better choice than the 8350, because it is rated at a lower power draw. So you can really crank up the overclock and make each of its fewer cores really fly. The lesser power draw, compared to the 8350, allows you to push each core faster, and the motherboard can be OK with that because it's a lower power requirement. But the 8350 will draw more power when you overclock it, so the motherboard may get upset at you because its VRMs will get hot. That is an issue when overclocking, some people are limited by the motherboard not being able to pump out so much power, so the motherboard itself forces the CPU to downclock until the motherboard VRMs cool off. With the FX6300, it uses less power, so you can overclock it much higher in the same motherboard (if power delivery is an issue for the mobo). I don't know about the sabertooth, but maybe it can deliver tons of wattage so this is not an issue. But, wouldn't it make sense to avoid having to spend extra on the mobo, and get a lower price version that can still have enough power for the overclocked 6300?

Final thought, I would suggest considering switching to Intel. The FX chip is a nice option if you can just keep your existing motherboard and ram, but may not be so good if you also need to pay extra for a new motherboard and ram. Also, what if you just instead go on Ebay and find a used but top-of-the-line quad core Phenom II chip that you can drop into your existing motherboard/ram?

Actually I vote for that 3rd option - just swap the CPU with a used Phenom II that you overclock, so you don't have to spend extra on a motherboard and Ram.

 

[cbrunny]

I have this: FX-8350 CPU combined with an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 motherboard

Which was a noticeable upgrade from X6 1055T. There's a lot of computer here if you're just an average computer user.

That being said, I agree with the above posters & waiting for FM2+ & new Kaveri. If you want to go AMD, that's the route to go in my opinion, since they've basically discontinued the FX line and haven't revealed anything for enthusiasts.

 

[nenforcer]

AMD Socket FM1 / FM2 / FM2+ Llano to Trinity through to Kaveri do not support ECC memory to my knowledge and therefore do not meet the TS requirements.

The FX 8320 is currently on sale at NewEgg with a $20 discount and appears to be the best possible upgrade at this point in the price range.

 

[JDG1980]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I was about ready to pull the trigger on a FX-6300 when I got an email from Micro Center indicating that the FX-8350 is on sale for $149.99. What timing! I decided to go with the FX-8350 CPU, but pair it with the less expensive M5A97 R2.0 motherboard. Haven't had time to put it together yet, but it will be interesting to see how it compares to my current setup.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I was about ready to pull the trigger on a FX-6300 when I got an email from Micro Center indicating that the FX-8350 is on sale for $149.99. What timing! I decided to go with the FX-8350 CPU, but pair it with the less expensive M5A97 R2.0 motherboard. Haven't had time to put it together yet, but it will be interesting to see how it compares to my current setup.

Really good price for that CPU. I just got my AM3+ up and running myself and am pretty pleased with it. Good luck with the new system!

 

[FalseChristian]

You got yourself a great CPU even for the latest games. It goes toe-to-toe with my I5 2500K at stock. Of course, I have my i5 2500K at 4.5GHz which blows the FX 8350 away.

 

[SPBHM]

"The most CPU-demanding task I do is playing Dragon Quest VIII on PCSX2"

on PCSX2 emulation Intel is the way to go, buy some used 2500K and have fun,


disregarding this, if you are still using an old X2 and OK with it, current CPUs are overkill, so get whatever you want, a X4 760K would already be great.

 

[sm625]

See this page:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-overclocking,3584-18.html

FX-6350 destroys a propus (Athlon X4) so you know it will wreck a regor core even moreso. It might be a tad bit slower in some single threaded applications, but since the memory and cache are vastly improved, it will still feel a lot faster. There is nothing you could run on a FX-6350 that will genuinely feel slower than an X2-270.