Impressed with FX-8350 and the new article at Anand

[UNhooked]

Actually, that wasn't the point. Per the review, if you are gaming with a high-end single GPU, there isn't a compelling reason to buy an 8350 (or a new i5 or i7 for that matter) when something lower down in the product line will work well and run a lot cooler.

No idea what your post means.

 

[felang]

I have two issues with this review.
1) Is a big one - average FPS with a single number. No attempt to look at even minimums or the range of frame rates. Tomshardware did a significantly better review some months ago testing the 8350 and showed while averages were similar there were problems with consistent frame delivery, the top and bottom frame rate delivered was different. Doing a single FPS test in today's tooling is unacceptable because we know the data is often misleading.

2) The range of games used was hardly a broad range of different types of games. In essence what we had was 3 known GPU limited games with very light CPU usage and 1 heavy CPU user. It isn't a sufficient list of games to say much other than that this very odd selection works the way it does.

I have plenty of games that are clearly CPU limited at 4.5Ghz and 2 680's. It is a real struggle to get to 120 fps, and that is often dominated by the CPU not the GPUs.

+1

4 games is not a large enough sample size. I seriously doubt an A8 is enough CPU for BF3 for example, even a mid-level GPU would be bottlenecked by that cpu in a heavily populated server.

 

[crashtech]

No idea what your post means.

Sorry about that, I'll leave it to someone else for now. I'll re-read your post to which I responded later, it could be that the misunderstanding started with me.

 

[Kallogan]

I don't see the point of this review cause putting settings at max is biaising results. As soon as you lower graphic settings, you can quickly become cpu limited. And it's not like most people are playing in ultra settings.

 

[Wall Street]

I don't see the point of this review cause putting settings at max is biaising results. As soon as you lower graphic settings, you can quickly become cpu limited. And it's not like most people are playing in ultra settings.

I agree. The single GPU benchmarks for Metro and Sleeping Dogs where the results are in the 20-30 FPS range are irrelevant (too low FPS to be actual playable settings). Dirt 3 is irrelevant because every combo of cards and CPU is very playable except the older dual cores.

 

[inf64]

I don't see the point of this review cause putting settings at max is biaising results. As soon as you lower graphic settings, you can quickly become cpu limited. And it's not like most people are playing in ultra settings.

You will buy 7970 or better yet, 2 of these, and you will not play on Ultra or Very High settings? Have you noticed what kind of GPUs the reviewer used?

 

[Chiropteran]

Assuming you pay 11cents per Kw/H and not 30 or 40. Not to mention more heat/noise. And that the FX will be obsolete way before due to poor performance. Not to mention the 2500K whoops it as well massively. And thats in close to the same price range. (Today it would be a 3570K).

There is just no excuse to get a FX, besides the irrational.

If you are paying that much for electricity then you probably can't afford to run a high end video card, meaning your CPU is irrelevant because whatever you use will be bottle-necked.

 

[Sleepingforest]

If you are paying that much for electricity then you probably can't afford to run a high end video card, meaning your CPU is irrelevant because whatever you use will be bottle-necked.

I think 11 US cents per kWh is actually pretty representative. The United States government claims an average price of 11.72 cents per kWh, and , as we know, most of the rest of the world has far higher electricity costs.

Unless, of course, you were referring to the 30-40 cents figure, which is high for the US outside of California.

 

[ShintaiDK]

If you are paying that much for electricity then you probably can't afford to run a high end video card, meaning your CPU is irrelevant because whatever you use will be bottle-necked.

Maybe you should start to investigate average wages and electricity prices first. Then you might be surprised.

Just because you can afford it, doesnt mean you wish to waste extra using a FX. And outside the US people are much more educated in energy saving means. Even if they earn much more. Setting money on fire for no use is not the clever mans action.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think 11 US cents per kWh is actually pretty representative. The United States government claims an average price of 11.72 cents per kWh, and , as we know, most of the rest of the world has far higher electricity costs.

Unless, of course, you were referring to the 30-40 cents figure, which is high for the US outside of California.

Electricity is for example 36½cents on Hawaii. And its what in NY? 19 cents? And its not about to get cheaper.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

 

[Sleepingforest]

Electricity is for example 36½cents on Hawaii. And its what in NY? 19 cents? And its not about to get cheaper.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

Yes, but the average is far lower, which means that NY and HI are exceptions rather than the norm. Don't cherry pick states when the average is clearly far lower (far more states have about 9 or 10 cents per kWh).

Unless, of course, we start thinking about population density, and it gets more complicated, since California and New York hold disproportionate amounts of people.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm in MA, and I pay about $0.15 per kWh.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Why are you guys discussing power consumption on a thread that talks about high end multi GPUs??? If a few dollars more a month makes that big of a difference for you then i think you need to start considering mid/low range hardware only.

 

[Kallogan]

You will buy 7970 or better yet, 2 of these, and you will not play on Ultra or Very High settings? Have you noticed what kind of GPUs the reviewer used?

Metro is at 34 fps and sleeping dogs is at 28 fps in the review. Not playable. If u lower settings, the cpu may become more important to achieve good framerate. And sometimes there is a huge gap between high and ultra.

And the title of the review is choosing a gaming cpu, not necessarily paired with a 7970. Look at that, some benchies at low res, especially the Crysis one at 1050p on MAINSTREAM settings. The gpu is only a 5870 and there is already a huge gap between Trinity and Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/amd-a10-5800k-a8-5600k-review-trinity-on-the-desktop-part-2/6

That's it. This review is pretty irrelevant or they choose the wrong title i don't know.

 

[Idontcare]

Why are you guys discussing power consumption on a thread that talks about high end multi GPUs??? If a few dollars more a month makes that big of a difference for you then i think you need to start considering mid/low range hardware only.

The discussion transpires only because the same argument "it only costs a few dollars a month" can be applied to the argument to get a 3770k and avoid the 8350 altogether...only as soon as you suggest that then the story becomes "but $100 is a huge savings!".

 

[Chiropteran]

Maybe you should start to investigate average wages and electricity prices first. Then you might be surprised.

Just because you can afford it, doesnt mean you wish to waste extra using a FX. And outside the US people are much more educated in energy saving means. Even if they earn much more.

The averages are much lower, but I said "If".

"If" you are paying 40c per kwh, than the cost to run a high power GPU (or even worse, an SLI or XFire setup) vastly overshadows the cost of an FX-8350's extra power usage. This is simply a fact, not an opinion.

We are talking about the difference between a 30-50W premium for running an 8350, vs using an extra 200W or more for a high power video card compared to something efficient like a Radeon 7790.

"If" the power usage of the 8350 is too high, then the GPU's 4X higher consumption will be even higher, every single time. Your cost for electricity isn't a relevant factor, because the GPU is going to be using a greater share than the CPU for any gaming situation.

>Setting money on fire for no use is not the clever mans action.

Then you shouldn't have high end video cards, period. They are simply a luxury, nobody needs them. You buy them because you want them.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The averages are much lower, but I said "If".

"If" you are paying 40c per kwh, than the cost to run a high power GPU (or even worse, an SLI or XFire setup) vastly overshadows the cost of an FX-8350's extra power usage. This is simply a fact, not an opinion.

We are talking about the difference between a 30-50W premium for running an 8350, vs using an extra 200W or more for a high power video card compared to something efficient like a Radeon 7790.

"If" the power usage of the 8350 is too high, then the GPU's 4X higher consumption will be even higher, every single time. Your cost for electricity isn't a relevant factor, because the GPU is going to be using a greater share than the CPU for any gaming situation.

>Setting money on fire for no use is not the clever mans action.

Then you shouldn't have high end video cards, period. They are simply a luxury, nobody needs them. You buy them because you want them.

What does the GPU(s) have to do with anything? 2(3) CPU options are listed. Why pick the worst one?

Nobody said you had to change your way of living. Just make smarter choices. Hence why my household only uses 3Kw/H a day for everything. And we got all modern appliances and electronics gadgets you can dream of.

 

[R0H1T]

The discussion transpires only because the same argument "it only costs a few dollars a month" can be applied to the argument to get a 3770k and avoid the 8350 altogether...only as soon as you suggest that then the story becomes "but $100 is a huge savings!".

Not to derail the thread here but upfront savings in cost is a major reason why you have the subsidy model for phones in the US. A 100$ in savings upfront can make all the difference in the world for an avg user who is budget constrained because that is what deters most buyers in the world, price & not TCO.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Not to derail the thread here but upfront savings in cost is a major reason why you have the subsidy model for phones in the US. A 100$ in savings upfront can make all the difference in the world for an avg user who is budget constrained because that is what deters most buyers in the world, price & not TCO.

This is a fallacious argument because you do pay the cost over and over, it is just hidden in the monthly charge of the plan. So you are saying a 100.00 upfront would be a deterrent but a 2 year contract that costs probably over 2000.00 is not? It is basically deceptive marketing by the carrier and failure of the consumer to understand costs over time.

It is not the same for a cpu. The initial cost is a one time cost and does not recur until one upgrades. Besides, who is really "budget constrained" and running dual video cards?

 

[Idontcare]

Not to derail the thread here but upfront savings in cost is a major reason why you have the subsidy model for phones in the US. A 100$ in savings upfront can make all the difference in the world for an avg user who is budget constrained because that is what deters most buyers in the world, price & not TCO.

If you don't realize why those types of back-end loaded "mobile plans" exist in the first place then you probably also don't realize why pay-day loans and high-interest rate credit cards exist either...(hint - it has nothing to do with benefiting the consumer 😉)

Just ask AMD how well those terms and conditions work out when put to work on a business scale with their foundry "partner" 😛

 

[Chiropteran]

What does the GPU(s) have to do with anything?

For one thing, power usage, which you seem to think is super important, is massively impacted by your GPU choice.

For another, a powerful CPU paired with a weak GPU isn't really going to be the best bang for your buck. If you are GPU limited, it's foolish to waste money on a faster CPU.

Now tell me you didn't already know that with a straight face.

Just make smarter choices.

My smarter choice is choosing to live in an area with reasonable electricity costs.

 

[R0H1T]

This is a fallacious argument because you do pay the cost over and over, it is just hidden in the monthly charge of the plan. So you are saying a 100.00 upfront would be a deterrent but a 2 year contract that costs probably over 2000.00 is not? It is basically deceptive marketing by the carrier and failure of the consumer to understand costs over time.

Not really you see without the phone subsidies the mobile market in the US would be quite similar to the PC market as in slowing down(relatively) not gaining pace like the rest of the world ! But I think the point you were making is that upfront payment just doesn't matter, however it does to the majority of consumers & even corporates that don't necessarily run 24/7 servers !

It is not the same for a cpu. The initial cost is a one time cost and does not recur until one upgrades. Besides, who is really "budget constrained" and running dual video cards?

Agreed but the word I used was "avg" as in avarage user. I always go for power efficient equipment, including PC components, but not just because of this argument of TCO, its also due to the fact that I believe this will reduce global warming over a period of time & yes I know Americans don't believe in greenhouse gases & such stuff !

 

[SlowSpyder]

Metro is at 34 fps and sleeping dogs is at 28 fps in the review. Not playable. If u lower settings, the cpu may become more important to achieve good framerate. And sometimes there is a huge gap between high and ultra.

And the title of the review is choosing a gaming cpu, not necessarily paired with a 7970. Look at that, some benchies at low res, especially the Crysis one at 1050p on MAINSTREAM settings. The gpu is only a 5870 and there is already a huge gap between Trinity and Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/amd-a10-5800k-a8-5600k-review-trinity-on-the-desktop-part-2/6

That's it. This review is pretty irrelevant or they choose the wrong title i don't know.

Ok, so you lower the settings in those two games, then what? If you look at the two and three GPU settings in Metro the 8350 has enough horsepower to allow it to reach over 60FPS. So if you lower a few settings on the single card, the 8350 will still not bottleneck you.

Same thing with Sleeping Dogs, it scales to 75FPS as you add more GPU horsepower. So lower a few settings, the 8350 will still be enough CPU for that game too.

 

[R0H1T]

If you don't realize why those types of back-end loaded "mobile plans" exist in the first place then you probably also don't realize why pay-day loans and high-interest rate credit cards exist either...(hint - it has nothing to do with benefiting the consumer 😉)

Just ask AMD how well those terms and conditions work out when put to work on a business scale with their foundry "partner" 😛

Yeah perhaps a poor analogy but regardless of that I'd say for normal users & others that don't care much about power consumption an AMD powered system is a smart choice for a 100~200$ less all else being equal.

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah perhaps a poor analogy but regardless of that I'd say for normal users & others that don't care much about power consumption an AMD powered system is a smart choice for a 100~200$ less all else being equal.

But all else is not equal.

Performance for one is not the same, neither is power-consumption.

If performance is not really a concern for you then buying an 8350 or an 8320 is already overkill, may as well go with an i3 or i5, or an FX-4xxx and save yourself even more money.

If the power consumption footprint is not a concern, and you need to capture the cost of the added heat load on your AirCon in that calc, then neither is the extra $100 to get a 3770k.

I own both the FX8350 and 3770k and given the relatively piddly difference in total system cost between the two, if $100 makes or breaks your budget such that you can't afford the 3770k while you can afford top-end GPUs and a power-bill that goes along with it then I'd also be inclined to suspect you really aren't in a position to be spending that kind of dosh on a gaming rig in the first place.

$100 should not be making or breaking your purchasing decisions when building a $1500 gaming rig. You are entering the "penny wise, pound foolish" territory at that point.