Is AMD FX Bulldozer really that bad for Gaming?

[sandorski]

Repeat of what some have said: It will game just fine, but for the same $ you can get better performance. It will bottleneck certain Cards, but that will depend on your Resolution. If you are using a 60hz Monitor the performance difference won't matter for most games.

 

[boxleitnerb]

1. I don’t believe you will pair the Core i3 with GTX680, do you ??
2. Have you ever tried to bench BF3 MP ??? Im talking about MP because i playing it and I know what happens and what CPU performance it needs.
3. DIRT 3 can be played with a single car. That is in WRC mode, you run alone against other drivers run time .
4. The F1 2011 build in benchmark mirrors real game performance nicely. Try playing the game and you will see that 30fps are fine. You will not witness any gameplay difference with 60fps over 30fps in this game.
5. Shogun really needs a steady 30fps. You will not feel any difference in game play with 60fps.
6. The review was about DX-11 gaming. Skyrim is a DX-9 game. Have you read the first paragraphs ??

If you like to lower your image quality its fine by me, but when I play im trying to have the best image quality possible every time. Not all games need 60fps. Most of the RTS and Simulator games really need a steady 30fps. Most of FPS games need 60fps.
I also use V-sync in RTS and Simulator games but never in FPS games.

If my review seems flawed to you, then I believe you find 99% of the gaming benchmarks flawed in every CPU review because they never use any filters and usually they measure bellow the 1080p resolution.

1. Of course not. But an i3 has similar clocks as an i5 or i7. For many games 2-4 threads are enough.
2. Talk is cheap, facts are better. You might not get perfectly repeatable results, but a tendency should be obversable
3. This surely isn't the only mode in the game, now is it?
4. I highly doubt that. You can speak only for yourself, not for others. In games with sharp discrete images the eye can very well discriminate between 30 and 60 and sometimes even 120fps. Especially when the game is fast paced and there is much change from one frame to the next, more intermediate frames are beneficial.
5. see 4.
6. I don't buy my CPU for DX11 only but for all games I play

Of course not every game needs 60fps. But I don't want to limit myself to games that don't. If I buy a CPU, I will use it at least 2 years, possibly more. I have all kinds of games and all kinds of games will be released within this time frame. What you say sounds like an excuse for Bulldozers poor singlethread performance. You seem to specifically look for cases where more performance (according to you) doesn't matter but ignore all the rest. If you yourself are not that sensitive, good for you. That doesn't make the FX any faster and it doesn't make other people need only 30fps as you do.

I don't find CPU benchmarks with low res and without AA/AF flawed. On their own, they say little of course. But it is expected of the reader to look at CPU benchmarks AND GPU benchmarks in the appropriate settings and then infer from this information what CPU and GPU one needs separately. One benchmark can only properly test one component, not both.

You also need to consider what kind of review you have. What you tested was basically the graphics card, not the CPU. Or the games performance, for that matter. In a CPU review, the reader doesn't want to read about bottlenecks, he wants to read what potential the CPU has. If he wants to read about GPUs or specific game reviews with performance analyses, he has to look somewhere else. A general CPU (or GPU) review should provide valuable information to all people with all kinds of games, hardware, settings and standards - not just specific groups.

 

[HOOfan 1]

you will not be bottlenecking grab a 460 1GB or AMD 5870

I'd hardly call those the "latest graphics cards"

 

[Makaveli]

OP

Start from this page

http://techreport.com/articles.x/22835/6

And look at the rest of the benchmarks this should give you a good idea.

 

[Ferzerp]

^ This

While it may be ok for many games today, it will only get worse. A SB will keep the bottle neck on the GPU for a generation or two (or three) more than a BD. Buy a BD now due to being mislead by GPU bound benchmarks, and you will find you become CPU bound far earlier in the future than if you'd bought SB, and end up upgrading again, sooner.

 

[richaron]

^ This While it may be ok for many games today, it will only get worse. A SB will keep the bottle neck on the GPU for a generation or two (or three) more than a BD. Buy a BD now due to being mislead by GPU bound benchmarks, and you will find you become CPU bound far earlier in the future than if you'd bought SB, and end up upgrading again, sooner.

Whilst I previously agreed bulldozer isn't a good choice for gaming... It should last longer than some modern Intels which outperform it today (2 core for shizzle).

 

[bononos]

One advantage that is touted for BD is overclocking. The downside is increased heat/power load.
How much of an issue is heat/extra power needed for AMD mbs generally? Are the designs just as well thought out and implemented as Intel mbs?

 

[Olikan]

Starcraft II is a little less cpu intensive but I still think Bulldozer wont cut it.

SC2 is heavy cpu intensive, mostly because it uses only 2 cores....
probably, any cpu will fry in a 4vs4 zergling only for the next 5 years

 

[Hypertag]

So, from Bulldozer sucks we have come to "BD is more power hungry".

Could you tell me what Intel CPU will have the same performance in DX-11 games with a FX6100 @ 4.5GHz ???

Plz state the CPU model, cost of purchase and any in-game power usage diagrams.

No, we started with Bulldozer sucks, and we are still there. It is hotter, significantly less performing, and more expensive than the competition. You apparently are now comparing the core i3 2100 (purposefully avoiding the 2120 since it is even stronger) to an extremely overclocked FX6100. If you want to compare something comparable in price, then you would compare it to the overclocked i5-2300. Before you give me an standard "intel is the devil worse than nazis since you can't overclock it", I will point out you can overclock the non-k series chips with a turbo boost to their turbo boost speed. So, a 3.1GHz i5-2300 should be the correct comparison to your super-duper overclocked fx-6100 using about 400~ watts of power compared to the 2300 using about a quarter of that. Beyond all of that, your assertion is that no game can bottleneck a FX-6100 @ 4.5GHz. However, magically, I can prove that a FX-6100 at that speed will bottleneck a game! This chart shows Starcraft II bottlenecked by the FX-6100 @ 4.5GHz. Amazingly a stock Core i5 2400 easily outperforms the FX-6100 @ 4.5GHz. Remember when I said the overclocked Core i5 2300 would be better? That overclocked 2300 will be better than the 2400 stock.

Your "proof" that "bulldozer is awesome" which is manipulating a small portion of people here is a person benchmarking the fx-4100 to the core i3 2100 (again, purposefully avoiding the 2120 since it would easily win) while using a GTS 450. That is the issue. Yes, if you purposefully couple a terrible, overpriced CPU with a GPU that is terrible, then the GPU will bottleneck you before the CPU. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-3.html

 

[AtenRa]

1. Of course not. But an i3 has similar clocks as an i5 or i7. For many games 2-4 threads are enough.
2. Talk is cheap, facts are better. You might not get perfectly repeatable results, but a tendency should be obversable
3. This surely isn't the only mode in the game, now is it?
4. I highly doubt that. You can speak only for yourself, not for others. In games with sharp discrete images the eye can very well discriminate between 30 and 60 and sometimes even 120fps. Especially when the game is fast paced and there is much change from one frame to the next, more intermediate frames are beneficial.
5. see 4.
6. I don't buy my CPU for DX11 only but for all games I play

Of course not every game needs 60fps. But I don't want to limit myself to games that don't. If I buy a CPU, I will use it at least 2 years, possibly more. I have all kinds of games and all kinds of games will be released within this time frame. What you say sounds like an excuse for Bulldozers poor singlethread performance. You seem to specifically look for cases where more performance (according to you) doesn't matter but ignore all the rest. If you yourself are not that sensitive, good for you. That doesn't make the FX any faster and it doesn't make other people need only 30fps as you do.

I don't find CPU benchmarks with low res and without AA/AF flawed. On their own, they say little of course. But it is expected of the reader to look at CPU benchmarks AND GPU benchmarks in the appropriate settings and then infer from this information what CPU and GPU one needs separately. One benchmark can only properly test one component, not both.

You also need to consider what kind of review you have. What you tested was basically the graphics card, not the CPU. Or the games performance, for that matter. In a CPU review, the reader doesn't want to read about bottlenecks, he wants to read what potential the CPU has. If he wants to read about GPUs or specific game reviews with performance analyses, he has to look somewhere else. A general CPU (or GPU) review should provide valuable information to all people with all kinds of games, hardware, settings and standards - not just specific groups.

The review was about DX-11 games from a gamers perspective. Meaning i have benchmarked the games the way i was gonna play them. That is at highest possible image settings.
People should put aside the AMD vs Intel and concentrate on the point that DX-11 games are GPU bottleneck at 1080p with Filters on, no matter the CPU.

The majority of DX-9 games will give you adequate(30-60) frame rate with any current 4-threaded CPU. Most of the more demanding future games will be DX-11 not DX-9. No point benchmarking DX-9 games that produce 100+ fps with current dual/quad core CPUs.

With DX-11 features like MultiThread, future DX-11 game titles will perform even better with Multithreaded CPUs than with current 2/4-core CPUs.
I'm betting that Intel will turn in to more-cores strategy sooner than later cause increasing IPC is getting tougher and tougher every year(except SIMD). DX-11 is all about GPU and multithread, the sooner people realize that the better.

 

[Don Karnage]

So, from Bulldozer sucks we have come to "BD is more power hungry".

Could you tell me what Intel CPU will have the same performance in DX-11 games with a FX6100 @ 4.5GHz ???

Plz state the CPU model, cost of purchase and any in-game power usage diagrams.

No we're still at BD sucks. Why do amd fans continuously defend it? Its a horrible horrible product and only look worse when the ivy bridge dual cores are released.

 

[Hatisherrif]

First of all, I would like to hear from a person who has BOTH of these systems and has completed thorough tests for checking their real performance. We only seem to have one such user on this thread, and if he says that an fx 4100 is close to an i3 this alone means more to me than all of the benchmarks on the net. Secondly, the framerate talk is rubbish, it simply depends on the game (and this is coming from a person with very low "technical" knowledge on this particular topic): Crysis will run smooth at 30fps, Far Cry 2 needs 90+ in my experience to be really smooth. Civilization V needs over 60 frames per second for a really enjoyable experience.

I love my i5 and although I prefer AMD, there is no denying that in the desktop segment this chip beats anything AMD has to offer if we factor in power consumption and heat. But I cannot judge the pure performance difference of these chips because I don't have them both, and neither do you. So, until someone posts a very educated, personal and unbiased review about the performance of these two I will not dare say anything about Bulldozer, and neither should you.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I don't know why you guys argue with the same bulldozer fan, in every thread.

Bulldozer is a piece of sh!t, anyone telling you otherwise is pushing it for other reasons than it's performance or price/performance.

 

[Hatisherrif]

AtenRa: Pro tip for you. If you do not want to get labeled as an AMD fan for being objective by people who most certainly don't deserve your attention, stop being so emotional about this topic and understand there will always be haters and ignorant people who will find it easier to believe what is served to them by the popular "media" as correct (because they had already made their decisions based on those reviews and would be in terrible grief to even think there is something better than what they have) than your review.

Nothin' else.

 

[Don Karnage]

AtenRa: Pro tip for you. If you do not want to get labeled as an AMD fan for being objective by people who most certainly don't deserve your attention, stop being so emotional about this topic and understand there will always be haters and ignorant people who will find it easier to believe what is served to them by the popular "media" as correct (because they had already made their decisions based on those reviews and would be in terrible grief to even think there is something better than what they have) than your review.

Nothin' else.

So you're saying that every bulldozer review is incorrect?

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

I have an i7-920 @3.9Ghz and an FX8120@4Ghz, both running GTX470 cards. The i7 has 18GB of RAM, the FX8120 has 8GB of RAM. I use both systems quite a bit, I've played a lot of Skyrim and Battlefield 3 on both, depending on where I'm sitting at home when I'm gaming.

Technically, yes, benchmarks don't lie, the BD is a slower chip, in some cases significantly so. I got the FX8120 and the mobo for $200 in a bundle at Microcenter tho, and honestly, it seems pretty damned quick for the price. An i5-2500k is $180 at Microcenter by itself, so I don't think it was a bad deal.

I've never made the choice to jump into these "BD sucks vs BD doesn't suck" threads, but I got to say, for me personally, I'm not disappointed with the system. I'm sure technically AMD f'd the pooch on it, but it does what I need it to do and it was dirt cheap in the process.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I want you to hold evidence in front of my face and kinda move it right-left as I read.

I dont see that in my benchmarks (see link in my sig bellow).

The FX-6100 can match a Core i3, but only when overclocked to 4.5GHz or so. In the best case scenario, it'll only be AS good and not better than.

I thought that by now people would actually admit that Bulldozer sucks for gaming, because the mainstream Core i3 is better than ANY of AMD's current best efforts.

 

[richaron]

LOL_Wut_Axel don't [redacted] quote me dude. I've said/implied twice Intel are better for gaming.

Edit: I am an old school amd fan, but I'm realistic.

No profanity in the tech forums please.
-ViRGE

 

[toyota]

LOL_Wut_Axel don't [redacted] quote me dude. I've said/implied twiceIntel are better for gaming.

Edit: I am an old school amd fan, but I'm realistic.

 

[Don Karnage]

LOL_Wut_Axel don't [redacted] quote me dude. I've said/implied twice Intel are better for gaming.

Edit: I am an old school amd fan, but I'm realistic.

Edit that language. We're not 12 year olds on this forum

 

[blckgrffn]

*snip*

... it does what I need it to do and it was dirt cheap in the process.

Exactly. The (other) alternative reasons to buy BD are very niche.

If you are justifying a non-APU AMD purchase some other way, you are probably doing it wrong.

This didn't stop people from buying Prescotts, early P4s, FX5800, AMD x2900, etc. in the past and I don't expect it to stop people now or in the future, either.

A few months ago a good friend of mine was finally upgrading his 5400+ X2 rig due to game performance issues. I said "buy a 2500k". He said, "I buy AMD." OK. He ended up with an 1100t for ~$140 just as they were drying up at NewEgg. Good enough, and he was very pleased with the relative performance difference. *shrug*

Krakn, I quoted you because I thought you put it very nicely, and I snipped the quote for brevity. If you'd prefer the whole quote included, or not to be quoted, please let me know and I'll edit this post.

@ OP: Certainly BD works for gaming. It is simply not the ideal solution to the issue, the offering from Intel is as strong now as it has ever been. They are competitive on motherboard pricing, the whole bit.

 

[richaron]

Edit that language. We're not 12 year olds on this forum

Seems I have to defend myself from over zealous intel fans (yes I've noticed their previous posts).

I will not have my posts taken out of context.

 

[toyota]

Seems I have to defend myself from over zealous intel fans (yes I've noticed their previous posts).

I will not have my posts taken out of context.

MOST people here are fans of the BEST solution available at the time. when all things are considered that solution right now for gaming is from Intel and that is a FACT.

 

[richaron]

MOST people here are fans of the BEST solution available at the time. when all things are considered that solution right now for gaming is from Intel and that is a FACT.

Already agreed brother. I'll agree any time you want.

 

[Zor Prime]

Edit that language. We're not 12 year olds on this forum

You do realize you re-posted the exact thing you're complaining about?