Is there any reason to use FX CPUs right now?

[Idontcare]

Actually im talking about the original plan by Dirk Meyer. Bulldozer and PileDriver were to be made at 32nm SOI Game First (IBM), then SteamRoller and Excavator were to be made at 20nm SOI Gate First (IBM).

I would even buy a 28nm planar 8-Core Excavator today to replace any PileDriver.

It has way higher single Thread and MT performance at way lower power consumption. Even if you cant OC to 5GHz, i would like a 4.4GHz 28nm EX than 5GHz PileDriver.

Yeah I could see that. IBM's 22nm (not their 20nm) SOI process is quite potent and would have been capable of enabling some serious clockspeeds and performance in an excavator architecture.

A 28nm planar excavator would be best served if it were FDSOI, but 20nm would probably cost less (smaller die) and perform better (lower power) even if they just did a dummy shrink (standard caveats apply of course) effort without much re-opt effort.

Alas something tells me none of that is in the cards. The R&D dept has just been way too castrated and spread thin to support such a design project.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I dont really understand why people keep excusing AMD performance because of being behind in process node. Having a competitive process node is an integral part of being a cpu provider. If you cant provide that, then your product will suffer. But ultinately, the performance "is what it is" and it is the responsibility of the company to ensure the product is built on a competitive process. This is why I still wonder if amd would have been more competitive if they had not purchased ati, and put themselves into such a poor financial position that they were forced to sell their foundaries and enter into a terribly structured deal with GF.

 

[Yuriman]

I dont really understand why people keep excusing AMD performance because of being behind in process node. Having a competitive process node is an integral part of being a cpu provider. If you cant provide that, then your product will suffer. But ultinately, the performance "is what it is" and it is the responsibility of the company to ensure the product is built on a competitive process. This is why I still wonder if amd would have been more competitive if they had not purchased ati, and put themselves into such a poor financial position that they were forced to sell their foundaries and enter into a terribly structured deal with GF.

GF was their foundry. Given what we're seeing now, it's no wonder they got rid of it.

 

[Phynaz]

I dont really understand why people keep excusing AMD performance because of being behind in process node. Having a competitive process node is an integral part of being a cpu provider. If you cant provide that, then your product will suffer. But ultinately, the performance "is what it is" and it is the responsibility of the company to ensure the product is built on a competitive process. This is why I still wonder if amd would have been more competitive if they had not purchased ati, and put themselves into such a poor financial position that they were forced to sell their foundaries and enter into a terribly structured deal with GF.

Regardless of the ATI purchase AMD had to get out of manufacturing. The R&D is just to high for them to sustain. Because AMD competes on price they would never have the margins to support a manufacturing operation.

Remember the saying "He who lives by price dies by price".

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

GF was their foundry. Given what we're seeing now, it's no wonder they got rid of it.

Agreed.... GloFlo is really a lousy fab. Having a lousy fab is what sank 3DFX as well. 3DFX would still be around today if they hadn't bought into manufacturing their own products. AMD is better off without GloFlo... If they could only dump the awful wafer agreement, AMD would be in a much better position.

 

[USER8000]

High graphics quality stresses the GPU, not the CPU.

In this game, going by this bench, the FX is obviously slower. But it seems when that is the case, where the FX is slow, it isn't like the Intel CPU's are doing great either.

Newegg prices. The FX 8350 is $170. Intel i5 4690k is $240 ($215 for the non-k). The Intel i7 4770k / i7 4790k are $320.

The i5 4690k is 55% faster in this bench, and 41% more expensive than the FX 8350. The i7 4790k is 88% more expensive than the FX 8350 and 65% faster in this bench. It isn't like the FX 8350 doesn't slot in where it should.

I thought he sounded familar when I realised he posted the same chart repeatedly on more than one forum.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

To me AMD has become the WalMart of CPU & MB's. I generally like the underdogs and we need something to keep Intel partially in check. Here is my experience, I built a second PC for web/facebook bs. Choose a FX6350 because I live close to microcenter. I saved around $100 vs an i3 chip and motherboard combo. The gigabyte board failed twice thank god I purchased the extended warrantee on the third failure I got a different board. While I was mounting the CPU a third time I broke a pin admittedly it was my fault however I really shouldn't have to replace a motherboard 3 times in four month's so AMD and their partners have some liability. I purchase a new AMD CPU to match the board. Turns out the new board only has vga graphics out. The box stated up to 1080p video out which technically is correct however my monitor only has DVI & HDMI. Now I need an adaptor, I get that. The PC runs about 5 month and the onboard video fails. In disgust I threw an older nVidia card in use DVI and everything has been fine for the last 3 months.

Summary is AMD and its partners cut far too many corners and because of that their specs need to be carefully reviewed. That's simply not what I want to do to at best save $100 on a machine I'd ideally have for 5+ years.

 

[monstercameron]

To me AMD has become the WalMart of CPU & MB's. I generally like the underdogs and we need something to keep Intel partially in check. Here is my experience, I built a second PC for web/facebook bs. Choose a FX6350 because I live close to microcenter. I saved around $100 vs an i3 chip and motherboard combo. The gigabyte board failed twice thank god I purchased the extended warrantee on the third failure I got a different board. While I was mounting the CPU a third time I broke a pin admittedly it was my fault however I really shouldn't have to replace a motherboard 3 times in four month's so AMD and their partners have some liability. I purchase a new AMD CPU to match the board. Turns out the new board only has vga graphics out. The box stated up to 1080p video out which technically is correct however my monitor only has DVI & HDMI. Now I need an adaptor, I get that. The PC runs about 5 month and the onboard video fails. In disgust I threw an older nVidia card in use DVI and everything has been fine for the last 3 months.



Summary is AMD and its partners cut far too many corners and because of that their specs need to be carefully reviewed. That's simply not what I want to do to at best save $100 on a machine I'd ideally have for 5+ years.

And many, many others have built amd machines that lasted years. So let me get this straight, it's AMDs fault for your bad luck?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

No its AMD's fault for allowing crappy manufacturing specs
Its AMD's fault for not forcing partners to be more clear about how they advertise specs on their boards
Its AMDs responsibility to ensure people who purchase their products feel good and are willing to recommend or buy again.

 

[SlowSpyder]

To me AMD has become the WalMart of CPU & MB's. I generally like the underdogs and we need something to keep Intel partially in check. Here is my experience, I built a second PC for web/facebook bs. Choose a FX6350 because I live close to microcenter. I saved around $100 vs an i3 chip and motherboard combo. The gigabyte board failed twice thank god I purchased the extended warrantee on the third failure I got a different board. While I was mounting the CPU a third time I broke a pin admittedly it was my fault however I really shouldn't have to replace a motherboard 3 times in four month's so AMD and their partners have some liability. I purchase a new AMD CPU to match the board. Turns out the new board only has vga graphics out. The box stated up to 1080p video out which technically is correct however my monitor only has DVI & HDMI. Now I need an adaptor, I get that. The PC runs about 5 month and the onboard video fails. In disgust I threw an older nVidia card in use DVI and everything has been fine for the last 3 months.

Summary is AMD and its partners cut far too many corners and because of that their specs need to be carefully reviewed. That's simply not what I want to do to at best save $100 on a machine I'd ideally have for 5+ years.

Gigabyte builds Intel boards and Nvidia graphics cards too. Every single thing you posted has nothing to do with AMD.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Gigabyte builds Intel boards and Nvidia graphics cards too. Every single thing you posted has nothing to do with AMD.

Regardless its my AMD experience.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

And many, many others have built amd machines that lasted years. So let me get this straight, it's AMDs fault for your bad luck?

I'm sure many have this is about my experience

 

[SlowSpyder]

Regardless its my AMD experience.

It makes no difference to me if you never again buy AMD again over this. But, it's nonsensical to blame AMD. I'll never buy Kraft because the same grocery store that sells their products sold me sour grapes once. Kraft needs to exercise more authority over their business partners and ensure they put out better products. :whiste:

 

[frozentundra123456]

It makes no difference to me if you never again buy AMD again over this. But, it's nonsensical to blame AMD. I'll never buy Kraft because the same grocery store that sells their products sold me sour grapes once. Kraft needs to exercise more authority over their business partners and ensure they put out better products. :whiste:

While I agree with you that one isolated incident does not prove one way of the other the quality of AMD products, your analogy seems totally irrelevant. Kraft isnt the one who makes the grapes and sells them to the store. It is a totally different supply chain. AMD on the other hand does make the processors and sells them to the OEM. They should be able to influence the OEM on the sort of materials (edit: and quality of workmanship) that goes into a product using their chip. That said, I have used both AMD and Intel products, and in my limited experience have seen no real difference in reliability.

My experience with AMD recently has been just the opposite. I was in Costco and saw a very nice looking AMD laptop displayed at a quite decent price. It was thin and nice looking, but one look at the processor (A4, whatever, cant remember the model number, but one of the early very slow Kabini ones without even turbo, and terrible battery life to boot) and I immediately gave up any possible consideration of a purchase.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

To me AMD has become the WalMart of CPU & MB's. I generally like the underdogs and we need something to keep Intel partially in check. Here is my experience, I built a second PC for web/facebook bs. Choose a FX6350 because I live close to microcenter. I saved around $100 vs an i3 chip and motherboard combo. The gigabyte board failed twice thank god I purchased the extended warrantee on the third failure I got a different board. While I was mounting the CPU a third time I broke a pin admittedly it was my fault however I really shouldn't have to replace a motherboard 3 times in four month's so AMD and their partners have some liability. I purchase a new AMD CPU to match the board. Turns out the new board only has vga graphics out. The box stated up to 1080p video out which technically is correct however my monitor only has DVI & HDMI. Now I need an adaptor, I get that. The PC runs about 5 month and the onboard video fails. In disgust I threw an older nVidia card in use DVI and everything has been fine for the last 3 months.

Summary is AMD and its partners cut far too many corners and because of that their specs need to be carefully reviewed. That's simply not what I want to do to at best save $100 on a machine I'd ideally have for 5+ years.

All I see here is clumsiness and the inability to purchase items that match your needs. One board failing is possible. Rare but it happens. Two? The odds are really shifted towards PEBCAK. Three..?

Consumer motherboards these days are extremely durable and almost impossible to mess up. You're clearly doing something very wrong if this is happening over and over. Not using proper standoffs? a $19 700w PSU? Not placing ram pairs in correct positions on the board when there's only two of 4 dimms installed... Something isn't right. Some boards are very picky on config when not all slots are populated (My TA 970 would only post with one pair of ram on the right halves of the ram slots when only two dimms are used). However, if you opened up the manual of the board it's all right there.

Too many people these days don't read the manuals. It's like when comedian Mike Birbiglia says "I got a phone! I'm going for a jog!"

 

[Phynaz]

It makes no difference to me if you never again buy AMD again over this. But, it's nonsensical to blame AMD. I'll never buy Kraft because the same grocery store that sells their products sold me sour grapes once. Kraft needs to exercise more authority over their business partners and ensure they put out better products. :whiste:

AMD can certainly set standards as part of their vendor programs / licensing terms. Intel does.

 

[SlowSpyder]

While I agree with you that one isolated incident does not prove one way of the other the quality of AMD products, your analogy seems totally irrelevant. Kraft isnt the one who makes the grapes and sells them to the store. It is a totally different supply chain. AMD on the other hand does make the processors and sells them to the OEM. They should be able to influence the OEM on the sort of materials (edit: and quality of workmanship) that goes into a product using their chip. That said, I have used both AMD and Intel products, and in my limited experience have seen no real difference in reliability.

My experience with AMD recently has been just the opposite. I was in Costco and saw a very nice looking AMD laptop displayed at a quite decent price. It was thin and nice looking, but one look at the processor (A4, whatever, cant remember the model number, but one of the early very slow Kabini ones without even turbo, and terrible battery life to boot) and I immediately gave up any possible consideration of a purchase.

AMD can certainly set standards as part of their vendor programs / licensing terms. Intel does.

It really wasn't an analogy so much as a scenario that put blame on a company completely for no reason. Do either of you believe AMD is to blame for the following?

To me AMD has become the WalMart of CPU & MB's. I generally like the underdogs and we need something to keep Intel partially in check. Here is my experience, I built a second PC for web/facebook bs. Choose a FX6350 because I live close to microcenter. I saved around $100 vs an i3 chip and motherboard combo. The gigabyte board failed twice thank god I purchased the extended warrantee on the third failure I got a different board. While I was mounting the CPU a third time I broke a pin admittedly it was my fault however I really shouldn't have to replace a motherboard 3 times in four month's so AMD and their partners have some liability. I purchase a new AMD CPU to match the board. Turns out the new board only has vga graphics out. The box stated up to 1080p video out which technically is correct however my monitor only has DVI & HDMI. Now I need an adaptor, I get that. The PC runs about 5 month and the onboard video fails. In disgust I threw an older nVidia card in use DVI and everything has been fine for the last 3 months.

Summary is AMD and its partners cut far too many corners and because of that their specs need to be carefully reviewed. That's simply not what I want to do to at best save $100 on a machine I'd ideally have for 5+ years.

Let's be honest, you may have good reasons to be hesitant on buying or recommending AMD CPU's / GPU's. But is the situation above really one of them? That's all I was getting at.

 

[PPB]

AMD can certainly set standards as part of their vendor programs / licensing terms. Intel does.

Yeah like the obvious VRM downgrade played by Gigabyte with their new revisions in every B85/H81 board that makes 88w cpus throttle at stock.


Really, just blame Gigabyte and their crappy practices regarding MBs.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It really wasn't an analogy so much as a scenario that put blame on a company completely for no reason. Do either of you believe AMD is to blame for the following?




Let's be honest, you may have good reasons to be hesitant on buying or recommending AMD CPU's / GPU's. But is the situation above really one of them? That's all I was getting at.

I never said AMD was to blame for the particular failures in the post we are discussing. We could only say that by having a large sample of a particular laptop and seeing if the failure rate is higher than average for all laptops. Even if that were the case, it might not be the fault of AMD, but at least indirectly, I feel they are responsible to see that the final products using their cpus are reliable and attractive to consumers.

What I am saying it that it is their responsibility to see that their products are installed in appropriate formfactors that are attractive to consumers. For instance, Intel created the ultrabook standard with a very specific set of criteria regarding the entire package. Granted, AMD does not have the same market clout as intel, but they must have some influence with the users of their product regarding the formfactor.

 

[soccerballtux]

I do not really have anything to compare it to. The 8350 can play games my old 620 could not.

However, the 8350 lags on metro last light, even on low settings. But then again, the game is only using 4 out of 8 cores. Is it fair to say the 8350 lags when the games are not utilizing only half the cores.

My video card is an R9 270.

My wifes next build is going to be an I5. Once her system is built I will have something to go by.

So far I am happy with the 8350. It seems like gamers are caught in a catch 22. The games are not utilizing all 8 cores, but the cpu catches the flak.

the i5 will be faster, but it also depends on the game engine. Games that implement DX12 scaling features that we saw in Mantle will do quite well on your 8350.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

It really wasn't an analogy so much as a scenario that put blame on a company completely for no reason. Do either of you believe AMD is to blame for the following?




Let's be honest, you may have good reasons to be hesitant on buying or recommending AMD CPU's / GPU's. But is the situation above really one of them? That's all I was getting at.

Oddly I the NVIDIA graphics card I moved to the hobbled amd system was replaced by a Asus 280x. I really would have preferred another NVIDIA board however the prices were insane, thus I went amd. I've had several ATI cards in the past and they all worked fine or good enough. The 280x is quiet and runs games great, I am not a fan of how amd pushed a bunch of bloat ware on you with their driver packages. I don't want raptr or the streaming video thing or the catalyst package where you get points and smiley face for optimizing games. Other than that the 280x is fine.
Honestly I've wanted to build an amd system since 1998 after the 6350 fiasco I'll just pay more and go Intel.
For the others my memory is Kingston and it was listed as supported by the gigabyte board. My PS is decent its an antech neo 650

 

[Phynaz]

It really wasn't an analogy so much as a scenario that put blame on a company completely for no reason. Do either of you believe AMD is to blame for the following?

Not really, but it is within their power to enforce quality standards among their MB manufacturers.

 

[Ramses]

Not really, but it is within their power to enforce quality standards among their MB manufacturers.

I often hear that Apple has the weight to enforce things upon carriers since they hold the keys to a crazy profit device. I would assume the reverse of that is true as well. I have no idea what the process or negotiation is between AMD or Intel and a board manufacturer, and I assume nobody else here does either other than by hearsay if even that. But I think it's a logical assumption. Gigabyte could live without AMD stuff, could AMD live without Gigabyte?

Not that they shouldn't have standards, the both of em.
Though you do get what you pay for, the $150-ish FX boards are generally great ime. Just because you can buy a $60 motherboard dosen't mean it's a good idea.

 

[Ramses]

Thank you.

In January I built myself a new FX 8350 system. This was an upgrade from my 5 year old AMD Athlon II X4 620. My computer is used for gaming, web browsing and video editing for youtube.

After reading threads like this I was wondering if I had made a mistake by going with AMD.

It is nice to know I did not screw the new build up by going with an FX cpu.

Consider a 280x and overclocking that 8350 to 4.4 or so, you'll be lacking very little at that point for games like Metro. 280's should be really cheap soon used. Or new for that matter before they dry up. I ran that setup, and a 9590 later, with a pair of 280x and don't feel that I was missing out on anything compared to a 4790K and a 290x I have now fwiw.

 

[VisceralM]

I've been reading this thread trying to determine what the best buy would be for a system for my kids to game on. I *really* expected to see AMD offer a decent alternative but I have to admit I'm shocked as hell to see even the i3 pretty much mowing it down in most games. What happened to AMD? I keep looking for the winning use case for gaming with chips like the 8350...and it doesn't exist. There is no value proposition for AMD in gaming from what I've read.

Hell, now I'm even hesitent to look at AMD/ATI Gpus. Hopefully there is still an angle there for them.

No, I'm not trolling. I just haven't looked into AMD for years..this was surprising.