Please recommend an AMD Processor for me

[AtenRa]

And yet there are a number of games even today that will *not* stay above 60FPS on an FX chip, but will on an Intel chip, or will be closer to 60 on the Intel chip. It doesn't matter how much graphical horsepower you have, you'll not get fluid framerates. In these games, an FX offers a compromised gaming experience.

What's so hard to understand?

Is the system in your signature what you have now ???

If yes i can tell you your system is a compromise for the majority of new 2014 games in Image Quality. An FX83χχ with 280X/290 or 770/970 would provide much much better gaming experience.

 

[Yuriman]

When I purchased this system, an 8350 was priced around the same as my i5. Additionally, I don't play many new games. I'll occasionally play WoW (for a few weeks after an expansion), GW2, Civ BE, Minecraft, Titanfall and Hearthstone. My card is sufficient to max out what I play.

I professionally run a GIS program that relies heavily on single-threaded performance, which uses up to 2 threads for most operations.

 

[TheELF]

you must play a lot of WoW or D3, they're about the only engines that set core affinity masks

windows usually bounces them around to help

How does bouncing around threads change the % of cpu power they need?
If a thread goes up to ~100% than it doesn't matter if it gets bounced around,it will stay at ~100%.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Would thoses i3/i5 keep their framerates on real systems.?

I have no i3/i5 or FX but i m sure that it s not the case for the lowly threaded CPUs, as i pointed it they couldnt even stand a wifi connection being on and some download being performed while gaming.

I have an i5. Does that mean my system is "fake"? Can you provide some benchmarks from a reliable test site to document your claims that an i5 "can't stand" whatever that means gaming and having Wi-Fi on at the same time?

 

[Abwx]

I have an i5. Does that mean my system is "fake"? Can you provide some benchmarks from a reliable test site to document your claims that an i5 "can't stand" whatever that means gaming and having Wi-Fi on at the same time?

What i said is all sites are benching games with clean systems that are executing just the game and nothing else, your i5 could be in such a situation if you dont forget to close any other application when gaming.

Benches in real situations are not performed because there s the problem of reproducibility.

That said try a demanding game while there s minor apps running in the background...

 

[AtenRa]

When I purchased this system, an 8350 was priced around the same as my i5. Additionally, I don't play many new games. I'll occasionally play WoW (for a few weeks after an expansion), GW2, Civ BE, Minecraft, Titanfall and Hearthstone. My card is sufficient to max out what I play.

I professionally run a GIS program that relies heavily on single-threaded performance, which uses up to 2 threads for most operations.

Well, FX8320 was always cheaper than any Core i5 and could easily OCed to 4.0-4.2GHz with default Cooler.
Today an FX8320E@4.4GHz will also be enough for any current new game.

But my point was that you are always compromise unless you buy the absolute top high-end hardware of the time.

 

[TheELF]

What i said is all sites are benching games with clean systems that are executing just the game and nothing else, your i5 could be in such a situation if you dont forget to close any other application when gaming.

Benches in real situations are not performed because there s the problem of reproducibility.

That said try a demanding game while there s minor apps running in the background...

That can only happen if there is a game out there that can use 100% of an I5,that's 4 (I5) cores all at 100%
Games don't work like that,
and even if there is a game like that out there,
and even if it had very low task priority allowing other thing to run in the background.
and even if you don't want to change it's task priority to real-time,maybe because you need something running in the background.
There is a very easy solution, you just limit the FPS,a game that uses 100% of an I5 would run at very high FPS so you can just tell it to use less of the CPU,just by telling it to stop at 60(or whatever, lower than MAX FPS, you like) FPS so that other tasks wont interfere with your gameplay.

 

[Abwx]

That can only happen if there is a game out there that can use 100% of an I5,that's 4 (I5) cores all at 100%
Games don't work like that,
and even if there is a game like that out there,
and even if it had very low task priority allowing other thing to run in the background.
and even if you don't want to change it's task priority to real-time,maybe because you need something running in the background.
There is a very easy solution, you just limit the FPS,a game that uses 100% of an I5 would run at very high FPS so you can just tell it to use less of the CPU,just by telling it to stop at 60(or whatever, lower than MAX FPS, you like) FPS so that other tasks wont interfere with your gameplay.

Threads execution is not deterministic, it s not like you have 25% execution ressources left and that you can squeeze them by launching more threads and still get a theorical 100% efficency.

For instance if you have two tasks wich would require 10 seconds to be executed individualy you wont have only 20s total execution time if the two apps are launched simultaneously.

 

[BSim500]

What i said is all sites are benching games with clean systems that are executing just the game and nothing else

Which is exactly how most people play games in reality... Most real world "background tasks" consists of leaving a web browser (maybe a download going at all of +1% CPU) and Explorer window open and maybe minimized Outlook or other PIM / note-taker in the background (which often uses less than 2-5% CPU combined, and all use memory more than CPU cycles), not trying to encode video on 8 threads whilst simultaneously scanning for viruses whilst simultaneously rendering 3D whilst simultaneously listening to music whilst simultaneously playing 8x X264's, etc.

A lot of this "but what about trying to run every single heavy app on your PC in the background whilst gaming" stuff is "a solution looking for a problem"...

 

[bononos]

Threads execution is not deterministic, it s not like you have 25% execution ressources left and that you can squeeze them by launching more threads and still get a theorical 100% efficency.

For instance if you have two tasks wich would require 10 seconds to be executed individualy you wont have only 20s total execution time if the two apps are launched simultaneously.

I doubt the background tasks are not going to make a significant difference unless there is encoding or something of that nature going on. You're pulling at straws here.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I couldn't justify spending over double the price of my FX8350 ($125 in August) for a CPU with 8 threads. For $50 less the price of a locked i7 I was able to buy an ATX mobo, 8GB 1866mhz ram and the CPU. Unless you have some extreme video cards, the FX will not slow you down in modern games whatsoever.

I often run my FX @ 1.4ghz min/2.1Ghz max unless I'm gaming or doing work. Having a CPU with that many available threads makes even demanding multitasking a breeze. I usually have downloads going in the background, live sports streaming or comcast TV on one monitor and about 10-30 tabs open on my other monitor with zero slowdowns or frame losses. With each task being able to assume a full available thread for whats going on instead of being at the mercy of window's scheduler, tasks are not hindered by other applications or UI.

This is likely why my quad core baytrail laptop (Asus X205) feels much snappier than my Core 2 Duo T6400 laptop when it comes to rendering webpages while having other applications eating at CPU speed in the background.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I doubt the background tasks are not going to make a significant difference unless there is encoding or something of that nature going on. You're pulling at straws here.

They absolutely do make a difference. Windows scheduler doesn't really give a hoot which task you find more deserving when there isn't enough threads available to go around. The performance penalty can be significant. Not only are two programs fighting for CPU runtime, but cache on the die itself as well.

 

[tential]

Would thoses i3/i5 keep their framerates on real systems.?

I have no i3/i5 or FX but i m sure that it s not the case for the lowly threaded CPUs, as i pointed it they couldnt even stand a wifi connection being on and some download being performed while gaming.

So what do you have....

 

[frozentundra123456]

So what do you have....

Apparently no data to back up his claim, since he did not provide it when I specifically asked him to. And I agree with other posters that it is pretty absurd to load up your computer with a bunch of demanding background programs when gaming in any case. Beyond that, I have been looking at the CPU core load charts at game.gpu. They do not show an i5, but even in recent well threaded games, the core load on an 8350 tends to be higher than on a three generation old 2600k. http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/watch-dogs-bad-blood-test-gpu.html

 

[tential]

Apparently no data to back up his claim, since he did not provide it when I specifically asked him to. And I agree with other posters that it is pretty absurd to load up your computer with a bunch of demanding background programs when gaming in any case. Beyond that, I have been looking at the CPU core load charts at game.gpu. They do not show an i5, but even in recent well threaded games, the core load on an 8350 tends to be higher than on a three generation old 2600k. http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/watch-dogs-bad-blood-test-gpu.html

I just want to know what CPU/APU he has if he doesn't have an i3/i5/fx....
He must have an APU then.
If he has an i7... then the irony....

 

[TheELF]

They absolutely do make a difference. Windows scheduler doesn't really give a hoot which task you find more deserving when there isn't enough threads available to go around.

There never are enough CORES to go around for all the threads that are running,open up task manager and you will see, windows alone fires up about 700-800 threads.

The scheduler goes off of priority that is assigned to programs,normally everything starts with a priority of normal,this way the program that is in focus gets all the attention it needs,if something else with a higher priority runs in the background than you have trouble.
For example freemake video converter does this and messes up gameplay,but this will happen no matter how many cores you have since freemake uses all your cores.

 

[soccerballtux]

And yet there are a number of games even today that will *not* stay above 60FPS on an FX chip, but will on an Intel chip, or will be closer to 60 on the Intel chip. It doesn't matter how much graphical horsepower you have, you'll not get fluid framerates. In these games, an FX offers a compromised gaming experience.

What's so hard to understand?

hm, which ones?

 

[soccerballtux]

How does bouncing around threads change the % of cpu power they need?
If a thread goes up to ~100% than it doesn't matter if it gets bounced around,it will stay at ~100%.

...it means you won't see one core maxing out like you were talking about

 

[soccerballtux]

They absolutely do make a difference. Windows scheduler doesn't really give a hoot which task you find more deserving when there isn't enough threads available to go around. The performance penalty can be significant. Not only are two programs fighting for CPU runtime, but cache on the die itself as well.

Windows XP's scheduler was wayyyyyyyy better.

they even went so far as to remove task manager from list of "High Priority" tasks so that your PC feels more slow and you're tempted to just buy another one. It's a problem when you start running out of CPU resources...the exact time you'd need Task Manager to help you kill something

 

[Yuriman]

hm, which ones?

See my post here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36863934&postcount=118

Spurred by the question, I decided to check GameGPU's CPU charts. The oldest review below is 2013. I had to edit out "most modern CPUs deliver 60FPS, so it's largely an academic matter" after seeing the numbers - it's really not true. In fact, it looks like in many, neither an FX-8 nor an i3 really cut it...

These are not cherry-picked. Rather, they're simply randomly chosen from some of the latest reviews and previews of games on GameGPU right now.

And, last but not least:

Head over to GameGPU.ru and start browsing through some titles. I only included 10 in that post because of the image limit.

 

[Abwx]

So what do you have....

Mainly a Pentium T4400 and sometimes an Athlon 5350, the only heavy task that thoses are fed with are some electronic circuitries simulations, speed is not that important overall since it takes much more time to set the parameters and values between runs.

 

[soccerballtux]

See my post here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36863934&postcount=118




Head over to GameGPU.ru and start browsing through some titles. I only included 10 in that post because of the image limit.

Oh. With the exception of BF4 none of those are legitimate game engines, TES and CoH in particular are known to be only dual-threaded engines, both built on top of previous iterations from the same studio. Company of Heroes 2 came from CoH: Online which was just a bugfixed CoH with new content. The Elder Scrolls has been dual threaded since Oblivion days; that was the first dual threaded engine that proved everyone saying "Buy the Athlon64 4000+" wrong providing about 50% better performance thanks to the second core and it's stayed that way-- dual threaded and that's it

The other games I've never heard of nor care much for nor think they're a significant market share.

 

[Headfoot]

The other games I've never heard of nor care much for nor think they're a significant market share.

Debates over guys, he doesn't care about a few games therefore they don't matter. Looks like the 8350 is faster now

 

[III-V]

Windows XP's scheduler was wayyyyyyyy better.

they even went so far as to remove task manager from list of "High Priority" tasks so that your PC feels more slow and you're tempted to just buy another one. It's a problem when you start running out of CPU resources...the exact time you'd need Task Manager to help you kill something

I find this really, really hard to believe.

 

[Yuriman]

FX8350 is a fine processor for high budget AAA games. Expensive games = suited for cheap processor? For less known games, you'll suffer performance issues. I play mostly indie games, other than a few listed above, and run programs for work that don't scale well past 2 cores, so an FX chip would not suit me.