Should I upgrade my CPU platform now (AM3+/FX-8350), or should I wait a little while?

[CHADBOGA]

I'm waiting for AMD to bring out a processor that has at least the same performance as an i7 4790k. If they can do that, I'll definitely buy that instead of the 4790k because AMD will have a lower price for it.

On the basis of single core performance(not overclocked), that will probably never happen.

 

[Ramses]

It's not impossible, years back they were competitive.
Weather that was because the intel chips sucked so hard at the time
or because the AMD ones were so good is another matter.
It isn't likely, but it's not impossible.

I actually bought one of those, no two of those, less than impressive P4's
back then, a 2.4HT in a desktop and a 3ghz in a Sager laptop. Were my first non-SMP systems since the Cyrix/Pentium days.
Intel has a mighty high pedestal they are own now, and it's currently well deserved,
but I'll never forget those CPU's, and doing away with the tualatin.
I went back to SMP after those two for a long while, AMD had some cool stuff going
on back then.

 

[soccerballtux]

Yea, that is interesting. Pretty much lays to rest the proposition that you can play any game on an FX8350. Even with a fairly standard 10% or slightly more overclock it would not be close to 30FPS. Matter of fact, the 9590 is not even close to playable.

I guess the poster is so desperate to make Intel look bad that he posted a slide that actually has the opposite effect: it shows the glaring weakness of the FX line in any games that are not well threaded.

actually it confirmed that anything Intel is a waste of money and I made the right decision.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It's not impossible, years back they were competitive.
Weather that was because the intel chips sucked so hard at the time
or because the AMD ones were so good is another matter.
It isn't likely, but it's not impossible.

I actually bought one of those, no two of those, less than impressive P4's
back then, a 2.4HT in a desktop and a 3ghz in a Sager laptop. Were my first non-SMP systems since the Cyrix/Pentium days.
Intel has a mighty high pedestal they are own now, and it's currently well deserved,
but I'll never forget those CPU's, and doing away with the tualatin.
I went back to SMP after those two for a long while, AMD had some cool stuff going
on back then.

It is impossible. And here is the reason why, R&D.

Just look at the last 7 years, AMD reduced their R&D budget to half. While Intel for example doubled it. Same applies for everyone else, Qualcomm, nVidia etc. They either doubled it or more.

Also AMDs previous success was based on buying other companies/teams.

 

[Gikaseixas]

It's not impossible, years back they were competitive.
Weather that was because the intel chips sucked so hard at the time
or because the AMD ones were so good is another matter.
It isn't likely, but it's not impossible.

Agreed, nothing is guaranteed but nothing is impossible either
They're working on new stuff for 2016, they might be down but not done

 

[Ramses]

It is impossible. And here is the reason why, R&D.

Just look at the last 7 years, AMD reduced their R&D budget to half. While Intel for example doubled it. Same applies for everyone else, Qualcomm, nVidia etc. They either doubled it or more.

Also AMDs previous success was based on buying other companies/teams.

Impossible is a mighty strong word.
It's not impossible that Elon Musk might buy AMD, waltz over and buy Intel's RnD dept staff. It's not likely, but it's possible.

 

[scannall]

The best time to change platforms is at the beginning of a new socket, not at the end. Just OC your current rig and wait on Skylake. Between now and then you can stick a little more money aside for a better upgrade.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Impossible is a mighty strong word.
It's not impossible that Elon Musk might buy AMD, waltz over and buy Intel's RnD dept staff. It's not likely, but it's possible.

When the probability of an event happening is within rounding error of 0, it's probably OK in casual conversations on an internet forum to use the word "impossible" without needing to qualify it to that extent.

 

[Ramses]

When the probability of an event happening is within rounding error of 0, it's probably OK in casual conversations on an internet forum to use the word "impossible" without needing to qualify it to that extent.

As a student of the history of our species, unbelievably unlikely things consistently happen, and it prevents me from using the word impossible unless a thing defies known physical bounds of our reality. And even at that, I'll keep a close eye on it because I don't trust anything I'm not holding a gun to. It's also made me an extreme cynic.

I'm still happy to grant an "unlikely" to an AMD desktop performance comeback, but that is still mostly because nobody in charge really wants to for one reason or another. It's just money and hiring people, not magic. They knew exactly what they were doing when they cut the RnD people, they knew exactly what they were doing when they made the much maligned FX. We may be disappointed or disagree but nobody at that level is stupid. Fallible surely, but not dumb.

 

[slirp]

It's amazing, I just started asking myself the exact same question as the OP and the CPU he was looking at is exactly where I saw myself heading. I'm running an X6 1090T on the same saber tooth board. After installing a new GTX 970 I quickly came to the conclusion that a CPU upgrade was in my near future. It kind of makes me sad though, I've been running AMD/ATI for 15+ years and now they've made themselves so irrelevant that I can't even consider them as an option. Their GPUs still perform okay but I really don't want to have to put a 750W PSU in my computer just to stay brand loyal.

Thanks OP and everyone that posted. This was great thread for me at the perfect time.

 

[Ramses]

I was thinking about this thread today too, bought Crysys3 for $4 or something the other day on sale and was pleased with how well it ran on my hottie590. Actually saw more than two cores doing real work for a change lol. Isn't making it easier to cough up the money to upgrade...

 

[Idontcare]

As a student of the history of our species, unbelievably unlikely things consistently happen, and it prevents me from using the word impossible unless a thing defies known physical bounds of our reality. And even at that, I'll keep a close eye on it because I don't trust anything I'm not holding a gun to. It's also made me an extreme cynic.

I'm still happy to grant an "unlikely" to an AMD desktop performance comeback, but that is still mostly because nobody in charge really wants to for one reason or another. It's just money and hiring people, not magic. They knew exactly what they were doing when they cut the RnD people, they knew exactly what they were doing when they made the much maligned FX. We may be disappointed or disagree but nobody at that level is stupid. Fallible surely, but not dumb.

You don't consider Hector Ruiz's criminal actions in aiding/abetting insider trading to be "dumb"? Pretty hard to get much higher in the decision tree than where Hector sat, and yet he managed to execute a series of dumb decisions, some of which were criminal, others were quite clearly self-serving, and still others were simply quite dumb given how quickly AMD attempted to distance itself from the outcomes of those decisions (including intentionally delaying 65nm development).

Dumb people really do exist, there is a bell curve to the intelligence quotient of the human species. And sometimes those dumb people do manage to make it to the top of their respective organizations where after they wreak havoc on anything and everything their power leaves them influence. Surely your studies on human history affords a few examples of such?

 

[shady28]

I just upgraded from an FX-8320 / 8GB to the XPS 8700 i7-4790 / 16GB in my sig.

It isn't worth it.

Only notice it in benchmarks.

 

[Ramses]

You don't consider Hector Ruiz's criminal actions in aiding/abetting insider trading to be "dumb"? Pretty hard to get much higher in the decision tree than where Hector sat, and yet he managed to execute a series of dumb decisions, some of which were criminal, others were quite clearly self-serving, and still others were simply quite dumb given how quickly AMD attempted to distance itself from the outcomes of those decisions (including intentionally delaying 65nm development).

Dumb people really do exist, there is a bell curve to the intelligence quotient of the human species. And sometimes those dumb people do manage to make it to the top of their respective organizations where after they wreak havoc on anything and everything their power leaves them influence. Surely your studies on human history affords a few examples of such?

Plenty. Non-stupid people make dumb decisions, even concurrent ones, frequently. "Frequently" is a function of the number of our species (a lot). It's pretty common in other words.
I believe the ratio of stupid people making dumb decisions is higher in general than non-stupid people making dumb decisions, but it certainly happens.
It is important to realize that it's more obvious(and interesting) for a number of mostly emotional reasons when a non-stupid person makes a dumb/bad decision.
As in, it's noteworthy and newsworthy and discuss-on-a-forum worthy. This is why we have tabloids and lurid sensationalistic news programs.
Meanwhile we don't discuss the knocked up 17yo in Kansas city that just tried meth for the first time last night because she's stupid and expected to make dumb decisions.
Dumb decisions both, but the dumb decision by the non-stupid person is by it's very nature more interesting and fulling understanding the impact of both requires a sliding scale of sorts.

I don't know the person you mentioned so I have no comment on the specific situation.

Regarding the FX cpu line, which I was refering to, I can't design any part of a CPU. I'd hazard to guess that a tiny, tiny fraction of the posting members of this forum can/have. But it is astonishingly unlikely any of the folks that actively designed the FX line were anything other than quite intelligent. It's even less likely that they were not able to test and evaluate it's performance, or even proposed performance prior to construction/release(I'm sure there is modeling software for cpu architecture now right?), compared to what Intel had at the time or what was reasonably common knowledge that they would have in the future. If you don't believe any of that I have a bridge for sale at a bargain price.
Furthering that, I could easily, and do in fact believe, it was decided "higher up" to aim for the performance the FX series has. I can only guess with limited knowledge at the reasons why, but it was not an accident or failure.
Bad decision? Sure, since they let it ride so to speak. But it's a lot of years since the FX came out and I'm still enjoying great performance from them myself rather economically, so I'm ok with it personally.
Intel has more than a couple "bad decisions" if you look far enough back down the timeline. Nobody is immune to it.

That's what I was trying to say in far fewer words, make sense?

As an aside, the best stories out of all the human animals existence, are those of folly and failure/suffering by the brilliant and capable. Not coincidence.

 

[tweakboy]

Thats life, on to other things..