Virtualization Server: AMD X8 FX-8350 is it OK?

[TurtleCrusher]

I would recommend anything that has more than 4 phases for a 8350. My FX-8150 @ 4ghz throttled like crazy on a Biostar TA970XE and you could hear the chokes squealing when it was throttling. MSI 990XA-GD55 is a great budget option.

My FX-8350 on the Biostar ta-970 doesn't do that at all. Is bulldozer that much harder on the motherboard compared to the piledriver class?

 

[Ranulf]

sounds like the user isn't doing anything significant

My 8350 @stock (4.2 turbo) averaged 45C-50C in most games. Thats was with a Noctua 12U heatsink/fan in a $50 rosewill case.

 

[TeknoBug]

When it comes to virtualization for me, it needs to have direct I/O to hardware (VT-d or AMD-v/IOMMU). VM's don't perform 100% without those. I use an i5 3550 which has VT-d.

But for tinkering or testing an OS, sure whatever works- I do that on my i7 3770K.

PS- 970A-D3 doesn't play nice with 8-core CPU's because it's 4-phase. It'll run fine at stock clock but the VRM modules do get hot so adequate cooling is needed.

 

[Zstream]

hello,
I wanted to revive the thread also

I managed to get
AMD fx-8320
asus sabertooth 990fx r2.0
crucial 1600 cl9 4+4GB ram
ATI HD5870

I wanted to use this build for visualization (as my bachelors thesis), some gpgpu/opencl, and also for games (I couldn't resist of course )

I would like to know, if you used any patches for hypervisors. Because of AMDs little different approach with the CPU architecture and the fact, that more software is fine-tuned for intel cpus. The thing is FX-8320 cpu is made of 4 modules, they both have 2 integer cores and 2 128bit FPUs but one L2 cache. This means that FX-8320 has 8 real cores, but software need to be tuned to be efficiently computed. (similar to intels hyper threading but with real cores) So both cores in a module need to work on "similar task" to run efficiently.
Did you get any experiences with this? I would really like to hear about your setup and how is it performing.

Thank you

I've used many AMD CPUs for hyper-v cluster builds. I've only had a few random blue screens but that was due to the io controller being used. The vms run just fine from a performance pov, especially when you limit the max resource usage. I had six vms running on a 8150 with no issues.

 

[DrMrLordX]

A program using 100% of 8 cores is generally rare.

Sounds like your 8350 is a perfect candidate for ChipAbuse!. If you thought Prime95 was bad . . .

PS- 970A-D3 doesn't play nice with 8-core CPU's because it's 4-phase. It'll run fine at stock clock but the VRM modules do get hot so adequate cooling is needed.

The GA 970A-ud3 is an 8+2 phase board:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3907#ov

That's why so many people recommend them as a budget option for octocore FX processors.

 

[soccerballtux]

My 8350 @stock (4.2 turbo) averaged 45C-50C in most games. Thats was with a Noctua 12U heatsink/fan in a $50 rosewill case.

yes, that's a much better cooler. And also, most games don't make effective use of the CPU compared with video encoding, rendering, etc.

 

[soccerballtux]

When it comes to virtualization for me, it needs to have direct I/O to hardware (VT-d or AMD-v/IOMMU). VM's don't perform 100% without those. I use an i5 3550 which has VT-d.

But for tinkering or testing an OS, sure whatever works- I do that on my i7 3770K.

PS- 970A-D3 doesn't play nice with 8-core CPU's because it's 4-phase. It'll run fine at stock clock but the VRM modules do get hot so adequate cooling is needed.

given the amount of RAM I have I'd much rather have virtualized diskspace taking 4GB of memory-- access latency is non-existent then.

Oracle's VM is crap but VMWare is a dream

 

[soccerballtux]

Sounds like your 8350 is a perfect candidate for ChipAbuse!. If you thought Prime95 was bad . . .



The GA 970A-ud3 is an 8+2 phase board:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3907#ov

That's why so many people recommend them as a budget option for octocore FX processors.

we might be confusing UD3P and D3 here.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Might be. I don't think I've seen anyone recommend the D3 though, the 970A-ud3 is the "hot item" for discount FX machines thesedays. So is the new-ish 970 board from ASRock.

 

[TeknoBug]

we might be confusing UD3P and D3 here.

Right, the D3 isn't the same as the UD3.

Oracle's VM is crap but VMWare is a dream

Yeah been using VMware for ages, Virtualbox is fine for testing OS's (such as Linux installs to figure out a setup or to learn it).