When is AMD ever a good value?

[ibex333]

I've been out of the "loop" with these things for a very long time. My last AMD CPU was an Athlon 3200+ (might have the name a little wrong).

Ever since then I've been looking for an excuse to use an AMD CPU in a cheap budget build, overclock the hell out of it, and grin, knowing it absolutely destroys a comparable Intel processor at a fraction of the price. Unfortunately, this seems to never be so, no matter how much I want it to be. Even wit ha good overclock AMD CPUs have nothing on their Intel counterparts. (short of APUs maybe)

I've been closely monitoring hot deals here, an deal news website hoping for a "very good" deal on an AMD processor, but no matter how much I look, it's just never there. In fact, AMD severely overcharges for their CPUs for what they are.

For example today there is a "Deal" on newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103996

"Only" $90 with a coupon code!


But wait... Lets compare it to an i3 2100. I think its fair to compare a stock i3 2100 to an overclocked FX 4100. I made a lot of assumptions. I assumed that an overclocked FX 4100 is running something like a FX 4300 and compared using Ananadtech bench. Even though they seem somewhat equal, the i3 still manages to edge out the FX! This is quite disappointing, given the i3 is only $20 more on newegg. But what is the i3 was overclocked? Fuhgetabouttit!


And the same story seems to hold true for just about every other CPU I compare.

I will admit however that I am by far not even remotely any sort of expert on CPUs or comparisons. And I didn't even looks at that many comparisons. But overall, the story doesn't look good at all for AMD.


As far as their APUs go, AMD is awesome off course. Because there is nothing for Intel that offers descent gaming performance in such a tiny package. But when the overall raw speed/performance gap is so large, I cannot see why anyone in their right mind would be buying an AMD CPU (short of multi-core applications) for any reason.


Maybe someone would be kind enough to prove me wrong? I'd really like that too. I hate how intel is the only option for just about anything.

 

[Denithor]

Well, for starters, the Intel low-end chips cannot be overclocked. At all. For about the last three generations they have been completely, utterly locked from overclocking. So there is no more "buy the cheapest and stomp the most expensive" going on anymore. You have to get at least an i5 chip and use it on a "Z" series motherboard to be able to overclock and even that is limited to four speed bins (above max turbo speed) increase. For true/unlimited overclocking you have to step up to one of their "K" series chips and then you have an unlocked multiplier, just set it as high as you like.

So, if you're into overclocking on the cheap, AMD is literally the only game in town. The problem is, you have to overclock their chips in order to just keep pace with Intel processors. And, once overclocked, AMD chips consume a lot more power than Intel chips to do the same work. So you will pay for the performance in the long run in the form of a higher power bill.

And regarding the APUs, the only place those make even a modicum of sense is for an HTPC build where you want very low power consumption (which directly impacts heat generation and therefore the noise level of cooling required) while still being able to do some gaming. But even here, these chips just don't have the strength to push games at reasonable screen resolution with eye candy enabled (who wants to game on medium settings at 720p with no AA?). For standard HTPC (non-gaming) uses, Intel chips are much superior (better performance combined with lower power consumption). And if you just have to game on your HTPC, you're better off adding a low power discrete card to be able to really enjoy the experience.

 

[jvroig]

But what is the i3 was overclocked? Fuhgetabouttit!

As far as I remember, i3 CPU's can no longer be overclocked since Sandy Bridge, except for maybe 5% max (100 to 105).

Other than that minor point about having no real overclocking except for K SKU's, it will be really hard to find an AMD deal that would be fully superior to a comparative Intel deal, particularly for general computing needs considering the current gap in performance and efficiency.

 

[Eureka]

Cheap, overclockable multi-core system.

For less than the price of an i5-4670K system you get an 8 core FX-8350 system.

 

[NTMBK]

Take a look at the Athlon X4 760k: 3.8GHz quad core Richland, overclockable, £63.

http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-at...boards and Processors - Processors&origin=pla

The best price I can find for the i3-2100 is £88- the only Intel part for a comparable price are the Pentiums, which I wouldn't recommend for any modern games. Not to mention the Athlon is overclockable, unlike the Intel parts.

 

[Vesku]

i3-2100 is $120 on Newegg

Using Newegg here's a couple of price tiers where AMD is competitive:

AMD A6-5400K $70 vs Intel Pentium G2120 $80
-can OC the A6, Intel stuck at stock

AMD FX 6300 $120 vs AMD A8-6600K $120 vs Intel i3-3220 $130
-6 OCable threads for the FX-6300, 4 OCable threads for A8 and decent iGP, 2 threads with 2 more HT threads for i3 and decent iGP

Intel is way ahead in IPC but there are still some decent AMD alternatives thanks to Intel product decisions.

 

[Pandamonia]

Didnt anandtech prove that an AMD chip on a single 7970 can do as well as any intel chip for significantly less cash in games.

Only 2 and 3 GPU setups see any benefit of intel. AMD can do 6 core 4ghz chip for £100 and intel is 50% more. That £50 can go on a better GPU

 

[moonbogg]

I am not against weak CPUs, but I am for powerful ones. I am not against AMD, but I am for Intel.

-Zen Master

 

[zir_blazer]

APUs are good if you want a low end but all-around system that can also play games at a budget, better than Intel currently. Mainstream and over I can't find AMD competitive, they usually have good price performance, can win on some Multithreaded applications, but power consumption on Piledriver is inferior to what Ivy Bridge and Haswell can do, and Single Thread performance is much lower, giving Intel better all-arounders.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Phenom II X4 955 and 965 pop down to the $80 range. (Why oh why didn't AMD shrink Deneb?)

Now that FX-6300 prices have come back down (they were inching their way towards $140 for a while there, now $118), they're a pretty easy choice over an i3.

FX-8320 for anything highly threaded is unbeatable at $145.


Oh, and I wouldn't call their APUs "awesome," unless we're talking something specifically size or configuration constrained like a laptop. It's not free graphics like you get with Intel -- their APUs are priced over their CPU equivalents by about what the graphics would cost you. (especially when you factor in the faster RAM needed.) As you've paid for the graphics, it's wasted money if you ever upgrade to a discrete card.
A8-5600k + 8GB DDR3-2400 (crazy sale right now) = $158
G2020 + 8GB DDR3-1600 + Radeon 7700 (with free Farcry 3) = $195

$37 more, but 3x the graphics performance. Even if you have a hard drive to reuse (a huge chunk in a new build) it's still going to be less than a 15% increase in total build cost, and the amount itself is tiny relative to First World wages.
If there's going to be any real gaming at all, an APU is just a bad choice.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I loved the Athlon II X4's...built dozens of systems for friends using those babies.

 

[ibex333]

Other than that minor point about having no real overclocking except for K SKU's, it will be really hard to find an AMD deal that would be fully superior to a comparative Intel deal, particularly for general computing needs considering the current gap in performance and efficiency.

That's really sad. I hope the situation changes at some point.

i3-2100 is $120 on Newegg

Using Newegg here's a couple of price tiers where AMD is competitive:

AMD A6-5400K $70 vs Intel Pentium G2120 $80
-can OC the A6, Intel stuck at stock

AMD FX 6300 $120 vs AMD A8-6600K $120 vs Intel i3-3220 $130
-6 OCable threads for the FX-6300, 4 OCable threads for A8 and decent iGP, 2 threads with 2 more HT threads for i3 and decent iGP

Intel is way ahead in IPC but there are still some decent AMD alternatives thanks to Intel product decisions.

Good to know but I wonder just how much faster these CPUs are when OC'd compared to the i3.


Btw it was very "noob" of me to forget that i3's cannot be overclocked... *ashamed*



By the way, I think I read somewhere or heard that AMD is planning to completely stop making CPUs and concentrate on video cards. I hope its not so? This would create a monopoly for Intel.

 

[Maximilian]

FX8320... tough to beat the value of that chip!

 

[SPBHM]

i

AMD A6-5400K $70 vs Intel Pentium G2120 $80
-can OC the A6, Intel stuck at stock

even with OC, I think the G2120 is better, single module Trinity is quite weak for a few things, even with 1GHz more. the only thing is the IGP.

the best AMD CPUs are the X4 750K and FX 6300 (the 8320 can be interesting, but not for the average user I think)

but, in my opinion Intel also have slightly better options when it comes to motherboards, and Intel CPUs are so affordable nowadays...
an i5 haswell is around $200, and it's not far from the absolutely best CPU you can have, so saving money (like $50) on the CPU might not make so much sense.

 

[ControlD]

I put a AMD APU in my MAME arcade cabinet and it was the perfect solution, especially since the chip itself was something like $50. I suppose that is a special case, but there wasn't an Intel CPU at the time that would fit the bill, and certainly not anywhere close to that price.

 

[SPBHM]

I put a AMD APU in my MAME arcade cabinet and it was the perfect solution, especially since the chip itself was something like $50. I suppose that is a special case, but there wasn't an Intel CPU at the time that would fit the bill, and certainly not anywhere close to that price.

g1610? or G530 if it was 1.5+ years ago?

 

[jvroig]

By the way, I think I read somewhere or heard that AMD is planning to completely stop making CPUs and concentrate on video cards. I hope its not so?

That is absolutely untrue. Their CPU sales are much much bigger than their GPU sales. Doing so (dropping CPU's, selling only GPU's) defies any logic and reason.

 

[ControlD]

g1610? or G530 if it was 1.5+ years ago?

I don't think they could have handled the front-end graphics. The Intel chips probably would have done fine with the actual emulation though. I am running that system with integrated graphics only.

 

[Phynaz]

Didnt anandtech prove that an AMD chip on a single 7970 can do as well as any intel chip for significantly less cash in games.

Only 2 and 3 GPU setups see any benefit of intel. AMD can do 6 core 4ghz chip for £100 and intel is 50% more. That £50 can go on a better GPU

Only in GPU limited situations.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

AMD MB's tend to be less expensive also

 

[crashtech]

I don't know why APUs get discounted so easily. I think that for a system where there is no room or budget for a discrete graphics card, the A10-6700 is hard to beat. I'm planning a mini-ITX build with one, but want to learn more about the thermals first. It certainly had the best graphics performance of all the options I researched.

 

[SPBHM]

I don't know why APUs get discounted so easily. I think that for a system where there is no room or budget for a discrete graphics card, the A10-6700 is hard to beat. I'm planning a mini-ITX build with one, but want to learn more about the thermals first. It certainly had the best graphics performance of all the options I researched.

I still think it's to much money for what it is... a haswell i5 is only $ 40 more, and while the the HD 4600 is slower, it certainly not as bad as the HD 2500 from ivy i5, and the CPU difference is huge...

 

[cbk]

My 5 reasons:

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT against Intel, I love their processors! These are just reasons why you may want to but AMD over Intel.

1) The crazy amount of cores in the FX-6300 and the FX-8350 (6 and 8) are great for CPU demanding projects, like video editing and uploading.

2) AMD's CPUs pack a punch for their cheap price, and their APUs have the best integrated graphics, so I think that AMD's CPUs and APUs are great for budget builds. (A great example here) If you are not convinced, look at this: http://forum.oktabit.gr/topic/oktabit-vero-w-pc-mainstream-a6800a#comment-115079 these are some of the most convincing game benchmarks on the AMD A10-6800K APU I have ever seen.

3) AMD's CPUs are great for OCing, the Catalyst Control Center makes it very simple when OCing. Plus, you can do all that crazy Bulldozer stuff with the FX series.

4) AMD's CPUs only use a few motherboard formats, FM1, FM2 (for APUs), AM3 and AM3+ are pretty much the only boards you will be using for their CPUs. Unlike Intel's CPU's, where a new board is needed every time the next upgrade is released, when you upgraded to Haswell from Ivy Bridge, you had to buy a new MB. You rarely have to do buy a new MB with AMD.

5) Even older AMD CPUs, mainly the Phenom II, a 2-3 year old CPU still fly of the shelves, that's saying something.

Quote:
"To put it bluntly, the A10 is the Easy Bake Oven of gaming and is priced to match." - svenge

 

[spaceman]

eh? always have been.

 

[turn_pike]

I still think it's to much money for what it is... a haswell i5 is only $ 40 more, and while the the HD 4600 is slower, it certainly not as bad as the HD 2500 from ivy i5, and the CPU difference is huge...

I think the issue here is that the CPU difference is imperceptible for most users while the iGPU difference is certainly noticeable when they want to game.

Most of the time when I was asked to build a computer it is not intended for cpu intensive tasks but they'd like to have an option to game every now and then. An APU seems like a great choice in such instances.

Case in point, my school just upgraded hundreds of computers from Core 2 systems to Haswell. It pains me to see 200$ i5-4670 on computers destined to run browsers and Microsoft Word 99% of the time.