AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[teppic]

My understanding is that sandy bridge e is better because it has more cores, but the individual cores perform slightly worse than ivy and haswell cores as they're based on older technology. I know the quad core sandy e is beaten by the mainstream ivy and haswell i7s in some benchmarks, so in a lightly threaded game a haswell or ivy i5/i7 should come out slightly ahead.

It seems dishonest to limit the comparison to games where fx does well (multi threaded, non console port, fps) and ignore hugely popular games like Skyrim where it doesn't. If those are all you play then an fx chip is a great choice for you, but when talking about gaming as a whole it still seems to perform poorly and inefficiently when compared with the competition. It's likely to change when the new console generation appears, but I don't think we know enough to say for sure or to what extent until we start seeing ports from next gen console games. For overall gaming today though I feel intel is the clear winner in all except low budget systems.

Since everything you've said has been shown otherwise with actual benchmarks and prices, there's no point in continuing this, and your basic arguments change each time you're shown wrong. Whether you're trolling or not, you're obviously never going to accept that AMD is a good alternative no matter what the facts say.

As for Skyrim, the poorer performance in that game was improved through official patches, and this shows there's no problem.

[peterb]

DISHONEST?? Who the hell do you think you are saying I am dishonest,you troll.

Rather an over-reaction?

The poster did not say you were dishonest, he said that the comparison is dishonest - which is not the same thing.

Perhaps dishonest was a poor choice of words - misleading might have been better, so the line would read

It seems misleading to limit the comparison to games where fx does well (multi threaded, non console port, fps) and ignore hugely popular games like Skyrim where it doesn't

Lets not let the heat wave inflame the discussions, eh?

And as I was typing...

I apologise, it was a poor choice of words and I didn't mean to imply that you were dishonest. I'm not trolling though and I feel the point still stands. If you're going to compare gaming performance between chips then it should cover all kinds of game and not just a small subset. I see no good reason to ignore games like Skyrim or strategy games in a general comparison of gaming performance.

Thank you, I'm sure cat-the-fifth will accept that it was a misunderstanding and graciously accept your apology.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I apologise, it was a poor choice of words and I didn't mean to imply that you were dishonest. I'm not trolling though and I feel the point still stands. If you're going to compare gaming performance between chips then it should cover all kinds of game and not just a small subset. I see no good reason to ignore games like Skyrim or strategy games in a general comparison of gaming performance.

What CPU do you have??

[martober]

phenom ii x4

[kalniel]

Martober's point is correct though, and it doesn't change based on what CPU he has or doesn't have. For whatever reason, some games do perform better on Intel chips. And you pay for that advantage. So if you're on a tight budget AMD are worth considering. Even if you're not on that tight a budget it's worth looking at them and putting the extra budget elsewhere. But that doesn't change the fact that in some cases it makes sense to go with an i5 level chip, especially if you have other requirements for high IPC, especially single-threaded IPC, rather than just gaming.

This is a discussion forum, contrary views should be allowed and not personally attacked with accusations of changing arguments etc.

[kompukare]

Actually, Skyrim is not as badly optimised as it was and the IB i3 is near the bottom:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/p...ier-kernen/32/

One of the official patches did enable a different compiler flag and Skyboost is no longer required. Note that for the version number they list
"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Vollversion (wird zwangsweise per Steam aktualisiert)"
From: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/p...ier-kernen/10/
That is, 'full version which is automatically updated by Steam.'

Not sure why they allow that (as opposed to sticking with version 1.4 or something), but that does imply that their benches are not on the older version of Skyrim and hence they're not running a x87 code path.

The problem with computerbase is that they never tested an FX6300 but for Skyrim I think only clock speed really matters since the other cores will mostly be running the OS threads. Ideally I'd list more site's results but not many still have older games in their bench suite.

But the main reason why people recommend the 6300 over the i3 is that even at stock they are pretty close in older games (in newer stuff the 6300 tends to be ahead) but also due to Intel being too fond of market segmentation and so, i3's cannot be overclocked.

BTW, I find it rather ironic that Intel is now panicking about being late to the mobile phone/table party but the main reason they are is because the crippled Atom for so long to protect sales of their Core CPUs. Of course, another part of the Atom strategy (and off kicking out everyone else from the chipset market) was to keep old fabs employed since even Intel cannot afford to scrap all their old fabs as soon as a new process node is ready.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Martober's point is correct though, and it doesn't change based on what CPU he has or doesn't have. For whatever reason, some games do perform better on Intel chips. And you pay for that advantage. So if you're on a tight budget AMD are worth considering. Even if you're not on that tight a budget it's worth looking at them and putting the extra budget elsewhere. But that doesn't change the fact that in some cases it makes sense to go with an i5 level chip, especially if you have other requirements for high IPC, especially single-threaded IPC, rather than just gaming.

This is a discussion forum, contrary views should be allowed and not personally attacked with accusations of changing arguments etc.

Was I comparing the FX8350,nope? FX8320,nope??

FX6300 and Core i3 for gaming. So no,my argument was not an Intel vs AMD one but an FX6300 vs Core i3.

You know I have a Core i5 and I have mostly recommended Core i5 systems over FX8350 in the past. I had a Core i3 2100 and have used a FX6300,so on top of that have some realworld testing I can relate to also.

So,being called dishonest in argument is not relavent to an argument,especially when I have tried to be objective as possible any build thread I have helped people with. I didn't call his argument dishonest at all,I just disagreed with him. I just posted my viewpoint with whatever evidence I thought backed it up.

I never said,look your argument is dishonest,hence mine is better. He is the one who started using personal judgements about the quality of arguments,not me. Saying an argument is dishonest is more personal.

[teppic]

Martober's point is correct though, and it doesn't change based on what CPU he has or doesn't have. For whatever reason, some games do perform better on Intel chips. And you pay for that advantage. So if you're on a tight budget AMD are worth considering. Even if you're not on that tight a budget it's worth looking at them and putting the extra budget elsewhere. But that doesn't change the fact that in some cases it makes sense to go with an i5 level chip, especially if you have other requirements for high IPC, especially single-threaded IPC, rather than just gaming.

This is a discussion forum, contrary views should be allowed and not personally attacked with accusations of changing arguments etc.

It's impossible to have a discussion when the basic argument keeps changing. First the AMD CPUs were described as much worse than Intel CPUs, when that was proved wrong, the price saving on the i5 was rejected as a reason because the i3 performed better. When that was proved wrong, it was the power saving of the i3 that made Intel better. When the small difference was shown, he said the i3 wasn't even suitable for a decent gaming system anyway. And so on.

I don't think anybody has said that you should always go AMD over Intel, the only thing people have said is it makes no sense to get an i3 over a 6300 in today's gaming. And everything has been backed up, not just stated as fact. I even said at the start that if you want maximum flexibility, and don't mind the higher price, I'd recommend a 4670K.

[kalniel]

It's impossible to have a discussion when the basic argument keeps changing. First the AMD CPUs were described as much worse than Intel CPUs, when that was proved wrong, the price saving on the i5 was rejected as a reason because the i3 performed better. When that was proved wrong, it was the power saving of the i3 that made Intel better. When the small difference was shown, he said the i3 wasn't even suitable for a decent gaming system anyway. And so on.

Then let the arguments stand for themselves - Hexus readers are not stupid, and they're capable of forming their own opinions from well presented arguments either for or against a point.

I don't think anybody has said that you should always go AMD over Intel, the only thing people have said is it makes no sense to get an i3 over a 6300 in today's gaming. And everything has been backed up, not just stated as fact. I even said at the start that if you want maximum flexibility, and don't mind the higher price, I'd recommend a 4670K.

Then I recommend you sit back and be inwardly satisfied by a point fairly argued, rather than waste any energy worrying that someone, somewhere on the internet, might still not agree

I'm trying to think which I would recommend between an i3 and a 6300, and I think I'd have to delve quite deeply into my 'client's requirements before answering. Some workloads are going to value multi-threading over IPC, and as stated we need to wait to see what next gen console games bring to the market. On the other hand there is an argument for efficiency, especially in single-threaded tasks, which might be more relevant for other people and some other kinds of games.

[teppic]

I'm not annoyed by the thread I've found it interesting with some of the latest benchmarks and comparisons. I just think the argument/discussion is going nowhere because one side is having to keep presenting facts to refute comments that change completely every time. That's not a real discussion in my view.

We've only been talking only about gaming here, make it about anything at all and like just about anything it'll come down to circumstances/needs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not annoyed by the thread I've found it interesting with some of the latest benchmarks and comparisons. I just think the argument/discussion is going nowhere because one side is having to keep presenting facts to refute comments that change completely every time. That's not a real discussion in my view.

We've only been talking only about gaming here, make it about anything at all and like just about anything it'll come down to circumstances/needs.

Yep.

[martober]

It's impossible to have a discussion when the basic argument keeps changing. First the AMD CPUs were described as much worse than Intel CPUs, when that was proved wrong, the price saving on the i5 was rejected as a reason because the i3 performed better. When that was proved wrong, it was the power saving of the i3 that made Intel better. When the small difference was shown, he said the i3 wasn't even suitable for a decent gaming system anyway. And so on.

I don't think anybody has said that you should always go AMD over Intel, the only thing people have said is it makes no sense to get an i3 over a 6300 in today's gaming. And everything has been backed up, not just stated as fact. I even said at the start that if you want maximum flexibility, and don't mind the higher price, I'd recommend a 4670K.

I hate to use the dishonest word again but this is not a fair account of what I've been saying. 8 core fx cpus do generally perform worse in games than their intel competition, you haven't proven that wrong because it's not wrong. There's a value argument to be made for the 8320 but I don't find that incredibly compelling because of the increased power usage and lower performance.

I don't think the fx6300 is so bad, and there are definitely cases where it makes more sense than an i3. However, there are also cases where the i3 beats it (just as there are cases where the i3 beats the fx8320, which is the reason it was originally brought up), it depends on the specific usage scenario and for gaming, on the specific games you intend to play. I don't accept that the fx6300 is always the better choice, but it certainly can be. I've said all this before but it seems to get overlooked because I'm a terrible intel fanboy or something.

[teppic]

@martober - I believe that all your arguments have been refuted very well in the various posts from me and others. Plus right at the start I said it was a case of 'perform worse' or 'perform badly', since a 1fps difference is worse -- this is an important difference. Like I said above, I'm not going to argue with you on this, as it's just covering ground already covered.

[DanceswithUnix]

I hate to use the dishonest word again but this is not a fair account of what I've been saying. 8 core fx cpus do generally perform worse in games than their intel competition, you haven't proven that wrong because it's not wrong. There's a value argument to be made for the 8320 but I don't find that incredibly compelling because of the increased power usage and lower performance.

I don't think the fx6300 is so bad, and there are definitely cases where it makes more sense than an i3. However, there are also cases where the i3 beats it (just as there are cases where the i3 beats the fx8320, which is the reason it was originally brought up), it depends on the specific usage scenario and for gaming, on the specific games you intend to play. I don't accept that the fx6300 is always the better choice, but it certainly can be. I've said all this before but it seems to get overlooked because I'm a terrible intel fanboy or something.

Welcome to Hexus btw, you seem to have really dived straight in there

I would agree that the fx8320 is a bad choice vs i3, and well pretty much anything tbh. I hardly gave it a second glance. Move on from that one, the other fruit looks tastier.

[watercooled]

This is a general discussion, not a request for build advice for a specific set of games applications, no-one's making stuff up. Skyrim is an example for a very poor console port which uses x87, is poorly threaded, and yet fairly CPU intensive - it's by far the exception, not the rule, as I was essentially saying earlier. Relatively few games are actually CPU limited at all, and nowadays the ones that are tend to be fairly well optimised/threaded - try to find a recent release where this isn't true.

SNB-E is helped by the extra cores, but the extra cache and memory bandwidth help a lot with some code.

Overall it's simply unfair to say FX performs 'poorly and inefficiently' and/or 'Intel is the clear winner', for reasons already covered. E.g. greatly exaggerated/cherry-picked efficiency measurements, 300+fps 640x480 game settings (clearly not CPU limited), and considering newer games like FC3, Crysis 3 etc where FX matches or exceeds the performance of far more expensive Intel CPUs, let alone the dual i3.

I think this video was posted earlier in the thread, but it's worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu8Sekdb-IE

Edit: Fail, I missed an entire *page* this time. Gimme a min to catch up.

[watercooled]

For whatever reason, some games do perform better on Intel chips. And you pay for that advantage...

It works both ways though, you can pay less on an AMD CPU for better performance for some scenarios, it depends what you're doing.

Actually, Skyrim is not as badly optimised as it was and the IB i3 is near the bottom:....

Cheers for the links, I've not been following that so I'll have to read up on it.

I hate to use the dishonest word again but this is not a fair account of what I've been saying. 8 core fx cpus do generally perform worse in games than their intel competition, you haven't proven that wrong because it's not wrong. There's a value argument to be made for the 8320 but I don't find that incredibly compelling because of the increased power usage and lower performance.

There are many cases where it simply is wrong though, and many examples have been posted in this thread (not that I expect anyone to go back and read all ~1700 posts). Again, newer games seem to perform admirably on FX CPUs, regardless of their price points. Few older games are CPU bottlenecked anyway. Increased power use is frequently grossly over-exaggerated.

Things like par2 (which I use a lot) and video encoding actually perform better on an 8350 than a 4770! I completely disregard Intel-controlled synthetic benchmarks (and SuperPi), as should anyone intending to run actual programs.

I don't think the fx6300 is so bad, and there are definitely cases where it makes more sense than an i3. However, there are also cases where the i3 beats it (just as there are cases where the i3 beats the fx8320, which is the reason it was originally brought up), it depends on the specific usage scenario and for gaming, on the specific games you intend to play. I don't accept that the fx6300 is always the better choice, but it certainly can be.

No-one's disputing that, just the suggestion that an FX is rarely a good choice.