AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[scaryjim]

... I just think their might be a lot of unhappy people in the next year or so, the way things are going with more and more games.

tbh it depends on what people buying the Pentium expect it to do. I'd assume it'll go in budget builds, with something like an R7 250(X)/260X or GTX750(Ti). Assuming a 1080p medium to high quality gaming setup with those graphics cards, I'm not convinced the Pentium will perform too badly (although latency-based testing might show that you'll get a smoother experience with an Athlon X4, for instance). Anyone expecting a £50 CPU to provide excellent performance is incredibly naïve - there's a reason £200+ CPUs cost that much (beyond good marketing by Intel, that is ). And one real benefit from the Pentium release is that there are likely to be a variety of lower cost Z97 mobos released (like the ASRock ones you've already highlighted) which will no doubt get snapped up by people looking for a lower entry cost to i5/i7 k-series computers. Stick a 4670k on a £50 Z97 mobo and you're on to a decent base platform....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

tbh it depends on what people buying the Pentium expect it to do. I'd assume it'll go in budget builds, with something like an R7 250(X)/260X or GTX750(Ti). Assuming a 1080p medium to high quality gaming setup with those graphics cards, I'm not convinced the Pentium will perform too badly (although latency-based testing might show that you'll get a smoother experience with an Athlon X4, for instance). Anyone expecting a £50 CPU to provide excellent performance is incredibly naïve - there's a reason £200+ CPUs cost that much (beyond good marketing by Intel, that is ). And one real benefit from the Pentium release is that there are likely to be a variety of lower cost Z97 mobos released (like the ASRock ones you've already highlighted) which will no doubt get snapped up by people looking for a lower entry cost to i5/i7 k-series computers. Stick a 4670k on a £50 Z97 mobo and you're on to a decent base platform....

Its more the expectation given to people asking advice by the Intel lovers/brand justifiers on forums which is worrying,ie,if you cannot afford a Core i5 4670K,then the Pentium K series CPU will be the bestest in the world,and better than any AMD CPU out there,so you might as well not bother with them. Then will come up the 1000th Skyrim or WoW benchmark,and go on about how single core performance is the only important thing,while only owning Core i7s and the like. Then they will usually link to that dodgy Polish site(who always get weirdly low results for AMD CPUs).

It even pisses me off more,when people mention WoW. I know loads of people running WoW fine,on FX CPUs and older generation CPUs,and anything much over 60FPS average is not really that useful.

There are honestly deluded people who think a non-K Pentium dual core is better than any AMD CPU in all games,and these people give advice on forums. Its going to get even worse,when this K series CPU hit.

Trust me,Hexus is not bad in this regard,but unfortunately a lot of forums(indeed enough build guides),cannot see the wood for the trees.

Then when in the next year or so with more and more major titles threading better,Mantle,DX12,etc then you will find performance being not as good,and the same people telling others buy that Core i5 K series as an upgrade,and then in the end that cheap £60 CPU(with the extra cost of the cooler and motherboard),now becomes £200+ and so on.

If they had gone for a Core i3 or FX6300 for example,they would probably be in a better position.

There are uses for the Pentium K series for certain games like WoT,but even something like Rome II which hogs a whole cores,still needs at least 4 decently strong threads.

Remember the E8400 vs Q6600 forum wars. Guess which one won that??

Even in the times of the G6950,I always suggested the Athlon II X3,Phenom II X4 or Core i3 instead.

Edit!!

Look at this test of Thief on Anandtech forums:

http://oi60.tinypic.com/x37q0j.jpg
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2nivdli.jpg

Look at how much better the Core i3 especially with Mantle and how much better the minimums are. The chap said the Pentium dual core gameplay was not smooth.

Watch Dogs pretty much appears to do the same:

http://static.techspot.com/articles-...nch/CPU_01.png

Even with a 40% overclock and perfect clock scaling it will be lucky to match a Core i3 or FX6300 series CPU,and that is assuming the minimums and latency are going to be any good.

Heck it is an interesting CPU for mucking around even,but after my own experiences,even a Core i3 can hit issues at times.

A Core i3 K series would have been great. Better than a locked Core i5 for lightly threaded performance when overclocked and probably matching it for multi-threaded performance(or getting close enough).

However,Intel knows this,so made sure they ditched HT instead.

I know exactly what to expect with the CPU,but I think a lot will oversell its ability to noobs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It looks like Richard Huddy is re-joining AMD:

http://techreport.com/news/26561/for...ns-to-the-fold

Remember that large AMD vs Nvidia thread a few years ago??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW,jim what I said in post 2882 is already starting to happen on other forums I frequent. Seen people saying the K series Pentium will outdo all AMD FX CPUs for most gaming.

Interestingly I replied to a few saying,does that would mean most of the sub £200 Intel range is useless too by extension.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Saw this on SA forums:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpQRfRpCYAM73XG.jpg



Edit!!

Kaveri based nettop released by HP:

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/elite-a...-705-mini.html

[watercooled]

MSI's 'eco' motherboards: http://anandtech.com/show/8134/compu...herboard-range

This could be quite interesting IMO - motherboards, along with ATX power supplies, make up most of the idle power of modern computers with the CPUs themselves drawing very little so some extra attention to efficiency in motherboards wouldn't go IMO. The author of this blog already mods motherboards to consume far less power than stock, showing how much room for improvement there is.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

MSI's 'eco' motherboards: http://anandtech.com/show/8134/compu...herboard-range

This could be quite interesting IMO - motherboards, along with ATX power supplies, make up most of the idle power of modern computers with the CPUs themselves drawing very little so some extra attention to efficiency in motherboards wouldn't go IMO. The author of this blog already mods motherboards to consume far less power than stock, showing how much room for improvement there is.

Shame they are not doing anything FM2+ though.

[Agent]

MSI's 'eco' motherboards: http://anandtech.com/show/8134/compu...herboard-range

This could be quite interesting IMO - motherboards, along with ATX power supplies, make up most of the idle power of modern computers with the CPUs themselves drawing very little so some extra attention to efficiency in motherboards wouldn't go IMO. The author of this blog already mods motherboards to consume far less power than stock, showing how much room for improvement there is.

Why didn't they just go the extra step and integrate a PicoPSU-like solution in, so we could just hook a laptop style PSU power brick in?

Don't care if they only certify certain chips / combos - most people will want low power versions anyway if using one of these boards. Seems like a missed opportunity.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why didn't they just go the extra step and integrate a PicoPSU-like solution in, so we could just hook a laptop style PSU power brick in?

Don't care if they only certify certain chips / combos - most people will want low power versions anyway if using one of these boards. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Some of the thin-ITX motherboards already do this.

[watercooled]

It's a start at least.

It does seem strange to require an ATX PSU though, as that's the remaining elephant in the room in regards to idle power efficiency.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I see the Pentium hype has already started:

https://www.facebook.com/scancompute...52431299262908

That is from Scan themselves. Whats the point if it isn't a MP map - even an Athlon II X4 probably would be fine.

This is going to be the GTX750TI all over again.

I can see over the next year,the Pentium dual core starting to be a problem in more and more games,where a Core i3 or FX6300 series CPU won't be. Thief and Watch Dogs are major titles which are not dual core friendly,and neither is Crysis3.

[badass]

It's a start at least.

It does seem strange to require an ATX PSU though, as that's the remaining elephant in the room in regards to idle power efficiency.

My thoughts exactly.

I wonder how long it is before there's a standard for home based DC wiring for low power items.
Most renewable energy sources produce DC that then goes through an inverter and is then rectified by a power supply somewhere back to DC.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

People are forgetting that DC-DC PSUs and the power blocks are massively overpriced though.

[DanceswithUnix]

It's a start at least.

It does seem strange to require an ATX PSU though, as that's the remaining elephant in the room in regards to idle power efficiency.

Perhaps they will come out with some efficient PSUs next.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Perhaps they will come out with some efficient PSUs next.

We do with the 80+ Platinum certification,which needs the PSU to be 90% efficient at only 10% load.

OTH,again the issue is cost.

Efficient PSUs need to get cheaper for them to be widely used.

[watercooled]

10% is still far higher than a lot of systems use though - 10% of 500W is still 50W, whereas modern systems may idle at 15W or lower. And even so we don't see that many platinum PSUs at sensible power ratings or prices.