AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think the issue is more that AMD and Intel don't send out review samples, so any site that was going to test them would have to foot the bill themselves, and I can't see there being a great benefit to running benchmarks on low-end software: it's hard to make that kind of review relevant as minute differences in benchmark scores don't really tell you anything - the review would come down to "any of these chips is fine for general web browsing and casual games".

TBH,these CPUs are so cheap,surely any review website worth its salt could afford to spend £100 to £200 on CPUs?? TBH,if I had enough spare dosh I would buy the CPUs myself and test them.

Also,in the past cheap CPUs were tested like the E5000 series. For example I would like to see how the A4-5300 and A6-5400K fares against the G600 and G800 series Pentiums in everyday tasks both at stock and overclocked. How good are the chips for HTPC use?? What sort of games can you run,etc??

In the past cheaper CPUs were tested,but it seems only the more expensive ones get any decent coverage. TBH,I am simply more interested in the cheaper CPUs under £80, especially since most of the builds people who asked me for advice are lower end ones anyway.

Moreover,would a Intel Pentium G630 and an HD6670 GDDR3 be better than an A10-5800K(they cost the same). Sadly,it seems only Toms Hardware consistently and sometimes Anandtech and X-bit labs who bother to look at any of the cheaper CPUs in detail.

When I was doing my latest mini-ITX build it was the information from X-bit labs on the E3000 series review which was really useful to me.

[Noxvayl]

You would think that because a larger percentage of people will be using the lower end chips that there would be a good market for reviews on them. Even though I purchase high end CPUs for my system I also like to know how lower end parts compare to each other; as CAT says, we also help friends with build on lower budgets so even enthusiasts have a need to understand the differences between lower end parts.

I think it is strange that there aren't more reviews done on mainstream parts.

[DanceswithUnix]

Why in three months time though? Nothing is going to change in those three months other than Intel probably releasing more higher-binned Pentium's.

They'd be best reducing the price now and sniping all those Christmas builds/sales away from Intel - at least you're locking people into FM2 too!

Sadly I suspect that if they did that they would snipe most sales away from FM1 systems rather than Intel.

Just thought, they are marking down the FM1 chips but not the Bulldozer ones which are also about to be outdated. The only difference is that AM3+ isn't going away unlike FM1. Makes we wonder if Vishera is going to be slotting into the existing BD range for now rather than replacing it though.

[DanceswithUnix]

TBH,these CPUs are so cheap,surely any review website worth its salt could afford to spend £100 to £200 on CPUs?? TBH,if I had enough spare dosh I would buy the CPUs myself and test them.

Have considered this myself, specially as I need to purchase some kit anyway.

I would need to buy some faster RAM than I would usually get, and an SSD for test use to make tests faster and more consistent, so there would be some significant cost to doing this on top of the time involved.

To compare with Intel, I don't have an appropriate motherboard so that rather bumps the cost for me.

OFC my tests would be rather Linux centric, but then there are already quite enough Windows sites out there.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have considered this myself, specially as I need to purchase some kit anyway.

I would need to buy some faster RAM than I would usually get, and an SSD for test use to make tests faster and more consistent, so there would be some significant cost to doing this on top of the time involved.

To compare with Intel, I don't have an appropriate motherboard so that rather bumps the cost for me.

OFC my tests would be rather Linux centric, but then there are already quite enough Windows sites out there.

Most review sites probably have socket 1155 and FM2 motherboards from earlier reviews though! Hence,this is why I don't understand why they don't show more love to the cheaper CPUs.

Consider the more expensive A10-5700?? It has a lower 65W TDP rating than the A10-5800K and is easily available. Yet,none of the major review sites seemed to have reviewed it.

Looking at some pre-overclocked bundles from retailers like OcUK it appears the A6-5400K can hit 4.4GHZ relatively easily. I am really interested to see how an A6-5400K with a CPU and IGP overclock would perform. It is only a 65W TDP CPU using a single module, so I would think that a reasonable quality 4 phase VRM should be enough and a budget cooler.

[watercooled]

I found this review useful for a recent server build. The power measurements are a bit off due to the PSU they're using, but they're comparable to each other. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_8.html#sect0

I also found this review to get a more realistic idea of power consumption with a PicoPSU (by comparing the same platform on both reviews), although the E-350 board they're using is a relatively ineffecient one, as I think CAT has mentioned in the past: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...l_9.html#sect0

Just for reference, the mITX G540 system I built draws ~20W idle on a PicoPSU, so the PSU they're using in the first link is <50% efficient at those loads!

The Celeron review is fairly interesting, for example the single-core Celeron has relatively high idle power draw as it doesn't utilise SpeedStep to drop the voltage while idle; apparently it's because 1.6GHz is the 'idle' clock anyway, but what about gating? The comparisons to E-350 and Atom for the G440 are interesting too, but the higher idle power consumption is a pretty serious problem; is it somewhat deliberate to stop it eating into Atom sales?

When I was comparing components for that build, I would've liked to get the G540T due to power limitations but it seems it's OEM-only and I couldn't find anywhere stocking it. Come to that, a lot of retailers don't seem to bother stocking any Celerons, including Scan; sure, they list them, but I've not seen them in stock for months.

There seems to be a stigma introduced for anything without an 'i' in front of it now; people don't seem to consider anything below i3 for even basic builds. Fusing off features doesn't help, but they're perfectly adequate CPUs for general purpose builds.

Sorry if this post is a bit garbled, I've just had two double espressos.

[Bagnaj97]

If this pricing is accurate then I may be tempted. The FX-6300 seems especially good value at just $135!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So that makes the FX6300 around £100 and according to CPU-World it only has a 95W TDP:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldo...20FX-6300.html

The FX8320 will be around £130 and probably will be at least as fast as an FX8150.

[Noxvayl]

If those prices are correct I think Intel would be forced to lower their prices.

If this proves to be true it is good to see AMD learning from their mistakes, Bulldozer was launched at a silly price.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://translate.google.com/translat...2Fetc_amd.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW,probably one of the worst and most pointless reviews I have read in years:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/...board_review/1

It makes Bit-tech look good.

I don't understand the logic of comparing a Core i7 875K which was well under £200 and has 8 threads with a £90 CPU with only 4 threads. Weird,they did not try a Core i3 at least.

HardOCP has really gone down in quality in the last few years.

[watercooled]

In regard to the Japanese link, any idea what it's referring to? There's APU-related material plastered over the unit and I can't see a northbridge heatsink on the motherboard, so it looks like an FM2 CPU? I would be nice if it were Vishera though.

I agree about the H-OCP review, why would you be surprised by performance when comparing CPUs from such different price ranges? But I think you mean 'well over £200' for the 875k BTW.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In regard to the Japanese link, any idea what it's referring to? There's APU-related material plastered over the unit and I can't see a northbridge heatsink on the motherboard, so it looks like an FM2 CPU? I would be nice if it were Vishera though.

I agree about the H-OCP review, why would you be surprised by performance when comparing CPUs from such different price ranges? But I think you mean 'well over £200' for the 875k BTW.

I think it is Vishera as the outline looks like the tin used for FX8150 CPUs. I meant over £200 too!

[KeyboardDemon]

BTW,probably one of the worst and most pointless reviews I have read in years:

HardOCP reviews used to be well detailed and would give the impression that the reviewer understood the market that the product was aimed at, this reviewer made quite a few references to how he didn't really know much about the FM1 equivalent to the CPU being tested and how he hadn't done his research on the first generation. I would really expect a reviewer to know this and put in detailed comparisons on second gen vs first gen instead of stating the he didn't have those figures at hand.

Clearly the reviewer here was too busy to look at the archives to get this information and I'm glad I only read the intro and conclusion.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Someone has got hold of an FX8350:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1318240/h...ak-vs-3770k-ht

They compared it when overclocked to 4.5GHZ with a Core i7 3770K at 4.6GHZ with HT switched off, however, remember the Core i7 CPUs have more L3 cache too than a Core i5.

[Terbinator]

All the idiots asking why run it with HT off. /facepalm.