Is the amd fx 8350 worth the money or is there a better alternative for my build? My build is on a previous post. Please help
I'm a fan, I have one in my build. Imo it's one of the best price for performance processors out there. Its ok/good at everything I've thrown at it and its a beast at heavily multi-threaded applications.
I'm guessing that you're considering the FX-8350 because of it's price range. So I'll construct the post on that assumption.
If you run multithreaded applications it's good for the money. But if all you need is gaming performance then you can do better than an AMD. The thing about games is that all the games are made to run great on Intel i5 processors and a lot of games run terribly on the FX-8350. I've seen the Tek Syndicate videos when they compared the FX-8350 with i5-3570k, but they didn't bother benchmarking a lot of AAA games that show just how poorly optimized those game can be for AMD CPUs. That never happens with Intel processors. And when AMD wins the benchmark it wins by a very small, irrelevant margin.
It's an aging CPU on a dead socket, it's got a high TDP, it runs hot and with every passing day it's becoming less relevant. If you want to OC it, and you would have to, to get the most out of it, you'd need to invest in a motherboard capable of handling the OC + an aftermarket cooler to keep it from melting the Earth. All of that for gaming performance that matches a locked i5-4570 (same price) and barely ever surpasses it. I just don't think it's worth it anymore. Unless, like I said, you need 8 cores. If I were you I'd get an i5-4570 and a solid but not too expensive z97 motherboard which would give you the option of upgrading to an i7 in the future. By the time when you actually need multithreading and overclocking you'll probably have the money. Hell, by that time you'll probably want to build a new system. But that's just my opinion.
Well Ummmmm...... I think the dude above is over doing it a bit. Yes its an older CPU and probably are better alternatives and new ones coming out. But for playing games and general windows stuff its fantastic. Doesnt get hot for me. Idle is 27c and gaming it gets to maybe 55c and thats running at 4.5ghrz. Also saying it doesnt run well in AAA games is complete and utter bullshit. Thats just Intel fanboy shit. AMD vs Intel doesnt matter really unless you do video editing or somthing like that.
I'm going to guess you don't own a FX-8350. I have one and I can proudly say I also own an i7 4790k overclocked to 4.9Ghz so yeah beat that. Now the point of me goading you is that THERE IS NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE IN GAMES. yeah so that is a thing. Games largely are GPU dependent so the only thing CPU's really affect is the minimum FPS. That is of course so long as you are not bottle-necking your GPUs. Which I might add the 8350 will not do until you get into 3-4 way SLI/Crossfire. I simply can't tell any difference while gaming, benchmarks do slightly favor the i7; but, then again it's 330$ vs 160$ so it better.
The FX series is an aged platform, but it's not quite dead, it has a high TDP, but mine is overclocked tons at high voltages and never seems to heat up and when it does never to Intel leves of hottness >65c. You do need a better Mobo to get the most out of Overclocking but they still cost less then many comparable Z97 boards. A locked i5 still costs more then a 8350 and is by most standards a worse performer.
No one will argue that a 8350 will best a i7 that's just silly; nor will a 8350 beat an overclocked i5, but, at half the cost of a i7 it's a good price for a good chip. There are only a few complaints I have with the AMD platform namely: it doesn't officially support higher bandwidths of DDR3 only up to 2400Mhz only on high end Mobos, and, the SATA ports are slower then the Intel chipsets. If neither of these bother you (and why should they; super fast DDR3 makes almost no difference and the Sata ports are still fast, they just won't give you the most out of that Samsung 850 Pro)
So ignore this Intel lover, the 8350 is still king of the price to performance hill! Just remember that you do have to give up a few things to have your cake for less money.
If you're doing a lot of rendering and video editing, or even playing some mmo's, intel would be the better choice. But if you aren't, an 8350 would save you a decent amount of money. My brother has a 3770 and I an 8320 and the only time we see a REAL difference in games (when we use the same gpu, otherwise his 270x owns my 7770) is in planetside 2, which is horrendously cpu bound and even still the mins aren't super different. Emphasis on the real because people can bitch all they want about their 1/2 frames but the only time it makes a real dif is sub 30fps.
I'm not an Intel lover. I actually quite like AMD. It pisses me off that they're focusing on APUs instead of new FX series. And I tend to go for their GPUs 9 times out of 10. But I have this obsession with efficiency and when I see a high TDP I go berserk. I had the FX-8320 for a while and I hated it. Maybe I got a bad chip because it's incredible how poorly it preformed in some games. I couldn't play Assassin's Creed 3 at all, and I love that game. It never went above 25fps no matter what. i5-2500k had absolutely no issues in comparison. Not even at stock speeds. That's the thing that I mentioned. Games will never have a problem running on an Intel CPU. They're so popular, it's the first thing they optimize for when they make games. FX series isn't so lucky. It performs well in most cases, I never denied that, but then there are some cases where single threaded performance is very important.
Now not to bash on AMD ( I own a 8320 myself) but quite simply, Intel is better fit for gaming at the moment, except for in a few titles that run well on multiple cores. Most games don't do that.
Really, not even the performance is a problem, but the TDP. The thing is just hot. What this means:
- More expensive mobo's due to more power phases and VRM's
- Better cooling ( thus more expensive) needed
- More durable ( more expensive) components needed
- More powerful PSU needed
- Less overclocking headroom
So the CPU might be cheaper, but most other components will be more expensive. As you can see the high TDP has an effect on almost every aspect of the system.
Once again, I actually quite like AMD. ( Also running an R9 290.) But at the moment AMD just does not have much on Intel concerning performance as well as power consumption. Even old i3's do better than the 8350 in a lot of games.