I do agree with OP if said person is purely gaming.
Rendering/streaming/linux/etc though and AMD becomes a little bit more relevant.
1 Like
There are massive updates each 2 years. My question is you'll buy a xeon cpu with 8 cores and 16 threads you'll spend around 2-6k on cpu... then in 4 years same cpu will cost $100. You just wasted 2-6k... and new cpu worth 1k$ is faster by 25% than your own... and its even worse with gpus... don't invest in pc's... you'll be ripped off. Either you buy it because you can afford it, or you don't.
The issue with these types of discussions is that there is a lot of past and present information that often gets jumbled, and then there is future speculation.
As it stands, we know that games do prefer strong single-threaded performance. This is why enthusiast-builder and gaming websites used to say that, for a budget build, a dual-core-Pentium solution used to be just fine. That multi-threaded applications are becoming more prominent, having more cores is becoming more beneficial - but we are not there yet. The "Anniversary edition" G3258 Pentium is the enjoying decent sales in the last death-throes of the age of the dual-core processor, since it is offering i3-class performance at almost half the cost. While this is a fairly recommended budget CPU, one facet that is often swept aside is how many issues trying to run a dual-core with some modern games have caused people. (Whether it's games refusing to boot, or bad frame variance, it all individual-specific.) I3-class processors are usually still the bare minimum preferred for serious gamers, but I5s and FX-six-or-eight-cores are the enthusiast's bread and butter. They offer the most amount of performance for the dollar, without many set-backs.
As we look into the future, we see how Mantle has transformed the landscape, and how the era of sloppy optimization is coming to an end. CPU bottlenecks, as we know and loathe them, should be rendered obsolete. With these coming days, we'll see if the FX-series is vindicated, and if what the image AMD had for its processor line-up was as it imaged it.
...Although, our perception of AMD's FX-line-up has always been skewed through the lens of gaming. Anyone who does more productivity activities comes to appreciate its abilities. An FX-8-core is quite proficient at home-server duties, and otherwise just moving and crunching data. (Nothing special needed for ECC-memory either.)
But, this is distracting from the topic.
If you are deal-savvy, you can get a decent 970 motherboard and 8-core FX for fairly cheap. The ASRock 970 Performance and MSI 970 Gaming motherboards are routinely $100, but you can nab them for $80, sometimes. Likewise, there have been a lot of deals on FX-8350 and FX-8320s. I caught my FX-8320 during the second round of sales, when it was $130. Some models are cheaper. (Sometimes, you can nab an FX-8310 or *8300 for $100 on Tigerdirect.)
These newer motherboards are nice, and have updated features. The ASRock 970 Performance is the superior board, since it has M.2, and the ability for a three-way Crossfire, at x8 + x8 + x8. (What!) Both of these boards have Realtek ALC 1150 audio codecs, with pretty good SATA and USB connectivity. Yes, they are products at a higher pricepoint, so they better have more damn features, but you're still getting quite a bit for what you pay for. In contrast, only a couple H81 have Crossfire capabilities (Yes, they exist!) and most are pretty basic in terms of audio and connectivity.
So, that said, the feature-set that comes from a superior motherboard might be enough to win someone over. One individual might want more than 2-4 SATA ports, or another might place a lot of value on being able to buy an add-on card for Crossfire. Maybe the person is just a tinkerer, and likes to overclock or undervolt.
Being a person who does all these things, I threw money at AMD.
Okay, maybe I should explain this a different way. Investing in a machine is more like investing into a new/used car and keeping it going for years. I was not referring to a Xenon processor. In fact, I'll be getting the entry level 5820k i7 which is nothing to sneeze at. The most important thing is durability and performance. I'll be spending about 1k in total on this machine. Since I already have the video card, which is the other expensive component. It is all about future proofing, so you only spend less in the future. I kind of also just like looking at pretty things, and hate squinting over terrible less than 20fps in some games, because the processor just can't handle cope.
Now if you buy into marketing bullshit gamer ready made machines then that's a waste of money. Funny thing though, Asus tends to be the exception, because that company does provide amazing specs on most products they sell.
I'm more doubtful of AMDs future when it comes to their processor line. Kind of a too little too late scenario compared to what the i7s on Z97(rehashed Z87) do. If by home server duties you mean media servers? Yeah maybe? Idk. I've owned AMD long enough to realize they aren't cut out for more. I'll take an Intel i7 or Xenon core any idea for taking care of corporate infrastructure processing over AMD any day. We'll see what the future holds. Room for everything.
To give a short history lesson.
AMD were the first to bring these to market.
- 1GHZ Processor
- 64-Bit Computing
- Dual, Quad, Octa and 16-Core CPU's to the masses
- 5GHZ Processor
Intel had nothing to do with these. back then, AMD was annihilating Intel on most regards on the CPU side. Eventually AMD began to fall off and we have what we see today where AMD is struggling. and how AMD is now, if AMD didn't Purchase ATI back then.. they definitely would of went bankrupt. cause AMD is most definitely "Grasping for Straws". you can even argue the only reason AMD is still standing today is strictly due to their graphics division or "ATI".
I'll try to keep this short and sweet on how AMD is in their place today.
AMD (2006) - AMD buys "ATI" (This was a good investment for AMD) and Launches Phenom CPU. it didn't perform well, because a flaw that required a key buffer to be disabled. AMD didn't fix this till 2008.
(AMD's Fuck up #1)Intel (2008) they took of Advantage of AMD's failure and dropped the i7-920. this destroyed the Phenom. and to add insult to injury. they made the i3 and the i5 processors to capitalize on the Low-end market that AMD had held.
(This was a success in Intels regard)AMD - (2011) FX CPU's This was a response to intels "Bloomfield" chips. it took AMD 3 years to respond to these Intel processors. At that time Intel definitely took the market by storm already since lack of new AMD CPUs. and it used the "Dual Core Modules" which what we know today and AMD has admitted was a massive failure. and it didn't even really compete to the i5's and i7's the only thing it had over it was core-count.
(AMD's Fuck Up #2)Intel (2012) started to pay OEM's to put their CPU's in their computers. (Microsoft, Dell, HP, Sony) all bought into it. they all made a deal with intel.
(Intel's Success #2)AMD - (2012) AMD couldnt satisfy demands by OEMs and eventually OEM"s began to just drop them because they believed AMD weren't profitable. (Intel got sued for trying to become a monopoly of course) on top of everything they continued to use the "Dual Core Modules" on their future processors. we see these on current APUs and the old FX chips.
(AMD's fuck up #3)
Overall AMD is in this predicament because of these above (At least from what i remember someone correct me if i'm wrong on this). it's definitely going to take a while for AMD to ever get back on top. but this above is why.
But the reason AMD is usually recommended for budgets is because they perform well at their price-points. they don't really compete with Intel at all except for productivity. but they're "Good Enough". back then AMD was destroying intel, by making insane processors at low price points. now a days AMD is just grasping for straws. AMD is currently trying to redeem themselves with the FX Zen Architecture to try to rightfully compete with intel again. so AMD's future may look bright again. but only time will tell if that light stays on.
1 Like
As someone who went from an FX-8350 to an i7-5820K, I can tell you that the performance "upgrade" is really negligible. I'm talking 5% here. The only sign of better performance was stability and optimization in a couple of things, mainly benchmarks and synthetics. Big whoop. Needless to say, the $700 switch was a bit lackluster.
The future proofing is absolutely still the attraction for the X99 platform. M.2, SATA-E, and DDR4 are all really nice, but they don't make enough of an impact in the now. Sure, 3 years from now you'll be really happy you had all these features to drop fancy new parts into, but it is absolutely a long-term investment.
Just a quick correction, the time between Bloomfield and Zambezi was 23 months. Just under 2 years, but looks like 3 years on calender (2008 - 2011).
Also, the Phenom II X6 lineup showed equal or greater performance to the i7-920 up to the i7-965 Extreme (without overclocking), and even was faster on the high end (single thread IPC) than the first FX chips.
Oh and it's important to note, back when AMD was REALLY handing Intel their asses on a silver platter, the first Athlon 64 FX chips were hitting the scene starting at $550-$780, and going all the way up to around $1100 by their end in 2006. Not exactly a friendly or competitive price point. However, a large number of Athlon 64's would accept adjusted FSBs well over 250MHz and paired with the adjustable (and newly introduced) HyperTransport, overclocking something like an Athlon 64 3800+ was a breeze on a good board.
there is no such thing as future proofing in pc. If you think it exist, you have much to learn.
There's no future proofing in computer industry. You'll either learn the hard way or you'll trust my opinion.
What Kat said about amd cpu's is true. Though there seem to be more and more reason to get their cpu's ... especially if you play with vm's, or 3d software and you don't want to spend big buck.
1 Like
Well, now you've switched subjects - this was a thread about budget gaming builds, not corporate infrastructure. (I'm fairly confident a corporation would not utilize i7s in their servers.) Home servers are, I daresay, common, and take many forms. Some people like to tinker with virtualization and have media centers, some people have a back-up computer that serves as a type of NAS. Anything you might use for utility, and not your main gaming rig.
As for the rest, I do not know how to reply - it is too subjective.
The Phenom was kind of amazing. The 8350 negligible affects eh? Hmm well considering I am running a FX-8120, I imagine I'll gain a significant boost, hence thinking on just jumping over to X99.
A few bench mark links.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-vs-AMD-FX-8350/2579vs1489
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918-3.html
http://processors.specout.com/compare/872-1677/AMD-FX-8350-vs-Intel-i7-5820K
http://www.pc-specs.com/cpu/comparison-versus/2116/1140/core-i7-5820k-6-core-3-3ghz-vs-fx-8350
Again for me it will be a big jump.
I'm also kind of tired. I get annoyed when I start hearing praising of AMD, being an AMD user myself.
and I'm intel user I know what I'm talking about.
those comparison are not reflecting real performance.
I'd get involved in this argument but I'm on a low salt diet.
2 Likes
Okay @CyklonDX do you work for any of the hardware manufacturers? Do you study computer engineering/science? Do you work in IT? A lot of what you are talking about leads me to believe you don't. I don't want to sound like I am insulting you. Your statements seem I guess angry, frustrated or annoyed in your voice writing.
AMD 8350 or an i5 will be perfect for a budget build as of this stage before anything else releases. I'll agree to that.
So what is real performance?
I know the benchmarks. They, along with the excess of actually NEW features, made me jump. First Intel build since a Pentium II. :P
The FX-8120 is a whole different horse than the FX-8350. I can actually say the FX-8350 is really a true successor to the Phenom II X6 1100T. Was it late? Absolutely. Did it deliver better performance and features? Hell yes. I will admit right now that I joined the 5GHz+ club with my FX-8350, which was astonishing on its own. That obviously skews my opinion of the chip itself toward the more positive spectrum, but even when I ran it at sub-5GHz clocks it was a solid performing chip.
I absolutely do not see a reason why somebody on a $500-ish budget wouldn't consider the FX-8350 (or recently released 8370, and 8370E) for their machine. By the time they are thinking about upgrading, a whole new generation of AMD and Intel parts is slated to be out.
Unless they want to play ARMA 3, in that case they just can't win. That game will eat every last resource they have, regardless of AMD or Intel, spit it back out and politely ask for more by dropkicking their framerate into oblivion. Ask me how I know. :P (And that's even on a 4.4GHz 5820k!)
Okay maybe it isn't that bad, but don't expect a solid 60FPS when the choppers and artillery start!
ARMA 3 rant over.
I caught the marketing bug with the 8120, despite reading up on its performance and biting the bullet for it any way. Hmm how would you equate the 5% difference? I guess some examples would be handy.
1) I worked for Microsoft as datacenter intern admin in 2008-2010
2) I have a degree in Computer systems & networks engineering (this includes broad list of certs from cisco to comptia and ms)
3) I currently work as server network admin in one of the largest IT website design /hosting company in Illinois
Real performance is different that from what you've shown in those links... its not 50% improvement from that x99 and 8350.
and i work usually with this kind of hardware...
obviously this is smart part... we have about 60 racks filled with ibm bladechassis not counting custom servers...
the irony of that statement. is that it doesn't prove anything either.
i know. but i was asked for it.