I have an AMD FX-8350 in my gaming rig, paired with a GTX 570 soon to be upgraded to a GTX 770 (once it gets through shipping). It seems whoever I talk to or whatever I read about it on forums, people are labeling the FX-8350 as a mid to low end cpu in terms of sheer performance. Now I just built this computer roughly 4 months ago (came from a 2.26Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo in a laptop, used to be a console (PS3) gamer) and I have been absolutely amazed by the sheer performance of this CPU. In my experience, it is exceedingly fast (I have it OC'd to 4.52GHz), even with an older card (GTX 570) I can play most modern games on high settings and still get a reasonable frame rate (with the exception of a few games like Crysis 3). Is it just because I came from such a weak CPU that I find this chip so fast? While I know that there are tons of Intel chips out there that are faster than my AMD (such as the 6 cores everyone seems to fawn over) I don't see how this can be considered a low end CPU. In my experience, the performance of a 4770K for example over this CPU is negligible (at least in gaming applications, usually only a 2 to 3FPS difference in favor of the Intel) and there are many CPU's that perform worse. The majority of people still use dual core computers with the exception of gamers and pro users. I really can't bring myself to call the FX-8350 a low to mid range chip. Maybe a better term would be an upper mid range chip. Nonetheless, the FX-8350 is a decently powerful processor in my opinion and I feel that it gets a lot of hate that it doesn't deserve.
Without reading all that you have to say, I can imagine many people will agree with you. The FX8350 is a really good chip. If the 8350 is a mid-range CPU, then the i5 is also a mid-range CPU. In terms of gaming performance, they are "high-end". BUt in the world of computing where there are much much much more powerful CPUs, I suppose the 8350 (and i5) are mid-range in some regard.
But ignore fanboys in all the forums. AMD Intel or otherwise.
i went from a core 2 duo in my laptop to an amd phenom II X6 1100t large upgrade in my mind. to an amd fx 8350 moderate upgrade. was it worth the $220 i payed for me it was. would i have gotten a intel chip with the same price to performance when i bought it never on your life.
what a lot of people fail to realize is that amd made intel who they are today. intel was pushing a lot of chip makers out of the game and there products started to slide in performance from the lack of competition. amd came out with a chip that beat the pants off the highest end intel chip. they did this for a few releases. intel was getting hurt hard in the consumer and private sectors. afer a while intel started to match amd and with P.R they started to give amd a beating. and ever since its been intel is king and amd is nothing. but in reality amd is the price to performance king and has some of the best price to performance server options.
intel does retain some of the best performance in some programs because they help the devs code for intel and the devs are asked not to optimize the code for amd. if amd was able to have devs optimize the code for amd and not intel then amd would take the title king in some areas.
I think in the beginning of the 8350's lifecycle, alot of reviewers gave it a bad rap for being slower in some tasks than the Intel i5s as well as being "slower" in their benchmarks. This is what gave birth to the current ignorant stigma that the 8350 is an inferior CPU.
It's not.
The guys really upset alot of people by claiming that in everyday, gaming use, the 8350 was at the very least, as good as the i5/i7 alternatives. While their numbers were strange and hard to reproduce, it surely did make some people reconsider what the 8350 had to offer. But as it has been seen in places like r/Buildapc, there are still ignorant people out there who still believe that anything Intel > AMD.
One thing is, if you're streaming often, get an 8350. It's a beast at streaming.
The FX 8350 is great, only significant problems with it are single-threaded performance (not really a huge issue these days except for a few specific applications and old games), high power consumption and not stellar memory performance (every so often you might see it briefly dip down to a really low framerate for two seconds or less and then return to a really high framerate, that's from a holdup in the data transfer).
I'd probably get one but it's been out for awhile, so I think my best bet is to grab a 6300 to ugprade this Q6600, just to hold me over long enough until AMD releases their next enthusiast eight-core chip, or if they don't then I'll grab an Intel i5 once the FX 6300 isn't up to snuff
In terms of its maximum capabilities, yeah it's by no means high end. It's somewhat bested by the 4770K and then when you take a look at the 6-core Intel chips it's behind by a landslide. But for the price range it's a really great chip, for well threaded programs it's better than an i5.
yeah, I find it really hard to believe that AMD won't release an octo-core in the next year. too much of the awesome of AMD stems from their octo-core cpus.
It's also possible they're just waiting until DDR4 to release one. Might be a waste of resources now, or maybe their financial situation is too tight for them to manufacture the enthusiast chips right now. I don't think we'll be seeing any steamroller 8-core cpu in 2014, but maybe we'll hear about future plans. I definitely don't think it's the end, they just need some time to regroup. I expect to see a Steamroller or Excavator lineup of enthusiast chips in 2015
If you're focusing on gaming, especially streaming your games, the 8350 is high end without a doubt. If you're focusing more on productivity, then I'd suggest you look else where. That's why they say it's 'mid tier'.
Various websites where the Intel fanboys congregate, they talk about gaming all day long. Then when the 8350 is mentioned, suddenly they all care about productivity.. That's all I'm gonna say.
Or suddenly they care about power usage. Or temperature. Or PCI3. You tell them PCI2 will run any set of GPUs out there today, suddenly it's about "future-proofing". Then they buy a new motherboard every 2 years anyway.
Such is the case with almost any hardware discussion on the internet. It's too obvious if you blatantly lie about something (but they do that, too), so they move the goalposts instead.
I had a friend a few months back argue against using the 8350 because "AMD is viewed as the budget brand".
Most of the time my 8350 is more than i need. Rarely ever tap its performance until i get in a mmo game with large enviroments in crossfire. I stopped caring about single core performance when i purchased a duel core. Which i find all the harping about single core performance funny since to me it really only matters if your have a single core. Then it would be most important. Just a opinion but it is something that strikes me odd.