AMD FX 8350 vs Intel 3570K vs 3770K vs 3820 Gaming Performance

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axis.meister

axis.meister

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So Guys I came across these bench-marking videos pitting the gaming performance of AMD FX 8350 vs i5 3570K vs 3770K vs 3820.


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Link to original article

You can see the results for yourselves, but basically it looks like the the AMD FX 8350 beats similarly priced/ higher priced Intel chips at gaming. Obviously a huge comment war on YouTube/forum + response videos followed(some of them very juvenile and fanboyish). The productivity benchmarks are set to follow these videos soon as per the website.

I have been following this website for a while now because I like Logan's presentation style and like the topics these guys choose.

I myself am looking to upgrade my ailing C2D, and videos like these, tough educating are adding to my confusion.

I thought it would be interesting to start a discussion here about it.

aX
 
AMD's cpu market as per my understanding was the uber cheap cpu + mobo combination for the casual user, something that Intel never cared to provide. But this is diminishing at an astounding rate with the advent of tablets and mobile devices equipped with fast hardware. While the desktop high end, corporate and server space has been captured by Intel for generations to come by the looks of it.
To summarize ...its great that AMD does a better price-to-performance in gaming with the 8350. I hope they can provide a competitive mid range cpu+mobo at 5-6k soon. :)

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PS - my last 2 cpu+mobo combinations cost me around 5.5k (cheapest asus mobo + cheap amd cpu + mid range radeon) and the purpose was primarily to play games like crysis and crysis 2 at 1024*768 LOL
 
AMD always win when price to performane ratio is compared with intel, they have done a great work in low end market with their APU built in motherboards.But they always looses in the battle with intel when it comes to high end users and enthusiasts.
 
harry_houdini said:
Sometimes there are multiple paths to reach the destination. Walk on any, how does it matter.
Click to expand...

Cost!


Nalin said:
AMD always win when price to performane ratio is compared with intel, they have done a great work in low end market with their APU built in motherboards.But they always looses in the battle with intel when it comes to high end users and enthusiasts.
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Yes that is what I always thought, but these benchmarks show that they are fighting pretty well at the upper end of the performance scale too, that is what intrigued me.

I dont know much about the game streaming/xlink business these guys are talking about, maybe some of the hardcore gamers here can tell us more about it.
 
harry_houdini said:
:scared14: As far as only gaming goes, this did surprise me. Nice find mate.
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Thats what I am talking about, I was also surprised to see this. Of course these guys are not crazy enough to claim FX8350 beats any of these processors in single-core performance or power consumption. The i5s and i7s absolutely destroy any of the AMD processors in single core performance, but it looks like the extra cores do come in handy. Just out of curiousity I searched on google and found benchmarks here that do list the FX8350 higher than the 3820 but below the 3770K.

I am really interested in knowing what the hardware masters here on TE think, surely there must be a some of FX8350 users here on TE.
 
axis.meister said:
Thats what I am talking about, I was also surprised to see this. Of course these guys are not crazy enough to claim FX8350 beats any of these processors in single-core performance or power consumption. The i5s and i7s absolutely destroy any of the AMD processors in single core performance, but it looks like the extra cores do come in handy. Just out of curiousity I searched on google and found benchmarks here that do list the FX8350 higher than the 3820 but below the 3770K.

I am really interested in knowing what the hardware masters here on TE think, surely there must be a some of FX8350 users here on TE.
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Well we are talking about higher core-clocks, more physical core units. Passmark will benefit from these summed up if I am not wrong.

And I doubt real-world performance is a reflector of any such foibles, it is more of a shield against such assaults. I have a Phenom IIx4 quad-core and it still performs well enough to let me game with a HD5770 on a 20" screen (high settings, resolution of 1600 x900), maybe the card will go this year OR not dependent on a lot of independent factors but this raises a question --
"How do you define, performance?"

Yes you do a comparison against a benchmark according to various metrics and infer those results but that again does not meet your answer. For example I want to over-clock because I'm passionate about it and well Intel is asking me to pay top dollar for the best-of-the-best but for others that is not possible so they go for a AMD FX processor + 970 chipset based motherboard. This may not perform according to benchmarks at the same level as say Intel but it does deal with their needs.

So prioritise what you demand of the system and go from there.

Again not factoring external factors like power consumption, across the board performance, person to person bias. Etc etc.

Hope this puts the point across (and this can be wrong), Cheerio!

Tagging another person to contribute @sumonpathak.
 
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ALPHA17 said:
For example I want to over-clock because I'm passionate about it and well Intel is asking me to pay top dollar for the best-of-the-best but for others that is not possible so they go for a AMD FX processor + 970 chipset based motherboard. This may not perform according to benchmarks at the same level as say Intel but it does deal with their needs.
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Totally agree, Intel just leaves two options if you really want to overclock which are expensive options. Whereas you can even overclock with a basic FX 4100.
 
If you're buying a new system, there's nothing that the 3570/3770 have over the 8350, and vice versa, when you look at the overall picture. Once you start optimising the configuration for your needs however, things change quite a bit. The total cost plus the running cost play a big role, as well as how you trade off component costs against each other. Typically Intel costs more than AMD at any given performance point upto the performance ceiling of the 8350. Let's be truthful, the Intels do offer more raw performance when (and probably only when) you look at single core performance. But even that has a limit.

For example, a 3770k offers no improvement over a i3 3220, let alone any of the AMD offerings, once you hit very high resolutions and eye candy (2560x single monitor or multiple monitor gaming scenarios). That's because at those kind of resolutions, the graphics card is the primary bottleneck, even if running two or more cards (unless game is heavily CPU-bound). I do tend to agree with the overall sentiment that there was something wrong with the way the benchmarks in the video were conducted/validated. When you are contrary to most of the established results, you need to go back and see if you were wrong, or everyone else was.

There are some issues with recommending AMD for a high-end system at a cost level however. The first is power consumption, and resultant PSU requirement. Overclocking heavily influences this and one needs to be aware that an overclocked AMD CPU is going to draw a ton of power. My system has a Phenom II x4 overclocked to a modest 4GHz and my estimate of power consumption is about 60W at idle - for the CPU alone. This is not trivial and would require one to think through the purchase well.

The second is, ironically, platform compatibility, where AMD was king of the hill till the FM1 launch a few years ago. Every AMD CPU would fit every motherboard with a few limitations - old DDR2 CPUs would not work in newer DDR3 boards. This is understandable as the memory controller is on the CPU. Now though, Intel is down to 1155 across most of the relevant product range, whereas AMD has AM3, AM3+, FM1 and FM2 coexisting at roughly the same time, and with overlapping price points. With the imminent phasing out of AM3+, any investment in Piledriver today is questionable from the standpoint of future stability.

Then there is multicore performance - there are plenty applications where the 8350 has bested the more expensive Intel rivals. If your application sets require a high level of threaded performance (video encodes, 3DSM etc) you might want to consider the AMDs in spite of the higher power consumption, and still get away with it. The cheaper initial cost of the platform will compensate for the higher running cost, and if you aren't piggybacking a bunch of video cards on the system, there should be no issues with a decent, but reasonably priced power supplies.

Since most desktop tasks do not require any sort of significant horsepower and are catered to quite easily with a very cheap platform (I would venture that even a basic Phenom II or G-series Pentium can easily tackle daily workloads without hiccuping), personal choice, brand preference and fanboyism rule the roost at the middle level of the market. The AMD platforms still hold a slight edge when it comes to price vs. performance, but Intel motherboard suppliers have rapidly closed the gap to AMD even here.

At the ultra high end though, Intel still rules the roost. And it has since the introduction of Sandy Bridge. What you have to decide is whether that is the level of performance you will ever need or use, and whether CPU performance is the only thing that matters. A 3960x running Windows 7 off a Mechanical hard drive, will feel 5x slower than a i3 2100 running off a entry-level SSD. Optimising your system does not mean buying the most expensive CPU, it means spending the least possible amount for the highest possible performance based on your specific needs.
 
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cranky said:
At the ultra high end though, Intel still rules the roost. And it has since the introduction of Sandy Bridge. What you have to decide is whether that is the level of performance you will ever need or use, and whether CPU performance is the only thing that matters. A 3960x running Windows 7 off a Mechanical hard drive, will feel 5x slower than a i3 2100 running off a entry-level SSD. Optimising your system does not mean buying the most expensive CPU, it means spending the least possible amount for the highest possible performance based on your specific needs.
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Great point, SSD does make a huge noticeable difference.
 
ALPHA17 said:
Well we are talking about higher core-clocks, more physical core units. Passmark will benefit from these summed up if I am not wrong.

And I doubt real-world performance is a reflector of any such foibles, it is more of a shield against such assaults. I have a Phenom IIx4 quad-core and it still performs well enough to let me game with a HD5770 on a 20" screen (high settings, resolution of 1600 x900), maybe the card will go this year OR not dependent on a lot of independent factors but this raises a question --
"How do you define, performance?"

Yes you do a comparison against a benchmark according to various metrics and infer those results but that again does not meet your answer. For example I want to over-clock because I'm passionate about it and well Intel is asking me to pay top dollar for the best-of-the-best but for others that is not possible so they go for a AMD FX processor + 970 chipset based motherboard. This may not perform according to benchmarks at the same level as say Intel but it does deal with their needs.

So prioritise what you demand of the system and go from there.

Again not factoring external factors like power consumption, across the board performance, person to person bias. Etc etc.

Hope this puts the point across (and this can be wrong), Cheerio!

Tagging another person to contribute sumonpathak.
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Glad to hear from you on this topic. So you are running a Phenom II, heard those things overclock like hell.

As for your question "How do you define performance?", I think for a gamer measuring real-world performance would mean measuring FPS of the same part in the same game at the same settings. That is what the video does and nothing else. Synthetic benchmarks are fine if you want to prove a point, but I really don't care how long a CPU takes to calculate the value of pi to the millionth as long as it does well in games.

I mentioned the passmark benchmarks only because much of the counter arguments to the videos have been on the lines of "All other benchmarks show that Intel IB i5/i7 annihilate AMD FX8350 and only your benchmarks show that FX8350 fares quite well, so your benchmarks are incorrect/biased/fake". Therefore I wanted to say that there actually are other benchmarks that show FX8350 doing well.

One thing that did however bother me is one of the benches show that AMD lacks far behind Intel in I/O benchmarks (almost half in memory bandwidth if I remember correctly). But then again, (if I remember correctly) the memory bandwidth was something like 25 GBps on Intel, a figure that would almost never be met in practical usage. Or am I wrong on this one?

I would like to know more about your experience of the performance of your Phenom II rig and the power consumption.

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cranky Thanks for your post, learning quite a few new things here which will surely be helpful to me in making a more informed choice while upgrading.


cranky said:
For example, a 3770k offers no improvement over a i3 3220, let alone any of the AMD offerings, once you hit very high resolutions and eye candy (2560x single monitor or multiple monitor gaming scenarios). That's because at those kind of resolutions, the graphics card is the primary bottleneck, even if running two or more cards (unless game is heavily CPU-bound). I do tend to agree with the overall sentiment that there was something wrong with the way the benchmarks in the video were conducted/validated. When you are contrary to most of the established results, you need to go back and see if you were wrong, or everyone else was.

There are some issues with recommending AMD for a high-end system at a cost level however. The first is power consumption, and resultant PSU requirement. Overclocking heavily influences this and one needs to be aware that an overclocked AMD CPU is going to draw a ton of power. My system has a Phenom II x4 overclocked to a modest 4GHz and my estimate of power consumption is about 60W at idle - for the CPU alone. This is not trivial and would require one to think through the purchase well.
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Some questions come to my mind, why do people buy high end CPUs then if the GPU is the primary bottleneck?

How did you estimate the consumption of your CPU alone? and what is your system's power consumption at idle/load?

I have got the same tip about using SSDs from quite a few people now, looks like I would have to invest in a good SSD before I think of upgrading my CPU+Mobo. As for your point about Socket backward-compatibility, most people upgrade the CPU, Mobo and memory together. Rarely would people go for only a CPU upgrade, I have gone through a lot of pages on the PC buying advice section to form this view.

Just an afterthought, anybody actually using a i3/ Pentium G-series/lower end AMD cpu with an SSD? How is the performance?

@ Topic didn't Darkangel do a video on FX8350 recently? his opinion would be useful.
 
axis.meister said:
Glad to hear from you on this topic. So you are running a Phenom II, heard those things overclock like hell.

I mentioned the passmark benchmarks only because much of the counter arguments to the videos have been on the lines of "All other benchmarks show that Intel IB i5/i7 annihilate AMD FX8350 and only your benchmarks show that FX8350 fares quite well, so your benchmarks are incorrect/biased/fake". Therefore I wanted to say that there actually are other benchmarks that show FX8350 doing well.

One thing that did however bother me is one of the benches show that AMD lacks far behind Intel in I/O benchmarks (almost half in memory bandwidth if I remember correctly). But then again, (if I remember correctly) the memory bandwidth was something like 25 GBps on Intel, a figure that would almost never be met in practical usage. Or am I wrong on this one?

I would like to know more about your experience of the performance of your Phenom II rig and the power consumption.
Click to expand...

But I have never over-clocked it because of hardware limitations.

There was never a denial that the AMD processors were stronger at the multi-threaded tasks that heavily relied on cores instead of hyper-threading OR better pipeline management and consistently outperform Intel processors at those benches. Even Passmark scores can be attributed to the same. It is not a gaming benchmark.

Gaming prowess has improved in Piledriver over the original Bulldozer cores thanks to the architectural refinements that were integrated into the former. The original was a mess, it could be said that it performed like a giant BETA run to realize the actual strengths and weaknesses of the new architecture and how AMD can tweak those to extract the maximum out of the same.

You have to read some comprehensive write-ups on Vishera to realize that most reviewers / critiques are happy how AMD has managed to correct the absolute train-wreck that Zambezi was but the time and effort lost in this means that Intel has managed to introduce a brand new gate design + improve TDP for the same level of performance as its older processors. Now Vishera will have to undercut its competition on more prices because when Haswell outs Intel shrinks its architecture and improves the thermal efficiency.


Last year's launch of AMD's FX processors was honestly disappointing. The Bulldozer CPU cores that were bundled into each Zambezi chip were hardly power efficient and in many areas couldn't significantly outperform AMD's previous generation platform.

Vishera is a step in the right direction for AMD, it manages to deliver tangibly better performance than last year's disappointing FX processor. Thanks to architectural and frequency improvements, AMD delivers up to 20% better performance than last year's FX-8150 for a lower launch price, while remaining within the same thermal envelope.

AMD does manage to pull away with some very specific wins when compared to similarly priced Intel parts. Performance in the latest x264 benchmark as well as heavily threaded POV-Ray and Cinebench tests show AMD with the clear multithreaded performance advantage. Other heavily threaded integer workloads also do quite well on Vishera. Ultimately Vishera is an easier AMD product to recommend than Zambezi before it. However the areas in which we'd recommend it are limited to those heavily threaded applications that show very little serialization. As our compiler benchmark shows, a good balance of single and multithreaded workloads within a single application can dramatically change the standings between AMD and Intel. You have to understand your workload very well to know whether or not Vishera is the right platform for it. Even if the fit is right, you have to be ok with the increased power consumption over Intel as well.
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To understand my performance, I have never benched my system but I do have this motherboard -- M4A785TD-V EVO (because I never felt like), so using the reviews you can see the performance that can be churned out by it --
Hope this helps, Cheerio!
 
axis.meister said:
Some questions come to my mind, why do people buy high end CPUs then if the GPU is the primary bottleneck?

How did you estimate the consumption of your CPU alone? and what is your system's power consumption at idle/load?
Click to expand...

GPU is the bottleneck after it reaches its performance limit, usually decided by the resolution and amount of eye candy. A standard1920x1080 display is no challenge for any but the weakest of GPUs, and at lower resolutions better cards do not lead to performance scaling.

CPU speeds are very easy to display, also Intel and partners have perfected the art of marketing over the years. CPUs are much easier to buy based on new words. GPUs are seen to be less important because the industry has yet to mature. Given the on-die integration of GPUs and their gradual improvement, the discrete GPU industry will confine itself to the high end over the years. I guess this is a case of a market lagging far behind the state of technology. I would suspect this is sort of restricted to India, with its pseudo-brand culture (the shiny stuff sells not just in technology).

My UPS has a built-in power reporting module - 170W long idle (monitor off), 320W desktop (monitor ~120W) and 670W full load. I use manufacturer spec for GPU board idle power(15W each), add 20% for the overclocking I did, multiply by two for two GPUs. Then I add the wattage of the watercooling pumps and fans (all from specs), add a 20W overhead for the board, soundcards and another 50 for the disks. My idle power consumption is 170W, this nets me a figure of 60W for the CPU idle.
 
So to sum it up, is it safe to conclude the following points:-
1. People who are big on graphics and eye candy should be browsing through the AMD line up, even though they are power hungry from the word go.
Applies to gamers, HD movie buffs & graphic designers(?)

2. People who need RAW processing power and room for overclocking are better off with Intel.
Applies mostly to business people and their business laptops

Obviously it's not so easy to sum it up, but even i have the same Q that the OP had(or has) and a proper closure would be nice.
 
I think cranky points out some very interesting points. Its all about what do you want and what is your budget. For example, I want a mainstream hassle free gaming system which can handle any major AAA game at 1080p/single screen with physx. I also prefer a cooler and low powered machine (my room is small and at summer few extra degree make sense). I went with Intel i5 3470, GTX 660 and a samsung SSD. The performance of the system is top notch. Anyone who is going for AMD cpu, make sure invest in a powerful PSU, cabinet with good airflow and good enough UPS.
 
vvvinashhh said:
I was going through this....a very very interesting read and appropriate for this thread, so thought of putting it up here...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-future-proofing-your-pc-for-next-gen
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Nice read.,The article brings out some excellent points while missed out few crucial points in terms of PS4. PS4 has been designed to accommodate not just gaming but other gaming or non gaming related task simultaneously. Player will able to pause the game at anytime and open up chat or other activities, the console will support Live game recording. I am sure 1 or 2 core and some memory will be dedicated/locked for such kind of activities. Developer will not be allowed to use 100% of 8 cores and 8 GB ddr 5. Other than these , the article make lot of sense but still xbox 720 yet to be announced and lot of things depends on -which will be the primary development platform - PS4,xbox or PC .
 
If one is to judge any computer 'part' with another 'part',purely in the terms of 'gaming performance',then every circumstance,existing the present and any potential one arising in the very 'near future' has to be considered.And as such,I think I can safely state that the processor with the maximum amount of cores,with a high frequency will be the winner in the 'near future'.Do i need to state why?The whole next gen pitch and yada-yada..Also this shouldn't be shocking to anyone,this phenomenon has long been overdue,and Intel will probably surely embrace it soon.But as for the 'present',under most circumstances the intel quads will be superior,but the times are changing very fast and by the end of this year,due to the release of the new consoles and all the next gen multiplatform titles,I suspect the 'near future' will suddenly become our present.(But then Intel would also probably release their own octa cores soon....Let's see).
 
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