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Newst CPU's- AMD vs Intel. What to do?!
BilboDoggins
Member Posts: 198
Im trying to get the best info regarding the current and/or near future AMD and Intel CPU's.
I see alot of talk about chipsets like "Bulldozer" and "Ivy-Bridge, SandyBridge" etc etc but its hard to decide which one is actually best as many discussions on these things get muddled up because of fanboism. Its very hard to get good info on these subjects because whenever I ask about AMD processors for gaming a bunch of people come along and say they are garbage, bottleneck your system etc. Is any of this even true? How much better are intel processors for gaming? Is it worth the money?
What I wanna know is which is the better investment for gaming and for the future?
Comments
If you really look at some real benchmarks for games you will notice there isn't that much of a difference. The Intel SB's are faster right now and that is a fact. When Piledriver and IB come out though...who knows.
Depends on what ur budget is, what ur willing to spend.
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Oh my got!!!
i neber see a graphic of this before,
i neber p2p any game before, but this game i must!
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At the high end, if you're comparing an AMD FX-8150 to an Intel Core i5-2500K, then the former has eight slower cores, while the latter has four faster cores. Eight slower cores win if a program scales flawlessly to eight cores. Four faster cores win if it can't scale past four cores. Hardly any games that are meaningfully processor-limited at four cores scale well to more than four. Often the reason they're processor limited is that they don't scale past one or two cores.
Now, they're both very capable processors. So it's not like either one is going to make any games flatly unplayable in the near future. But for future-proofing reasons, you'd prefer to have the processor that will continue to perform well in games as far into the future as possible. And that does take some guesswork. If you believe that there will commonly be games that scale well to eight cores but are still meaningfully processor-limited, then you should prefer an FX-8150. If you believe that future games that are meaningfully processor-limited will be that way in part because they don't scale well enough to enough cores, then you should prefer a Core i5-2500K. I'd bet on the latter, considering that there are already many games that fit the latter description (though none yet that would choke on a FX-8150) and none that fit the former.
At the lower end, let's say you're comparing an AMD FX-4100 or perhaps AMD Phenom II X4 960T or 955 to an Intel Core i3-2100. Now AMD offers you four slower cores, while Intel offers two faster cores. Again, all of those processors are adequate for gaming today. Still, games where they struggle probably aren't so far away. Basically, you want a processor that will run games flawlessly as far into the future as possible. If you think that there will be future games that are meaningfully processor-limited in spite of scaling well to more than two cores, then you should prefer an AMD processor. If you think that the reason future games will be processor-limited is precisely because they can't put more than two cores to good use, then you should prefer the Intel.
This time, I'd bet on the former. There are already games that are meaningfully processor-limited in spite of being able to put a third or fourth core to good use. Without leaving MMORPGs, I'll cite Champions Online and SWTOR as examples of this. And I'd bet on seeing a lot more games that can put three or four cores to good use in the near future, but still struggle if those three or four cores are too slow. Now, both CO and SWTOR will run well on any of the processors mentioned, but I think they're harbingers of future games that will be more demanding on processors.
That's why I say for gaming purposes, buy a Core i5-2500 or 2500K if it fits your budget (loosely, $1000+ for the whole computer excluding peripherals) and an AMD quad core of some sort if it doesn't.
Good stuff Quiz and thanks for the informed reply.
Going off what you said heres my next question. Where does the value of a something like an FX-8150 meet Intel at for both performance now and in the future?
Also I already have a 1090t BE. Is there any real reason to upgrade from that anytime soon to either a newer AMD or Intel CPU or is the 1090t sufficient for a few years anyways and I'm just throwing money away?
I dont like my motherboard either Nforce 980a SLI chipset and I need to upgrade that badly which is why I'm considering a new processor now. I figure if I'm gonna sink $200+ into a new motherboard than I should plan around whether I want a better AMD or Intel CPU.
If I stick with the 1090t are there any MoBo's that will be great for that and for future AMD CPU's or am I better off keeping my shitty mobo now and waiting until something new comes out?
Why do you want to replace the motherboard? Do realize that your Windows license might think it's a different computer if you replace the motherboard.
You could get a Socket AM3+ motherboard with an AMD 900 series chipset. That will get you a new motherboard, while allowing you to keep your current processor. That is the native platform for Bulldozer processors such as the FX-8150, and may also eventually take next generation Piledriver processors. There are a variety of contradictory rumors about that.
Its an older chipset which isnt really supported anymore as its an AMD motherboard with a Nvidia chipset.
I had no idea about that my Windows license might think its a new computer though. I will have to check into that. It was an OEM version of W7 so I can see how thats possible. I sure hope not though because it will be a problem in the future.
However if thats true I could wait for Windows 8 anyways and just do ALL the upgrades around that time as theres rumours that it will work better with the new 8 core style AMD's (or so people have been sayin). Do the MoBo, W8, and CPU all at the same time I guess.
Whens Windows 8 supposed to come out anyways? I LOVE Windows 7 anyways so I'll be crossing my fingers for it to somehow improve upon 7 and not be another Vista.
I don't have anything to add to what Quiz says there. Its a pretty widely and accepted opinion of todays computer situation: If you can afford to, go with Intel Core i5 2500. If you can't, go with an AMD Phenom II X4 or FX4100. For gaming, really, no other processors make a whole lot of sense (although you can make cases for using a Core i7 or FX-8150 for non-gaming stuff). All said and done, the difference in cost between an Intel Core i5 2500 system and an AMD system is about $150 (the processors are about $100 apart alone, and AM3+ motherboards tend to run just a bit less than 1155 motherboards - aside from that it's the same components).
Intel is faster per-core. AMD has more cores. Games right now down't really care about how many cores, so long as you have enough (that magic number today is about 3 and that number has been slowly going up). So today, fewer faster cores win. Over the short lifespan of multi-core CPU's, fewer faster cores has always won, to the extent that for the first couple of years dual core CPU's were actually slower in gaming than a faster single-core CPU.
AMD's aren't the fastest CPU, but they are fast enough. Intel may be faster, but it's the difference between 90FPS and 130FPS - that extra speed is not that significant when gaming, but could go a ways towards extending the life of the computer when that extra speed may be needed and does become the difference between 25FPS and 60FPS. Of course, there is also a chance that developers actually get multi-threaded engines out there and in use: it's not likely to happen in the current lifespan of current CPU's, but still possible. In that situation, more slower cores would beat fewer faster cores.
The 1090 is still a fine CPU. It's basically the 6-core version of what most of us recommend for the budget-end. Those extra 2 cores won't really give you any gaming performance (much like the extra 4 don't with the FX-8150), and aside from that you may has well have any Phenom II model. You wouldn't see anything by upgrading to an FX-8150 (in fact, I think the 1090 right now benches slightly faster than the FX line), and you would see some modest gains going over to an Intel Core i5, but it wouldn't be very significant - games like Civ5 or EQ2 would see a good bump that are heavily CPU core-bound , but most games wouldn't see anything as they are already graphics limited well over 60FPS on most every modern CPU.
You could upgrade to a decent AM3+ motherboard for about $100-120, although you won't really net any speed gains. You could get some newer peripheral options: USB3, SATA3, RAID controller, etc. However, unless you have a full retail (non-upgrade) Windows license, you'd need to address that problem, and that adds another $100 to the situation. And all of those peripheral options can be added in on low-power PCI cards as well if they are that essential.
I would go with the Bulldozer for 2 reasons. First is that the only games that are CPU limited will benefit from the extra cores. You need to be running at 2 GHz or less to be CPU limited by single/dual thread games. Second is software based physics. PhysX for instance can scale to 12 cores and uses a high amount of floating point operations. This is what Bulldozer excels at. Executing a large amount of floating point operations. Only real problem is its x86 instead of SSE.
When you are looking at strictly games, I don't really see a place for the Intel 2500K. Games either barely touch the processor, or need many cores. Right now I think AMD has it in low end laptops, gaming, 3D rendering, and some servers. Intel has it in everything else.
Can't go wrong with a I-2500k in my opinion. Skyrim is running right now on my big screen T.V., with 10 spawned dragons and a mob of angry guards with arrows in there knees(about 40 guards altogether), Maxxed Graphics across the board, and my CPU is looking at it's fingernails in boredom. it's at 16% right now. o/ced to 4.3.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
I disagree with both of these statements. In fact, I pretty well challenge your entire post.
By and large, games which are CPU limited will not benefit from extra cores. Today, games which are CPU-limited are largely single-threaded, and at best are dual threaded. EQ2, Vanguard, Champions Online, RTS games, etc.
These same titles will be CPU limited at 2G, or 4Ghz, or likely 10Ghz. It's just due to the nature of their programming. The older titles are just poorly optimized, and inefficiently leverage the technologies available in CPUs. RTS by their nature get CPU bound as hundreds upon thousands of units are introduced into the game over time, and AI and graphics engines calls accumulate over the course of the game.
I can only think of 1 game that will go past 2 cores well, and that's Supreme Commander
This article is a bit older, but sums it up well with several popular games
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/11
So to all of that, while I think AMD makes a fine processor, right now individual core speed trumps more cores. The magic core count today is still 3, anything past that is largely useless. It has been going up though, at a rate of about 1 core every 3 years, and there is little reason to buy anything less than a quad core CPU unless your extremely budget constrained. So 6 and 8 core CPUs likely won't be leveraged in gaming for many, many years yet, as we still aren't leveraging quad core CPUs.
PhysX (and other physics packages) can spread across many cores. It typically doesn't. In fact, the only multi-core implementation of PhysX I could find was in Vantage benchmarking Suite. Most every video game that uses PhysX does so with a single thread. Developers have to specifically use PhysX (and other gaming engines) with multiple threads, they don't do it natively on their own (at least as of yet).
To continue clearing up the air, Bulldozer is x86, it's also x64, and it's also SSE. In fact, it's listed as SSE4.1, SSE4.2 and SSE4a (which contain additional AMD-only instructions).
I'd be interested to see the list of games which require many more cores, and as a result run better on an FX8150 than a i5 2500, as I've been waiting for them for a very long time.
Champions Online sees substantial benefit from a third core. I've tested that myself.
One thing I'll add is that even if a game scaled perfectly to five cores, a Core i5-2500K would still beat an FX-8150, as four faster cores beat five slower cores if they're faster by enough. So it's not a simple case of, as soon as you get past four cores, the FX-8150 wins.
Also, I'd argue that the difference between 120 and 150 frames per second today doesn't matter. The difference between 40 and 50 frames per second in some game a few years from now does. And you'd rather have the processor that will give you 50 then rather than 40, even if it "only" gives 120 frames per second in some game today while a competitor gives 150. The problem is that figuring out which processor will be faster in future games is partially guesswork.
Being broke for the last few years, I kind of haven't been keeping up with hardware as well as I should, but one day back in 2000, I remember sitting at my computer, surfing the world wide web (thats what we called it back then) I heard a loud POP like a firecracker going off under my desk. Turns out my celeron exploded inside the case.
I've been strictly an AMD customer ever since.
If a old single threaded game is limiting a modern 2ghz processor, then the game is a failure pure and simple. That scenario is quite outlandish. The thing you have to remember is older title. Most developers are not stupid enough to make a game that the majority of the market cannot play. This means if they are using only 1 or 2 threads, the optimize it to work on 2ghz processors. Most games have not been CPU limited since Pentium IV. The bottleneck is typically the GPU.
Games that require an actual CPU are Strategy, and MMORPG. MMORPG less so in recent years. Strategy games use multiple cores. Total war scales unevenly to 4 cores. These games scale to 6 cores:
Arcania - Gothic 4
Civ 5
Dead Rising 2
Dragon Age
F1 2010
Lost Planet 2
Ruse
Medal of Honor
Yes PhysX needs developer implementation and most developers opt not to implement it properly which results in poor software PhysX application. However, the application in physics is there and is supported in Havok and Bullet Physics as well. The reason for mentioning x86 is because it processes slower then SSE. PhysX uses x86 instructions.
My point is that there is no place for Intel in gaming right now because of price and platform. If you are playing a limited threaded game, its not like you will need the processing power of a 2500K. You can just stick a cheap dual core in. If your games actually use the CPU then the game probably supports multiple core so might as well go with the 8150.
Still not seeing where AMD wins out here. I'm not an AMD-hater, but really, you can't make a coherent argument that there is no place in gaming for Intel, particularly the i5 2500, which is cheaper than the FX8150 by about $50.
*edit*
I peaked at Dragon Age too, because I was curious.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,698761/Dragon-Age-Origins-CPU-benchmarks-75-percent-boost-for-quad-cores/Practice/
It does look like multi-core is coming along, but really, that's no surprise and I've been saying that all along - just not nearly as rapidly as you seem to think it is. I still don't see where you need 6 cores, or where the list of "Scales to 6 cores" is coming from. This review sees a good deal of benefit out to 3 cores, and some slight improvement at 4, but nothing beyond that. Most every game review I'm seeing says a strong dual or triple core is fine, anything past that is largely wasted, which is why I've been recommending quad cores (and no farther) for the past couple of years.
I used to love AMD, but my last AMD processor was a 6 core 1055t overclocked to 4ghz.. It was ok but i was having a few performance issues in Darkfall as it seems to hate AMD processors paired with ATI cards...
Anyway I brought new mobo and a nice new i7 2700k and promptly overlocked it to 4.5ghz before even booting into windows.. I have not tried to push it any further but im pretty sure id be able to get it to 5ghz without much trouble.. Anyway performacne wise everything and i mean everything is so much faster.. and from what i have read about the new bulldozer processors even the old AMD 6 core processors out performan them in a lo of tests.
AMD have really messed up with Bulldozer and its just not that competitive comparted to the i5 and i7 processors, its cheaper and thats the only thing it had going for it.
At the moment i would go with intel withotu thinking twice.. If i was on a budget i would just save up that little bit longer to get an intel processor over AMD.. but if you cash is realyl restricted then I would steer clear of the bulldozers and get one of the top end 6 cores from AMD they are all pretty cheap now.
As for windows complaining about a new motherboard, it might not even have an issue but if it does all you need to do is all the microsoft number and jsut explain your motherboard broke and you had to replace it, they will provide a code for you.
I will be doing a new build next month and this is the cpu I am going with. Entry level FX and can always upgrade later if need. Cant beat this kind of price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103996
Unless somebody wants to future proof their machine I do not see much point in buying an expensive processer for gaming. My current PC is getting old now but the CPU doesnt limit games in any way at all, the processer is a Phenom X4 9950 @ 2.6GHz.
This old CPU has no problem with any game around at the moment, If somebody wants a PC just for gaming they will probably be better off saving the cash and getting a cheaper processer and spending the savings on a graphics card or elsewhere in their build.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
no 8150 wont bottleneck your computer in mmo!where it make a huge difference to get say a 2600 k from intel is if you are live,recording the live,encoding say past show,and using skype and vent.the game itself isnt the part that is the issue it is the
stuff all around that make intel the thing to have!i aint sure how it will be when fma4 is supported ,but now ms corrected 2 issue this month and supposedly the game is way more stable.if you play at 1080p and do not do multimedia then a bulldozer will do but if you do multimedia then the proc you need is 2600k)i got a 2500k and the auto turbo oc it to 4.2 by telf on stock cooler lol!
does it mean the 8150 is a junk?the fact fma4 support is scare at best make it hard to tell user to buy this.it is all fine and dandy to have great idea but if you re the only company using it and other use alternative its pretty much useless
+1
1090 will last till you need pcie3 speed ,aside from this just get a gpu
for licence issue it isnt a biggy call them they ll walk you trough the process of updating your licence info if it isnt working they ll give a number to call speak to the ms rep they ll verify your info then will link you trough proper way for updating your licence info ,you arent trying to use more then the amount of computer you licence cover your just upgrading computer component this happen all the time
I had no idea about that my Windows license might think its a new computer though. I will have to check into that. It was an OEM version of W7 so I can see how thats possible. I sure hope not though because it will be a problem in the future.
However if thats true I could wait for Windows 8 anyways and just do ALL the upgrades around that time as theres rumours that it will work better with the new 8 core style AMD's (or so people have been sayin). Do the MoBo, W8, and CPU all at the same time I guess.
Whens Windows 8 supposed to come out anyways? I LOVE Windows 7 anyways so I'll be crossing my fingers for it to somehow improve upon 7 and not be another Vista.
for licence issue it isnt a biggy call them they ll walk you trough the process of updating your licence info if it isnt working they ll give a number to call speak to the ms rep they ll verify your info then will link you trough proper way for updating your licence info ,you arent trying to use more then the amount of computer you licence cover your just upgrading computer component this happen all the time
Legally - the OEM version is tied to the computer it is initially installed on, and the sticker is affixed to. The sticker being on the computer is part of the license, and serves as a physical indication of which piece of hardware the software license is bound to.
That leaves the question: A case isn't a computer though, so what is?
While the license does allow for hardware upgrades, upgrading the motherboard explicitly is considered "a new computer" by the license. For the purposes of defining "A Computer" - they consider the motherboard to be the actual computer itself, and basically everything else plugs into it.
Should you have a failed motherboard, or something, then the license does allow you to repair or replace it with the same, or similar (if the model is discontinued or otherwise unavailable) model motherboard. This is the caveat that most people can get around - "My motherboard broke, they didn't have the same one, so they sent me a different model" - of course, that doesn't fly so well if your going from a Athlon XP to a Sandy Bridge CPU at the same time...
Now, the Full Retail edition of Windows is like drbaltazar explains: They don't care what computer you run it on so long as you only run it on one computer at a time. That's why the license is more expensive, you can take it with you as you upgrade computers. Except Vista - they changed it on Vista such that you could only transfer it once. They changed it back to "unlimited" for Windows 7.
If you have an upgrade license, your bound by whatever rules were in place for the software you upgraded (or going back far enough, to whatever full license you eventually owned, some of us may be on a long upgrade trail from Win95): If you upgraded OEM, you have to follow OEM rules, if you upgraded from a Full Retail, you follow those rules (including if you upgraded from Full Retail Vista with the restrictive "Only Once" policy).
As far as Windows 8 - the main focus for this is going to be Touch interface, possibly Kinect integration, and for a whole slew of tablets and netbooks it will also support ARM CPU's (won't do anything for desktops though). For most computer users, it won't hold a whole lot of value - it will have DX 11.1, but so will Windows 7. I wouldn't expect to see much other than a snazzy XBox-like UI that you can use by talking and waving you arms around at the computer...