Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
AMD Vishera arrives, is good if you need 8 cores
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_fx8350_vishera&num=1
The NDA isn't supposed to be over until tomorrow, but they jumped the gun. And they do their testing in Linux rather than Windows, which may affect some things.
The short version is that an FX-8350 can hang with a much more expensive Core i7-3770K in benchmarks that scale well to eight cores. Indeed, you could argue for the FX-8350 on average coming out a bit ahead in those scenarios.
The problem? It still gets crushed by Ivy Bridge in single-threaded programs. Or, for that matter, programs that don't scale past four cores.
AMD is launching the six-core FX-6300 at $132, which is only $10 more than the four-core FX-4300. Six cores at 3.5 GHz with 4.1 GHz turbo should mean you can readily overclock to 4 GHz or so if so inclined. That could make it a nifty purchase for people looking to assemble a new gaming system on a budget. While you don't actually need six cores for gaming, the shared-scheduler architecture means that you can really only half of the cores at a time at full speed, and three cores is definitely better than two. The FX-6300 also has double the L3 cache of the FX-4300.
As usual, if you want a gaming system and can afford it, then you get a Core i5-3570K. But if you can't? Then the FX-6300 looks like a good alternative.
Comments
I was hoping they'd make a faster 4 core (on the bulldozer range the 4 is faster than the 6 and as fast as the 8 for most stuff)
As the first link was brought down I figured I would offer an alternative from someone who's reviews I typically find pretty well thought out (at least his video reviews anyway).
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_vishera_fx8350_piledriver_review/1
no real world tests with games and so on
kind of pointless..
Hopefully they will come over the next few days
Yet another dissapointment.
The 8350 has lower perfromance than an i5-3570 in almost every benchmark, 50% higher power consumption which will require a more expensive PSU, the motherboards so far are more expensive, and there are really no end user applications that require 8 cores.
The Linux site presumably pulled down its review because it didn't mean to put it up when it did. Sites do that quite a bit.
Anyway, lots of reviews are up now. The trouble with using games for reviews of higher end processors is that none of the alternatives are appealing:
1) All of the processors that you're comparing have such high frame rates that there's no noticeable real-world difference between them.
2) You cherry-pick badly-coded games that manage to run poorly even on good hardware.
3) You severely underclock the processors to create artificial processor bottlenecks.
4) You're mainly limited by the video card, so doubling processor performance would barely affect your frame rates.
5) You find games with some optional CPU-intensive features that make the game scale almost flawlessly to many cores, which is atypical of games.
Off-hand, I can't give you an example of #5. If you have some optional CPU-intensive features that don't scale well to many cores (the only example that comes to mind is taking GPU PhysX games and running the physics computations single-threaded on the CPU), you're probably in situation #2, not #5. #3 is pretty artificial, and really only of esoteric value. #1 and #4 really just tell you that for real world performance, they're all basically the same.
And that just leaves situation #2, which is undesirable for obvious reasons. I understand why you choose games where benchmarks will give you clear differences between the games. But this can too easily result in praising games for being badly-coded and managing to run poorly on good hardware. Or if not exactly praising the games, then at least heavily publicizing them and giving the impression that they are popular without criticizing them for bad programming.
For video cards, this is acceptable if it's a handful of graphical options that put a huge load on the video card but can readily be turned off and allow the game to run well at reduced settings on lower end hardware. But if a game released in the next five years struggles at all on an FX-8350 together with an appropriate video card, then the game is badly-coded, period.
-----
If you want gaming benchmarks, then here are some:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5
All four of the new processors mostly beat an FX-8150, and sometimes by a lot. They also tend to beat a Core i7-920. So basically, AMD in 2012 has caught up to where Intel was at the end of 2009, or 2010 if you exclude Gulftown for being too expensive.
Put that way, it's clear that AMD is still far behind Intel in programs that don't scale to anywhere near eight cores, though they've caught up at least in the sub-$500 market segment for programs that do scale to eight cores. To put a better spin on it, AMD is closer to Intel in CPU performance than Intel is to AMD in GPU performance. And occasionally AMD even wins, though for games, that's an outlier. Scroll down to the bottom to see the FX-8350 beating everything else, including Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Sandy Bridge-E in Battlefield 3:
http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/7
-----
The other interesting question is, how does Vishera compare to Zambezi? Here, Hard OCP decided to clock them both at 4 GHz with no turbo for a clean comparison of IPC:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/10/22/amd_fx8350_piledriver_processor_ipc_overclocking/5
Higher performance at the same clock speed plus higher clock speeds means a clear improvement for AMD. The comparison to Intel processors has only esoteric value, as it's overclocked Intel processors versus underclocked AMD processors. It's a useful comparison to let you do some computations (as opposed to measurements) of your own and get some idea of how they'll compare at different clock speeds if you overclock everything, but don't mistake it for stock performance.
On the bright side, Vishera comes closer to Ivy Bridge than Zambezi did to Sandy Bridge. So AMD is gaining, sort of. But this is really just a case of, it's easier to improve on your last effort when your last effort was terrible. It's the same reason why the GeForce 600, Radeon HD 4000, and going back much further, GeForce 6000 series cards were much larger improvements in a generation than their competitor could offer.
It's the same old Socket AM3+, AMD 900 series chipset motherboards. AMD didn't even launch a new chipset, so vendors will presumably just keep selling the same motherboards as they have since last Summer. Contrary to what Dogma said, AMD Vishera has a motherboard price advantage over Intel Ivy/Sandy Bridge, whether you're looking for cheap junk:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135318
the modern low end that at least won't cripple the processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130637
or a feature-rich, capable overclocker, at least if you're willing to give up CrossFire/SLI support:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131873
The cleanest analogues to those for Intel boards that I could find on New Egg are these, respectively:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135288
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293
The price advantage for AMD is $5, $15, or $21, respectively. AMD charges less than Intel for chipsets, and that filters down into cheaper motherboards for AMD processors.
AMD does lose the motherboard price advantage for CrossFire/SLI motherboards, as you can still use Z75/Z77 for Intel, but need 990FX for AMD. But if you've got the budget to do a CrossFire/SLI setup properly, then you've got the budget to get a Core i5-3570K, and there's no reason to buy an AMD processor.
This is UK though, where for some reason AMD have much bigger price gaps on Intel and especially nvidia. E.g.7870 is cheaper than 570gtx but faster than the 580
http://www.cclonline.com/product/60859/GA-990XA-UD3/Motherboards/Gigabyte-GA-990XA-UD3-Socket-AM3-Motherboard/MBD0167/
can I stick them new processors in it. Also is the 6 core worth it over the old fx4black?
Yes, it will work, but you'll likely need to update the BIOS.
As to whether it's worthwhile, that's really just a question of whether you need a faster processor or not. If your current processor does everything you ask of it and does it well, then there's no plausible gain from upgrading. But if you need a faster processor, then getting an FX-6300 and overclocking it a bit (which your motherboard should easily handle) rather than replacing the motherboard also makes a lot of sense if you can find it for about the MSRP.
Vishera is probably the last batch of processors that will be released for Socket AM3+, apart from future bins that add a bit of clock speed. Vishera doesn't have a replacement coming next year, and by 2014, AMD will probably move on to DDR4 memory. The original plan was actually to use DDR4 in 2012, but it wasn't ready yet.
It actually competes in the 1 area I need a processor at which is good. 3D rendering and OpenCL. However, I am looking at a dual socket G34 for that. In which it now really is a good choice with quad channel memory and 32 cores. Unfortunately, the Opteron versions have not released yet. I think I am going to wait for steamroller to come out before upgrading. Steamroller has a fix for x86 compilers failing to properly use the architecture.
If you were to look at AMDs current business strategy it makes sense. They are targeting entry level consumers and business users with their current lineup. The Trinity processors make alot of sense sub $600 which is where the majority of the consumer market is. In business, it probably does not make sense since alot of businesses still use old outdated unkept software where an ARM would make more sense if it was an option. In processor intensive environments it makes alot of sense because they depend alot more on active cores and have the actual coding behind them to support AMD's architecture. On a pure core count scenario, AMD may be more ineffecient per core, but have double the cores at their disposal in every arena.
Piledriver-based Opterons are presumably coming soon. Servers have greater reliability demands than desktops, so server parts tend to launch later in hopes of working out the glitches before launch.
I don't know if there will be Steamroller-based Opterons at all, apart from Kaveri/Kabini APUs in SeaMicro microservers. AMD has announced Kaveri for desktops in 2013 with Steamroller cores as the successor to Trinity, but there isn't a Steamroller-based successor to Vishera in 2013. 2014 brings Excavator cores, so maybe AMD is going to wait until then to launch new high-end Opterons.
I cant say I really uses my 6 cores...
It is of course a step forward but it will be a long time before any game supports an octacore CPU.
Cuz it's true, yeah you can find 45$ mobos with AM3 chipsets(altough dont bet 100% on the fact that they will support the new CPU's even with a BIOS upgrade, there were motherboards before that could not support newer CPU's altough the chipset supported them due to power managment issues, espcially considering the 200~ power consumption).
But you can also find H61 motherboards for just as cheap.
Ivybridge currently still has better mid-range motherboards out there, you can find a decent Z/H77 motherboard with PCIE3.0 support(the benetif of it today is debatable, but no one is buying a mother board for 6-12 months usually), for 100-150(and even lower if you really want to "dumpster dive".
Sure, you can get a decent Z75/Z77 chipset motherboard in the $100-$150 range. And you can get a decent AMD 970 chipset motherboard in the sub-$100 range. That's the native platform for Vishera, not some last-generation obsolete product like H61. And unlike a crippled H77 motherboard, 970 gives you everything AMD offers except for CrossFire/SLI support. More pointedly, a 970 motherboard such as the ASUS M5A97 that I linked above lets you overclock. And again, if you're considering an AMD processor, then CrossFire/SLI is out of your budget.
Or look at the MSI 970A-G46 that I linked above. That's $70 with free shipping for a full-size ATX motherboard with an 8-pin CPU power connector, four memory slots, eight rear USB ports including two USB 3.0 ports, four PCI Express slots (two of which are x16 physical), two PCI slots, six SATA 3 ports, and 125 W CPU support (which should allow mild overclocking of an FX-4300 or -6300, though the 8-core processors will be strictly stock speeds). Can you find a comparably loaded Z75/Z77 motherboard for $70 including shipping and before rebates without having to resort to a cheap junk vendor?
Power consumption is not going to be a problem apart from overclocking. Vishera chips have the same TDP or lower than their Zambezi predecessors, so if a motherboard can handle Zambezi, then it's got the power to handle Vishera.
The CPU support i was referencing was more towards the 8350 not the lower/mid ends of the new line.
For 89$ you can get a MSI H77 motherboard with Xfire Support, and PCIE 3.0(atm 5-10% on average with high end cards) for your Core I5.
If you don't count ASRock or Foxxconn as junk then you can find them for exactly the same price too.
I'm guessing that you're referring to this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130648
$97.55 with shipping is not $89, let alone $70. And H77 isn't Z75/Z77. H77 doesn't support CrossFire/SLI properly anyway, as the second slot is electrical PCI Express 2.0 x4, just like on an AMD 970 chipset. And H77 completely disables overclocking, while AMD 970 allows you to overclock.
The FX-8350 has the same TDP as the FX-8150, and if anything, will tend to use less power, as Bulldozer was horribly inefficient. If a motherboard has enough power for an FX-8150, then it has enough for an FX-8350.
But let's not lose sight of what started this. Above, you asserted, "the motherboards so far are more expensive". And linking a board that is, indeed, more expensive than what I linked hardly contradicts that.