AMD 8 Core

[dande]

I am looking at building a PC I was going to buy an intel Haswell quad core (8 core Virtual)but I notice AMD have an 8 core 4.7 GHz (AMD FX-9370 4.7GHz Max Turbo AM3+ Black Edition 8-Core 8MB...) for about 250 euro which is about the same price.

 

Has anybody used the AMD chip and if so whats the preformance like. The price just seems very cheap for an 8 core.

[numerobis]

You get what you pay for...

AMD processors are cheaper but not because they have to give away something, but because their performance is lower.

The term "eight core" is only marketing from AMD. They can be roughly compared to intels quad cores + hyperthreading. But only for multi core performance. The single thread performance is much lower! (~35-40% at comparable clock rates). So

The chip is a bit different compared to intels real cores + vitual (HT) cores. AMD uses "modules" that combine two cores with one shared FPU and cache. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(microarchitecture)

So it would be more correct to speak of 4 modules than eight cores...

 

Here are some benchmarks (only FX8xxx no 9xxx):

Multicore: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2012/-02-Cinebench-11.5,3143.html

Singlecore: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2012/-01-Cinebench-11.5,3142.html

 

The FX9000 series is clocked higher than the FX8xxx and the intel chips, but still slower than intel (but with a much higher power draw)

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/62166-amd-fx-9590-review-piledriver-5ghz-6.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/62166-amd-fx-9590-review-piledriver-5ghz-3.html

 

So i would say, for a render node: maybe - if you want to save some bucks. But for a workstation: intel!

Edited August 18, 2013 by numerobis

[dande]

Thanks for your feedback and help. I was thinking it was to cheap to be true. I'll stick with Intel