Upgrade from an FX4170

Lucas Gill · Apr 2, 2013

Hi all, I'm wondering if upgrading from an AMD FX4170 to an FX8350 would be worth it for gaming performance.
I mainly use my PC for gaming, and my current specs are;
AsRock 970 Extreme 3 MoBo
AMD FX4170@stock
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
Sapphire Radeon 7870GHz Edition
Silverstone Strider Plus 750w
Around 3 terabytes combined HDD space

So, basically, would the performance gained by upgrading to 8350 be worth it?

Thanks

ASHISH65 · Apr 2, 2013

yes it will be worthwile upgrade.you will get more performance with fx 8350 along with hd 7870

Sc02 · Apr 2, 2013

Depends what games you play, and Yes the upgrade is good if you can afford it.

Thanatos Telos · Apr 2, 2013

Personally, I would save and get an 8320 with a cheap cooler and OC it. They're practically identical. (Not counting clock-speed or coolers.O

Lucas Gill · Apr 2, 2013

Thanatos Telos :

My board is pretty crap when it comes to overclocking :/

Upgrades · Apr 2, 2013

Lucas Gill :

Perhaps just wait for the next generation of AMD CPU's if you're patient enough. If you can't OC the FX-8350 well, you may not see much of a difference in gaming performance if the games you play are single-threaded.

edit: However, with multi-threaded tasks/games you will definitely see an improvement. Also, if your current CPU is bottlenecking, the 8-core chip may eliminate that.

8350rocks · Apr 2, 2013

Actually the FX8350 will be about a 30-40% increase in gaming performance, not only are you going from bulldozer to piledriver, but you're also doubling the number of cores you have. The 8350 is a very sound investment. I would recommend it completely.

Lucas Gill · Apr 2, 2013

Alrighty, sounds like everyone thinks the FX8350 will be a worth while upgrade, thanks for the replies everyone

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

No problem, please share some solution love to one of us.

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

8350rocks :

40%?!?!? Where did you find that number?

I'd say you are looking more like 10% in most cases. It's going to be a very small upgrade for most games. FX-4170 performs roughly the same as the Fx-4300 (it's bulldozer, but it's 4.2Ghz stock) and in nearly all benchmarks, the fx-4300 is only a small margin behind the fx-8350. Games just really don't use more than 4 cores.

griptwister · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 is wrong. And 8350rocks means up to 40% in gaming improvements. IMO, I'd save myself some money and buy a FX 8320, but I guess since you don't plan on OCing, go for the FX 8350. It's only 200Mhz faster and operates at 4.0GHz when it's not set to power mode.

To answer your question, Yes. It if very much worth it.

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

No, the FX4170 is bulldozer, the FX4300 is piledriver, so the FX4300 is 15% better at single threaded applications to start off...add the fact that you have more Cache on the FX8350 (twice as much in fact)...and you are gaining another 15-20% efficiency from being able to hold more instructions in your cache.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-8350-vs-AMD-FX-4300

Have a look at that benchmark comparison.

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

8350rocks :

Piledriver is 15% faster at same clock speed, but the 4170 has a 11% higher clock speed than the 4300. That puts the performance difference somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5%.

Your cpuboss link shows synthetics. Synthetic benchmarks use all cores, but games will not use more than 4. If you had a game that could use all 8 cores, then yes, it would be a huge upgrade.

Here's some real game benchmarks:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300_6.html#sect0

Even Crysis 3 and Fary Cry 3, which are some of the most multi-core friendly games, only shows a few FPS gain when using a GTX680: http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

Personally, I don't think moving from 55 to 64 fps in far cry 3 as a worthwhile upgrade for $200.

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

griptwister :

I'd love to see the benchmarks.

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

The difference in FPS in Batman AC at 1280x800 resolution with no AA (more CPU bound) is 31 FPS that's a 34% improvement...in the other games, the results are similar. Of course when you run it at higher settings on a capable card the gap closes.

The thing is though, he isn't using a GTX680/HD 7950 class GPU...so he is naturally going to be more CPU bound in a lot of games.

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

Forgive me if I laugh at using an 8350 with a card that can only do 30fps in Arkham city and then laugh harder at using such an odd combo to make claims about performance differences.

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

The Tahiti based HD 7870 is no slouch...it's not a HD 7950/7970...nor should it be...but it will be a decent card, and the FX8350 will pair well with it.

If you laugh at anything, it should be that, at this point, you're just arguing for the sake of argument.

griptwister · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

Simple mathematics. 4 + 4 = 8

So that means even though we should be seeing about a 50% improvement in performance, we aren't. Simply because that's how things work in the PC world, You add 2 GPUs, but you hardly ever see perfect scaling. Are you going to say that 680 SLI is horrible because the game you love to play isn't well optimized for the second GPU? No! Same thing goes for the 8 core CPU, not all games are well optimized for the (other 4 cores in an) 8 core. Another thing is, The CPU won't make the framerate drop as dramatically as you're thinking, The CPU only limit's the FPS... and in certain points, it may drop, but, it's an 8 core, and it is enough for day to day usage and high setting gaming (even ultra in a few games). Another thing... look at how good AMD can run a game using all 8 cores and how bad an i7 can run a game with HT enabled...

Soo... What was it you were saying about the Arkham City and the HD 7870? Honestly, it would play Batman at about 40 FPS on average is my guess. Again, you're saying things with no proof for your claims.

http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/6

http://techreport.com/review/22573/amd-radeon-hd-7870-ghz-edition/5

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

8350rocks :

There's no way they used a Tahiti 7870 and only got 30fps in Arkham city. You didn't mention the card before, but that's just not possible. I got over 30 fps at 1680x1050 in arkham city on a 5770.

I'm arguing to prevent the OP from spending $200 and ending up with essentially the same performance in most games. And it's you guys (or are you both the same guy) that aren't providing any real game benchmarks involving these CPUs - I listed links to several.

twelve25 · Apr 3, 2013

griptwister :

Thanks. One more link showing only 10fps between the 8350 and the 4170. 60 vs 70fps and both vsync capable. Not even CLOSE to 40%.

griptwister · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

Again, it's not using all eight cores. You however proved the performance increase of the FX 4300 over the 4170. Get a clue yet?

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

twelve25 :

The OP is using a tahiti 7870...I don't know what review you were talking about...?

Edit: I figured it out, you thought I said they got 31 FPS...no...at low settings, in the review you posted, BAC had a difference between the FX8350 and FX4300 of 122 FPS (8350) to 91 FPS (4300)...the DIFFERENCE between the 2 was 31 FPS, or a 34% increase by going to the 8350.

I am simply trying to help the guy fix his issue...the FX4170 isn't bad...though some games are brutal on machines that are bottlenecking...(Crysis 3 for example among others)

The Q6660 Inside · Apr 3, 2013

The 8350 will be a massive upgrade over the 4170...

8350rocks · Apr 3, 2013

dirtyferret :

Some people (not naming names) just like to argue...I am beginning to determine which ones they are though.

I agree FPS over 90 is a bit much, and anything over 60 is probably excessive.

Upgrade from an FX4170

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