Here is Another one - Cost/Performance Analysis: FX 8350 vs. 4690K

I don't know what country you're in, but the last time I checked the 4690k was not 340 dollars.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $229.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-11 13:23 EDT-0400


Even the 4790k isn't that much:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($328.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $328.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-11 13:24 EDT-0400



And the clock speed (Frequency) has little to do with it. An AMD and Intel chip, both at 3.5Ghz, do NOT have similar, or even close, single core performance. The performance per core on ALL of the Intel chips is in an entirely different realm. Any E3 v3 Xeon of similar clock speed will obliterate ANY FX chip, for an additional investment that just about equals what you'd need to spend on cooling components in order to make the FX chip relevant by overclocking.

You covered things pretty well You didn't miss anything. If you like doing multiple things in the background while gaming, the FX CPUs are a better bang for buck.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1241 V3 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($274.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $274.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-11 13:37 EDT-0400


And the 4690k is not a HT chip. It has four physical cores. Intel chips do not need to be OC capable to outperform any FX chips of similar or even much higher clock speeds when using chips that have identical thread count processing capabilities. An i7 or Xeon with 8 thread capability at stock speed will outperform an FX 8 core chip overclocked to 4.5Ghz.

Just get a 4690K. About the same price as the 8350 but still spanks it.

Multithread processing and multitasking are not the same thing. Most of the activities you mentioned only use the CPU in short bursts where single thread performance is most important. You may be multitasking, but because the computer is so much faster than you it is basically doing all of your tasks in sequence. All of the windows and you have open are just sitting in memory waiting for your input before the cpu executes your commands.

If you will be encoding video or compressing/decompressing large zip files or running complex simulations then you may want a lot of threads. The only tasks for which the 8350 can match an i5 4670k are heavily multithreaded ones like these. For everything else (including productivity software and web browsing) the i5 has far superior performance.

Having a lot of programs open will require more memory, but will not tax the cpu. Watching a movie will hardly touch the cpu if you have a decent GPU.

If you check these actual benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1261
you can see that the i5 beats the 8350 in almost every task, but it has almost double the performance in productivity and internet benchmarks. The FX 8350 is a fine chip. It gets the job done and is good enough for gaming, but the i5 4690k is just a better/faster chip.

You can see for yourself how much your cpu is being used by looking at the performance tab of the windows Task Manager. I have a similar workload to you and I rarely see my CPU jump much above 5% use. In this sort of scenario, Intel just has better performance.

He's talking about NON-gaming use. The 4690k does NOT spank the 8 core FX chips in NON-gaming applications that are highly optimized for multi-threaded instructions. The i7 and E3 or E5 Xeon's do though.

Actually, benchmarks show quite a different picture:

Best case for the FX chips: programs that process huge files or informations sets--video rendering/transcoding/editing; huge zip file creation, huge simulations (that take more than few seconds); programs that involve very little user interaction and have long periods of waiting for the cpu to process all of the information. At these tasks, the FX chips can barely beat an i5.

Gaming is likewise OK for FX chips because so many games are actually able to use multiple cores. The FX series cannot quite keep up with the i5 most of the time, but their extra threads at least keep their performance close and even bump it ahead in a few cases.

For Normal/productivity apps like MS Office, Adobe anything, internet use, corporate software, the i5 has 30% to 90% better performance than the FX series. (For Sysmark composite the 4690k scores 42% higher than an 8350)

For gaming, the FX is at least close to the i5. For "normal" use (no matter how many windows are open, the user is basically interacting with a single program at a time) the i5 is completely dominant. Only for relatively rare tasks (like packaging a huge 7z file) does the FX actually have better performance.

Hello,

Even if you don't want to overclock, the FX-8350 needs at least a decent motherboard and also a decent cooler to give its best, while an i5 or an i7 can be used with no issues with a low-end motherboard and the stock cooler. By not factoring in these additonal costs, FX seems to be a better deal, but in reality it isn't.

Most benchmarks are gaming centric, but these were some of the first to pop up on google for other applications. The i5 still comes out ahead, image editing, video encoding, multitasking. I think even in heavily threaded apps that can make use of the 8 cores, the i5's just best them with base core performance. The fx chips are ok and all but they're budget like the rest of amd's chips. Didn't even bring up i7's because amd has no competition past the i5. Calculagator pretty much nailed it, multitasking (for the majority) is nothing more than sequential single tasking. "Bang for your buck" just means you're "paying less and getting less" which follows common sense.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/3
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/4

I also don't know in what location/currency the op was talking because for the u.s. in $ those prices are way off. I wouldn't worry about amd's power consumption in terms of additional operating cost, although finding an amd motherboard with enough power to handle a 125w 8c chip at full load let alone overclocked seems to be a challenge within it's own. I'd recommend an aftermarket cooler regardless of the cpu, amd or intel - but if the amd's 8xxx is going to be kept under load, it'll need more substantial cooling to keep all 8 cores cool. People keep pointing out that intel chips are so much hotter and compared to their larger die predecessors that may be somewhat true. When intel chips (i5's or i7's, oc'd or not) reach their limits, it's physical cpu design limits - not thermal throttling or power delivery issues which both seem to plague amd 8xxx/9xxx far more often. Looking at it from an upgrade perspective, no broadwell won't be a huge step up but if a user goes with an i3 or i5 they at least have the i7 as a potential upgrade path. With amd, there's so little performance gained from going from an 8320 to 8350 to 9370 to 9590 the user may as well keep whichever version of the same chip they get to begin with. There's nothing to upgrade to that won't require a whole new motherboard and as I understand amd won't have a new motherboard/cpu out for another solid year to year and a half (well into 2016). Just things to consider.

I guess it depends on who you ask, who's running the testing and which chip they're trying to spin in the better light, because I can find testing results that go both ways, for just about any i5 or FX 8 core model you'd like to see. The particular benchmarks being run factor in as well as the specific application title AND the configuration of the application options.

As seen here, the Passmark score of the 8350 seriously exceeds that of the 4690k for overall performance that includes both threaded and non-threaded, synthetic and real world testing, while the single core scores for the i5 make the 8350 look like a the CPU has chronic lethargy.

=2236&cmp[]=1780]https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2236&cmp[]=1780



And clearly, that's not the case with the Xeon E3 1241 v3 chip, which is pretty close in price to the i5.

=1780&cmp[]=2341]https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1780&cmp[]=2341

True it does depend on the application. I'm sure in some circumstances the higher thread count helps the fx but in the vast majority of circumstances it doesn't. Looking at current newegg prices (not counting extreme deals from microcenter or vendors with hidden shipping fees like outletpc), the 8350 with a 990-fxa-ud3 motherboard, even with the mir at newegg comes to $295. The 4690k with a comparable z97 mobo like a gigabyte z97 d3h comes to around $355. Along with performance, the z97 has someplace to go while the am3+ doesn't along with m.2 and sata express support the am3+ doesn't. Even if a person keeps their system for a year (lowballing), $60 difference is so little it's getting harder and harder to recommend the amd line. The price difference includes a more capable and more recent platform aside from just cpu performance.

As a side note after looking around at current prices, compared to the holiday season a couple months ago now doesn't look like the best time to be building a system. I can't say for amd since I'm not as familiar with their pricing, but z97 mobo's that were going for $115-120 just a couple months ago are now sitting at $150+, the 4690k is back to $240 at newegg (was down to $210 before) etc. Anyone building right now would be out an easy $50-60 on those two components alone over what they were. Maybe I'm just a tightwad, but I'd definitely be holding out for some sales.

Nah, I agree. Now is NOT the BEST time, for a lot of reasons. One, hardware is in shorter supply after all the holiday sales. Much of the popular hardware wasn't even available, at any price, for a while there due to being backordered. Two, with supply and demand comes higher prices until the supply once more outweighs the demand. Three, once Broadwell and Skylake are released, regardless of any performance improvements, new buyers will gravitate towards those models which in turn will reduce demand for older models, which SHOULD somewhat affect pricing as well.

You also have to consider that Oct-Dec is the run the manufacturers use to boost their overall sales so profits will look better to stockholders, which is why they tend to dump a lot of inventory at reduced prices during that timeframe. Or at least it sounds good on paper.

Responsiveness of the browser in terms you're talking like site updating 'realtime' websites like fb, the message center here on tom's etc is going to be relying on your internet connection more than your hardware. My old core 2 duo e8400 was 'snappy' in terms of web browsing and interactive webpages. No massive hardware needed for browsers. Ram would help more in that case.

Even 8gb is plenty for multitasking in terms of browsing, I only have 8gb of ram with a 4690k, my cpu is at 4-5% with 2 fb pages open (one playing a flash game), tom's open on a couple pages, etc etc - 49 tabs open across two windows in chrome and it's not even breaking a sweat.

There are xeon's like the 1241/1231 v3 that fit the 1150 socket (h97, z97 etc) same as an i3, i5 or i7. If you want to go all out with an i7 and pay around 50% more for faster base clock speed from the i5, additional 2mb of l3 cache and hyperthreading (around 5-10% up to maybe 15% improvement in heavily threaded apps) that's an option. The xeon offers the ht but is locked so can't be overclocked and is slower than the i7 by a little.

The intel platform won't be able to upgrade indefinitely, but it is more current than the am3+/fx. Nothing wrong with starting with an i7, but there won't be anything better to upgrade to on the 1150 socket. Broadwell is supposed to be available though not sure of the real benefits. Smaller die size, more efficient, may be harder to overclock because of the die shrink. Beyond that skylake (new architecture) will be on socket 1151 so it sort of seals the fate for the 1150, it's lifespan is finite. The am3+ though as far as I can tell has already reached that state is all.

I would consider snappy web browsing and similar to be 'basic' pc tasks. Whether an i5 or i7, the cpu's going to be idling 99% of the time. Since you mentioned the one important program being single threaded, the i5 or i7 would likely be your best choice. You could go with a decent z97 motherboard for around $120 give or take a couple dollars and pair it with a 4690k. Nothing says you can't run it at stock, if you wanted to run an i7 it would. If you wanted to overclock down the road, you're set up for it (just add an aftermarket cooler). Aside from lacking hyperthreading, the i5 can typically overclock within 100-200mhz of an overclocked i7. The z97's don't really cost a lot more than other options and there's no headaches messing with the bios to get the latest haswell refresh cpu's to work. Pair it with a graphics card in that budget and gaming won't be an issue unless you're trying to play something like ac unity or dying light across several monitors at ultra settings.

Any LGA 1150 motherboard can be used with the E3 v3 Xeons. B81, B85, H87, H97, Z87, Z97, they're all compatible. If you can use an LGA 1150 i3, i5 or i7 on the board, you can use those Xeons. On average they're not that much different in price to the range of current i5's.

Synphul, I haven't seen any evidence, using discreet graphics, that shows that at the same clock speeds there is any performance difference between the Xeons and the i7s. Of course performance will be affected if you're comparing a 3.5Ghz Xeon with a 4Ghz i7, but when the clock speeds are the same the performance should be identical since they're both Haswell Refresh and both have identical architectures.

The following benchmark is generic, I know, and shows slightly different scores, which is likely due to the 100mhz clock speed difference since it's pretty minimal.

=1979&cmp[]=2226]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1979&cmp[]=2226

Can't really find any decent comparisons that aren't generic or synthetic.

Yes, that's correct. And of course it needs to be a K chip.

A lot of z87's will work but it's good to double check before ordering. Check the motherboard, try and find out the bios version, what is entailed in updating the bios. Chances are a newer haswell refresh will work but there's no guarantee it will work 100% with every z87 out of the box. Some will work well enough to be able to use a haswell refresh cpu and update the bios. Some will allow updating of the bios without a cpu using a flash drive.

Unless you're in a location which has limited access to z97's, they're about the same price as z87's. It would make sense to keep a z87 if you already had it from a previous build but no real point in buying z87 when you're putting together a new system.

Agreed. No point in going with Z87 unless you're given one or get a new one REALLY cheap.

I wonder why web browsing is considered cpu heavy or multithreaded (with multiple threads) at all. A 14 year old pentium 4 wouldn't have any problems handling a thousand chrome tabs open at the same time.

Yeah right... I have an FX-8320. The difference between having the CPU run at 1.4 GHz, 3.5 GHz, or 4.5 GHz is a significant difference when I have to open the exact same 20 tabs in Chrome. CPU usage goes up to 90%.

You don't even seem to have any idea about how the whole thing works, if your "cpu usage" goes up to 90% you're just having something misconfigured. Five tabs or a thousand, doesn't matter, there's at most a few active at the same time. Most even turn completely inactive, just a few (twitch, youtube, etc) get buffered, without taking much cpu time, though.

I have done the 'experiment' and those are the results. The difference between 3.5 GHz and 4.5 GHz is more than 10 seconds. I have nothing misconfigured. At idle I have no more than 1-2% cpu usage, and when opening a single tab, it doesn't go past 10%. When opening 20 tabs at the same time, the CPU will be not be loaded constantly due to a download limit and hard drive/RAM buffering. But if my CPU can reach 90% load at times, saying a 14 year old Pentium 4, one of the worst CPUs in history, will not choke if you have 20 tabs, is simply an inaccurate statement. Remember that chrome can use a different thread per tab.

What the hell are you even on about, chrome can use one thread per tab? Even 1 tab can run in a hundred threads, although no sane programmer would do that. Actually a common webbrowser starts about 50 threads, the GUI (what you'd probably understand as the browser, which is not) being probably one. Second, I ran the test as well, I've been opening ~100 tabs, switched between them and in the end closed all, my I7 didn't even feel the need to run faster than 800-1200mhz, being around 0-10% cpu usage, of which barely anything has been used by the browser.