Why choose AMD FX CPU series over Intel Haswell CPU?

FX series have more cores than similarly priced intel CPUs, and therefore perform better in low-budget video editing for example. That's about it though - Intel beats AMD in power consumption, IPC and chipset featureset.

the biggest reason is a user's budget limitation. amd offers performance at cheap price at the expense of higher power use.

however, sometimes the performance disparity is worth the expense. that is why, you need to specifically pick the two or more cpus you want to compare. those cpus can't be correctly or fairly compared the way you stated. you need to set parameters first e.g. budget, requirements etc.

If you want to support predatory, monopolistic behavior by all means buy Intel.

Otherwise, AMD works just dandy.

(It's a joke . . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. . maybe?)

If you're comparing the FX series to FOURTH Gen Intel core, the FX is actually decently faster for a lot of office/productivity apps because of the larger cache and more logical processors. If you're purely gaming, slight performance advantage to Intel overall but not by much, and AMD is still cheaper.

Comparing AMD processors to 3rd 4th and 5th gen Intel processors has always been the cute thing to do. It's like saying;

HEY! I need to get from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California!

And they would say

SURE! We have a Plane ticket for $350! Or you could drive and spend $170 in gas! The Plane will get you there faster, be more comfortable, provide you with free time. The car will cost less, and be a bit of a hassle. It could also overheat from constant use

But often the broke hipsters of the tech community will argue the apple is better than the orange.

Wow, I'm full of puns. How many can you spot!

Really though, I've found that 8xxx series are quite adept at streaming live game play. Though that's the only thing I've personally ever found them to excel at more than 3rd and 4th gen i7's

I didn't notice any puns.

It all comes down to your budget, for single core operations an 4th gen intel wll have better performance. The idea behind the FX line is to provide good performance for games and multitasking while still being affordable. If you have the money to spare I would go with intel though they are much more expensive but worth it. That being said, I am using an AMD Phenom II X4 and aside from some overheating issues during summer it works like a charm. Also if you are planning to overclock AMD is the way to go.

Because the AMD processor is cheaper. That's literally all.

Don't get me wrong, they do the job OK, especially if you overclock them, which they are good at. But AMD does not have anything on the market that competes with Intel performance-wise at the high end.

I've been into building computers for over 20 years now. I seen both AMD and Intel play games to convince us that their processor is better than the others. I remember a Professor in college who taught Computer Science saying that the smartest thing Intel did was to make make everyone one believe that the processor was the most important component in the computer. I completely agree with this statement. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the processor is an important part of any computer, but there are many other components which I think are equally as important such as the hard drive performance, RAM, Graphic Card, optimized Drivers and software, etc.. As far as clock speed is concerned it seems to me that there is a point of diminishing returns. I think both AMD and Intel have realized this for which reason both have started concentrating on architecture to a large degree.

Now I'd like to turn my attention to benchmarks. I think many people put too much faith in benchmarks. If you go by the benchmarks then Intel is the better processor. Personally, if I need a benchmark program to see the difference in performance of an Intel over an AMD processor then it doesn't seem worth the premium you pay for an Intel processor. The computer I just built is customized for gaming for which reason I'm not going to comment too much on which processor is best for rendering videos, etc.. If I were to setup two computers, one with an Intel Haswell CPU and the other with a FX processor with all else being equal I don't think anyone would be able to tell me which processor is in each computer. Both processors are plenty powerful enough for gaming.

With all of that said I'd chose an AMD 9590 FX processor, which is half the price of most intel's processors for reasons I outlined above. I used the money saved on the processor for a good motherboard with a stable chipset, the best graphic card I could afford, at least 8 GBs of RAM, and a solid state hard drive.

- A Solid State Drive will allow Windows, games and applications to load much faster than with a mechanical hard drive. The transfer of data from one location to another is also much faster than with a mechanical hard drive. All this can be noticed easily without a Benchmark. If I setup one computer with a mechanical drive and the other the with a SSD driver almost anyone would be able to tell the computers apart.

- Good quality graphic card will have a much bigger affect on game settings than whether you are using one processor vs another. I have setup two Nvidia GTX 970 cards in SLI and able to play all my games at Ultra settings.

-From my experience there is a certain point where the returns in performance diminish with the the amount of RAM. 16 if not 8 GBs should be plenty.

- I chose the Gigabyte 990FX UD3 Rev. 4.1 motherboard. I prefer this board over others because you can setup up your graphic cards in SLI.

Where are people getting these price comparisons? "An amd 9590 is half the price of most intel processors" -

9590 - with cooler - $262
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd9590fhhkwox

9590 - oem, no cooler (plan on a dual rad aio cooler) - $220
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd9590fhhkwof

i5 4690k - has stock cooler (though pitiful, it has something to make it usable) - $229
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k

fx 8350 - $165
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd8350frhkbox

i5 4460 - $177
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54460

Gpu and cpu both play an important role in gaming, depending on the games. In gta v the gpu probably makes more of a difference. Any minecraft or skyrim fans out there? (I know there is a huge minecraft following) - gpu matters little, it's all about core performance on the cpu. Flight sims? Same story. If the games a person plans to play are more gpu intensive then yes the gpu will have a more significant impact on overall performance but the cpu isn't a pointless part that should be overlooked.

The 9590 is problematic heat monger, always has been. My suggestion would be to avoid it like the plague with a simple 'no thank you'. If you need 8 threads for video editing, here's a comparison.

Amd's 9590
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-9590 4.7GHz 8-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($92.98 @ Best Buy)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $415.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-09 17:26 EDT-0400

Intel xeon
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($242.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $314.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-09 17:29 EDT-0400

i7 with a capable overclocking motherboard and cooler. Price of this system could be reduced pairing the 4790k with an h97 motherboard and would be worth it for the 4ghz (4.4 turbo) out of the box over the slower locked 4790 even without overclocking it.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($327.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.50 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $492.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-09 17:34 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($327.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.50 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $434.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-09 17:35 EDT-0400

There's no advantage to amd. If by putting too much faith in benchmarks we're talking about real world performance like premiere pro where the stock 4790k vs stock 8350 the i7 has a 17% performance gain, then I guess we're putting too much faith in it. Even locked i5's are beating out the stock 8350 in premiere pro, if someone wanted a closer price/performance comparison. For every roughly 6hrs of video editing being done, the i7 is getting an additional hour's worth of work done than the fx 8 core.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-31-Adobe-Premiere-Pro-CC,3722.html

Image rendering in blender? The i7 has a 47% advantage over the 8350, and again locked i5's like the 3470 and 4430 are beating out the 8350.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-23-Blender,3714.html

3ds Max? Same story
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-22-3DS-Max-2013,3713.html

Photoshop? Rinse and repeat.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-29-Adobe-Photoshop-CC,3720.html

Winrar, x.264 encoding, handbrake, skyrim - more of the same.
http://www.modders-inc.com/amd-fx-9590-processor-review-2/4/

It is what it is, amd's 'best' just doesn't cut it regardless. The 9590 is a hot house factory oc'd 8350 with little gains from the stock overclock out of the box. Barely enough to let it keep pace with an i5, not enough for it to keep pace with an i7. Not even counting the additional power consumption. Also note, all of these benchmarks referenced are real world programs, not synthetics like pcmark, sysmark, aida or any of the others. Intel being better at gaming doesn't mean it's 'only' for gaming. Intel has a better solution at similar pricepoints that scale evenly with amd's offerings and continue to best them in just about everything from video encoding to image editing to gaming.

keep in mind the AM3+ is a now 6 year old platform . so why buy the past today to start with ?? [and it did not work well then ]

And yet the AM3+ platforms still have more PCIe lanes and connectivity than current Intel H97 motherboards ...

but only intel runs 16 off the chip it self and amd only through the chipset .. and only supports pci-e 2.0 intel 3.0

The new I7-6700K is a really good deal at $359... a few months ago I'd still have said get AMD but not now. The previous gen I7-5960x is still $1000, it has 8 physical cores and 16 threads while the 6700K only has 4/8, but they are more efficient cores and for gaming the 16 threads on the 5960x are going to be wasted. Probably even better over clock potential on the newer architecture as well.

If you need more connectivity then it only makes sense to buy a board with more features, amd or intel. That's a moot point. Intel's motherboards technically have more connectivity with z170 with multiple m.2 slots, sata express, usb3.1 and so on. Not sure what the point is. Sli is also a bit of a personal choice, sli 970 isn't any cheaper than a single 980ti which lacks the sli headaches. The initial point made was that intel was 'so' much more expensive than amd which is just plain wrong. No, it's not. Intel chips still perform better at similar price points and there's no magic voodoo to change it. I won't even touch on the fact that the majority of amd boards have questionable vrms, something intel boards don't have an issue with.

Some folks make the argument that they're supporting the underdog and if that makes them feel better then more power to them. I don't own stock in either, I just want a system that performs, period. I get no brownie points for choosing one brand over the other and it's not my job to bail out the underdog either. Long story short they made poor business decisions - as the consumer, that's my fault why? When my bottom line for my personal business isn't where it should be, is amd buying from me to aid my business and bail me out? Unlikely.

If people are happy with amd then great. That's all that matters. What I have problem with is the perpetual misinformation that amd has more bang for the buck, they're cheaper, they're this and that. No no and more no. They're less bang for less bucks and amd themselves have admitted to pricing and restructuring their pricing of parts to match intel (their competitor) at the performance level with which they compete. I don't know why amd fanboi's have such trouble accepting what their fair haired horse in the race has already admitted to. It only makes sense. A camry and an accord are direct competition, they're going to be priced similarly. Would it make much sense to price a camry at the same level as an aston martin when the accord is its' competition?

Amd also has 'moar cores', how's the 'moar' approach working out for them? Being that an 8350 (or its many variants including the 9590) are already running the risk of bottlenecking a 970, even more so a 980 or 980ti or titan, what good is having all those pcie lanes? To run triple or quad 970's, 980's, 980ti's and really bottleneck it?

I've been playing a lot of Ark: Survival evolved lately, and it is very hardware intensive. It maxes out my 970's GPU and RAM usage when I turned everything up to epic, while at the same time 6/8 cores of my 4.4Ghz 8350 are at around 50%, and 2 are completely unused. Doesn't this mean that the game is GPU limited and my CPU has plenty of headroom? I wonder if it would even run any faster than this if I had the fastest I7... a faster CPU can't make a GPU run faster if its already at 100% use, right?

for that ark game it just looks to be a poorly optimized standard for today crap running steam rental game maybe ??

http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/615086038663600061/?insideModal=1#p1

An i3 outperforms an AMD FX except in video encoding.

Not sure what you are trying to say exactly XD But that thread is from June and the game has been optimized a lot more since then.

As an Ark player with an i7 and gtx 980ti, Ark still feels unoptimized and it runs pretty poorly. Even though I can run it "playably" on my i3 and 750ti system as well.

Oh yeah it definitely still runs slower than it should, but by all accounts its much better than it was in June and prior.