AMD FX 8150 Zambezi (3.6ghz 8 core) VS. Intel core i5 2500k sandy bridge (3.3gh

[cj0nesy]

Hello,
ok... i should say up front I'm an AMD fanboy... but have a regular i5 2500 (not the K version) in my desktop at work and am impressed. I'm building a new gaming system and am considering these two cpu's.. both priced within $30 of each other.

I'm soliciting thought on the two for a gaming system. I've one and probably will get a second Nvidia GTX 560 ti 448 core gpu's, and of course the motherboard decision will be dependent upon the cpu selected.. but will need to be SLI capable and preferably micro atx sized as I have an apex TX-381-C case I would like to put it all in.
I'll be using the

 

[cj0nesy]

Actually... answer found.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested/8

 

[popatim]

The processors are priced simularly because they offer simular performance but the i5 will beat the FX in gaming since most games cant make use of the extra 4 cores in the AMD. Video encoding is a different matter and the FX will beat the i5.

If you decide on the FX, be sure to get a 990fx motherboards as anything lesser will not support SLI, up to 890fx they only had licensed crossfire support. SLI is possible with hacked drivers thou I've never tried.

heres Toms review, starts with media encoding results and the next few pages after compare gaming:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-17.html

 

[nightstalker_ns]

i like amd my self and i almost bought an fx cpu but from what i heard stay away from the fx cpu i only hear ppl complaining about it i dont know if its good or bad but i didnt buy it.

go with the intel one u mentioned or pick a good phenom.

 

[HostileDonut]

The 2500k is MUCH better for gaming, and still pretty much anything else you will ever do. It takes a 5Ghz AMD FX to compete with the stock 3.3Ghz the i5 offers.

 

[HEXiT]

i see the odd post in the gaming section where people are complaining about the single threaded performance of the fx. they saw the benches and read the reviews but chose to ignore them. then they come here expecting us to have a magical cure...
well the cure for gamers is sell it and buy a phenom 2.

if your into photoshop then the fx would work slightly better but its a very slight advantage... on the other hand if you want 3d rendering/ gaming/ audio production
databases/ high end mathmatics or virtually any other kind of process that you can use a pc for the i5 will out perform the fx and in some cases by a huge margin of 50%... which isnt bad when you consider it runs at a lower clock speed has 4 cores oposed to the fx's 8

unless you want to run a cheap server there is no real reason to buy an fx even when it out performs the i5... 8/10 times you will get more bang for buck out of the intel its just that simple...

but hey its your money and if you want to spend more and get less then thats entirley up to you...

 

[grumbledook]

If you're dead set on getting 8 cores, then at least get the 8120. If you're going to get the most out of a bulldozer, you're going to have to overclock it anyway so you'll get more bang for the buck with the significantly cheaper 8120.

While the 2500 is a better choice for gaming, the bulldozer does the job as well. Just be prepared to have to lower your settings faster than with the 2500.

 

[cj0nesy]

I've decided to go with the i5 2500k... thanks for the confirming comments here. Now on to the mother board... here's where I think I'm going with it... anyone had any issues with this board (MSI Z68-G45(B3)? (Should note I'm an MSI and ASUS fanboy.... heh)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1125282&CatId=7212

 

[amuffin]

Get this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271 it is the asrock z68 extreme 3 gen 3. It is a great performing board, and I know hostile donut has one and he is very very happy with it.

 

[cj0nesy]

that's a nice board... but i'm trying to stay matx.... that one is atx. Remember i plan on using micro atx case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094 ... i absolutely love this case!!!).

I'm also considering this board
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-MB-Z68MA45-B3-CrossFireX-Motherboard/dp/B005IPKFV6/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1328654903&sr=1-1

 

[amuffin]

How much do you want to spend on a board? I suggest this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131707

 

[13thmonkey]

Can you wait for ivy, panther point (or whatever its called), will allegdedly have better PCI-e lane support which for your SLI needs will help.

 

[noob2222]

The biggest issue is the lack of understanding and supported testing for the FX chips. For strictly gaming, you want to reduce latency to the video card and high memory bandwidth for certain games. This even I will admit is where Intel's on chip PCI-E controller comes into play. Communication is fast and is pretty much impossible to catch up with a separated controller chip. This is why Intel is a better choice in games, not specifically the cpu in question, but rather the entire platform difference.

This is where testing methodology is flawed and favors intel heavily. Almost every test is done with crappy 1333 or mediocre 1600 memory because Intel isn't capable of taking advantage of faster memory, where BD is 100% capable.

Also the overclocking tests are always lopsided, wanting you to believe that the FX chips can't overclock as good as the Intel options ... wrong, dead wrong. All these testing websites have had their intel chips for 9 months and know how to overclock it. They got their BD chips and had 2-3 days to figure out all the tweaks and ultimately failed to overclock it properly.

Just some figures thrown in.

8120 @ 4.7ghz @1333 memory
3dmark physics 7114
Civ V maxed settings - 15.3 fps (obviously higher than my video card should be trying)
Metro 2033 - 104 fps

8120 @ 4 ghz @ 2133 memory
3d mark physics 6820
civ V - 15.1 fps
Metro 2033 - 103 fps

8120 @ 4.7ghz @2133 memory
3d mark physics - 7958 -- 18%
civ v - 18.5 fps -- 21 %
Metro 2033 - 111 fps - 6.7%

Choosing a crappy component to pair with a decent system nets crappy results.

Intel sandy bridge max performance gain for memory =~0% - 2% from the various websites that tested it. so BD gets shafted with 1333 memory.

 

[HostileDonut]

Don't get that case, it is garbage. Not a gaming case at all! And yes, the ASROCK Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 is a great board, I have one like amuffin said. If you want MATX, get a ASUS ROG board. Other than that, I wouldn't take an MATX for a gaming board.

 

[amuffin]

Whoah I just searched that case up, looks like garbage...

 

[Vettedude]

I have this case, I love it, and it would have much better cooling than the case you picked: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119227 Cable management is rough I will admit but it has plenty of room inside for a fullsize ATX board (Extreme3 Gen3 wink wink) and tons of fan mounts.

 

[cj0nesy]

I really like those motherboard suggestions... i'll look into them more. As for the case... why are ya'll hating on that case? I don't care if it's not the prettiest case around... and cooling has never been an issue in it. I bought it because its functional, inexpensive, and highly portable. If there are some reasons as to why it's not a good case other than "its ugly" I would love to hear them.

 

[HostileDonut]

I really like those motherboard suggestions... i'll look into them more. As for the case... why are ya'll hating on that case? I don't care if it's not the prettiest case around... and cooling has never been an issue in it. I bought it because its functional, inexpensive, and highly portable. If there are some reasons as to why it's not a good case other than "its ugly" I would love to hear them.

It has a single 90mm fan, which is pretty bad airflow. And by pretty bad, I mean absolutely terrible. You may have overheating issues with it.

 

[Vettedude]

You always want at least 2 fans in a case. I have 3 on mine right now, and I'm planning on adding another.

 

[13thmonkey]

if you are sli'ing then you'll need more air, or those cards will throttle and we'll see you in a few weeks asking about performance, or in the summer when it gets warm.

 

[cj0nesy]

Now these are the comments I like to hear!!! Airflow is an issue! Good point... I've this case currently with 3 fans in it.. one sucking air in from the front, one blowing out the back, and one on the side towards the back that is blowing air out. I've not had any heating issues with the case as of yet, but I've only two GTS 450's in sli in there and that's not producing much heat. Something to consider going with the Gigabite 560 ti 448 core card... that thing is a beast! It's about 2'' longer than any other gpu card Ive seen and it had 3 monster fans on it just for that card! Great ideas for consideration... heh

 

[Houndsteeth]

The biggest issue is the lack of understanding and supported testing for the FX chips. For strictly gaming, you want to reduce latency to the video card and high memory bandwidth for certain games. This even I will admit is where Intel's on chip PCI-E controller comes into play. Communication is fast and is pretty much impossible to catch up with a separated controller chip. This is why Intel is a better choice in games, not specifically the cpu in question, but rather the entire platform difference.

This is where testing methodology is flawed and favors intel heavily. Almost every test is done with crappy 1333 or mediocre 1600 memory because Intel isn't capable of taking advantage of faster memory, where BD is 100% capable.

Also the overclocking tests are always lopsided, wanting you to believe that the FX chips can't overclock as good as the Intel options ... wrong, dead wrong. All these testing websites have had their intel chips for 9 months and know how to overclock it. They got their BD chips and had 2-3 days to figure out all the tweaks and ultimately failed to overclock it properly.

Just some figures thrown in.

8120 @ 4.7ghz @1333 memory
3dmark physics 7114
Civ V maxed settings - 15.3 fps (obviously higher than my video card should be trying)
Metro 2033 - 104 fps

8120 @ 4 ghz @ 2133 memory
3d mark physics 6820
civ V - 15.1 fps
Metro 2033 - 103 fps

8120 @ 4.7ghz @2133 memory
3d mark physics - 7958 -- 18%
civ v - 18.5 fps -- 21 %
Metro 2033 - 111 fps - 6.7%

Choosing a crappy component to pair with a decent system nets crappy results.

Intel sandy bridge max performance gain for memory =~0% - 2% from the various websites that tested it. so BD gets shafted with 1333 memory.

I always wondered about this. It seems that most Intel builds seem to benefit more from DDR3 that has better CAS latencies than clocks, which makes sense if you consider that the processor is only going to be accessing the memory at a predefined speed, no matter what.

Are you thinking that maybe if AMD were to speed up HyperTransport, or make the paths 32 bit as opposed to 16 bit (as defined in the spec), that they might be able to overcome the PCIe controller to memory latency issue that Intel overcame by moving the PCIe controller on die with the CPU? Just a thought. HT is older technology, but it is also well-proven.

 

[amuffin]

I really like those motherboard suggestions... i'll look into them more. As for the case... why are ya'll hating on that case? I don't care if it's not the prettiest case around... and cooling has never been an issue in it. I bought it because its functional, inexpensive, and highly portable. If there are some reasons as to why it's not a good case other than "its ugly" I would love to hear them.

If portability is your concern, you may want to check out the cm storm scout, trooper and many other mobile cases that look cool and give awesome performance.

 

[13thmonkey]

Now these are the comments I like to hear!!! Airflow is an issue! Good point... I've this case currently with 3 fans in it.. one sucking air in from the front, one blowing out the back, and one on the side towards the back that is blowing air out. I've not had any heating issues with the case as of yet, but I've only two GTS 450's in sli in there and that's not producing much heat. Something to consider going with the Gigabite 560 ti 448 core card... that thing is a beast! It's about 2'' longer than any other gpu card Ive seen and it had 3 monster fans on it just for that card! Great ideas for consideration... heh

turn the side to blowing in not sucking out.

positive pressure is your friend, 2 120mm inputs and a pair of 120mm outputs would be nice. Keep the outputs constant, an vary the inputs according to temp, so that when you are gaming it is louder and pushing more air than when it is idle or you are doing light work.