AMD FX-8350 vs. Intel Core i5 Haswell

geperez23

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Oct 23, 2013
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I've found some threads on this comparing the two processors but none really answered my question. The AMD has a clock speed of 4.0GHZ and eight cores where as the Intel is Quad Core and has a clock speed of 3.1GHz. So my question is what makes people go for the i5? The AMD seems to be a much better processor according to my knowledge. Can someone shed some light on this for me? Am I missing something that makes the Intel better? Thank you all in advance.
 

excaliburr

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Oct 22, 2013
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You can't really compare clock speeds between intel and AMD, and also remember that the AMD is 8 cores while the intel is 4 but the intel can hyperthread. The intel uses a little less electricity and runs a little cooler. I have a friend with an i5 3570K and it counts digits of pi faster than my 8350, but mine does game better than his rig (using the same gpu) If you look on cpubenchmark.net the AMD does benchmark higher there. Also remember that the AMD is a bit cheaper. In my opinion the AMD is better, but they are very close. Intel fanboys on here will tel you to get the i5, I'm telling you they have very similar performance and the choice is up to you. But the performance isn't as clear as looking at clock speeds and core counts
 
Processors are not compared just by looking at their clock speeds. Intel cores are much more efficient so even at 3.1Ghz they are in fact better than an AMD 4.0Ghz core.

On the other hand, an AMD FX-8350 has eight physical cores compared to only four on an Intel i5.

So which one to choose really depends on what you'll be using it for. If you're going to mostly play games with it, the Intel i5 has proven to be better than the FX 8350. There are tons of benchmarks around that shows just that. Hopefully some dude won't come into this thread claiming the FX to be better based on some system requirements of an unreleased game. Or even worse some industry outlook of unspecified 'future games'

The FX is not bad either, it excels at productivity applications, encoding, and heavy multitasking, because those situations will take advantage of all eight cores.

You will find in most cases the FX 8350 to be cheaper than an Intel i5. It's performance is not far behind the best i5's and won't bottleneck any game, so you won't go wrong either way.


Edit: Yes as excaliburr stated, an i5 will draw less power and run cooler than the FX 8350. But no, an i5 doesn't have hyperthreading. You only get hyperthreading with i3, i7 and Xeon processors.
 
Intel can do more work per cycle so a higher GHz is not needed, AMD needs higher speeds and OCs to keep up in cases.
Price per dollar AMD takes it. If you have the money to throw at it, Intel almost always wins, but once you limit your price AMD starts to shine.
Comparing the 8350 to an entire lineup also does not help, pick a specific i5 and then its easier.
8350 is for multitasking and CPU heavy games, the i5 takes raw gaming performance. As games become more cpu dependent the 8 cores will be used more, but now they arent really needed.
 

jeffy1323

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Mar 9, 2014
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What isn't mentioned is that alot of games won't take full advantage your CPU so the extra cores aren't actually that useful unless your for instance gaming then running programs in the background such as streaming or screen capture software. Though this is a big mention alot of newer games are really leveraging more CPUs so the AMD are actually starting to edge ahead due to increased utilization of these extra cores. And then ofcourse new gaming consoles so xbox one and ps4 use a AMD 8 core processor so games will be really starting to utilize all these cores so you could be shooting yourself in the foot getting a 4 core i5 haswell chip. You may be alot safer getting the AMD fx 8350.

As well AMD and intel are competitors so each time they produce a chip set it is designed to beat their previous competitors so AMD fx8350 was released before the haswell chipset so in theory the new haswell should beat the AMD (basically they are always leap frogging each other). Another thing to mention the haswell chipset does get hot like very hot, but its now more stable at these higher temperatures (This is being said by alot of people on the internet).With the new i5 running hotter it has sacrificed some of the overclocking potential.

If your building a Rig with a new Haswell chip i5 the price with a FX 8350 are actually pretty similarly priced
here are some links for performance.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4670K+%40+3.40GHz&id=1921
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8350+Eight-Core&id=1780
 


I have yet to see an instance other than Crysis 3 where an 8xxx FX can edge ahead of an i5. The consoles having more cores does not necessarily mean that it will transfer directly over to PC. Sure, there are lazy game devs but most will want to optimise their product to work the best with the majority of PC components, quad core CPUs or lower with a lot of single-threaded performance - intel's forté. Even when all 8 cores are utilised an intel i5 can still match an 8 core FX, e.g. BF4.

Sandy Bridge beats the FX lineup in most games, not to mention Ivy or Haswell, so I'm not sure where your 'leap-frogging' idea came from. Sure Haswell has sacrificed some OC headroom but the higher IPC makes up for it.

I agree however with everything else you put forward. My vote for OP would be if you get an i5 4440 or above you'll be better off than an FX chip strictly for gaming. It also depends which games you want to be playing of course.