Which one is better? AMD-FX 8350 or Xeon e3-1225 v2?

[avenge]

Hi. I have both, wondering wich one to leave and which to sell? Mobo1: asrock 990fx extreme 3, mobo2 - lenovo server e31 motherboard. I use it for gaming, movies, internet and some programing. Can't find lots reviews on e3-1225v2, especially gaming benchmarks.

 

[dudeman509]

Keep the Xeon for your intended purposes; the faster cores will have better performance than the FX8350. It's roughly equivalent to a slightly slower i5-2500 for benchmark purposes.

 

[spdragoo]

For comparison purposes, the Xeon is actually more like an i5 (no Hyper-Threading): http://ark.intel.com/products/65733 (i5-3470) vs. http://ark.intel.com/products/65733 (Xeon e3-1225 v2).

As for actual performance, it is going to depend on the game you're looking at. In general, Tom's Hardware ranks the FX-8320 on par with the i5-3470 (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html); although actual performance is going to vary from game to game, I wouldn't expect the Xeon chip to lead the FX chip by too much (both being released over 4 years ago).

That being said, given a choice between only these 2 boards... I would go for the ASRock/FX combination, for the following reasons:

-- The Xeon board is an OEM build (Lenovo), & I can't guarantee that it doesn't have a proprietary PSU. Their official parts list for the ThinkTower e31 (https://download.lenovo.com/parts/ThinkStation/e31_tower_9_9_2013.pdf) lists a specific 280W PSU & a 450W PSU.
-- The Xeon board is more limited on its expansion capabilities, as it has 1 PCIe x16 slot, 1 PCIe x1 slot, & 2 PCI slots (https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/thinkcentre_pdf/e31_hmm.pdf, look at in-document page #s 76-77 & 84-85). The ASRock board also has 2 PCI slots, but it has 2 PCIe x16 slots (plus a 3rd that operates in x4 mode), as well as a x1 slot (http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme3/?cat=Specifications), & supports CrossFireX & SLI (to be honest, I'm not sure how it can promise Quad CrossFire/SLI, unless you're willing to be limited to the x1 speed, but I would imagine dual SLI/CrossFire would be doable).
-- Although not necessarily as important, it seems like you don't have as much flexibility with your RAM choices. The Lenovo board seems to only take DDR3-1600MHz RAM (ECC or non-ECC), while the FX chips can use DDR3-1866MHz RAM (or even DDR3-2100 with overclocking). And while 32GB is probably more than enough, the ASRock board can go up to 64GB.

 

[avenge]

I have Gtx 970 Asus strix. I have tested it with xenon and it performs better in games. With the fx CPU I have bottleneck in most games. And as for the PSU I have ordered converter for the Lenovo motherboard to use it with another PSU. For the test I have used another PSU to power the GPU.

 

[avenge]

I am not very pleased with the amd CPU because it generates a lot of heat and throttles a lot if used on full load for long time. I have decent and big air cooler and few fans but sometimes it is not enough. Also fans generate a lot of noise.