

Our Photoshop and 3ds Max benchmarks readily take advantage of multi-core CPUs. Naturally, then, AMD's FX-4170 again slides right past the Core i3-3220 in both metrics. Again, Intel's Core i5 serves as a reference point for what a true quad-core chip based on Ivy Bridge can do, and really, the FX does impressively well.

FineReader is well-threaded also. However, more on-die resources don't seem to help AMD at all (nor does the higher clock rate). Perhaps there is an issue with branch prediction hampering the Bulldozer module concept. In any case, the FX-4170 loses to a dual-core Core i3-3220, which in turn is decimated by Intel's Core i5-3550.



We know that the latest version of WinZip has optimizations for threading, though we've seen those kick in most aggressively on platforms with OpenCL support (specifically those with AMD graphics). An older version like 15.5 is still largely single-threaded, which hurts the FX. WinRAR and 7-Zip are better able to take advantage each processor's architecture, and we see the FX and Core i3 perform similarly, for the most part.
- AMD FX-4170 Vs. Core i3-3220: A Fair Fight?
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Conversion
- Benchmark Results: Content Creation And Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 And DiRT Showdown
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, And StarCraft II
- A Close Race Today, But Tomorrow Shows More Promise For AMD
Hope Piledriver is all that it promises and more.
"...but Tomorrow Shows More Promise for AMD".
Tomorrow...as in ... Oct 16, 2012 or is it only figurative?
At 3.3 GHz, the 6100 doesn't fare well. It's easily out-gamed by the FX-4170, and only gets a bit of a break in highly threaded apps.
In my opinion, if you are on a budget, the FX4170 can be a decent cpu, it is $10 cheaper than the i3, it isn't much but might be able to give you a slightly bigger budget on graphics. Its not a complete wash either. The power consumption might be high but nothing a desktop can't handle, would be more expensive for people who pay more for power but generally in north america, power is pretty cheap.
At 3.3 GHz, the 6100 doesn't fare well. It's easily out-gamed by the FX-4170, and only gets a bit of a break in highly threaded apps.
Does that mean the FX-4170 and 6100 really share the same MSRP? Because I was thinking that it may just be a Newegg (shop-specific) price thing (possibly a sale/discount).
I don't think it would've been a bad idea to have it around if that were the case (though I don't mean to impose more work on you guys). It might've been something to see what relative application performance score it would've gotten compared to the i5, as well as how much it performs less compared to the FX-4170. (I imagine by not so much since a lot of the games were GPU-limited already.)
NO fanboi here....
My current AMD powered laptop plays Skyrim reasonably, something that would have easily required another $100 to do with an Intel laptop at the time of upgrade.
Next time? Whatever has the best numbers will be what I buy... (I always wait to see if a chipset or CPU/GPU is plagued with problems before I buy - usually 3-6 months after they hit market)
Brand loyalty is something companies try to instill in consumers, and nowadays it has no place in a consumer's choice of hardware or software.
Buy what will do the things you NEED to do... forget about joining the war one way or the other.
If more people would buy what is on top instead of supporting only one company, more companies would have to innovate and improve their products more substantially.
A: 10 frames is significant. It's 16.6%
B: This is about benchmark performance, not whether you'll notice the drop in frames or not.
However, I will note that if your display is 60hz, and the game you're playing has vsync, then that small 5 frame difference between the game running at 55 fps and the display's 60hz actually changes to a HUGE frame drop, because the FPS will drop to 30 to stay in sync with the display.
Not something you'd like with Australian electricity prices.