When we talk about affordable hardware that performs well, we like to use phrases like "80% the performance for 60% the price." Those are always very honest numbers, since we make it a habit to measure performance, power, and efficiency. But they only capture the value of a single component, and components cannot operate on their own.
After adding up the parts used in today's benchmark analysis, the Intel-based system crested $1,900, while the AMD platform ran us $1,724, both without cases, peripherals, or operating systems. If we wanted to call both setups "complete" solutions, we could add an $80 chassis to give us $1,984 and $1,804 machines, respectively. Since we're adding cost to both boxes, AMD's overall $180 cost savings becomes a smaller percentage of the total price tag. In other words, the other pieces that go into a nice high-end PC serve to diminish AMD's value leadership.

That leaves us with two completely biased ways to compare price to performance. We can only hope that pointing this out upfront keeps us transparent as we present the numbers.
An AMD bias would only include the price of the motherboard and CPU, maximizing value, like so:

A third alternative would allow us to talk about the motherboards and CPUs as upgrades, assuming you already have cases, power supplies, memory, and storage lying around. Of course, you probably don't have a pair of Radeon HD 7970s left over from some old machine, so the most balanced approach we can take at least takes processors, platforms, and graphics into consideration. Therefore, we're adding the $800 Tahiti-based duo to our shopping list.

The only way we can make AMD's FX-8350 look like a better gaming value than Intel's Core i7-3770K (specifically in the games and at the settings we used to test) is if the rest of the system is free. Because the rest of the system is never free, the FX-8350 never serves up better high-end gaming value.
From now on, we'll need to limit the use of AMD's flagship to systems already bottlenecked by their graphics cards. A less expensive CPU is more attractive when it isn't affecting performance negatively.
Intel Bias is in the (AMD) Cards?
Our benchmark results have long shown that ATI's graphics architectures are more dependent on a strong processor than Nvidia's. As a result, we usually arm our test beds with high-end Intel CPUs when it comes time to benchmark high-end GPUs, sidestepping platform issues that might adversely affect results designed to isolate graphics performance.
We were hoping that AMD's Piledriver update would break that trend, but even a handful of impressive advancements aren't enough to match the effectiveness of AMD's graphics team. Might Steamroller be the evolutionary step forward needed to unleash the GCN architecture's peak performance?
- Chasing Bottlenecks To Eyefinity (But Not Beyond)
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: 3DMark, Aliens Vs. Predator, And Metro 2033
- Metro 2033, Second By Second
- Results: Battlefield 3, F1 2012, And Skyrim
- Battlefield 3, Frame By Frame
- Skyrim, Frame By Frame
- Power And Efficiency
- Can AMD's FX Keep Up With Its Radeon HD 7970?
I disagree. What's needed is even stronger push on the developers to use more than four cores, effectively, not some 100% load on one core and 10% on the other five cores.
I disagree. What's needed is even stronger push on the developers to use more than four cores, effectively, not some 100% load on one core and 10% on the other five cores.
I thought more cores were for multi-tasking, as in having multiple programs running simultaneously. It would suck to turn on BF3 and everything else running on my PC simply shut down because the CPU is under 100% utilization. How would i be able to play BF3 while streaming/playing some HD content on my TV that's hooked up to my same computer.
single core performance... look up some other benchmarks, where they use itunes to encode things, or when i believe winzip went from single core to multicore, it shows a GREAT difference more cores can do to performance.
the problem is that few games and few programs really scale, sure, pro applications almost always take advantage of whatever you put in them, but consumer, different story.
more cores can offer more multitasking, but they also allow the load to be shifted from one core to all 4 cores and get over all more performance when properly coded.
woulda liked to see how a 3570k does against the fx8350 running the same cfx setup. impo, the price/perf woulda tipped further in favor of intel in configs like this.
lastly, woulda liked some newer games like sleeping dogs, far cry3, max payne 3 in the benches instead of the ol' bf3 single player. i hear bf3 sp doesn't stress cpus that much. may be bf3 skewed the benches in favor of amd as much as skyrim favored intel.
Why not just use two computers?
If you could buy $4 RAM instead of $40 RAM, but the $4 RAM made your system 50% slower, would you buy it? No, because it would make your $1000 PC perform like a $500 PC.
You can only do per-component value when you're only comparing one component. In this case, the graphics cards and CPUs were being tested as a pairing (just like the title says).
Again, I enjoy reading the article. Get ready for b!tching by fanboies.... Tom.
No need. My sister's FX 8350 kicks my 3570k's ass at 4.2 ghz consistently in most benchmarks. We both run GTX 480's
what world do you live in? I payed 200 euro for my i5 3570k while my sister's 8350 cost ~ 160 and gets better performance.
Why don't use AMD FX 6x00? They are cheaper, almost 60€ in my country. You have compared AMD FX 4x00 already, but i don't see any review or article using a FX6x00 and i think it's the sweet spot for an all-in-one PC (game and work, with 8GB at least of RAM).
Sorry for my english.
Your processor is only as good as the Programming that supports it, and Intel pays developers to use code that supports it and that is missing on AMD's architecture.
Can you run the whole test again with a $200 intel quadcore
and ditch the old DX 9 game engines , too?