


When AMD’s Bulldozer emerged, we were particularly disappointed that it wasn’t able to resolve the performance deficits suffered by AMD's older architectures in processor-bound games. In fact, our Skyrim tests demonstrate that the FX-8150 underperforms a Phenom II X4 980 across the board, even at 2560x1600.
The Piledriver-based FX-8350 does not completely ameliorate AMD’s gaming issues, but it does improve on the Bulldozer architecture, at least pushing past the Phenom II flagship.
I presented AMD with my findings and we came up with a couple of sources for the speed-up, which, combined, likely explain what’s happening. Most obvious is the 400 MHz-higher base clock rate, enabled through power optimizations. Second is Piledriver’s larger L1 DTLB (from 32 entries to 64), which can benefit performance when a game searches through large data structures spanning multiple pages.
At the end of the day, AMD still has work to do in improving game performance. But Piledriver certainly does help rectify the slide backward we saw Bulldozer taking relative to some of AMD’s previous quad-core parts in processor-bound games.
- Meet AMD’s Piledriver-Based FX Line-Up
- Overclocking And Platform Compatibility
- The Piledriver Architecture: Improving On Bulldozer
- Hardware And Software Setup
- Benchmark Results: PCMark 7
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11
- Benchmark Results: SiSoftware Sandra 2013 Beta
- Benchmark Results: Content Creation
- Benchmark Results: Adobe CS 6
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Compression Apps
- Benchmark Results: Media Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft: Mists Of Pandaria
- Power Consumption And Efficiency
- FX-8350: Still Not The FX Us Old-Timers Remember…
I now really don't see people purchasing it though....people will be buying the 8320.
I now really don't see people purchasing it though....people will be buying the 8320.
If more games / daily use apps start using more cores these new AMD's could really take off.
Thanks for the review.
Btw Chris, how many cups of joe did you had to take for the overclocking testing?
5-12% performance increase 12% less power - sound familiar?
the only difference this time was less hype before the release. (lesson well learned AMD!)
You seem to forget that unlike Intel's Ivy compared to Sandy, Vishera versus Zambezi leaves Vishera the superior overclocker as well as cooler-running and with superior overclocking price/performance ratios. There's also the fact that AMD did this on the same process node, not that that matters as anything other than a foot note.
One really big one. Kept me up till 5AM this morning ;-)
Anyway it good upgrade for owner with am3+ board... (including me
If you are paying that much, why would you let it set idle, turn it off instead!
But wow! at only 195$ this 8350 looks like a clear winner! Nice Comeback AMD !
But wow! at only 195$ this 8350 looks like a clear winner! Nice Comeback AMD !
It really isn't a cut & dry black & white situation. Depends on the workloads and purpose...
for now i'll pass. if it was truely under $200 i would consider it for my next low end system, but so far the price is well over $200 and not worth it.
amd fx-8350 for $219.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284&name=Processors-Desktops
intel i5-3470 for $199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115234
intel i5-3570 for $214.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233
intel i7-3770 for $299.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116502