CPU Charts 2012: 86 Processors From AMD And Intel, Tested

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Benchmarking 86 CPUs takes a while. After long last, though, we have 51 models from AMD and 35 from Intel tested in our current suite. If you want to know how your processor sizes up to its competition, you'll find plenty of comparison data inside!

AMD: Bulldozer

When we set out to create this resource, AMD's FX family of desktop CPUs was still based on Zambezi, which employs the company's Bulldozer architecture. Of course, as we all know now, the Piledriver-based Vishera parts are available, and have been since late October. Worry not; we are in the process of running several more processors based on Piledriver through the same suite of benchmarks, and will be updating the charts soon. If you want to take a look at how the FX-8350, specifically, sizes up to seven other CPUs (including a number of the chips tested in this story), have a look at AMD FX-8350 Review: Does Piledriver Fix Bulldozer's Flaws?

Regardless of whether you're looking at a Bulldozer- or Piledriver-based chip, though, All FX CPUs are manufactured at 32 nm. They all drop into the Socket AM3+ interface. And they all include between 4 and 8 MB of shared L3 cache.

Naming of the older FX processors is pretty straightforward: FX-41xx comes with two active modules, totaling four integer cores; FX-61xx-series chips employ three modules, comprised of six integer cores; and the FX-81xx family features four modules, for eight integer cores. Piledriver updates these to FX-43xx, FX-63xx, and FX-83xx.

Notice the distinction between modules and cores. Bulldozer is different from more traditional designs in that it only duplicates resources where necessary. So, one module has two integer clusters, but shares a floating-point unit, decoder, and L2 cache. The idea is to balance complexity and performance, achieving better parallelism at any given power level or transistor count.

More information:

Benchmarked AMD Bulldozer CPUs:

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FXCode NameRev.CPU SocketNumber of CoresClock FrequencyL2 CacheL3 CacheMemory ControllerTDP
FX-4100BulldozerB2AM3+43.6 GHz2 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-186695 W
FX-4170BulldozerB2AM3+44.2 GHz2 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-1866125 W
FX-6100BulldozerB2AM3+63.3 GHz2 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-186695 W
FX-6200BulldozerB2AM3+63.8 GHz3 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-1866125 W
FX-8100BulldozerB2AM3+82.8 GHz3 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-186695 W
FX-8120BulldozerB2AM3+83.1 GHz4 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-186695 W
FX-8140BulldozerB3AM3+83.2 GHz4 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-186695 W
FX-8150BulldozerB2AM3+83.6 GHz4 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-1866125 W
FX-8170BulldozerB3AM3+83.9 GHz4 x 2048 KB8 MBintegrated up to DDR3-1866125 W
Manuel Masiero
108 Comments Comment from the forums
  • amdfangirl
    Sometimes I wish you updated legacy CPUs like the Core 2 Duo or even perhaps the Athlon 64 X2 series, just one or two models so that people upgrading can have an idea how much faster the CPU is in relation to their new purchase.
    Reply
  • Where are the Visual Studio Test results?
    Reply
  • johnsonjohnson
    Sandy and Ivy i3s are MIA.
    Reply
  • emperor piehead
    Why is the fx6300 missing i wanted to see how it fit into this
    Reply
  • Thanks Toms, now i know that i can get double the performance and 3/4 the power consumption going from AMD 955 to a Core i5 3570K.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Great benchmarks.
    But i want some processors which were legendary overclockers, and representatives of their generation of CPU's, included with a nominal OC :

    intel C2D E7300 : 2.66- > 3.33
    Intel C2Q Q6600 : 2.4- > 3.0ghz
    Intel i5-750 : 2.66 - >3.33

    Its highly likely that a person has owned at least one of these CPU's. I want to know how well these compare to modern processors.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    And please update the Winrar to version 4.2 . The 3.9 you are using is quite old and has poor multithreading.
    Reply
  • bak0n
    amdfangirlSometimes I wish you updated legacy CPUs like the Core 2 Duo or even perhaps the Athlon 64 X2 series, just one or two models so that people upgrading can have an idea how much faster the CPU is in relation to their new purchase.I always wish this. Beyond that the AM3 Athlon X2's are still being sold at newegg and the Phenom X2's are not...
    Reply
  • Soma42
    amdfangirlSometimes I wish you updated legacy CPUs like the Core 2 Duo or even perhaps the Athlon 64 X2 series, just one or two models so that people upgrading can have an idea how much faster the CPU is in relation to their new purchase.
    Agreed, maybe just one dual core and one quad? q9550 and e6850? not that I still own both of those or anything...

    But let's do some math. Just for a rough order of magnitude I figure an average of 15% increase in performance per clock cycle, per generation (not including clock speed, number of cores, etc.). So if we start back at Conroe and work our way to present day Ivy Bridge, that's 5 new generations of processors. 1.15^5 = 2.01

    Which means that an Ivy Bridge CPU at the same speed as a Conroe CPU (2006ish) is about 2x as fast per clock cycle, on average. Once you take into account faster clock speeds, number of cores, cache sizes, integrated memory controllers, etc. and more importantly what software will be used with the CPUs the real world performance difference could be almost nothing to somewhere around 10-15x as fast.

    I digress. The point being, is I would like to see some more benchies Tom's! Prove me wrong!
    Reply
  • flyflinger
    Lot of great info here, but missing Core i3 info leaves a big hole in the data point. Please add.
    Reply