AMD and future gaming

[Chevron]

As for the porting of games over to 8core cpu's, I reckon that depends on the market. Makes no sense for game companies to port 100% of games over to PC that uses all 8cores, if 60%+ still sit on 4 cores. It took a couple of years for quad core to become standard anyway and many duel cores still run without a hitch.

May not make sense, but they don't give a ****. PC releases are an after thought.

 

[Rickster]

According to CPU Boss, on paper and with various benchmarks, the Core i7-3770K is better than the AMD-FX-8350

 

[ponder]

AMD because I'm an AMD fanboi. The AMD chips run smaller transistors with lower level language, but stuff many more of them onto each chip.

Dude, wtf fsck are you talking about? Do you know anything about silicone fabrication, do you even know how a transistor works? Do you know what the difference between 22nm (Intel fabs) and 32nm (AMD fabs) is? Do you realise that modern x86 cpus actually have RISC cores accessed via micro-op converters for the upper CISC layer?

The only thing that holds true for the majority of your post is the fanboi part.

PS no I'm not a Intel fanboi, I've only ever owned one Intel CPU based PC in my life, all the others were AMD and my next one will probably be AMD again.

 

[iAmThePope]

Dude, wtf fsck are you talking about? Do you know anything about silicone fabrication, do you even know how a transistor works? Do you know what the difference between 22nm (Intel fabs) and 32nm (AMD fabs) is? Do you realise that modern x86 cpus actually have RISC cores accessed via micro-op converters for the upper CISC layer?

The only thing that holds true for the majority of your post is the fanboi part.

PS no I'm not a Intel fanboi, I've only ever owned one Intel CPU based PC in my life, all the others were AMD and my next one will probably be AMD again.

Just for some knowledge. The AMD FX 8 core Range has 1.2B transistors and the i7 3770K has 1.4B transistors...

 

[Swa]

Benchmarks and which games are using 8 cores is not the end of the story. There are many other applications running at the same time including the gfx drivers. So it stands to reason any game will see a performance boost if the cpu is fast enough as well. AMD has always ruled with price/performance and has better socket longevity. Especially important with Intel's motherboards being the most expensive. I don't know why more people don't go for AMD. I would rather spend the extra cash on a gfx card. I have been using the same AMD rig for 6 years now and only upgraded the GPU in that time, also years ago.

 

[CataclysmZA]

My friend asked me to help him upgrade his computer and I found the AMD fx8350 and intel i5 3570k to be the best cpu's for him, but here is my question.

at the moment, the i5 is better (slightly) then the fx8350, but what about the future? especially considering the ps4 and xbox one will be running an 8 core AMD cpu, will games be optimized for an 8 core cpu in the future? (as well as being optimized for an AMD rig?) or should I recommend the i5, as in most games it performs better.

For now, the i5-3570K and the FX-8350 are tied for most games. A few select titles like Crysis 3 do give the octo-core some advantage, but otherwise they're equal. I'd expect this to continue into 2014, although once games are properly optimised, towards the middle of that year we'll see AMD with performance parity compared to Ivy Bridge/Haswell and, eventually, a performance lead because more games will be integer-based, giving them a small window of opportunity.

you usually get longer life from your motherboard as well as AMD don't change socket with each generation chip change

Like you said earlier, AM3+ will probably be dead in late 2014/early 2015. I think they'll support the socket as far as Steamroller with a slightly updated chipset, but their entire future now is in APUs. That's where all the major developments will be.

I'm expecting an integration between the two markets to be announced at Computex next year. AMD may actually show us a roadmap with this planned at Computex next week.

Sorry for the jack but i wana upgrade my mobo and cpu (still on Core2Quad) and one of my buddies swears heart n soul by AMD and his setup does run very sweet, should i be looking at the FM motherboards?

Dont think i'll be able to afford the latest AMD goodies when it arrives lol! But looking at their Hexa and Octacore chips...?

Right now FM2 boards are sweet. I'd wait a month to see if AMD's new Richland processor hits our shores at the expected pricing. A few months on from that we'll see another update to the FM2 platform with Kaveri, the first chip with Steamroller cores.

If you're not going to use the integrated graphics, though, I'd pick up an AM3+ board around the R800 - R1100 price range and complement that with the FX-6350. Its the best bang for buck and includes plenty of overclocking headroom with the right cooler.

Also, check out Haswell processors and boards which will also be launching this month. You may like what you see there as well.

No not sure that amd will max out anything.

You may want to read this:

FX Vs. Core i7: Exploring CPU Bottlenecks And AMD CrossFire

AMD certainly does maximise that Crossfire pair nicely. On average, AMD gives you 90% of the performance of a comparable Core i5 or i7 processor in games today at around 80% of the price. On price alone I'd much rather go with the FX-8350 over a Core i7-3770K, the R1000 markup isn't worth it for me.

well thats the thing, with games being designed for xbox one and ps4, they would utilize 8 cores, but when they are ported over to pc's, will it still use all 8 cores?

Hmm are you sure there are enough 8 core PC CPU's being used out there for them to optimize PC port for 8 cores? Almost all gamers out there on PC have 4 or less cores based on Steam's stats. Until that changes I'm not so sure 8 cores on PC is gonna help very much. In fact when they port they could purposefully only utilize 4 cores because that is what 90% of the people playing the game will have.

To answer both your questions: No. Games won't immediately use all eight cores. But as was the case with the Xbox 360, which was the mule for PC ports and had a triple-core Power PC processor, most games would run just fine on a dual-core or, as I used to recommend for budget gamers, a triple-core processor. Some games that are made on the PC and than ported back down, like Crysis 3, Skyrim and Far Cry 3, are more CPU-dependent and perform at their best using four or more cores.

I expect in the immediate future that the best, and most well-utilised processor from AMD's stable, will be the FX-6350, if you're working on CPU performance alone. Below that will be the A10-6800K or whatever Kaveri variant that will be out later this year. Intel's quads will still perform pretty well but as I said before, AMD will only reach performance parity with Ivy Bridge/Haswell in the middle of next year and towards the end of 2014 they'll have a window of opportunity with a performance lead, which they can use to their advantage to launch a new processor family with higher performance than anything Intel will be offering then and simultaneously merge their sockets back together again.

 

[Swa]

If AMD doesn't change their plans they will be merging the sockets back into one. It's unsure at this stage whether it will be the current FM2 or a new FM3 so future proofing is not possible yet. Might as well go with AM3 if APU is not going to be an issue.

 

[wannabe]

Like you said earlier, AM3+ will probably be dead in late 2014/early 2015. I think they'll support the socket as far as Steamroller with a slightly updated chipset, but their entire future now is in APUs. That's where all the major developments will be.


If you're not going to use the integrated graphics, though, I'd pick up an AM3+ board around the R800 - R1100 price range and complement that with the FX-6350. Its the best bang for buck and includes plenty of overclocking headroom with the right cooler.

Just looking at benchmarks for the fx8350 and fx6350, the fx8350 isnt too much better, so would it be worth getting the fx6350 at a lower price (not sure how much it is, cant seem to find it locally, but it seems to be about R800 cheaper then the fx8350) and getting a better graphics card?

 

[Chevron]

Just looking at benchmarks for the fx8350 and fx6350, the fx8350 isnt too much better, so would it be worth getting the fx6350 at a lower price (not sure how much it is, cant seem to find it locally, but it seems to be about R800 cheaper then the fx8350) and getting a better graphics card?

Yeah. The 6300 is available in SA though:
http://www.wootware.co.za/amd-fx-63...5ghz-4-1ghz-turbo-socket-am3-desktop-cpu.html

Graphics card will make much bigger difference to games.

 

[Ancalagon]

Just for some knowledge. The AMD FX 8 core Range has 1.2B transistors and the i7 3770K has 1.4B transistors...

Yeah, but I think the 3770k includes an integrated GPU which would explain the difference.

In any case, transistor count is irrelevant - performance and power consumption is what counts.

I dont think the new consoles will have as much of an effect as some people think.

Lets look at the following scenarios:

There is one thing to remember here. The first is that the new consoles use 1.6GHz CPUs, 8 of them, and each CPU is not as efficient as an i5 or i7 and probably not as efficient as an FX CPU. So, how much desktop CPU power do you need to equal a console? Given the clockspeed advantage, I would say any i5 could do it. 4 cores running at DOUBLE the clockspeed and more efficient = moar power. No two ways about it.

1. The game is not CPU bound on a console.
In this case, they dont need to run all 8 threads, so there definitely wont be 8 threads on a PC, because it is much more work for no gain. Again, because we know that the new console CPUs are less powerful than a current i5, pretty much any CPU would be fine here.
2. The game is CPU bound on a console.
So the developers need to use some clever multithreading to get it working nicely. Okay. Now, bear in mind, a quad core i5 is as fast if not faster than an 8 core Jaguar. Why then would I need an 8 core CPU? I dont.

The important thing to remember is that having 8 cores does not magically make a CPU better. Relative performance depends on the strength of each individual CPU core. A 16 core Pentium 2, if such a thing were ever to be made, would not be as fast as a quad core i5, even if it was at the same clock speed.

I think a lot of people are unsure how multithreading on a modern OS works. it is not the case that each thread "lives" on a core. The OS will swap threads off and onto each core as it needs to. Its called concurrent execution. Now, we know that FX CPUs are not only slower in single core performance but also suffer from a performance penalty when heavily multithreaded, because of resource sharing. So why is an 8 core FX CPU going to be magically faster than an Intel i5?

 

[Nikkel]

This thread is making me think thrice as hard as to what to upgrade to lmao!

 

[wannabe]

This thread is making me think thrice as hard as to what to upgrade to lmao!

and in the beginning I thought it was going to be a simple "this or that"

 

[Chevron]

Yeah, but I think the 3770k includes an integrated GPU which would explain the difference.

In any case, transistor count is irrelevant - performance and power consumption is what counts.

I dont think the new consoles will have as much of an effect as some people think.

Lets look at the following scenarios:

There is one thing to remember here. The first is that the new consoles use 1.6GHz CPUs, 8 of them, and each CPU is not as efficient as an i5 or i7 and probably not as efficient as an FX CPU. So, how much desktop CPU power do you need to equal a console? Given the clockspeed advantage, I would say any i5 could do it. 4 cores running at DOUBLE the clockspeed and more efficient = moar power. No two ways about it.

1. The game is not CPU bound on a console.
In this case, they dont need to run all 8 threads, so there definitely wont be 8 threads on a PC, because it is much more work for no gain. Again, because we know that the new console CPUs are less powerful than a current i5, pretty much any CPU would be fine here.
2. The game is CPU bound on a console.
So the developers need to use some clever multithreading to get it working nicely. Okay. Now, bear in mind, a quad core i5 is as fast if not faster than an 8 core Jaguar. Why then would I need an 8 core CPU? I dont.

The important thing to remember is that having 8 cores does not magically make a CPU better. Relative performance depends on the strength of each individual CPU core. A 16 core Pentium 2, if such a thing were ever to be made, would not be as fast as a quad core i5, even if it was at the same clock speed.

I think a lot of people are unsure how multithreading on a modern OS works. it is not the case that each thread "lives" on a core. The OS will swap threads off and onto each core as it needs to. Its called concurrent execution. Now, we know that FX CPUs are not only slower in single core performance but also suffer from a performance penalty when heavily multithreaded, because of resource sharing. So why is an 8 core FX CPU going to be magically faster than an Intel i5?

Hahaha.

Lot's of assumptions you made there. By your logic a pc built 6 years ago should run console ports that get released today

In console they will use every ounce of performance they can get. That means 8 threads. They will keep it 8threads when moving to pc as that will be less work.

PC is an after thought.

 

[Rudimental]

Hahaha.

Lot's of assumptions you made there. By your logic a pc built 6 years ago should run console ports that get released today

In console they will use every ounce of performance they can get. That means 8 threads. They will keep it 8threads when moving to pc as that will be less work.

PC is an after thought.

So, really:

"Don't make assumptions unless you make the same ones I do."

Gotcha.

 

[Chevron]

So, really:

"Don't make assumptions unless you make the same ones I do."

Gotcha.

I haven't made any assumptions.

Consoles got maxed out years ago you can find info on that here:
www.google.com

PC ports get the least amount of work. You can also find that info here:
www.google.com

 

[killadoob]

Personally I think a quad will still be fine for quite some time for two reasons:
1) There is a limit to how much you can parallelize in games. Ultimately you need to tie it all back to the main loop. So you split off AI, pathfinding, sound, IO, physics, and maybe netcode partially. Of those only the AI, pathfinding and physics are CPU heavy. All those tend to utilize whatever is available, rather than requiring a fixed amount of processing power.
2) Games on the whole aren't really CPU bound anymore. A few exceptions aside its a GPU game and this trend will only increase as the "programmable" aspects of the GPU increase.


Most sane people said we didn't need them at the time - which is true. Up until about BF3 everything was all good on the dual core front.

So yes we'll need hex cores eventually, but worrying about it now is a bit premature imo.

Actually it was long before bf 3, it was the battlefield port to pc, can't recall the name but the first one was on console the second one was ported to pc, long before bf 3.

The jump from dual to quad was prety fast actually. I think in those days though the cpu power was ahead of gpu, i think these days gpu tend to have more power, so the faster your cpu is the better.

All games may not use quadcore but at least you are covered if they do, the change will come fast to 8 core if console games are designed and ported 8 core. That is when you buy though, you don't buy a slow ass amd cpu a year before it is needed.

 

[wannabe]

Actually it was long before bf 3, it was the battlefield port to pc, can't recall the name but the first one was on console the second one was ported to pc, long before bf 3.

The jump from dual to quad was prety fast actually. I think in those days though the cpu power was ahead of gpu, i think these days gpu tend to have more power, so the faster your cpu is the better.

All games may not use quadcore but at least you are covered if they do, the change will come fast to 8 core if console games are designed and ported 8 core. That is when you buy though, you don't buy a slow ass amd cpu a year before it is needed.

The problem is my mate's computer is slowly dying and he's looking to upgrade now, and he's not the most patient when it comes to waiting to play his computer games

 

[Rudimental]

I haven't made any assumptions.

I'm not really sure how to react to this. Do you not know the meaning of the word?

You made a big assumption in your post previous to this one. Can you not see this?

 

[killadoob]

The problem is my mate's computer is slowly dying and he's looking to upgrade now, and he's not the most patient when it comes to waiting to play his computer games

Well what gpu is he buying? I would buy a quadcore intel now, i would not buy a slow amd 8 core. Check intels plans for an 8 core cpu, not sure what socket they will use though.

 

[Ancalagon]

Hahaha.

Lot's of assumptions you made there. By your logic a pc built 6 years ago should run console ports that get released today

In console they will use every ounce of performance they can get. That means 8 threads. They will keep it 8threads when moving to pc as that will be less work.

PC is an after thought.

yeah I never made that assumption. try actually reading my post again.

Right now, I am running a quad core (laptop) core i7, and Windows reports that I have 1356 threads in flight.

One thousand three hundred and fifty six - a lot more than 8.

How is this possible? By the magic of CPU scheduling of course!

Which is also the same magic that allows programs written with 8 threads in mind - for instance Xbox one games - to run on a quad core CPU.

Now, your assertion that an 8 core CPU will be inherently better at running 8 threaded applications is inherently false, because you ignore the possibility that the quad core might be faster even though it has less cores (as often happens with the i5 and FX CPUs).