Great review. Just a quick musing. For future power optimised products such as these I would love to see a how low can you go sort of testing. IE, how long could you under volt this before you had some instabilities. But that's jut me nit picking at a very good CPU testing suite.

It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

MrRockliffe
It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

It's a pity AMD didn't move to 28nm, but I wasn't expecting them to do that in all honesty, since it's a tweaked FX chip. Maybe AMD will make the jump to 20nm in a year? Lol I can dream!

The FX8320E is the same price as the FX8320 on OcUK ATM.

MrRockliffe
It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

I remember years ago when the skt 939 X2 processor from AMD ruled the roost. Intel eventually countered well with the core architecture, but many of us had motherboards and RAM, and just wanted to upgrade CPUs.. and AMD switched to AM2 which meant if we upgraded, we had to get a new motherboard and RAM anyway, and so many people switched to Intel. I even wrote to the VP of AMD asking if they were planning on producing an ‘upgraders’ CPU and he graciously replied saying the move to DDR2 meant they needed a new socket etc.

Now though, this is the equivalent chip that I was looking for back then. If you have a motherboard that can't cope with the 125W TDP of the 8350 etc. (and are upgrading from say a 6-core chip) then this is a big increase in performance with just a drop in change of CPU.

In other words, it's something from AMD to their current users, which is to be applauded, much the same way that Intel's recent pentium was.

CAT-THE-FIFTH
The FX8320E is the same price as the FX8320 on OcUK ATM.

And they've got the FX8370 at the same price as the “E” model.

kalniel
Now though, this is the equivalent chip that I was looking for back then. If you have a motherboard that can't cope with the 125W TDP of the 8350 etc. (and are upgrading from say a 6-core chip) then this is a big increase in performance with just a drop in change of CPU. In other words, it's something from AMD to their current users, which is to be applauded, much the same way that Intel's recent pentium was.

Quite true, but I'm left wondering why - other than the 0.1GHz increase in Turbo speed - why I'd choose the 8370 over the (cheaper!) 8350 if I was going to replace my existing PhenomII hexacore. Especially as the 8350 seems to beat the ‘70E in most of the benchmarks in this article. Actually, if I went on this article, I’d perhaps be left feeling that the 8370E is a bit of a dud - as you say, merely a sop to those with existing AM3+ installations.

Come on AMD, you must try harder! :(

Yeah I don't think the 8370 is really for people with the 8350 either - it's a small increment increase in model number.

Let's not beat about the bush, AMD CPUs suck. I hope one day they can compete with Intel.

raven1001
Let's not beat about the bush, AMD CPUs suck. I hope one day they can compete with Intel.

No, they don't suck. They're not up to Intel's premium chips, but they compete and beat a whole bunch of Intel's other chips if you don't mind giving up a bit of efficiency. If you are not power constrained, but are budget constrained and your primary use is something like handbrake encoding then AMD probably gives better system value for money than Intel.

They suck.

The £100 8320E is hard to ignore for budget concious gamers, methinks. Surprised they're still unlocked, TBH.

Roll on 2016…

Unfortunatly AMD cpu's are… a little behind in the technology world. The Archtechture is a couple generations behind and the process they make them on is currently 1 generation behind but intel's moving to a newer process soon (16/18 nm I believe)

The main reason AMD chips don't compete well with Intel's is they're currently having to push GHz up to compete on performance, this increases power consumption and heat generation at an exponential rate. All this due to using older tech.

This is not entirely AMD's fault - they have a total financial turnover that's less than the budget that Intel approves just for R&D work. Kinda makes it hard to compete - it's really a David & Goliath battle and the only way AMD gets ahead - as they did with the old K8 and K9 arch's about a decade ago is to dev-skip. Instead of following the linear engineering path to it's chip conclusion you abort the production phase and go into the next dev phase, this means you're longer between chip generations but can allow you to skip ahead, but you take a beating in the meantime.

AMD's best hope is to shift away from desktop systems into more integrated systems where their knowledge in APU systems is stronger by far than Intel's.

If you were building a pc from scratch there is nothing in this review that would seriously make you consider an AMD FX cpu.

Myss_tree
If you were building a pc from scratch there is nothing in this review that would seriously make you consider an AMD FX cpu.

I would say more that nothing in this review makes you consider buying a AMD FX-8370E cpu. AMD really only seem to still be competitive in the sub £100 category or when you want and APU solution.

Shame, roll on a new platform with DDR4. Fingers crossed they can pull it back.

kalniel

raven1001
Let's not beat about the bush, AMD CPUs suck. I hope one day they can compete with Intel.

No, they don't suck. They're not up to Intel's premium chips, but they compete and beat a whole bunch of Intel's other chips if you don't mind giving up a bit of efficiency. If you are not power constrained, but are budget constrained and your primary use is something like handbrake encoding then AMD probably gives better system value for money than Intel.

Sorry raven1001 I'm going to totally agree with kalniel on this. I don't consider myself an AMD fan boy (hence the "Come on AMD, you must try harder!" comment above), but my real world benchmarks back up 100% of what he's saying. Like you (I'm guessing) I'd like to see some kind of “FX+” part that could actually compete on a level playing field with the top end of the i5 line, never mind the i7 or Extreme's.

For MP3 and MP4 (dbPoweramp/iTunes and Handbrake respectively) ripping/transcoding the four-year old PhenomII that I've got in my desktop will easily surpass a laptop with an IB i5 (and yes, the laptop was on mains power - so there's no battery optimisation going on). Basically anything that's highly multi-threaded you're going to get better performance for your £ on AMD than on Intel. On the other hand only the most rabid AMD fanboy is going to ignore that Intel's processors just rule the roost when you've got single- or dual-thread tasks. Heck, might even be the case with a four-thread task. And if you want a figure to back this up - ripping of an episode of series 6 of Big Bang Theory* with Handbrake - Intel was 17-18 minutes and PhenomII was between 7 and 9 minutes for the same episode.

PS, if you're going to come out with statements like “XX sucks” then it's usually pretty helpful to say why this is the case. Otherwise you can run the risk of looking like some kind of El Reg-style rabid fanboy. Just some (hopefully) helpful advice, not an accusation.

(*Before someone accuses me of IP theft etc, the DVD I was ripping was bought by me, and the destination device is also owned by me, so this is just a format change)

zaph0d
The main reason AMD chips don't compete well with Intel's is they're currently having to push GHz up to compete on performance, this increases power consumption and heat generation at an exponential rate. All this due to using older tech.

Have you checked the clock speed of Intel processors recently? Their good stuff clocks at around 4GHz, same as the AMD high end.

But clock for clock Intel chips run about 25% slower than AMD chips and still out-perform them by a fair to large margin.

I have nothing against AMD, I have used them in the past and would do so in the future.

Like Crossy I do rip DVD/Blu Ray (for personal use only), I also game a little. I have an HPTC, a general work computer and a high end gaming rig. I use Intel on all 3 because for what I want, Intel is £for£ a lot better. The HTPC needs to be silent, in a fanless case, AMD chips run too hot. For generalised working without major power use an intel i3 is simply more powerful and more energy efficient. As for the high end rig, the GPU is more important but an i7 is cheaper and more powerful than AMD equivalent.

Drop the price say to £110 then I would probably use the AMD 8370, or make it on 20-22nm fab with a TDP of 35W for £140 and I will use it.

Intel chips run faster because they have a lot higher output, more instruction sets per clock. Notice how compact their chips are, they have the technology to ram stuff in.

That said I think AMD's move to SMT (yay) is a good one, their CMT process wasn't working too well. So maybe Excavator may be promising (or whatever comes next).

That said I do think although it is good on AMD's part, it really isn't a good investment. You could get away with a £40 motherboard and an I5-4440 for cheaper than a setup with this AMD CPU. Even the FX-8320 which is such a great price at the moment doesn't look too good once you factor in the motherboard. Few more £££ spent with an Intel chip yields far better performance than your standard 8320. It does need to get overclocked pretty highly to start beating the 4690.


That said it is the single threaded performance that kills AMD off for most enthusiasts, because although unfortunate, single threaded applications still do exist, and some developers still won't optimise for multiple threads (because it can be complex, efficiency wise anyway).

So yes, their move to SMT will hopefully spice things up ;)

I can't see the benefit of AMD maintaining a seperate CPU-only line rather than scaling up their APUs, especially if they want to push HSA.

An FX-series APU for less power constrained applications with an above PS4-quality GPU would be interesting though.

The solution to the problem is for us all to support Amd. That'll help them be more competative and give us those nice high end desktop cpu's we've all been wanting from them. Now do your bit ;)

ZaO
The solution to the problem is for us all to support Amd. That'll help them be more competative and give us those nice high end desktop cpu's we've all been wanting from them. Now do your bit ;)

If we buy their mid-end desktop CPUs then why would they need to make high-end ones ;)

mikeo01
Intel chips run faster because they have a lot higher output, more instruction sets per clock. Notice how compact their chips are, they have the technology to ram stuff in.

That said I think AMD's move to SMT (yay) is a good one, their CMT process wasn't working too well. So maybe Excavator may be promising (or whatever comes next).

That said I do think although it is good on AMD's part, it really isn't a good investment. You could get away with a £40 motherboard and an I5-4440 for cheaper than a setup with this AMD CPU. Even the FX-8320 which is such a great price at the moment doesn't look too good once you factor in the motherboard. Few more £££ spent with an Intel chip yields far better performance than your standard 8320. It does need to get overclocked pretty highly to start beating the 4690.


That said it is the single threaded performance that kills AMD off for most enthusiasts, because although unfortunate, single threaded applications still do exist, and some developers still won't optimise for multiple threads (because it can be complex, efficiency wise anyway).

So yes, their move to SMT will hopefully spice things up ;)

The £40 Intel motherboards are crap though. Usually smaller than mATX form factor,thin PCBs and only two RAM slots. Heck,there are £40 to £50 AMD motherboards which work fine at stock settings without throttling and there is one chap who showed a £40 one had sufficiently strong VRMs to actually overclock an FX8320 a reasonable amount(he posts on OcUK you can ask him about his experience) even though personally I was surprised. I probably wouldn't buy it still but then for every single Intel and AMD build I have done I don't tend to penny pinch on the motherboard.

I would not trust an el-cheapo £40 motherboard to handle such 24/7 abuse.

I tend to keep my rigs for between 4 to 5 years on the same motherboard so I would not be touching el-cheapo ones for anything other than low load rigs.

If you go that way we should do the same for getting the cheapest unbranded RAM off Amazon,the cheapest PSU and the cheapest graphics card brand too.

It still isn't changing the fact that a Core i5 4440 is still 30% more expensive than a FX8320 and ultimately should be faster anyway.

But TBH you want to save money that much you might as well find a good deal on the Dell refurb shop,plonk in a more capable PSU and be done with it. You would probably end up with a better motherboard and better quality RAM.

Plus the price comparison between Intel and AMD especially for overclocking motherboards realistically is not huge. There are plenty(and I mean plenty) of sub £70 970 motherboards which can overclock an FX CPU to a decent amount and they are decent quality. For example one of my mates has a 970 PRO(earlier version of the 970 EVO) and has a Phenom II X6 in it,and he runs bioinformatics stuff which lasts months at a time with no problem. Many of the enthusiast grade 970 motherboards are built and cooled very well.

On top of this Haswell does run hot even at stock,so in terms of cooling costs there is not much in it. One of my mates built a Core i7 4770 rig for coding and gaming and his temps were not that great - luckily he invested in an aftermarket cooler.

Even then looking at the performance differential,one of my mates Bagnaj97 has like 100s of games in his Steam account on a mildly overclocked FX6300 and an HD7870XT/LE. He plays lots of indie and fantasy time titles too. Even in situations where my Xeon E3 1230 V2 might theoretically outperform his CPU,his system still provides playable framerates.
In fact if he cannot run a game well down to a CPU limitation its usually the case I won't be doing that well either. Sure there are games where an AMD CPU might do MASSIVELY worse in real world playability than an Intel CPU but then those are not as common IMHO at least looking at the 100s of games that have been run between me and my group of mates.

If anything I am more GPU limited and it has been the case for the vast majority of games I have played in the last 10 years.

If anything its if you want to go SFF(like me) that Intel is just better at most price points,down to better motherboard support overall,and better low cost mini-ITX motherboards(plus less heat produced). Not such a biggie when it comes to full sized rigs IMHO.

kalniel
If we buy their mid-end desktop CPUs then why would they need to make high-end ones ;)

I think.. you're trying to trick me… But I will say this - there can be no mid range without a high range ;)

ZaO
I think.. you're trying to trick me… But I will say this - there can be no mid range without a high range ;)

Indeed, that's what Intel provide ;)

But no, no trickery. Simple market forces - buying an inferior product won't encourage a manufacturer to produce a superior product, it'll just encourage them to continue producing inferior products. Buying a superior product from a competitor, however, will.

But you may not need a superior product, in which case you should buy the inferior one at the best price you can, and competitors will target inferior products too.

Well Intel HPDT Core i7s are offshoots of their server line and are targeting pre-built workstations most of the time anyway. I doubt the DIY market for them is huge at the best of time,especially when looking at previous Intel desktop share figures for their various lines. They are more halo products for the consumer DIY market.

The vast majority of the Intel desktop market is desktop versions of their mobile CPUs.

However,I do kind of agree somewhat with ZaO though. AMD is a small company and ultimately if people don't buy their products its means less money in and less likelihood of getting funding for further investment in said areas.

What will happen is that R and D spend will be reduced and re-focussed onto more profitable areas,which is happening now with AMD.

Words are cheap and ultimately if you do want a company to do better either buy at least some of their products if they fit the bill or even find a way of investing in the company somehow.

The problem is even when AMD had better products people were still buying P4s in droves,Nvidia FX GPUs in droves,even certain members of the Fermi series in droves too.

Heck,I can still remember when people were saying it was worth spending substantial MORE on a Q9550 for new systems as opposed to a Phenom II X4 955BE or 965BE on this very forum.

Money talks in the end,not goodwill.

kalniel
Indeed, that's what Intel provide ;)

But no, no trickery. Simple market forces - buying an inferior product won't encourage a manufacturer to produce a superior product, it'll just encourage them to continue producing inferior products. Buying a superior product from a competitor, however, will.

But you may not need a superior product, in which case you should buy the inferior one at the best price you can, and competitors will target inferior products too.

In this case I think we can say with some certainty that if AMD had the resources (ie money) then they would continue a high end line.

In fact I think I would go further with the original premise: If you like Intel kit, and don't want to see the prices go through the roof, then go buy an AMD processor as that is all that is holding the price down.

mikeo01
Notice how compact their chips are, they have the technology to ram stuff in.

You are joking right? Intel cores are massive, hence the integrated graphics is gutless as they spend all the die space on CPU and cache.

DanceswithUnix
In this case I think we can say with some certainty that if AMD had the resources (ie money) then they would continue a high end line.

Not with a huge amount of certainty though - high end consumer is a very small market. If they had more money I think they'd rather dominate laptop/small device and server markets (thus we might hope to get some server offcasts, maybe).

DanceswithUnix
You are joking right? Intel cores are massive, hence the integrated graphics is gutless as they spend all the die space on CPU and cache.

Another factor is margins too. Since theu want to amortise R and D spend on their process nodes and their fab costs so they also want to limit size of said chips.

kalniel
Not with a huge amount of certainty though - high end consumer is a very small market. If they had more money I think they'd rather dominate laptop/small device and server markets (thus we might hope to get some server offcasts, maybe).

Not that long ago AMD said that one third of their market is AM3+

That makes it quite understandable that they concentrate on the APUs that make the bulk of their sales, but it is still a large enough market that I am sure they would want to hang onto it.

DanceswithUnix
Not that long ago AMD said that one third of their market is AM3+

That makes it quite understandable that they concentrate on the APUs that make the bulk of their sales, but it is still a large enough market that I am sure they would want to hang onto it.

Is that why these are then?

Whilst it doesn't warrant a huge amount of R&D there is small research being done and it is creeping along but in the meantime lets through them a bone to keep them keen?

I don't know. I will however drop into this discussion that I would love to see AMD be competitive at the high end again, and I supported this by purchasing one of there APU's.

( I know it was a first gen and I bought a fairly odd bit of tech, with it's ground breaking graphics capability and quad core from a very old architecture and power sharing constraints. It also annoyed me a little bit that the FM1 socket was dropped instantly but that's life. This processor is still going strong if anyone is interested XD )

kalniel
Indeed, that's what Intel provide ;)

But no, no trickery. Simple market forces - buying an inferior product won't encourage a manufacturer to produce a superior product, it'll just encourage them to continue producing inferior products. Buying a superior product from a competitor, however, will.

But you may not need a superior product, in which case you should buy the inferior one at the best price you can, and competitors will target inferior products too.

Ah, I see what you mean. Well I still feel the same. As others have also said - if we buy Amd products, they'll have more money. Then they have more to work with when it comes to the high end chips. I guess I don't have a lot to back up this bit up, but I just feel that Amd want to compete in the high end. I think they always have tried to. They like to appeal to gamers. Hopefully these Apu's will bring them in enough cash to get something together. Just one badass, high end cpu on a new chipset/socket from Amd is all we need :D I'm still waiting for it before I build a new gaming rig! Maybe the Apu's will get so good that you can just buy one of them and combine its gpu power with a dedicated pcie gpu.

DanceswithUnix
You are joking right? Intel cores are massive, hence the integrated graphics is gutless as they spend all the die space on CPU and cache.

I only mean the chip in a physical sense. Their dies are huge but they still managed to keep it compact.


Though that aside I am all in for the “support AMD”. But problem is they need more support than customers to keep them going in the higher end market. Though they can achieve this I believe.

mikeo01
I only mean the chip in a physical sense. Their dies are huge but they still managed to keep it compact.


Though that aside I am all in for the “support AMD”. But problem is they need more support than customers to keep them going in the higher end market. Though they can achieve this I believe.

I'm still wondering how much all the new console sales have done for them. Must've helped a bit….?

ZaO
I'm still wondering how much all the new console sales have done for them. Must've helped a bit….?

You'd expect, but then again who says they'd happily dump their profits from the console sales into the higher end market? They'd probably stick with innovating and improving their products on the mobile side of things.

They're focusing on strong GCN cores and pursuing hUMA and HSA, so I doubt they'd want to focus too much improving their x86 cores. I am not knowledgeable in CPU design but I'd wager that it is not justifiable.


Anyhow surely things are looking on the up for both parties (mainly AMD)? If developers do jump on HSA and start actually harnessing GCN cores we could see efficiency fly through the roof? GPU's ALUs are far more powerful than ALUs contained in processors, so why isn't it being used already? Or am I missing the point?

“ Eight Intel cores are better than four, but four Intel cores are better than eight AMD ones. ”
Best joke of the day…

mikeo01
You'd expect, but then again who says they'd happily dump their profits from the console sales into the higher end market? They'd probably stick with innovating and improving their products on the mobile side of things.

They're focusing on strong GCN cores and pursuing hUMA and HSA, so I doubt they'd want to focus too much improving their x86 cores. I am not knowledgeable in CPU design but I'd wager that it is not justifiable.


Anyhow surely things are looking on the up for both parties (mainly AMD)? If developers do jump on HSA and start actually harnessing GCN cores we could see efficiency fly through the roof? GPU's ALUs are far more powerful than ALUs contained in processors, so why isn't it being used already? Or am I missing the point?

maybe they should think about keeping mantle closed source haha :P but they probably won't. and that's why we like amd ay :D

ZaO
maybe they should think about keeping mantle closed source haha :P but they probably won't. and that's why we like amd ay :D

Yeah making Mantle closed source would be a bad move. That would hurt them in many ways :P they are already going to face competition with Microsoft's DX12 and their improved efficiency.

That said Mantle would definitely help their APUs as we've seen.

AMD is a good company in general, they earn more respect from moi :D

mikeo01
Yeah making Mantle closed source would be a bad move. That would hurt them in many ways :P they are already going to face competition with Microsoft's DX12 and their improved efficiency.

That said Mantle would definitely help their APUs as we've seen.

AMD is a good company in general, they earn more respect from moi :D

Right on :)

mikeo01
Yeah making Mantle closed source would be a bad move. That would hurt them in many ways :P they are already going to face competition with Microsoft's DX12 and their improved efficiency.

That said Mantle would definitely help their APUs as we've seen.

AMD is a good company in general, they earn more respect from moi :D

Same here. Lets just hope the Zen K12 chip is a game changer and not another bulldozer.