AMD Price Cuts

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

????

LOL, I don't care how you want to spin this....but no way would I ever think someone buying a A8-7600 is "a lot like" buying a Athlon x4 860 with a free 384 stream processor GCN Video card throw in.

Functionally the two are different enough from each other that to say your analogy is stretching things a bit would be an understatement.

Well, I don't care about how you want to spin this, either. There are some people that can't afford the extra $100 - $150 for a decent video card but still want to play some games. I know integrated graphics may be "beneath some of you" -- but it is a very usable options because AMD's iGP is decent enough to do it. A $40 A6-5400K is strong enough to play most games at medium detail with playable fps -- there is nothing Intel builds that can do that without a dedicated video card at that price point.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

a8-7600:

Slower clocked kaveri quad core
downclocks under igpu load
locked multiplier
65 watt cooler
benefits from 2 x 4gb ram kit because 2 x 2 gb ram kit speeds stop at ddr3 2000.

Athlon x4 860k with r7 video card:

Faster clocked kaveri quad core
does not dowclock under gpu load
unlocked multiplier
95 watt cooler
can run with 1 x4gb ram and not impact gpu performance.

In a nutshell, the a8-7600 is quite a bit away from the performance of a athlon x4 and video card.

A dedicated R7 video card adds around $100 to the cost of the build! How exactly is doubling the COST apples to apples?

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Actually they both suck compared to a 2 or 3 year old low end gcn gpu, so to me it is irrelevant. If I want to game, I will add a discrete card. If not the igp is plenty good enough on either one.

Gotcha, so 13 Frames Per Second is good enough for your Core i5. That has got to make playing Bioshock a pleasant experience. Unless your Intel CPU is equipped with Iris Pro, the IGP is definitely not "plenty good enough" for the majority of their chips once you start playing games.

 

[crashtech]

Have to admit there is a certain amount of entertainment value in posters who will go to the mat, tooth and nail, over relative trivialities. That is, as long as I am not one of them. Carry on...

 

[cbn]

A dedicated R7 video card adds around $100 to the cost of the build! How exactly is doubling the COST apples to apples?

Of course Athlon x4 860K and a R7 video card do not cost the same as a A8-7600, but that was not the point of the comparison.

The point of the comparison was to demonstrate how buying a A8-7600 does not produce the same performance as the more expensive Athlon x4 860K plus R7 250 (or HD7730). In other words buying an A8-7600 is not like getting a Athlon x4 860K with a R7 250 (or HD7730) video card thrown in for free.

Now with mentioned, I do think it would be interesting to push a A8-7600 as hard as possible. This through overclocking to see how close it could get to Athlon x4 860K plus R7 250 (or HD 7730) but keep in mind many concessions would have to be made. Here are some that I can think of at the moment:

1. SATA controller in IDE mode (this to allow a higher bclk)
2. Motherboard selection to get that higher bclk might require spending more money
2. Alter P-states to eliminate cpu throttling (but this may not be so easy for Linux users)
3. Aftermarket cooler (A sale priced $20 AR CM Hyper 212 plus would probably be fine)
4. High speed RAM . (Maybe even necessitating a 2 x 4GB kit if 2 x 2GB can't be overclocked enough). Remember a (non GDDR5) R7 video card has 128 bit DDR3 1800 that it doesn't need to be shared with the cpu. (EDIT: It might be even with the fastest commonly available overclocked RAM an R7 250 DDR3 is still faster than the iGPU of A8-7600. Certainly the core clocks on the R7 250 are higher at 1000 Mhz)

NOTE: Maybe #1 and #2 are not needed if the goal is simply to get to stock Athlon x4 860K speeds. This if the turbo speed of 3.8 Ghz on the A8-7600 can be locked across all four cores. Then a small bclk adjustment to bump that to 4.0 GHz across all four cores. But then with that mentioned, we must realize the Athlon x4 860K is very likely able to be overclocked beyond that on the stock cooler.

P.S. A R7 250 DDR3 doesn't commonly cost $100.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Gotcha, so 13 Frames Per Second is good enough for your Core i5. That has got to make playing Bioshock a pleasant experience. Unless your Intel CPU is equipped with Iris Pro, the IGP is definitely not "plenty good enough" for the majority of their chips once you start playing games.

The only "gotcha" is your lack of reading comprehension. I said both AMD and intel IGPs suck for gaming. Or maybe you are just purposely distorting what I said in your desperate attempt to prove your point.

 

[cbn]

On Bioshock Infinite 1080p I noticed the preset was set to "Normal".

I'll bet frame rates would increase quite bit with a lower preset.

P.S. I've noticed sometimes just sacrificing just a little bit of image quality (or resolution) can make the frame rate jump up quite a bit if the stress on the iGPU is at the tipping point.

Also on Intel Haswell iGPUs I am under the impression increasing "presets" is more stressful on the GPU than increasing resolution (pixel fill rate), but ultimately I'm sure this depends on the particular game.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Something like...

There are also more delicate ways to control frequencies.

Edit:
Note that you can only use this to set the cpu up to its rated frequency. AFAIK, you cannot lock the CPU to a boosted state using existing kernel parameters.

Hmm, interesting. Though, if you forced the max turbo multiplier in the UEFI (say 38x for 3800 mhz on a 7600), that would effectively be the rated frequency as far as the kernel is concerned, no?

 

[Phynaz]

Have to admit there is a certain amount of entertainment value in posters who will go to the mat, tooth and nail, over relative trivialities. That is, as long as I am not one of them. Carry on...

The ADL can carry on in another thread, I'm having this one locked.

 

[Phynaz]

This Forum is too polarized, we can't even talk about price cuts without people feeling threatened. I remember when falling prices were celebrated here.

Now it's just another chance for one camp or another to yell that their brand is better than the other. Seriously people, if your ego is that tied to the brand of CPU you bought you need to seek help.

 

[NTMBK]

Have to admit there is a certain amount of entertainment value in posters who will go to the mat, tooth and nail, over relative trivialities. That is, as long as I am not one of them. Carry on...

I see your Colbert and raise you a Johannson

 

[crashtech]

^ You win, obviously.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Now with mentioned, I do think it would be interesting to push a A8-7600 as hard as possible. This through overclocking to see how close it could get to Athlon x4 860K plus R7 250 (or HD 7730) but keep in mind many concessions would have to be made. Here are some that I can think of at the moment:

1. SATA controller in IDE mode (this to allow a higher bclk)
2. Motherboard selection to get that higher bclk might require spending more money
2. Alter P-states to eliminate cpu throttling (but this may not be so easy for Linux users)
3. Aftermarket cooler (A sale priced $20 AR CM Hyper 212 plus would probably be fine)
4. High speed RAM . (Maybe even necessitating a 2 x 4GB kit if 2 x 2GB can't be overclocked enough). Remember a (non GDDR5) R7 video card has 128 bit DDR3 1800 that it doesn't need to be shared with the cpu. (EDIT: It might be even with the fastest commonly available overclocked RAM an R7 250 DDR3 is still faster than the iGPU of A8-7600. Certainly the core clocks on the R7 250 are higher at 1000 Mhz)

I too think that pushing an A8-7600 to its limits would be entertaining (if a bit silly), though it might be difficult to make a solid budget proposition in the process. There are some other matters which much be addressed:

The board selected needs good VRM cooling. Failing that, hotspots will have to be addressed with aftermarket heatsinks, and there will need to be good case airflow.

Setting the SATA controller to IDE mode doesn't fix everything. There are plenty of boards out there that still crap out above 105 mhz bclk in IDE mode while hosting a Kaveri processor. Near as I can tell, the higher-end Asus boards are good candidates for bclk overclocking, though theoretically the cheaper A88XM-A and A88XM-E should have the same capabilities. They have similar UEFI to the A88X-Plus/Pro, and have the same base chipset. That being said, even when you are using a board that can support higher bclk speeds, the board will exhibit odd "strap-like" behavior, only allowing speeds within specific ranges (or sometimes only very specific speeds). Like, 100-111 mhz, 124 mhz, 129 mhz bclk.

Anyone hoping to use the current beta driver for HSA stuff has a limited selection of available motherboards. Bleh.

Memory should be selected that is dual-rank. Kaveri allegedly performs better with this type of RAM. 2x8gb kits are easy to find in dual-rank configurations, but with 2x4gb, it's hit-or-miss. I am told that certain G.Skill DDR3-2400 kits can be relied upon to be dual-rank, at least with the stock currently at the warehouses for NewEgg.

And, as I have mentioned before, the 7.2x iGPU multiplier for the 7600 will wind up being a performance bottleneck for anything using the iGPU until your bclk hits around 120 mhz or higher.

 

[Markfw]

Locking per OP request.