Do high end user use AMD instead of Intel?

[2is]

What I said was otherwise outstanding, the otherwise was intended to indicate everything not the CPU.

The i3 is low end, Intel will tell you so. It may well be that it's performance, even as a low end part, is high enough that it's capable of handling high end tasks when coupled with good supporting systems. I'm assuming it is, since the FX is.

We live in a golden age of sorts, be of good cheer.

If Intel had not presented it as such I'd have not suggested the i3 favors ponys and picking daisies.

We agree on the bolded point, and thus a CPU that's slower is also low end. Seems like an easy logic to follow.

 

[2is]

That is exactly what you are doing. 4K Gamers are Hign-End users, 1440/1600p gamers are High-End users, Eyefinity and 120/144Hz gamers are High-End users. The CPU choice doesnt make them High-End users but the USE of expensive Ultra-high resolution gaming does.

Considering that 4K and gaming weren't even part of the discussion until you introduced them, I'm pretty sure it's not me shifting goal posts.

 

[Ramses]

We agree on the bolded point, and thus a CPU that's slower is also low end. Seems like an easy logic to follow.

If this is the case, low end is mighty damn fast these days.
And my i7-4790K seems to function just like my previous low end cpu.

Was your FX box slow?

 

[2is]

If this is the case, low end is mighty damn fast these days.
And my i7-4790K seems to function just like my previous low end cpu.

Was your FX box slow?

You're trying too hard. We know i3 is faster (yes you don't care but that's not relevant) most of the time than FX8 and we both agree that i3 is low end. Should I stop here so you can processes where this is going??? Seems quite simple doesn't it? Of course it does. It's rather funny. You've eluded to the exact same argument I'm making but can't get yourself to actually say it.

 

[Ramses]

I'm sorry for you in a way. I get what you are saying, I get why, and while it's not wrong, it's missing out on a lot of things and I wish you could make that leap, there is enjoyment to be had. All else I think I can say is, as I've said in the last ten threads like this, I've owned them all since I don't like running my mouth without experience, and my experience is contrary to what you are suggesting with the FX. Try looking past the benchmarks, it's a brave new world.

 

[AtenRa]

Considering that 4K and gaming weren't even part of the discussion until you introduced them, I'm pretty sure it's not me shifting goal posts.

Third post in the thread by the OP.

Is i7 needed for gaming or is i5 just as good? I don't plan on doing anything but gaming, meaning no video render, editing, recording, etc...

And if i remember correctly, my own post here and here about High-End USERs was not referring to you and the Core i3 debate, but it was answering the OPs question.

 

[2is]

I'm sorry for you in a way. I get what you are saying, I get why, and while it's not wrong, it's missing out on a lot of things and I wish you could make that leap, there is enjoyment to be had. All else I think I can say is, as I've said in the last ten threads like this, I've owned them all since I don't like running my mouth without experience, and my experience is contrary to what you are suggesting with the FX. Try looking past the benchmarks, it's a brave new world.

Oh, don't worry about me. I enjoy building my own PC's as much as the next guy. Benchmarks are a measure of performance, it's not a suggestion. And it is a brave new world, it's about time AMD introduces a new processor to go with it.

There's a reason FX8 used to be compared to an i5 and on occasion an i7 and today it can't even outpace an i3. That's because they are old processors in this new world competing against new processors. This also, isn't a suggestion. It's reality.

 

[Ramses]

Oh, don't worry about me. I enjoy building my own PC's as much as the next guy. Benchmarks are a measure of performance, it's not a suggestion. And it is a brave new world, it's about time AMD introduces a new processor to go with it.

There's a reason FX8 used to be compared to an i5 and on occasion an i7 and today it can't even outpace an i3. That's because they are old processors in this new world competing against new processors. This also, isn't a suggestion. It's reality.

AMD picked a good time to stall on CPU development imo and I agree they are due, overdue even, absolutely. If things were progressing at the rate they were five or ten years ago, a two+ year stall would have been insane and completely damming. Now in 2014/15, people are still buying and building FX boxes and doing OK with them, and they are using several generation old Intel CPU's because they are all by and large "fast enough". People are still asking after AMD stuff, there are still 15 page long forum threads about them. If they were not "fast enough", this would not be the case. This too is reality.

I said it before, but I'll repeat. I have an i7-4790K with a 290x, 16gb of ddr2400 and a 500gb 850pro. It's plenty fast, it's a decent computer, it should be faster than what you have in your sig but I doubt it is in practice. I have a laptop with an i7-4510u, an m.2 ssd and 16gb of 1600, and some sort of older dGPU, it's plenty fast too. Neither of them are noticeably faster than my 8350 or 9590 with 16gb@1600 and a pair of 280x, with the only, and then slight, exception being some gaming.

Neither of them are noticeably faster than my 8350 or 9590 with 16gb@1600 and a pair of 280x was, with the only, and then slight, exception being some gaming.

One can bench them all to death and show the Intel stuff faster, I've done it, I've read it. None of that has any bearing on my personal experience with them and I have learned in my old age to take benchmarks with a larger grain of salt than I once did. Things are just different now.

When you reach a certain standard of performance across the board, excess performance is academic.

Strictly speaking..

The i3 is a low end chip, despite it's performance, Intel bills it as such.
The FX is a mid to high end chip, despite it's performance, AMD bills it as such.

And they will both always be such.

Neither of those facts adds or detracts from either CPU, they are what they are.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Not another round of defence for the hopeless FX CPUs....

Even the company making them wont use them.

 

[mrmt]

Now in 2014/15, people are still buying and building FX boxes and doing OK with them, and they are using several generation old Intel CPU's because they are all by and large "fast enough". People are still asking after AMD stuff, there are still 15 page long forum threads about them. If they were not "fast enough", this would not be the case. This too is reality.

I think you are overestimating how strong the FX line up is. AMD CPU business got a 70% drop since the FX introduction 4 years ago, what margins does this fact leave for discussions about the qualities or the relevancy of AMD products? Not much I'm afraid, especially because we are not talking about a premium product, but about a budget product, one that the manufacturer would have long phased out if they had the resources to do so.

 

[frozentundra123456]

To keep the car analogy going, building a "high end" rig with 2, 3, or 4 700 to 1000 dollar gpus and putting in an FX is like putting a truck engine in a Ferrari. I suppose it is still a "sports car", but one with a glaring weakness.

But we can argue about what constitutes high end, or disregard benchmarks, or attach some mystical unmeasurable qualities to cpus, but the harsh reality is that past the 350.00 mark there is no AMD cpu competitive with hex or octo core intel in overall cpu performance. Even if one accepts that at 4k an FX is equal to intel, which I think would not be true for all games, a "high end" intel cpu with an easy overclock to 4ghz, and probably at stock, will destroy any FX in both single and multi threaded (edit: non-gaming) applications.

 

[TeknoBug]

High-End 4K Gamer with FX 8-core + Titan
High-End 4K Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x CrossFire R9 290/X
High-End 4K Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x SLI GTX980/70
High-End 4K Gamer with FX 8-core + Fury

High-End 3/5x Eyefinity Gamer with FX 8-core + Titan
High-End 3/5x Eyefinity Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x CrossFire R9 290/X
High-End 3/5x Eyefinity Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x SLI GTX980/70
High-End 3/5x Eyefinity Gamer with FX 8-core + Fury

High-End 1440/1600p Gamer with FX 8-core + Titan
High-End 1440/1600p Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x CrossFire R9 290/X
High-End 1440/1600p Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x SLI GTX980/70
High-End 1400/1600p Gamer with FX 8-core + Fury

High-End 1080p 120/144Hz Gamer with FX 8-core + Titan
High-End 1080p 120/144Hz Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x CrossFire R9 290/X
High-End 1080p 120/144Hz Gamer with FX 8-core + 2x SLI GTX980/70
High-End 1080p 120/144Hz Gamer with FX 8-core + Fury

Half of those are going to be bottlenecked.

I think you are overestimating how strong the FX line up is. AMD CPU business got a 70% drop since the FX introduction 4 years ago, what margins does this fact leave for discussions about the qualities or the relevancy of AMD products? Not much I'm afraid, especially because we are not talking about a premium product, but about a budget product, one that the manufacturer would have long phased out if they had the resources to do so.

When Bulldozer came out, they were slower than even the older Phenom II's, I couldn't believe it.

I used to recommend i3s but now I only recommend i5s for desktop.

I wouldn't touch a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge i3, but Haswell i3 you have to give a try and Skylake if Intel even releases i3's for that will definitely be worth a buy. I used to be a huge AMD fanboy, used AMD heavily from the mid 90's up until a few years ago with some Intel systems in between (dual Pentium Pro, dual Celeron, Pent 4, etc) but ever since Sandy Bridge, AMD just lagged on behind and I understand how people look at an i3 and go "pfft dual cores, why would I want one of those?", bashing it without ever actually giving it a try. I wrote on another forum:

Battlefield 4 or any modern Frostbite based game will benefit from more cores, but strong cores- not weak ones (such as from AMD's Bulldozer or Kabini), between my i7 3770K, i5 3550, FX 8320E, FX 4350 and i3 4160, BF4 MP 64 player server (Shanghai for eg) ran best on the i7 followed closely by the FX 8320E- CPU loads were around 50-60% for them while very nearly maxing out the CPU on the i5, FX 4350 (85-90%) as well as the i3 4160. Even then with the 4160 nearly hitting 98% CPU used at all times while playing, it didn't hiccup at all, while the FX 4350 hiccuped A LOT and the i5 hiccuped a couple times (hiccup as in FPS drops or occasional freezes). Average FPS was lower on the i3 but didn't have FPS drop spikes.

 

[Yuriman]

It seems to me important to note that AMD doesn't even use AMD processors in their high-end consumer gear (e.g. Quantum) or showcase machines for their GPUs. The company that designs the chips isn't using them.

 

[AtenRa]

Half of those are going to be bottlenecked.

Yeap by the GPU and not the CPU. Going from a single GTX980 and 39fps to dual R9 290X will increase performance by more than 50% even with a Quad Core Kaveri at default.

When Bulldozer came out, they were slower than even the older Phenom II's, I couldn't believe it.

People have been Brainwashed about the performance of Bulldozer. There were some older games even for 2011 (DX9) that were slower than the Phenom but in general FX was faster in 2011 than Phenom II X6 and it is way faster today.

A few examples from the AT review (dont bother posting any non 1080p benchmarks)

I wouldn't touch a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge i3, but Haswell i3 you have to give a try and Skylake if Intel even releases i3's for that will definitely be worth a buy. I used to be a huge AMD fanboy, used AMD heavily from the mid 90's up until a few years ago with some Intel systems in between (dual Pentium Pro, dual Celeron, Pent 4, etc) but ever since Sandy Bridge, AMD just lagged on behind and I understand how people look at an i3 and go "pfft dual cores, why would I want one of those?", bashing it without ever actually giving it a try. I wrote on another forum:

I have recommended the Core i3 Haswell but in many of 2013 games onwards the 8-core FX is simple better, especially when you start to tinker and play with BIOS settings like Buss speed, NorthBridge, memory etc etc
And when the time comes with DX-12, you will be forced to upgrade to a Core i7 but people that bought an 8-core FX they will not.

 

[Yuriman]

I'm skeptical that a chip AMD released in 2012 will still be a reasonably useful gaming chip in 2016-2017 when DX12-based games begin to come out, and nevermind those that continue using DX11.

 

[crashtech]

...I wouldn't touch a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge i3, but Haswell i3 you have to give a try and Skylake if Intel even releases i3's for that will definitely be worth a buy. I used to be a huge AMD fanboy, used AMD heavily from the mid 90's up until a few years ago with some Intel systems in between (dual Pentium Pro, dual Celeron, Pent 4, etc) but ever since Sandy Bridge, AMD just lagged on behind and I understand how people look at an i3 and go "pfft dual cores, why would I want one of those?", bashing it without ever actually giving it a try.

I want to quote this part because I've asserted it myself to little avail. I think the quad core crowd wrote off the i3 at Nehalem and never looked back, but Haswell i3s seem to make excellent use of HT, and I think you are right about any possible Skylake i3, and although we are admittedly getting to the point where AAA titles being released can always use more than 2 cores, the latest i3s make excellent all-round lower midrange machines that can generally game fairly well.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree the i3 is a very good all around processor, even for moderate gaming. The only issue I have with the i3 is that it seems a bit overpriced in general, although you can find good deals now. For a general use consumer box, I would have no problem recommending an i3; in fact I think a quad is definitely overkill.

But for gaming, the i3 *is* uncomfortably close to a locked i5 in price. And with even the low end i5 having turbo, you dont give up too much single threaded performance in exchange for significantly better multithreaded performance.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So you do care about performance but don't care about benchmarks... You do realize benchmarks are a measure of performance right, and the "girly" i3 beats up your "manly" FX8

Hey now, I run a Kaveri . . . no FX here buddy.

The benchmarks only tell part of the story. What most buyers are paying attention to are the benches that i3s lose to i5s and/or FX chips. THAT'S the stuff that's only going to become more prevalent as time goes on. The i5 buyer knows they have an advantage 'cuz they have more physical cores, HT be damned. The FX buyer knows he can just overclock his chip to edge out a similarly-priced i3, or at least close the gap to the point where he doesn't have to care so much about any performance discrepancy.

Also, benchmarks only tell you how fast a chip is in a particular application/benchmark suite run in relative isolation. If you're the kind of user that runs one program with a stripped-down OS 100% of the time, then the benchmark is a perfect representation of what you should expect from a particular machine. If you actually exhibit human usage patterns and occasionally multitask in some way that you're going to want to use two CPU-intensive programs at once, at least for a brief time, then the benchmark results become less of a clear indicator of actual user experience. That's yet another reason why people pick i5s and/or FX chips over the i3.

Since you're interested in reality, here's some more. Users who load up their cores are also going to be running tasks that greatly benefit from single threaded performance.

Everyone benefits from that.

And for some more painful reality, here's this... The reason you see more people here with FX8 than an i3 is quite simple. Enthusiasts who prefer Intel have much better options than the i3, so that's what they go with. Enthusiasts that prefer AMD, well... The slower FX8 is the best you got.

You really think people are branded like that? Cmon now. People who buy FX chips are often doing so because they make sense for some selected use cases. If you know what you're doing with one, you can even make it into an acceptable general-use computer. It has obvious penalties - they're hot and "loud", which has an effect on what underlying platform and cooling you must choose based on your desired performance level. But they're pretty cheap for what you get, at least until you start trying to push them to their limits. Then they just get stupid expensive with not much additional return-on-investment.

I can't imagine less than four cores with even my apparently plebian workloads..

Few people can or will, today.

I used to recommend i3s but now I only recommend i5s for desktop. You don't want compromises for a day to day box. Myself, I bought a 4770 for this porn box. Sure I didn't need a 4770 non K for xvideos or for office but neither will I ever have to upgrade until something dies/gives out. A year and a half later and its still up to snuff.

Thank you! You and Ramses embody the attitude that I'm trying to describe to 2is. Nobody "trusts" the i3. It isn't a real quad. Who wants to be in a situation where the can or will be limited by the number of available cores? That kind of thing may or may not show up in a benchmark today, but it's more likely to show up in a benchmark tomorrow, or six months from now, or . . . you know.

It all goes back to my main point: nobody actually wants to get stuck with an i3 on their daily driver. Well, correction: very few do. Nobody trusts it! People that want Intel go i5, people that want AMD go FX or even Kaveri. Truth is that all those options are viable for any number of users, and people will pick and choose accordingly based on need and budget. i3s don't get picked 'cuz they don't make sense!

And that's the crux of why it's idiotic to wave around a bunch of i3 benchmark victories, when many people simply refuse to buy them. They know that the i3 is an overpriced paper tiger that looks good in some (but not all) benchmarks that will ultimately fail them where it hurts the most.

That being said, the i3-4160 and 4170 can be had for cheap. Put one of those on an H81 board and you've got a decent little box for very little money. They're a bit boring for my tastes, though if they supported AVX2 I wouldn't mind having one or the other around as a test target for software development. Unfortunately, they do not support AVX2, which makes me sad.

I wouldn't touch a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge i3, but Haswell i3 you have to give a try and Skylake if Intel even releases i3's for that will definitely be worth a buy.

Thank you for actually being brave enough to use one. You are right that the 4160 is actually a pretty-good deal. I saw one on eBay for $70 a few months ago. Prices on them seem to have gone up, though. It will be interesting to see what desktop i3 options there are for Skylake. Will any of them support AVX2?

A Skylake i3 with GT4e and AVX2 support would be awesome, assuming it didn't cost an arm and a leg.

So lets say you are a 4K Gamer with a Core i7 5960X + GTX980 and that makes you a High-End user because of the CPU.

But you are not a High-End user if you have an FX8320E Overclocked with Custom Water Cooling + 2x CF/SLI R9 290X/ GTX 980/Titan-X/Fury for a 4K Gaming ???

CPU alone doesnt make you a High-End user.

That's a faulty comparison. Since we're talking high-end, I'm assuming the guy with a 5960X is going to shell out the bucks for another 980 (or a pair of 980Tis) instead of sticking with a single-card solution. Also, why bother with the 5960X? You can swap in a 5930K (if you're worried about PCIe lanes, and maybe a hypothetical high-end user would be) and do about as well.

Someone who chooses to put an 8320e under custom water is just doing it for the hell of it. Not that I decry such, but really, at that point, the user should have cleared their head and done a comparison of cost between LGA2011 v3 and AM3+ plus custom water and chosen accordingly. Good custom water can be very expensive. Replace that with an h240-x or something and now you've got enough budgetary space for a 5820k or 5930k. I would also be a teeny-tiny bit concerned about blowing that much money on AM3+ given some of its platform constraints.

Of course, if you "already had the WC parts handy" you can reduce the cost to the CPU block alone, assuming you don't have to invest in a bigger rad, better pump, bigger res, etc. to take an FX past 5 ghz.

Bottom line, somebody's leet watercooled 5.3-5.7 ghz Vishera is probably going to lose a lot of gaming benchmarks to a 4.5+ ghz 5820k or 5930k using an SLI/Crossfire setup with high-end cards. And at that point, I'm gonna have to say that the guy who bought the Intel rig is a high-end user, while the AMD guy is in second place.

What is or isn't "high-end" is ultimately subjective, but if we're going to be honest with ourselves here, the best path to take is the Intel path when you are looking at being a user that demands a system in the top tier of performance. Anyone who chooses otherwise has made a poor choice.

 

[Abwx]

So far there s a total confusion about what is high end in this thread..

Chips like the 4790K do not qualify as high end, at least at stock settings, neither do a FX9590 for the same reasons, the X99 plateform is not high end as such, that s rather a high end experimental plateform but it doesnt fullfill the most prized requirement of any system that pretend to be high end, that is stability...

 

[Enigmoid]

So far there s a total confusion about what is high end in this thread..

Chips like the 4790K do not qualify as high end, at least at stock settings, neither do a FX9590 for the same reasons, the X99 plateform is not high end as such, that s rather a high end experimental plateform but it doesnt fullfill the most prized requirement of any system that pretend to be high end, that is stability...

I don't think this is about servers...

 

[2is]

Strictly speaking..

The i3 is a low end chip, despite it's performance, Intel bills it as such.
The FX is a mid to high end chip, despite it's performance, AMD bills it as such.

And they will both always be such.

Neither of those facts adds or detracts from either CPU, they are what they are.

Strictly speaking, you don't know what you're talking about, and here is why.

When AMD and Intel "bills" their chips, they are comparing it with other chips in their own line up. That isn't what we are doing here. We are comparing them to one another. So you can't say FX is high end and i3 is low end when the i3 outperforms it. Seriously, how hard is this concept? Take off your fanboy glasses for no longer than a minute and you'll very quickly see how ridiculous that statement sounds.

 

[AtenRa]

I'm gonna have to say that someone who chooses to put an 8320e under custom water is just doing it for the hell of it. Not that I decry such, but really, at that point, the user should have cleared their head and done a comparison of cost between LGA2011 v3 and AM3+ plus custom water and chosen accordingly. Good custom water can be very expensive. Replace that with an h240-x or something and now you've got enough budgetary space for a 5820k or 5930k. I would also be a teeny-tiny bit concerned about blowing that much money on AM3+ given some of its platform constraints.

Of course, if you "already had the WC parts handy" you can reduce the cost to the CPU block alone, assuming you don't have to invest in a bigger rad, better pump, bigger res, etc. to take an FX past 5 ghz.

Bottom line, somebody's leet watercooled 5.3-5.7 ghz Vishera is probably going to lose a lot of gaming benchmarks to a 4.5+ ghz 5820k using an SLI/Crossfire setup with high-end cards. And at that point, I'm gonna have to say that the guy who bought the Intel rig is a high-end user, while the AMD guy is in second place.

What is or isn't "high-end" is ultimately subjective, but if we're going to be honest with ourselves here, the best path to take is the Intel path when you are looking at being a user that demands a system in the top tier of performance. Anyone who chooses otherwise has made a poor choice.

Ehm i was not recommending a custom water cooling for the FX8320E, it was just an example to showcase that a High-End user can still be with an AMD CPU.

Also, there are users with custom Water Cooling systems coming from Phenom II. Since AM3 and AM3+ has the same socket mechanism you can just install the same CPU Water Block in any AMD CPU of the last 4-5 years or more.

I dont think you will even register a performance difference between an FX 8-Core overclocked at 4.4GHz or more with High-End GPUs for 4K Gaming against any High-End Intel CPU.

Even at 1080p 120/144Hz the 8-Core FX OCed is more than enough, especially with Mantle games like BF4 MP and Hardline MP.

 

[Ramses]

To keep the car analogy going, building a "high end" rig with 2, 3, or 4 700 to 1000 dollar gpus and putting in an FX is like putting a truck engine in a Ferrari. I suppose it is still a "sports car", but one with a glaring weakness.

I was actually thinking a very similar thing but didn't post it, with a truck engine or better yet econo 4banger, is still plenty exotic and quite possibly high end because it's uncommon and excels in some areas, it's just not as fast. We had a 996 PCCB car we put a 2.5L in ages ago, mostly out of bordom. It was still a high end car, still kinda quick, and anything with $5000 a piece brake rotors is still high end. It also caught on fire like a high end car but that's another story. We've sold 914-6's that were minus the 6 and still got a premium, they were still high end, just slow(er).

But we can argue about what constitutes high end, or disregard benchmarks, or attach some mystical unmeasurable qualities to cpus, but the harsh reality is that past the 350.00 mark there is no AMD cpu competitive with hex or octo core intel in overall cpu performance. Even if one accepts that at 4k an FX is equal to intel, which I think would not be true for all games, a "high end" intel cpu with an easy overclock to 4ghz, and probably at stock, will destroy any FX in both single and multi threaded (edit: non-gaming) applications.

That I know of AMD hasn't had anything anywhere near $350 for the CPU in ages. The FX is old, and it was compromised the day it was first made. I don't understand why it keeps getting compared to new CPU's from an outfit who's OLD cpu's were often faster years ago lol, and then it's bashed like it's an all new failure. It's a funny insight into the way people think. "Destroying", after all this time. Really? Does the 1992 Camry "destroy" the 1982 model? Yes. Is it significant or overly indicative of the 82's place in the world? No.

What I never hear in these threads, very very seldom anyway, is a person saying "I built X FX box with X supporting hardware and it wouldn't do Y or did Y bothersomely slowly"
To continue the halfassed car analogy, measureable specs are great, reading a roadtest is great, perfectly valid and necessary tools, but you don't buy the thing without a test drive. Nor is one shocked when a two or three or five year old model pales in comparison to a new one. The reason I keep posting in these is I test drove them both and found both experiences plenty good and the FX undeserving of much of the criticism it receives in practical use. Whole lot of copy/pasted benchmarks, the same old ones over and over, but not a lot of real user input. It's curious.

My Father used to say "it isn't that the pig can dance well, it's that it can (still) dance at all". I think that is perfectly apt for describing the FX line in 2015. Baring any crazy new computer stuff, I fully expect this to still be the case this time next year, and possibly sometime after for a number of PC uses. And I fully expect there to be forum posts about how the 6th or 7th or whatever gen Intel CPU "destroys" the old FX chip unless they come up with something new.

 

[Blitzvogel]

It all goes back to my main point: nobody actually wants to get stuck with an i3 on their daily driver. Well, correction: very few do. Nobody trusts it! People that want Intel go i5, people that want AMD go FX or even Kaveri. Truth is that all those options are viable for any number of users, and people will pick and choose accordingly based on need and budget. i3s don't get picked 'cuz they don't make sense!

And that's the crux of why it's idiotic to wave around a bunch of i3 benchmark victories, when many people simple refuse to buy them. They know that the i3 is an overpriced paper tiger that looks good in some (but not all) benchmarks that will ultimately fail them where it hurts the most.

That being said, the i3-4160 and 4170 can be had for cheap. Put one of those on an H81 board and you've got a decent little box for very little money. They're a bit boring for my tastes, though if they supported AVX2 I wouldn't mind having one or the other around as a test target for software development. Unfortunately, they do not support AVX2, which makes me sad.

Is there really that much hate for the i3? I assume you're talking about Haswell i3s? I'd say that the Alienware Alpha at $499 with i3-4130, 2 GB GeForce GTX 860M (essentially same as GTX 750Ti), 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, all seems like a pretty good value considering it even comes with a 360 controller and Windows 8.1. It's an easy and cheap way to move into PC gaming if you're not too knowledgeable about it.

My experience with desktop i3's is limited to my fiancees Gateway with an i3-2120. It always felt a bit snappier than my Phenom II x4 machine in everyday usage. We put a Radeon 7750 in it Dec '13, to gave it some decent entry level gaming capability. Comparing that setup to my Phenom II x4 + Radeon 5850 was always interesting, since it was a case of big implementation of old CPU and graphics architecture vs small implementation of newer architectures that were more capable per clock per core and CU.

My mobile experience with i3s and i5s has ranged from good (i3-330M) to mediocre (i3-4012Y) thanks to heavy throttling in such thin mobile packages limiting both the x86 cores and more so the graphics.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So far there s a total confusion about what is high end in this thread..

Chips like the 4790K do not qualify as high end, at least at stock settings, neither do a FX9590 for the same reasons, the X99 plateform is not high end as such, that s rather a high end experimental plateform but it doesnt fullfill the most prized requirement of any system that pretend to be high end, that is stability...

Since when do X99 machines have inherent stability problems?

Ehm i was not recommending a custom water cooling for the FX8320E, it was just an example to showcase that a High-End user can still be with an AMD CPU.

My point was, I don't think any actual high-end user would do that except for kicks. Once you get down to the serious business of putting together a budget for the machine and assessing performance, it's LGA2011 v3 hands down as the winner.

Also, there are users with custom Water Cooling systems coming from Phenom II. Since AM3 and AM3+ has the same socket mechanism you can just install the same CPU Water Block in any AMD CPU of the last 4-5 years or more.

You can, if your existing WC setup is going to be enough for a beastly FX overclock. It would not surprise me if someone's Thuban WC setup held them back on an FX. Thuban could get hot, but Vishera gets hotter.

I dont think you will even register a performance difference between an FX 8-Core overclocked at 4.4GHz or more with High-End GPUs for 4K Gaming against any High-End Intel CPU.

Even at 1080p 120/144Hz the 8-Core FX OCed is more than enough, especially with Mantle games like BF4 MP and Hardline MP.

I do, when it comes to minimum framerates. Doubly so if you're using AMD video cards in a DX11 title.

Is there really that much hate for the i3?

It's not so much hate as it is fear and suspicion. In theory, lots of people here love i3s. Watch them beat FX chips in benchmarks! Then people look at the price and the non-overclockability, and they start to wonder if HT is really going to come through for them as often as they'd like . . . it's a slippery slope.

If Intel would give them some OC headroom and lower the price, I think more people would buy them. As it stands, about the only place you can get a good deal on them is on eBay if you're lucky and grab a cheap one, or in an OEM box as you mentioned. For DIY they are priced too darn close to the i5. The pricing scheme seems to work well-enough for Intel, though, so I do not expect that to change anytime soon.