Why do AMD's CPUs get so much stick?

[Vortex6700]

Single thread perf is the most important in everyday use. Just o/cing a skylake from the stock 3.4GHz to 4.5GHz, and webpages snap that much faster. Just go to the store and play with two identical systems, you will find the AMD will be way less snappy.

The blck o/cing in skylake is pretty amazing, though you do lose powersaving functions. I think the new Asrock boards will help.

Confirmation bias. The bottleneck is your internet unless you have fiber.

 

[Phynaz]

Confirmation bias. The bottleneck is your internet unless you have fiber.

You must only surf plain text pages.

 

[myocardia]

Same reason a lot of the more experienced crowd here went with A64 ~12 years ago. The competition had slower IPC and an inefficient architecture. BD has been exactly the same...

Exactly. There were a few holdouts, but a lot of us were running Athlon 64s or Athlon XPs during the Pentium 4 era. Quite a few of us actually went directly to A64s from Athlon XPs, as a matter of fact. We actually had a large, at least in my opinion, percentage of the posters here who were rocking fairly highly overclocked Athlon XP-Ms, myself included. Funnily enough, I never owned a P4 until a couple of years ago.

 

[Yuriman]

Exactly. There were a few holdouts, but a lot of us were running Athlon 64s or Athlon XPs during the Pentium 4 era. Quite a few of us actually went directly to A64s from Athlon XPs, as a matter of fact. We actually had a large, at least in my opinion, percentage of the posters here who were rocking fairly highly overclocked Athlon XP-Ms, myself included. Funnily enough, I never owned a P4 until a couple of years ago.

Ditto. Mobile Barton was beastly, Newcastle was great (my Clawhammer was a poor overclocker and ran hot), Opteron 165 was amazing.

Once Core2 rolled around, especially the quads, things swung the other way.

 

[nerp]

AMD 386DX-40 to AMD K62-350 to K63-450 to XP2700 to XP3200 to A64-3200 to Opteron 148 to Opteron 165....then Intel E8400, an 2010 iMac with an i3 now an i3-6100.

I will consider Zen if it's compelling.

 

[Yuriman]

AMD 386DX-40 to AMD K62-350 to K63-450 to XP2700 to XP3200 to A64-3200 to Opteron 148 to Opteron 165....then Intel E8400, an 2010 iMac with an i3 now an i3-6100.

I will consider Zen if it's compelling.

(Intel 486, Pentium MMX 233) -> k63-400, Duron 950, Tbird 1400, AXP 1600+ Palomino, AXP 1800+ TB-A, AXP 1700+ TB-B, AXP 2500+ Barton, Mobile Barton 2500+, A64 2800+ Clawhammer (early adopter), A64 3000+ Newcastle, A64 3800+ Manchester, Opteron 165 Denmark... Q6600 -> 3570K.

What I'd like in Zen is to get my current system's performance in a single chip with ~Skylake performance per watt. Ivy Bridge i5 ~4ghz + 1024cu GPU equivalent in a <100w envelope, so I can shrink my ITX "tower" down to something little larger than a NUC.

Given that Polaris can probably hit close to 7850 performance in a ~50w envelope, and my CPU only draws ~60w under load at 4ghz (44w at stock clocks), this seems like a reasonable request, don't you think?

Intel's iGPUs are getting a lot better, but their drivers are still bad, and their display settings/utility is dismal. AMD has some selling points for their APUs in software support alone, such as it is.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Insignificant. A G1820 is $50 or less for individuals, Dell could whip you up a stack of modern machines for cheap. Volume boxes. If the business is making money then it should budget for modern tech. If it isn't making money then it will die out like any other failed business. How much productivity is lost each and every day from 2008 era boxes creaking along?

The money would be much better spent outfitting the old systems with SSDs. C2D is quite fine for basic office work (still). The bottleneck is, and has been, the platter HDD. A modern machine stuck on HDD tech is still creaky at best.

Ask me how I know this.
(hint: i use machines at work with Haswell i5s and slow 2.5" hdds, quite painfully slow, plenty of minutes lost in updates, boots, etc)

 

[exar333]

(Intel 486, Pentium MMX 233) -> k63-400, Duron 950, Tbird 1400, AXP 1600+ Palomino, AXP 1800+ TB-A, AXP 1700+ TB-B, AXP 2500+ Barton, Mobile Barton 2500+, A64 2800+ Clawhammer (early adopter), A64 3000+ Newcastle, A64 3800+ Manchester, Opteron 165 Denmark... Q6600 -> 3570K.

What I'd like in Zen is to get my current system's performance in a single chip with ~Skylake performance per watt. Ivy Bridge i5 ~4ghz + 1024cu GPU equivalent in a <100w envelope, so I can shrink my ITX "tower" down to something little larger than a NUC.

Given that Polaris can probably hit close to 7850 performance in a ~50w envelope, and my CPU only draws ~60w under load at 4ghz (44w at stock clocks), this seems like a reasonable request, don't you think?

Intel's iGPUs are getting a lot better, but their drivers are still bad, and their display settings/utility is dismal. AMD has some selling points for their APUs in software support alone, such as it is.

Nice post.

I am in the same boat....planning to give the Skull Canyon NUC a try w/ external GPU. Iris pro should be awfully close to the 7850 in performance (but we will see).

NUC utility is awesome and hopefully Zen opens that up opportunity for AMD.

 

[AtenRa]

Nice post.

I am in the same boat....planning to give the Skull Canyon NUC a try w/ external GPU. Iris pro should be awfully close to the 7850 in performance (but we will see).

NUC utility is awesome and hopefully Zen opens that up opportunity for AMD.

What Iris Pro are you talking about ??

 

[UptheIrons]

Well, are we talking about Skylake or Haswell?

Just looking at the Micro Center Bundles with the cheapest motherboards:
i5 4690K with motherboard = $269
i5 6600K with motherboard = $354

http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-processor-bundles.aspx

Versus
FX 8320e with motherboard = $124

....And that MSI 970 SLI motherboard is pretty beefy -- so you can expect a decent overclock.

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

That's a pretty massive difference in price.... Definitely more than $80. Approximately $145 Cheaper than a Haswell i5 and $230 cheaper than a Skylake i5. Now you know why people are still doing new AMD builds. That $230 savings can buy a pretty sweet dedicated video card.

Yep that's exactly what I did with my living room PC. Couldn't be happier. Plays black ops 3 and all games just fine. With a tight budget it worked out great.

 

[myocardia]

What Iris Pro are you talking about ??

The one he had just mentioned in what you quoted, the one in the Skull Canyon NUC, one would think.

 

[cytg111]

Every tech based site I go to, I constantly read about how poor AMD are compared to Intel these days, but I don't have a great deal of issues with them. I'm currently running the FX 6300 at stock, and I mean, I'm running FIFA 16 at 4K on Ultra @ 80fps (Alright, it's not the most demanding game), GTA 5 at 1440p at 40-50fps on high Fallout 4 on ultra at 40-50fps with 60fps in less dense areas.

Is it simply just because Intel are better? I mean, if Intel weren't as good as they are and they were on or around the same level as AMD, I suppose people wouldn't give AMD so much stick. My guess Intel have just set the standard in processors.

I wanted to post something like; quality = performance divided by price, and performance could be formulated at perf div watt - if you are "invested" in the powebill (see what I did there?) ..
But it would be super hard to post something like that with the Intel/AMD goon squad around, so I wont.

 

[exar333]

What Iris Pro are you talking about ??

Iris pro 580. Likely ~80% of a 950 according to the best guesses out there. Final performance is pending.

 

[AtenRa]

Iris pro 580. Likely ~80% of a 950 according to the best guesses out there. Final performance is pending.

Perhaps closer to 950M(GDDR5) or HD7850M but not in a million years close to HD7850 or GTX 950.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yep that's exactly what I did with my living room PC. Couldn't be happier. Plays black ops 3 and all games just fine. With a tight budget it worked out great.

Well, it is great that you are happy with your PC. I am sure it is a nice system. About the *only* way to justify FX though, is with a Microcenter bundle, which is not available to a lot of people. Using new egg prices, 8320e is only 80.00 cheaper than 6600K, and still closer in price to a locked haswell or skylake quad. Even then, using MOTR's somewhat atypical price disparity, haswell is only about 10 to 15% more expensive, based on the cost of an entire system.

So please, I dont mean to knock your system. It just seems fair to point out that MOTR's post is a best case, by far, price scenario for AMD. The real difference in most cases will be in the hundred dollar or less range, not a really significant difference to me when spread over several years.

 

[cytg111]

Iris pro 580. Likely ~80% of a 950 according to the best guesses out there. Final performance is pending.

if true an amazing accomplishment. Price factors in of course, still it must be a blow to the compition in form of AMD and NVidia for their given ranges. - Wonder where AMD and NVidia's bread and butter segment lies, if it is 950 territory then it is interresting times ahead.
Still you have to wonder about the Core and Intels process tech. One chip, one uarch is fighting HEDT, portable and now descrete GPU's.
(even if they were to fail on one front, - a hell of a fight!!)

 

[myocardia]

Iris pro 580. Likely ~80% of a 950 according to the best guesses out there. Final performance is pending.

Perhaps closer to 950M(GDDR5) or HD7850M but not in a million years close to HD7850 or GTX 950.

Funnily enough, I believe that the two of you have just laid out the boundaries for the performance of the Iris Pro 580. I'm expecting its performance to fall somewhere between these two guesstimates. To which it will be closer, we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Lets see though if that transfers into real world usage or just some artificial benchmark. Intel igps have notoriously done well at low resolutions or on artificial benchmarks, and fallen down at higher resolutions and in demanding games. Not to mention, new 14nm dgpus, are in the pipeline also, which will raise the bar considerably for performance and efficiency.

That said, if they would make this standard (or even gt3e) on all mobile quads instead of 1500.00 plus halo products, then I would be impressed.

Edit: never thought I would say this, but I have to agree with Aten on this one. I dont think they can possibly reach more than 950M performance in a mobile 35 or 45 watt power envelope. They might be able to do it in a desktop with a higher TDP, but who cares, really.

 

[cytg111]

404

 

[Phynaz]

you must surf pages that compute mersenne primes in javascript.

omfgufi.orly

I really don't get your infatuation with my posts. Does it have something to do with insecurity?

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

There is a big difference between the web in 2007 with Core 2 and the web in 2016 with a Core 2. Even with an ad blocker. A $50 Haswell Celeron is nearly as fast as a Q6600 in single threaded tasks. That isn't elitist, that is time to move on.

What are you talking about? Walmart and Best Buy are selling a bunch of brand new Desktops powered by Celeron J1800 CPU's. My seven year old Core 2 Duo or six year old Athlon II x2 245will stomp those things backwards and forwards.

Newer ain't always better. And a Haswell Celeron would be a downgrade from my existing Core 2 Quad. Passmark rates my Q9400 about 500 points higher than a G1840.

 

[2is]

But he is being ignorant, is he not? He's based his "facts" on a benchmark and called me a troll based on my real world experience. Sure, he can go ahead and believe a benchmark because it's what's been achieved elsewhere, BUT that doesn't make me a troll. I've got exactly what I've said I've got, so maybe he shouldn't be so close minded and pretend just because he says something, it's apparently 100% correct.

He based his facts on facts, actually.

If you're going to defend AMD, and make impossible claims as to your gaming performance, you will need to grow much thicker skin around here.

 

[frozentundra123456]

What are you talking about? Walmart and Best Buy are selling a bunch of brand new Desktops powered by Celeron J1800 CPU's. My seven year old Core 2 Duo or six year old Athlon II x2 245will stomp those things backwards and forwards.

Newer ain't always better. And a Haswell Celeron would be a downgrade from my existing Core 2 Quad. Passmark rates my Q9400 about 500 points higher than a G1840.

Yes, but look at the single threaded score. The haswell celeron is more than 60% faster. For normal everyday usage, i would take a big core celeron over a Core 2 any day of the week. Now the atom "celerons" are another story, and should not even be allowed close to a deaktop.

 

[TheELF]

Newer ain't always better. [/I]And a Haswell Celeron would be a downgrade from my existing Core 2 Quad. Passmark rates my Q9400 about 500 points higher than a G1840.

Where can I download this passmark browser?Is it free?
/s

 

[exar333]

Funnily enough, I believe that the two of you have just laid out the boundaries for the performance of the Iris Pro 580. I'm expecting its performance to fall somewhere between these two guesstimates. To which it will be closer, we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Very true. Intel IGPs do very well in some benches and not as great in others. I will have an external GPU, but hoping it is good enough for some less graphic intensive Steam games or older titles. Couple that with 4C/8T and 45w total, it should be a great performer. All in a NUC too.

Hopefully Zen can bring some of this as well. I would be ok with 80% of the cpu grunt and a slightly better GPU. Unfortunately, just can't get that from AMD today in a similar power envelope, and the trade off when attaching an external gpu is too much. If external GPUs get popular, AMD needs an efficient competitor, or that market will mimic what's mobile looks like today.