back to article AMD uncloaks 4GHz-and-up FX Series 'enthusiast' chippery

AMD has unveiled its latest FX Series processers, aimed squarely at the enthusiasts' market – the hardcore gamers and other speed demons who want the snappiest possible performance but don't want to spend an arm and a leg on their systems. "We're looking at users who are spending over a hundred dollars on a graphics card," AMD …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Looks good though when I saw the third pic/slide (http://regmedia.co.uk/2012/10/22/chipsets_large.jpg) I did wonder how you can have the term "latest technologies" and still mention 14 USB 2.0 ports without mentioning a single USB 3.0. Especialy when it mentions SATA 6.

    Still, at least there keeping there foot in the door.

    1. NumptyScrub
      Headmaster

      quote: "Still, at least there keeping there foot in the door."

      Keeping with the same homonym does indeed increase the chances of at least one being correct, unfortunately for the sentence you picked neither "there" is in fact the right one.

      Still, at least they're (they are) keeping their (belonging to them) foot in the door. It is nice to see AMD still there (in that place).

      In fact, I'd consider picking one of the 8-core parts up when I look at upgrading my current gaming box (Intel Core2 Duo). I was intending to go for the i5 K part (whichever was current at the time) but this looks like a good budget replacement without sacrificing relative performance :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        With those 8 cores.....

        Watch the leccy meter spin faster that a Shane Warne googly. AMD chips are big power suckers when under load.

        1. NumptyScrub

          Re: With those 8 cores.....

          quote: "AMD chips are big power suckers when under load."

          From a quick check, the FX8000s are 125W vs 77W for the i5s. Certainly a big difference, however in the context of a gaming rig running at least one 110+W GPU (The nVidia GTX690 is 300W per card!), not such a major factor IMO. That 50W saving is likely to be ~10% total system power, which is large enough to be significant, but not so large as to preclude the AMDs from the decision making process :)

          I used to run AMDs back when they were the obvious price:performance winners, and switched back to Intel during the "equivalent speed" naming era. Looks like there's a convicing argument to give them another go :)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: With those 8 cores..... @ Numptysub

            Beg to differ on system load, good table over at techspot:

            http://www.techspot.com/review/452-amd-bulldozer-fx-cpus/page11.html

            @ full load:

            i52500k 151W, i72600k 166W, AMD FX8150 252W

            And if you overclock the AMDs they really shoot up in wattage.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: With those 8 cores..... @ Numptysub

              And just to add another wattage benchmark

              http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/38421-intel-core-i5-3570k-22nm-ivy-bridge/?page=8

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Sorry Numptyscrub and thank you for spell slapping me.

        Having seen some more indepth testing of these new chips I must admit that top end 8 cores does seem a very good upgrade and I too shall be looking at one for a gaming box as well. Some of the tests it was beating the i7, certainly not dragging its heals as much as some may think.

  2. ElNumbre
    Thumb Up

    Whitebox Upgrade

    Looks interesting, I use the 6100 in a whitebox VM server at home, but the 8xxx range could be a useful upgrade mid-next year once the market has settled a little; especially if Gigabyte release BIOS updates to support the new chippery.

  3. Peter C.
    Thumb Up

    AMD has a Winner !

    Virtually all of the Net reviews of Vishera have concluded that it is a good step forward and a great value with the FX-8350 currently selling in the U.S. for $220 delivered. These should sell very well for AMD.

    In regards to the story discussion about RAM speeds, many test of real apps has shown that on Windoze platforms, there is no system bottleneck by DDR3 RAM running at or above 1333 MHz. In fact there is only minute gains with RAM frequencies up to 2600 MHz. and RAM quantities above 4 GB., for both Intel and AMD desktop type PCs. Spending more on faster than 1600 MHz. RAM is just throwing your're money away unless you have an APU where the GPU section can show some gain from RAM up to 1866 MHz. Most servers however can benefit from an increased quantity of RAM.

    1. Shagbag
      Thumb Down

      AMD has a Loser !

      Couldn't resist.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: AMD has a Loser !

        Oh come on, considering the quality of the company, I think it's "looser", and a few bonus apostrophes :D

        (Actually, AMD are probably pretty loose right now, looking at their financials and their product lineup. I'd be delighted if they could suck less- it keeps Intel and NVidia on their toes and makes it harder to screw users)

    2. Ramazan
      Stop

      Re: there is no bottleneck by DDR3 RAM above 1333 MHz

      Wrong. RAM is always bottleneck, that's why your typical CPU has L1, L2 and sometimes even L3 caches. If you don't see perfomace gains going from 1333 to 2600MHz RAM, that's becaus of wait states or other reasons.

      1. wowfood

        Re: there is no bottleneck by DDR3 RAM above 1333 MHz

        But surely that's proving that the bottleneck isn't the RAM. It's the wait states and other reasons. Saying it's still a bottleneck because you need L1 and L2 and sometimes even L3 just seems silly.

        1. jason 7

          Re: there is no bottleneck by DDR3 RAM above 1333 MHz

          Indeed, look at any RAM review for the past 3 years plus and I'll show you a man who has wasted a couple of days of his life.

          For RAM now the selection criteria is purely go with the cheapest and closest matching to the colour of your motherboard. Plug it in and run it at stock.

          Not like the good old DDR days!

        2. Steve Knox
          FAIL

          Re: there is no bottleneck by DDR3 RAM above 1333 MHz

          But surely that's proving that the bottleneck isn't the RAM. It's the wait states and other reasons.

          The "wait states and other reasons [read: other timing values]" are attributes of the RAM modules -- they exist because the CPU has to wait (get it?) for the RAM to recover from the previous access.

          DDR3 RAM at even 2600MHz is still clocked at only 65% of the speed of a 4 GHz CPU, meaning that the CPU will have to wait for the RAM at some point -- thus it is still a bottleneck.

          Saying it's still a bottleneck because you need L1 and L2 and sometimes even L3 just seems silly.

          By that logic, saying that a hard drive is still a bottleneck because you need RAM is equally silly.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AMD has a Winner !

      throwing your're money away

      Eh, when NumptyScrub said above that "there" wasn't the right homonym to pick from "there"/"they're"/"their", he didn't mean that "they're" (or in your case, "you're") is always the right choice.

      It's throwing "your" money away ... (or replace the offending with "my", "your", "his", "her", "our", "your", "their", "one's" or "its" as appropriate)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The one thing I hate on intel vs AMD comparisons

    And I'm gladded they skipped it. But when you see reviews of a £100 AMD CPU, and then they put it against the latest £700 i7 and laugh at how much faster the i7 is.

    I'd much rather see price point comparisons than "This is our best CPU" comparisons.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The one thing I hate on intel vs AMD comparisons

      I would have to agree with you if the comparison is based on 'application benchmarks', i.e. does it offer me the same performance or better on the application I use at a price I am prepared to pay (this could be word processing or number crunching, but also 3D, or games).

      However, if a product is marketed as a 'flagship' item, i.e. 'look what we're capable of' I think such comparison can indeed be made.

      If I wanted to build a system and bragging rights were important to me, I would indeed wish to know if I had the fastest component installed, even if it was 3.5 times the price of the runner up. Well, for a week at least.

      It's just information. What you do with it us up to you. But I would agree that the right to laugh at the slower unit should be reserved to the people who actually fork out the 700$.

    2. jason 7

      Re: The one thing I hate on intel vs AMD comparisons

      And then they rant as though AMD was still selling K6-2 chips and that having a AMD CPU will cripple your system even though it will still deliver 60+ fps with a decent GPU.

      Ask Joe Customer on the street and all they will ask is "which is cheaper and will it be faster than my 3GHz P4?"

      1. Peter2 Silver badge

        Re: The one thing I hate on intel vs AMD comparisons

        That's my point of view.

        I have had one of the first "bugged" 4 core Phenoms that supposedly crashes if you run it at 100% since it was released. It was fast enough to run Crysis on full details back then, and I haven't had any issues with it since, Including the supposed crashing problem. This is probably because I have yet to have anything demand enough power that all four cores get used consistently, let alone to 100% capacity.

        In fact, I suspect that for the majority of uses (including gaming) beyond a certain point processors are "fast enough" and there is no difference discernible by switching to a more powerful processor.

  5. JDX Gold badge

    "over a hundred dollars on a graphics card"

    Hardly a decent gaming GPU for $100!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "over a hundred dollars on a graphics card"

      The point is that people can have a great PC experience with a low priced Vishera that will do everything desired. It's poor economics to pay more for an Intel CPU.

      The $100 GPU means that the consumer is willing to spend more money for a discrete CPU and GPU than just going with a very competent and inexpensive AMD Trinity desktop APU.

  6. Radelix

    title

    Looks like it is time to extend my epeen

    *switches tab to newegg

  7. Simon Harris
    Joke

    "designed for enthusiasts who don't want to sacrifice the aforementioned arm and leg"

    I put one in my lap-top...

    burnt my bleedin' leg off!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thank the Lord above

    That AMD is still there. They're the only reason Intel has not jacked their prices up even more.

    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=6&subid=1272

    £999.95 retail price for a Intel Core i7-3940XM Extreme 3.00GHz.

    My next CPU will be an AMD eight-core. It's not the best, but it's the burr under Intel's saddle.

  9. ZootCadillac
    Meh

    Looks interesting

    for those who have not already bought an FX Bulldozer. I have an 8150 which was good value, even shortly after launch. It runs out of the box ( turbo ) at 4Ghz on air and i have it running at 4.3ghz almost 24/7 on a closed liquid loop. I have had it stable at 5Ghz ( just for giggles when I got it, to compare with overclockers ).

    The old ones perform great so it's certainly not an upgrade path for anyone with an 8 core FX

    1. ZootCadillac

      Re: Looks interesting

      slight typo, I have the 8120 not the flagship ( of the time ) 8150

  10. Peter C.

    Vishera reviews all over the Net

    TechPowerUp has (14) Vishera CPU review links for those who desire to read many different review tests. There are both Windows and Linux based stuff.

    All in all Vishera is a nice step forward for those looking to upgrade. It has lower power consumption and increased performance, which is very nice.

  11. dhcp pump
    Childcatcher

    True Lies

    And wheres the linux benchmarks ,as the specs show ,the amd has it all over the intel processor ,in theory ,so it must the piece of crap winbloze operating system .

    do the math !. and some linux benchmarks .

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. dhcp pump
    Pint

    Linux Benchmark AMD fx8350 whips the Intel i7 Extreme

    http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=18051

    So what does this make the ms winbloze operating system ?.

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