Lol... I've had an 8320 and a 9590 and got rid of them both. Almost no difference over my 1055t @4.2ghz. In some cases... they lost. FX cpu's are for not enthusiasts. Period. I can immediately tell when I'm using an FX CPU over an Intel. I wouldn't even consider it. Not for one second. Some people are satisfied yeah..... I don't build a Gaming System to be satisfied. It has to be perfect. It has to impress me. AMD CPU's have not done that since AM2. IMO.

This is comming from someone who paid 200$ more for an extra 12 pci-e lanes that makes no difference at all unless youre getting quad sli. I dont think you can be an arbitrator of the right pc hardware.

This is going a little too much now on intel vs AMD. I did contribute to that, but now I'm gonna put an end to it. No more talk on that please.

My one amd chip just died and it was bought back around 2000! (sry vbetts). Lets hope Amd can reduce the gap in terms of heat/power draw with the zens and keep cost lower. Will def consider an amd chip next build I do. If difference in cost is £100 I can live with losing out on a few fps here and there....

I only just got my FX cpu a few months ago and I'm honestly very happy with the performance of it, it's a little bit hot in comparison to my previous Phenom 955... I ended up getting a new pwm fan to put on my liquid cooler to deal with the extra heat, other than that FX cpu's are pretty awesome for gaming. The thing I am most looking forward to with zen is the lower TDP.

Lets hope Amd can reduce the gap in terms of heat/power draw with the zens and keep cost lower.

I don't know what you do on a regular basis or what kind of software you're familiar with, but it seems to me ARM is the right option for you. Low heat: Check Low power: Check Cost effective: Check As a Linux user, I personally find ARM modestly easy to get into. In my experience, I've found the GPUs or SD cards have primarily been the bottlenecks, but there are ARM platforms out there that have full OpenGL support and SATA ports (such as the Jetson boards). Obviously, ARM isn't a good option if you're a gamer or depend on x86 Windows software. But... there is a tool for Linux called ExaGear that allows you to run some x86 programs. Kind of funny, ARM+Linux+ExaGear+wine would give you more compatibility with Windows software than Windows RT.

My only AMD ever, and i loved it. http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=58028

I really hope Zen catches up. I used to be such a fanboy back in the days of the Athlon to Athlon 64 era; I even had a couple Athlon XP processors. Would love to get back on the AMD train.

This is very complex talk, but it can be taken apart rationally. - price, APUs are very cheap for what they do deliver. FX chips are well aligned with intel's offerings in average, as they tend to have higher total performance but lower per thread performance. (And that's why intel has chips in consumer market, which cost more than double.) - OS/productivity is perfect on all AMD's offerings for desktops, we are quite a few years ahead of requirements. FX originates from special server design, more thrown at it, the better they do. - games: 95% of gamers out there sit on 60Hz screens and are just fine with older stuff like Phenom II x4 (I did test with my i5 to see impact of downclocking. There are some games which show minor problems once down to 2.5GHz, Bit more problems start at 2GHz, and still many games run fine @1.6GHz.) - > But thing is, all talk about over 60fps or 120/144/160/200 fps/Hz boils down to developer of game thinking that 60fps is just right or 30fps is just right. If they target 30fps, none of us will get 120+ fps from it on any chip we have today. - Power Efficiency, FX are old and they are not so bad. Moment we take in account entire system (including screen) it is not very important. There will always be bad software and there is no reason blame HW for it. Then there is rhetoric, some people think enthusiast is someone who gets the best and fastest while not minding to pay 3 times as much in comparison to only 30% slower chip which performs practically same in real world use. They should rethink their views.

Very disappointing to hear that zen will be coming out end of the year, granted it does give me time to save up for the next modo+cpu I get. I was hoping mid 2016 atleast though so I can see if the hype was worth it or if I would end up back at intel again.

I may make myself sound like an ass here a bit, but its pretty simple for me. What will give me the best performance overall? IMO, its Intel. What will provide me the best performance in gaming? IMO, its Intel. What will provide me the best value in terms of overclocking vs heat output? IMO, its Intel. What will cost me more money overall, asked as someone who is willing to pay for the best? Intel, without a doubt. I definitely hope for AMD that they have a winner in Zen, as I would love nothing more than for Intel to be pushed in competition. From a user and enthusiast standpoint, Intel is simply put the consistent winner. This is not to say that AMD hasn't released great products, of course they have. But if money isn't a concern (for me its not when it comes to obtaining the best hardware) why would I ever go AMD? This to me is what AMD needs to change. If they wish to be competitive, they simply need to try to get close to where Intel is at and change people's perceptions with their hardware.. for too long they have been seen as the "poor man's" value option. I always buy for value TBH, unless it comes down to a CPU/Mobo/Ram. This combo I will pay more for to get the best and future proof myself.

I'll rather wait and be pleased to find out that Zen is what is promised to be,than to have it earlier and be a big pile of steam and broken promises. But until then Intel will not be sitting picking their noses....

I may make myself sound like an ass here a bit, but its pretty simple for me. What will give me the best performance overall? IMO, its Intel. What will provide me the best performance in gaming? IMO, its Intel. What will provide me the best value in terms of overclocking vs heat output? IMO, its Intel. What will cost me more money overall, asked as someone who is willing to pay for the best? Intel, without a doubt.

I agree with your assessment and this is why i have my current hardware, i wanted the best. But the thing is that if i have a friend who wants to build a gaming machine and only wants to spend around 600$ give or take, i will never recommend an i3 over an fx because i think that would just be rediculous. You're way better off with an fx 8120E for example which has huge overclock headroom over any i3 and in some sense, these budget people are future-proof too as games are heading towards Dx12 which is way more efficient. for example, you're better off with an fx running dx12 than an i7 running DX11... Why is everyone forgetting about this?

It might bring a bit more market share to AMD if it performance good and costs low, but Intel will be the best way to go still. Heck AMD can't beat sandy bridge and it's been 5 years, even intel can't beat SB, at least not in terms of performance.

Yeah had a FX8320 @ 5GHz aircooled and 1.45v ran great gave it to my nephew and built a i5 4570 was really disappointed, my brother got me a 4790k last Christmas and it's somewhat better than the i5 it's still not the performance i was expecting. Granted benchmarks say otherwise but real world no difference. I play alot of flash games simultaneously too with the AMD FX i had to force min clock speed to boost performance since bizarrely AMD processors will only run at low cool and quiet clock speeds but with 4 games playing at a time could load up simultaneously. Intel on the other hand which runs on turbo during flash content stalls when loading them up simultaneously which may only be a few seconds but it is quite annoying. Think it due to the processes running on the same core as HT which cause it to freeze. Although Intel Turbo boost does kick in alot more and is more consistent than AMD's turbo, both processors have their advantages and disadvantages. All games play great on either processors so long as they don't drop below 50fps i am happy.

Has AMD ever been on target with CPU release dates in last decade? If going by past, Zen could be out mid-2017.

I think Intel deliberately slowed down there new CPU releases to allow AMD time to develop their new CPU architectures, last thing Intel needs is to be the only CPU manufacturer on the block and monopolize the market, competition is important but if your competitor is late out of the gate then you might as well take advantage of that by slowing down a bit, I do miss the days of the K6-2 and the Athlon XP when AMD had the faster chips and actually posed a threat to Intel and I hope they get back to that point one day but for now AMD is the budget brand when it comes to CPU's, I still look forward to seeing their new stuff though and a 2016 release date is positive news in my opinion.

I think Intel deliberately slowed down there new CPU releases to allow AMD time to develop their new CPU architectures, last thing Intel needs is to be the only CPU manufacturer on the block and monopolize the market, competition is important but if your competitor is late out of the gate then you might as well take advantage of that by slowing down a bit,

Intel's competition isn't AMD anymore, it's ARM. They haven't slowed down, just shifted focus to power.

Intel's competition isn't AMD anymore, it's ARM. They haven't slowed down, just shifted focus to power.

Yeah I agree with that if we're talking about the mobile and tablet market but as far as the Desktop market goes I think it's always been Intel vs AMD.

Quite frankly, fellow gurus... It was a pleasure reading the debate. Interesting points of views were expressed as well as good rebuttals. This is why I visit guru3d. 🙂 I'm also glad so many gurus are defending AMD instead of bashing it to no end, as I've seen too many times. Keep it up, AMD! Crossing my fingers for Zen! 😀

This^ Me to :thumbup: If zen could match sandybridge single core performance and overclock like heck!..say 5.9-6.1ghz(on all 8) ...then it would sell like hotcakes!

10 more months or so to see if the game is on again. here is hoping