The Vishera Review: AMD FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-6300 and FX-4300 Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 12:00 AM ESTProjected Performance: Can AMD Catch up with Intel?
I keep going back to this slide because it's incredibly relevant. It's the only indication we have from AMD of what its future roadmap will look like in terms of performance increases:
Each year AMD promised to increase performance of its high-end cores by roughly 10 - 15%. Astute observers will note that, at this rate, AMD will almost never catch up to Intel. AMD at the time was careful to point out that it's talking about 10 - 15% gains in core performance, and it could potentially see even larger increases in total chip performance by pulling other levers. Vishera is an example of AMD doing just that. The Piledriver cores by themselves don't increase performance tremendously, but they do give AMD a little more thermal headroom to work with thanks to some more efficient design decisions and better transistor choice. With Vishera, AMD took the additional power headroom and turned into a frequency advantage. The result is AMD's FX-8350 can operate in the same power envelope as the outgoing FX-8150, yet runs at an 11% higher base clock (turbo frequency remains the same). Through frequency and core level improvements, AMD was able to deliver a bit more than the 10 - 15% performance increased in promised.
If AMD is able to repeat these improvements again next year, I wondered whether or not it would get any closer to closing the gap with Intel - particularly when it came to single threaded performance. We already know from our Haswell investigations that Intel is expecting around a 5 - 15% increase in CPU performance from Haswell over Ivy Bridge. If we assume that Haswell delivers towards the 15% end of that spectrum, and if we assume that Steamroller delivers the same level of improvements that we saw from Piledriver/Vishera, we end up with some pretty interesting predictions for where things end up next year. I modeled the 2013 performance of high-end AMD and Intel platforms based on those two factors and plotted the curves in a few different benchmarks. For each generation I used the parts that AMD stacked up against one another (they are also fairly similarly priced). For 2011 I used the FX-8150 vs. Intel's Core i5 2500 and for 2012 I used the FX-8350 vs. Intel's Core i5 3570. The 2013 data is of course projected based on a 15% increase in performance from Haswell, and a repeat of the Vishera vs. Zambezi increase for AMD. This is mostly an interesting experiment so don't get too invested in the data.
We'll start with Cinebench, by far the most painful of the tests for AMD from a single-threaded performance perspective:
The Vishera gains here were decent but not enough to dramatically shrink the performance gap. Furthermore, Intel put a good amount of distance in place with Ivy Bridge and if it can continue that with Haswell I don't see much hope here.
The multithreaded Cinebench results begin in AMD's favor and remain so even with our projected performance data.
Mozilla's Kraken benchmark is another example of single threaded performance gone awry for AMD.
Thankfully, Vishera does close the gap by a decent amount and if AMD extends those gains it is on an intercept course with Intel. The bad news is, that intercept wouldn't be in 2013.
POV-Ray provides another point of view on single threaded performance, here the situation looks far less dire than under Cinebench:
Unfortunately the curves remain fairly distinct.
Once again, when we increase thread count we see AMD pull ahead.
SYSMark is a particularly telling benchmark as it is lightly threaded and does a good job of simulating all types of workloads:
The result here is AMD closing in, albeit slowly, on Intel's performance advantage. I suspect this is quite possibly the best case scenario for AMD, it doesn't necessarily want to surpass Intel in performance but it wants to get close enough where pricing and other factors (e.g. GPU performance in its APU parts) can make a bigger difference.
Our Visual Studio 2012 test is a good combination of single threaded and multithreaded workloads in one:
With Vishera, AMD did a lot to close the gap betwen itself and Intel. Another increase like this and we won't see AMD surpass Intel, but the two should remain fairly close.
These last two tests show us the other side of the coin. If both AMD and Intel continue on their present tracks, what will happen in a test where AMD already does well today?
In areas where AMD holds a significant advantage, Haswell would need to deliver more than a 15% gain in performance at the same price point to catch up.
None of the results here are all that surprising. AMD remaining on its current course isn't enough to dramatically change its standings vs. Intel in another year. Vishera definitely cut into the performance delta, but the 2013 follow-up will have to do even more to really have an impact. Steamroller is far more focused on increasing IPC, however without a new process node it'll be difficult to demonstrate another gain in frequency like we see today with Vishera. I suspect the real chance for AMD to approach parity in many of these workloads will be with its 20nm architecture, perhaps based on Excavator in 2014.
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Granttamaid - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link
Remember Price vs performance, AMD always win against intel. Well, intel has the fastest processor in the world,.... but, do you need all the intel's potential power? i don't think so.some people only use their computer for internet browsing even they have intel core i7.
pantong - Monday, July 8, 2013 - link
I see most comments talking about how this card is shit.Sigh.
This card works great for what I need it to do. I host 7 servers on my computer on v boxes for my gaming community. Mine craft, ts, star made, cube world, ect... I don't get paid for my services and I need it cheap. This card give performance to host a lot of people on each on each core. From a low 4 people on cube world to 45+ on team speak.
Why would I buy Intel for these purposes other than to spend money for same performance in the scenario and flaunt my epeen.?
Performance is not based on score or GHz. Its based on money.
So before saying this card is shit. Why not look at multiple applications that this card can be used it.
As far as this scenario goes. Any unused CPU is lost money.
Ukdude21 - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
You keep complaining about amd fanboys, but your obviously an intel fanboy... You sound completely immature with your constant us of LOL in caps.No need to get too excited about cpu's... They are just part of a machine that you use lol.
Seriously you should not post on this website if you are just going to be a immature intel fanboy.
You sound too young to be posting on this website anyways.
"obnoxious insolence" you should re-read your post as it is completely obnoxious.
Your attitude stinks -.-
Gholt - Thursday, August 29, 2013 - link
All those Intel & AMD Fanboys.. Holy crap -_-I have an FX-8350 and had an i7 in the past.
I went for the FX-8350 since it was so much cheaper compared to the i7 3770K while having almost identical performance, AMD just can't be beaten by their Price-Performance products, however Intel's best CPU's will Always be better than AMD's best, thats a fact to be known.
BUT, that doesnt make AMD bad, like all these Intel ''Fanboys'' seem te think, Intel and AMD are both bad and good in their own way, get the fuck over it both you AMD AND Intel fanboys.
alcomenow - Friday, October 11, 2013 - link
If you live in a hot and humid climate an FX processors would be a terrible value. Most people that live in central Florida use air-conditioning 80% to 90% of the year. For my uses the equivalent AMD CPU's have been tested and shown to consume about 65 watts more under full load and 11 watts under idle conditions than a comparable Intel CPU. Since I pay 100% of the electrical bill then buying a Intel CPU will become a significant cost saving purchase over 4 or 5 years.Well, 10 or 50 watts might not seem like it would cost much. If you factor in daily usage, a/c cost, and 4 years of ownership than the pennies start to add up.
1w * 12hrs/day = 4.3kw/hrs/yr
4.3kw * 0.8 a/c cost = 7.7kw * $0.11 kw/hrs = $0.85 yr
$0.85 * 4 yr = $3.40 per watt
example $3.40 * 30w = $102
1w * 24hrs/day = 8.6kw/hrs/yr
8.6kw * 0.8 a/c cost = 15.4kw * $0.11 kw/hrs = $1.7 yr
$01.7 * 4 yr = $6.80 per watt
example $6.80 * 50w = $340
If I was building someone a budget gaming desktop, I would recommend spending $130 on a Intel Core i3-3225 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 55W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 running at stock speeds instead of spend $120 on a AMD FX-6300 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor even if overclocked to 4GHz.
ToeringsNthong - Saturday, January 11, 2014 - link
Quote""Single threaded performance is my biggest concern, and compared to Sandy Bridge there's a good 40-50% advantage the i5 2500K enjoys over the FX-8150"I know this is an old post BUT i just bought its big bother the FX 8350 for $129.99 ,and they are saying the same thing,poor single thread performance.I say WHO CARES? I know most people that have 1/2 a brain don't care!! Most people buy this CPU for gaming !What games can you name are single threaded???unless you go back to the stone age ! and are playing the very 1st battlefield 1942?thats all i do is game and transcode videos and dollar to dollar this thing kicks intels a s s! so case closed!!!! AMD all the way FTWmersastra - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
1st time in ages pondering an upgrade , why I don't know as what I have doe's everything i need to , I don't game by the way. Sitting on Phenom11 Quad 965 Black Edition , gently O/c to 3.7ghz . Asus M4A88TD-evo with 16GB of memory. Not impressed with bench marks in the least , used to laugh at them with lenses when I used to do photography , meaningless in the real world mostly. pondering this chip , currently about £143. Been building machines since 286 days and always use AMD , never let me down , have been with several Intel ones. If AMD went bust leaving Intel with a monopoly, would price out of our reach. My thoughts anyway. Not really bothered which chip as long as it works , each to their own , don't understand the squabbling. lol.LBJ - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Did you look at the games benchmarks in this review? It's not that games only use a single thread, it's that plenty of games are no optimised well for multi-threaded CPUs. If we're talking about BF4 fine, the FX chips will perform well against Intel, but it's clear from these benchmarks that in plenty of titles from the past few years that the poor per-core performance of the AMD chips does hamper its gaming potential.Chromatose - Sunday, February 2, 2014 - link
And the fanboyism repeats itself again.... AMD is slowly creeping up to Intel, eventually they would have to be equal. AMD does good at 3D modelling, video editing and gaming, Intel is suited more for video editing, rendering and graphics. AMD is low price and value. If you can OC it properly and with good cooling, it beats Intel in SOME areas. Intel, on the other hand, can deliver a tad more power with lower clock speeds.AMD has less framerate from Intel, but only a *slight* difference in performance. AMD is known to have weak cores and make it up by adding 8. Intel has slightly more power in each core, but mainly goes up to 6 cores.
My conclusion? AMD should stop fighting with Intel and slowly work their way up from there.
Melcinitan - Thursday, June 19, 2014 - link
Ok people,lets just agree that nothing is free of charge.We HAVE TO PAY to get these badboys on our pcs so you can stop bitchin about "price dont matter".AMD FX 8320 is around 160$.lets check for the same price to intel right?Intel - Core i3 Dual-core i3-4340 is what i found on the net after a quick search. If you tell me that i3 guy can best FX 8320 than yep Intel is the winner.But if you try to compare i7 and this fx guy,thats wrong.
I think amd tries to sell cpus to middle-class folks who only wants to have best performance with a weak salary and Intel is trying to do the best of the bests regarding how much it will cost. If you have lots of money buy an intel and have fun of it. If you dont have that much money but still need some performance go for AMD.
My opinion is giving half the money and have a tick less of performance.I'll live.