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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ET - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously anything where the writer uses "Windoze". Any such text is obviously written by a heavily biased individual and therefore any "analysis" in it is flawed.Finally - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously anything where the writer uses the screen name "ET"...extide - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
X2 this guy is one of those "Linux Zealots" Pretty sad that there are still people out there that feel that way.andrewaggb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
It would be interesting to see some linux benchmarks considering this chip's only future may be running servers or bargain machines.Some linux webserver and sql database benchmarks would be interesting. I didn't see any desktop use case for this processor at all. In every benchmarked case I'd rather have an intel chip. Even when Intel lost it wasn't by much. And the conclusion basically said the same thing, if you are 100% sure you are running heavily threaded code all the time, then this MIGHT be the chip for you if you don't mind a bigger power bill. That's just not great.
But as for the windows remark, windows is fine. Linux has some strong points, particularly with servers, and it's kernel->user mode transitions, but everything is a trade off. I use linux for many of my servers and have for years, but I mostly agree with this http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.... as to the problems with linux. If you've genuinely used linux alot, you'll know most of these things are true to one degree or another. Basically once you get X audio and video involved, it's not awesome and you'll appreciate windows more :-)
redwarrior - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
If you prefer to analyze things scientifically and think independently you would NOT use your computer primarily or exsclusively for gaming, you are a one-dimensional human being IIt is a multi-faceted tool that can do work , organize a revolution, spread joy through its communications ability. Help the oppressed get together to fight their expoliters It can be entertaining as well. Practicing being a paid mercenary like the Seals does not intrigue me, it repulses me.There is nothing this cpu can't do either better . as well, or almost as well asan Interl chip in its price class. Single-threaded apps are dying out. More and more games are being programmed to take advantage of multi cores and AMDs' superiority there is only going to grow. Dis it all you like it show your brain is not eoperating at a high efficiency. it is irrational just liek those Iphone nuts who stand on line for aproduct that is being bought as a status symbol rather than as a superior tool (which it is not).
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Thank you so much mr revolution. By the way obnoxious idiot, you have NO IDEA how the person you responded to uses his or her computer(s) !We get it, you're a dyed in the wool amd freak. Now explain how the 2500K at 4500mhz on stock everything doesn't smoke the spanking lies out of you?
LOL - see you at the FEMA CAMP, i'll be on the other side of the barbed wire, mr revolutionary.
SlyNine - Saturday, November 17, 2012 - link
Let me just say. Shut up.als2we - Friday, August 16, 2013 - link
Just look at the facts , more performance for your $$ http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-835...AMD has it there we need it there , if amd goes away Intel can charge what ever they want ..........
SlyNine - Saturday, November 17, 2012 - link
It doesn't matter if something is multithreaded or not. If it doesn't use more than 4 threads Intel's Single threaded advantage still holds.Only until you fully saturate the 8threads does the AMD, maybe, pull ever so slightly ahead. Even sometimes there it falls way behind.
If the amount of threads your software is asking is equal to the amount of cores your Core I7,5,3 has the Intel is spanking AMD. Only if the amount of cores DOUBLES intel's is the AMD maybe winning alittle bit.
apache1649 - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
I'm sorry, this is a bit off-topic to the processors (although I can't say I'm partial to either, I'll be using an AMD because it works in the motherboard I want and performs well with all the other parts I want, but I have used my friend's i5 build and it runs very nicely) but how do you say that Linux is only for servers and bargain builds? Besides the fact that I have seen $600 builds that blow away multiple thousand dollar builds, Linux has become an extremely advanced OS in the last few years. The desktop environments available are all more intuitive than either Windows or Mac, given that they can be customized to the user's preferences down to where they interact directly with the kernel. Not to mention they offer a vast array of features that Windows and Mac don't, as well as using far less resources. I have Linux operating systems that will idle around 1.2% CPU usage. Windows 7 idles around 5%-6%. It manages network connections more efficiently, utilizes the resources it does use much more effectively, and in general just gives a much more immersive and intuitive user experience if you know what you're doing. I would really like to see more support for Linux, because if software and firmware that is available for Windows was available for Linux without the use of WINE, I would use Linux exclusively because it would be so much more efficient, and at this point it has become so streamlined and beautiful that most people who have seen me using it and are Windows users say they would switch because of it's ease of use and visual appeal if only all the software they use on Windows was available. Oh and putting servers and bargain builds in the same group really wasn't well thought out... Most servers have high end components to be able to handle large amounts of traffic and heavy loads on resources.