AMD FX-8370E CPU Review: Vishera Down to 95W, Price Cuts for FX
by Ian Cutress on September 2, 2014 8:00 AM ESTAMD FX-8370E Conclusion
Since the bygone days of the GHz wars, energy efficiency is now a key part in any x86 CPU manufacturer handbook. When designing a CPU, parts can be engineered to either be all-out guns blazing on performance, or it can strike a balance between performance and power. When AMD first announced the FX-9590, it was presumed that the Vishera architecture was the former, given the large power increase to get to 5 GHz with turbo. That same principle comes across in these new energy efficient processors, especially when the FX-8370E is 700 MHz less than the FX-8370 it tries to emulate for a 30W decrease.
Trying to have an energy efficient part of an architecture that loves high frequency at the expense of power is an odd scenario, one borne from the initial production of motherboards that supported these processors. When there were only 95W and 125W CPUs to worry about, motherboards were made to only cope with this setting, until 220W CPUs hit the ecosystem. These 95W parts allow AMD to offer an upgrade path to an 8-thread machine without replacing the motherboard. The fact that AMD is going this far might suggest they have some strong data that a user would more likely replace a CPU than a motherboard. Admittedly replacing a CPU usually requires a BIOS update or less, whereas upgrading a motherboard is a bigger ordeal.
In terms of absolute performance, the FX-8370E sits somewhere between the FX-6350, FX-8150 and FX-8350. The multi-core performance puts it ahead of the FX-6350 CPU, but the single core performance can juggle around with all three, sometimes between the FX-8150 and FX-8350 due to the generational gap but often on par with the FX-8150. The same goes with gaming, where it competed with the FX-8150 near the bottom of our charts. The new FX-8370, the non-E part, should come out a clear winner over the FX-8350, so it stands to reason that the FX-8370E sits below them both due to the base frequency difference.
For competition against Intel, the nearest sets of numbers we have are the i3-4330, i3-4360 and the i5-4690, positioned well below and above the price point respectively. Intel wins hands down on the single threaded performance, even against the FX-9590, although having access to 8 threads on the FX-8000/9000 series is becoming more important for tasks like compression, multi-threaded web browsing and media creation.
AMD’s ideal scenario is a gamer using a combination of an FX-8370E ($200) with, for example, an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard ($90) and an R9 285 GPU ($250). Altogether this would cost around $540 for the start of an 8-thread system. This will do fine in gaming at 1080p, and the parallel to draw is that this performs the same as an FX-8150, but at lower power. It is a shame that the FX-8150 came out in October 2011, and nearly three years later we are saving only 30 watts of TDP (24%) and $45 on release price difference (18%) for the same performance on what should be the flagship line for a major x86 manufacturer.
At the end of the day, AMD needs to upgrade the architecture (and the chipset). At some point the architectures of the FX and APU line either need to diverge their separate ways, or there needs to be a hard earned reconciliation attempt to find a node and a manufacturing process suitable for both low power graphics cores and high frequency processor cores. We know about AMD's plans for 2016, dealing with ARM and x86, and the announcements on K12 so far point to AMD targeting servers, embedded markets and ultra low power client devices. Here's hoping desktop side gets a good boost.
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zero2dash - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Purposeful apples to oranges comparison on that chart.If they put the same GPU with the Intel CPU, the Intel CPU price drops $50 and is flat out in the middle between the 8370e and 8320e.
What a joke. I know they're trying to drum up hype for their product, but FFS at least do an even comparison when possible.
And for the comment about how AMD is 1/10th the size of Intel, give me a break.
AMD's CPU division is floundering, but they've been flat out abusing NVIDIA on price/performance for the last several years now - another company that is probably larger than AMD. The inferred excuse that "they can't compete because they're smaller" is a joke.
I love my R9's but I happily put them in an i7 setup because AMD CPU's are still not up to snuff and are still too power hungry (by comparison).
just4U - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Multi threaded performance is decent.. single is meh.. price $200 putting it in i5 category.. it needs to be sitting around $150 to be competitive... than it becomes a interesting buy. People worried about the numbers I am on a 4790K and also have systems based around the new Pentium and Amd's A10 and Vishera 6300.. I am on and off those systems quite extensively and you know what?I don't go why so slow.. omg ... similarly configured their all pretty fast.
Germanicus - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Exactly. Thank you for your refreshing dose of reality.just4U - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
You want to know the really nice thing about AMD's AM3+ I can replace aging motherboards that have died and still keep the cpu. It's a good platform overall just people want a real update I guess. I build/upgrade 20+ systems a year and do use the AM3+ platform when the right deals come along. I am fine with the update... although I do think the price on that cpu should be around $160 to make it viable.dj christian - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - link
"I don't go why so slow.. omg ..."What?
just4U - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Ian,I'd really like to see an article (blog whatever..) about a baseline system. What you feel is still viable for todays computing needs. Occasionally I still have to do work on X2's and P4's and have come to the conclusion that they should have been retired long ago.. but Phenom 2 setups and Core2's (8x series not 6..) still seem to be trucking along perfectly fine with new hardware surrounding them (SSD's video etc.)
Basically something you could refresh once a year or so.. you know? be real cool to see that and since it would be going thru the battery of tests put thru on new setups it can be included in new cpu reviews as well as part of the comparisons.
Hrel - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
So AMD's 6 core CPU is MARGINALLY faster than Intel's quad core i5 on a test written specifically to maximize the advantage of many threads and HALF as fast in the single threaded test? Come on...You're better off with a Sandy Bridge chip from 3-4 years ago than you are with a brand new AMD CPU. This is sad indeed.
I feel like Intel, at this point, might have the next breakthrough, like Conroe or Sandy Bridge, but they have no reason to release it because they've essentially stood still for 4 years and AMD still can't do more than "achieve" HALF the performance of an Intel counterpart.
Come on AMD, introduce some damn competition!
TauxiC - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
The fact that Amazon had the FX-8350 on sale several weeks ago for a mere $159 and that I was able to throw that CPU into an Asus Crosshair IV Formula from 2010 (while selling my X6 1090T for $175 on eBay), and overclock that baby to 4.7GHz, and OUTPERFORM a $350 Intel i7-3770K AND an i7-4770K in Passmark, scoring 10,700 points proves that AMD's chips are extremely competitive. Made mincemeat of Intel's lineup. LOLtechguyz - Thursday, September 4, 2014 - link
so you're comparing an overclocked AMD chip to a stock Intel chip. Doesn't seem fair.with the 6 cores out for just $60 more than a quad core, that price to performance ratio rises dramatically.
a 4790k+mobo is cheaper and faster in the long run than an FX 8 core. The power costs alone will make up the price difference over a few years. Then there's the undeniable single threaded performance, which means 4 threaded applications get 100% of the cpu, while in AMD lesser than 8 threads means all that horsepower is under utilized.
You just don't realize the performance you're missing.
And don't get me started on things like min fps in gaming, which AMD can't match even with all cores in use.
royalcrown - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
It's a good upgrade deal for sure; kind of dumb to tout the "thrashing" when I can simply go into the bios on my Asus Maximus Formula and simply click on a single button to OC to at least 4.2.I'll run Passmark OC'd and see what I get on my 3770k. I bet it's not taking such a bad thrashing then.