Wanting to know about AMD processors?

Question

So I've been an Intel guy all my life but with the price and the motherboard I'm getting I'mma have to get an AMD processor I'm looking at them on newegg and running a benchmark on them and they are roughly around the same average bench but the prices are sometimes crazy different and the number for cores in them are different so I'mma post them and if you guys can help me pick out the best one for gaming that would be awesome!!!

1. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113456

2. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6ZP3XS2312

3. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F865K2283

4. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4SC8067

Answer 1

These are all processors based on AMD's previous generation Bulldozer cores, which were generally considered a failed architecture from them. AMD had decided back in 2011 to go with an architecture that was dependent on more cores rather than faster cores to gain performance. This turned out to be a big mistake, and too far ahead of its time; Intel went with fewer cores but faster cores which turned out to be the right decision. AMD was stuck with this architecture for the next several years, with only minor tweaks to improve performance, but still falling behind Intel. This all changed in 2017, when AMD introduced their new Ryzen architecture generation. Ryzen gives you faster cores, but also keeps the emphasis on more cores too.



That's the history of AMD's evolving architecture. How does it affect you in the real world? As I mentioned these are all holdovers from the previous Bulldozer architecture. So they have lots of cores, but the cores are low performance. Two of them have been updated to use on the same motherboards that Ryzen processors use, the AM4 motherboards: A10-9700E & Athlon 950, both called "Bristol Ridge" architecture. Bristol Ridge is a tweaked and upgraded Bulldozer architecture, same cores, with a new RAM controller designed for DDR4 RAM rather than DDR3. The other two (FX-6300 & Athlon 845) are just old-school Bulldozer for the older motherboards using DDR3 RAM.



The A10-9700E is the only one with built-in graphics. AMD graphics are actually pretty good, based on Radeon R7. AMD graphics has been consistently much better than Intels for all of these years, even while their CPU's haven't been. It also uses the modern AM4 motherboards with DDR4. The Athlon 950 also uses the same motherboard and RAM, but it doesn't include the onboard Radeon R7 graphics, so you'd need a separate graphics card.



Now the reasons for going with the older designs with DDR3 memory is if you already have a lot of existing DDR3 RAM in your existing computer system, so you could reuse those. This is not a bad idea, as currently there is a huge shortage of DDR4 RAM, and their cost is well beyond reasonable. So if you can keep using your existing DDR3, then you should do so. The reason not to do this is that there will be no further development on this line, and no further upgrade paths. Next-next upgrade will require dumping the DDR3 and the motherboard and processor anyways, but these days people are easily getting upto 5 years from their rigs, so it may not be an issue for years.



If you're ready to upgrade to DDR4, then you should get the two designs that use the modern AM4 motherboards with DDR4. As mentioned DDR4 is unreasonably expensive now. Another thing that's unreasonably expensive right now are graphics cards, due to the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining craze. So for that reason, you would probably do well to get the A10 processor because it has the embedded R7 graphics, that way you save on at least buying of a new graphics card for the moment.



However, I would suggest that you skip all of these, and get yourself either a Ryzen 3 2200G or Ryzen 5 2400G, which are two processors with embedded graphics. Their graphics is much better than the R7 graphics, as they use the newer generation RX Vega graphics. And of course, their CPU performance is much better than the old-school Bulldozer CPU's. They will both use the same AM4 motherboard with DDR4 RAM too.

Answer 2

The first and foremost thing you should know is AMD had a major architectural change and now those older A12 and Athlon x4 processors are now obsolete. Even a Ryzen 3 1200 crushes both in both single and multithreaded performance.



The price of a processor is based off a relative average of it's single core, multithreaded, and how that applies to today's software. Also, it's based off if the CPU has an integrated iGPU.



The whole idea that AMD is offering the user more value for the dollar is mostly a myth. People thought they were getting a good deal on an FX-8350 because it has 8 cores and a high clock speed. The catch is the FX-8350 has very weak single core performance and it was not ideal in many situations. For the most part a Core i5 processor was a better choice.



The Ryzen 3 1300x for example is priced somewhat fairly unless you consider how it compares to a Core i3-8100.



The processors you picked all belong to different socket platforms. In which case none of them are really suitable picks. IMHO, you would be better off doing a salvage build around a Haswell Core i5 processor, a cheaper 1150 motherboard, and DDR3 RAM. Also you can find used FX parts on craigslist and sometimes they are quite abundant. For that matter, you can sometimes find a fully built PC on craigslist for a really good price and all it needs is a few upgrades.



Unless AMD cuts the prices of their Ryzen 3 processors, I see no reason to buy one with the Core i3-8100 being out. Here in a few weeks cheaper motherboards like the h310 and b360 will be released and then you will be able to get a Core i3 system for a reasonable price. As you may not know, Intel increased the Core count with their 8th Generation processors. Now an 8th Generation Core i3 has the same amount of cores, threads, cache, and overall performance as a 7th Generation Core i5.



Right now, the Core i3-8100 would be the best budget pick for a gaming system CPU, but that's not being considered because you or I can only choose a z370 motherboard which costs $115 at the minimum.

Answer 3

Should be OK with anyone of them, AMD is historically just a commercial shadow of Intel, it did leapfrog over Intel few times, but the option you presented are not getting applause, judging by the look of it you are just getting it to complete a budget gaming system, might as well, getting powerful GPU is what's important.

Answer 4

Here's some TMI for you.



Intel has held a commanding lead over AMD since mid-2006 when Intel released Core 2 Duo. The first Core 2 Duo processors were on par with Athlon 64 x2 processors that were clocked 400-600mhz higher. On the other hand a Pentium D was about 500mhz to 800mhz behind the Athlon 64 x2 processors.



AMD once had the lead over Intel, between 2004-2006 with Athlon 64 but all the engineers and architects that made those classic Athlon 64 processors left before AMD had a chance to work on something new. Many of them went to Google or Apple. This was back in the Intel Pentium 4 and Pentium Nestburst era.



AMD released Phenom which was just an updated Athlon 64 with more cache but that failed. Although they did do well with Phenom 2 which was a viable budget pick between 2009-2010. Phenom II had about the same IPC performance of the 1st wave of Core 2 Duo and Quad processors but with Higher clock speeds. At that time Intel had released it's first line of Core i7 processors which were better than Phenom II but the difference wasn't huge because the first Core i7 processors had lower clock speeds.



Intel really blew the doors off the AMD mobile with the 2nd Generation Sandy Bridge processors. Sandy Bridge had a solid 10% to 15% IPC increase over the 1st Generation Core i7 Nehalem processors, on top of much higher clock speeds. A Core i5-2500k was 50% faster than a Phenom II x4 955, and that was at the out of the box speed. Overclocked Sandy Bridge processors were wiping the floor with AMD's offerings. The only thing that kept AMD in the game at that time is a Phenom II x4 was still good with gaming and AMD had a 6-core Phenom II processor for heavy editing.



Then in comes Bulldozer which was already late. Bulldozer had IPC performance that lagged behind the Phenom II processors. The only saving grace was these AMD processors were cheap and the 8-core parts could do some things well. The real fact of the matter is most software and OS tasks were made to work with dual core or quad-core processors with strong IPC and single core performance. Basically the FX and APU parts were released for a software environment that didn't exist. AMD banked that parallelism would become a thing but that never panned out. The processors you listed are later versions of the Bulldozer family which are NOT good for today's software.



Also several blunders with Global Foundries prevented AMD from doing what they wanted to do with Bulldozer.



Ryzen is pretty good and AMD made up for a lot of lost ground with those. Basically Ryzen or Zen catapulted AMD processors from the Core 2 era to the 4th Generation era. Which is saying a lot because Intel has not made any real advancements in IPC performance since Haswell, and Haswell was only a small step up from Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. The one thing to keep in mind is the older AMD FX and A10 processors based on the Bulldozer architecture were not very efficient. Right now, a Ryzen 7 1800x with it's 8 cores is more efficient than a Core i7-8700k that has 6 cores. Intel's current processors become power hogs when the more advanced FPU instruction sets are put to use and they will easily exceed their TDP. Ryzen 7 has no trouble with exceeding it's TDP, but then again it won't clock much beyond 4ghz either.



AMD is releasing a refined version of Ryzen called Ryzen 2 (Zen+) here in a few months which features higher clock speeds and it fixes a few other issues the current versions of Ryzen have. Ryzen is a good pick and it would be worth it for you to save your money up for one of those.Right now is not a good time to buy a PC anyway unless you went with a fully built PC.



Some Geek Squad tech mentions that Intel has created several features that make a Kaby Lake Processor better with gaming than an older Sandy Bridge processors, but the only real features Kaby Lake has over Sandy Bridge is better IPC performance, use of faster DDR4 memory, and a couple new Instruction sets that games don't use.



When it comes to benchmarks, don't just go by synthetic benchmarks. Some processors are really good at one type of task but perform average in others. There are plenty of reviews that use real world benchmarks and those should be considered too.

Answer 5

My CPU history breaks down something like this: I ve had 8 Intel CPUs, 6 AMD CPU s, and 3 Cyrix CPU s in my gaming computers over the past 30+ years.



As for your selections. None of these are any good compared to Ryzen. They all use the inferior Bulldozer-derived architecture which was a bust from day one. The X4 845 and FX 6300 are on dead platforms with no viable upgrade path. The X4 950 and A10 9700E use AM4 and DDR4 RAM which means that you can upgrade the CPU without having to buy a new motherboard and RAM, but they are still hobbled by the aforementioned crap architecture.



I don t know what kind of budget you re dealing with but if you re gaming, A Ryzen 3 with an RX 550/RX560/GT 1030, would be a far better choice for budget gaming. AMD has just come out with Ryzen based APU s (Raven Ridge) that look like they might be the ticket for budget gaming. The Ryzen 5 2400G is supposed to cost around $169, but it s integrated GPU is on par with the RX 550 discrete card.

Answer 6

Go with the ryzen 3 1200. It's a great quad core cpu that works great for gaming and editing. I have it and it can run most games on decent settings (Paired with an rx560 4gb oc). If you're buying amd then get ryzen... and if u want more performance then get the ryzen 5 1400

Answer 7

I once was a dedicated Intel guy, it actually wasn't until very recently I've come out of my shell and taken the investment to AMD Processors. It should be known however, anything before the Ryzen Series AMD Processors are garbage, and honestly, are not worth the money.



I've noticed the options you're looking at fall under the Athlon, FX and A-Series AMD Processors. Scrap them all, and if you are dead set on one of the four you listed, the A-Series is your best option.



On Newegg (good choice in vendor by the way), the Ryzen series starts at $104.99, this is a Ryzen 3 (comparable to the i3). It is a Quad-Core, with a generous clock speed and cache allowance compared to the i-Series processors. Something that AMD has struggled with for the longest time, that Intel has nearly perfected, is threading. Threading is basically taking a 4-core processor, and making it virtually, into an 8-core processor. This basically allows the power to be evenly distributed for efficiency, and strong performance. This is why Intel was always better than AMD.



Now that AMD has released the Ryzen Threadripper (beware of price), it basically uses the same technology, only on a larger and more powerful scale. The big thing that AMD has over Intel right now with the Ryzen series, are the number of physical cores the processors contain, and the cache. They actually have a very impressive cache across the board, from cheap to expensive. This is somewhat important in a processor, as it keeps space open and distributed for maximum performance and efficient power consumption.

Answer 8

Hello this is Arimatthewdavies you have my attention here I'm going to tell you a little bit about the AMD processor versus the Intel processor and then you can decide which direction you want to go the Intel processor is notoriously faster then an AMD processor for playing games but the surface of the Intel processor is pretty much a piece of tin foil on a circuit board and it's going to get hot and it's going to wear out and AMD processor has about a hundred and ten little gold-plated pins it's a bit slower it has its issues with non AMD Hardware but it's a Workhorse it can get hot and not fry now you need to make the choice whether you want strength and durability or whether you want to be a sprinter there's two different kinds of runners and this is what we're looking at here

Answer 9

None of those. Those are all horrible for gaming.



The cheapest AMD CPU that’s decent with gaming is the Ryzen 3 1200. I have no idea why that one is not on your list.

Answer 10

X4 950: Decent budget option, especially for that price. Expect performance a bit worse than the Pentium G4560 when stock and a bit better when overclocked (will require a B350/X370 motherboard).



X4 845: Outdated architecture, old socket with no upgrade path. Especially considering that it's a bit more expensive than the X4 950, definitely avoid it.



A10-9700E: Underclocked X4 950 with an IGPU for nearly double the price. If you're getting a dedicated GPU, there is no reason to get this over the 950.



FX-6300: Another old architecture, another outdated socket. Only even consider it if you can get the CPU and motherboard for under $80 total and you're on a really tight budget.