Running this chip at load 24/7 at 18p per kWh for a year would cost about £525 although you might be able to turn your heating down a bit. Should be consigned to history.
That's not true at all, a lot of Intel CPUs will take a supstantial overclock with no or very slight voltage adjustments and then not exceed TDP by more than 25%. Overclocking THIS processor throws efficiency out the door but there are gains to be made at reasonable costs with Intel's Core processors.
Both can be correct, depends on the test. Chips aren't as easy as pipeline clock increases, memory limited applications are still fairly common, as are cache limited ones (L1 cache should increase in speed but L2 and L3 won't in most cases), and there are still others that are unstable and can see huge jumps depending on how in sync components are.
That said, seeing a performance increase larger than the clock increase (all in %) is rare at best, downright lying in most cases though. Usually a 50% increase will give you a 25-50% increase in non-memory limited applications.
But actually very close, just replace everything with mobo, cooling, and lot. Some chips overclock better than others, and some motherboards and cooling help achieve that at lower voltages (and therefore power) than others. Your CPU might need 1.2V to hit 4.5gh while another needs 1.25V just to hit 4, it's just the luck of the draw.
This FX-9590 is actually the last year's product. E.g., in Canadian Canada Computers this SKU (in the version without any cooler) lays on the shelves for months and almost nobody buys it. At the same time, they have a big turnaround of Haswell Intel i7's, which speaks for itself.
"Re-release" of this SKU happens because AMD has nothing better to offer, so they hope to get some public attention which it better than zero public attention :)
I'm not an old man (age 32 now), but I remember the times (2005) when even Alienware top laptops were based on AMD Turions (rebranded Athlons 64) - simply because these were better than Intel's Pentium M at the time.
And, in contrast, in around last three years since Bulldozer release AMD CPU business looks poorly.
Yes, I know, APUs, OpenCL, HSA. But the CPU side of things at AMD is sad.
Intel's i7-2600K SPANKS this POS in every conceivable way! AND it is THREE years old! This is even at stock clocks, just TRY comparing this CPU in any overclock to an i7-2600K at 4.4 Ghz (and overclock that basically ANY 2600K can handle - I have mine at 4.7 and 102.3 Bclock)
And with EVERY benchmark available - the 4.4 Ghz OC,ed i7-2600K will COMPLETELY blow this POS out of the water! (BTW Not only is 4.4 easy to hit, but the TDP never goes above 125 - even with my 4.7 OC, as stock TDP is only 95w!)
I USED to be an AMD "Fanboy" back in the days of Intel's Pentium 4 "Net Burst" architectural FLOP! And the Athlon XP' superior gaming performance and performance per dollar - with better overclocking!
But since PileDriver FIRST came out, I have only shuddered at the thought of this architecture even existing, let alone being pushed farther and farther! Intel KNEW Net Burst was horrible, and dumped it ASAP for first Core and then Core2 architectures - which were very competitive in all ways for their day.
On the eve of SandyBridge, once benchmarks became available it was OBVIOUS that the SandyBridge Architecture was game changing, especially since the about $350 (at release) i7-2600k - and even the $250 i5-2500K completely SPANKED even Intel's own i7-900X extreme edition CPUs whicbh cost about $1000!
Ever since AMD swallowed ATI it seems they really dropped the ball (in both courts!) Continuing this HIGHLY inefficient chip design - which is ACTUALLY only a Quad core - with just 2x the ALU's per core serving as a full "dual core" processing unit - they left out MANY components that make up a FULL core, and most importantly, while L2 cache is slightly larget than Intel's chips for the most part, the caches are MUCH slower! And a "Dual Core Unit" has twice the ALUs vying for L2 access, where L3 cache is INCREDIBLY slow at something like 200 GB/sec to ALL cores - where Intel's i7-2600K has 168 GB/sec DEDICATED PER CORE! And that is at stock speeds too!
So you have REALLY got to ask yourself, when a 3 year old Intel part - which by now is not only cheaper - but FAR more power efficient, is MUCH faster, at stock clock, than a BRAND new AMD part - which takes well over twice the power and puts out over twice the heat, WTF is th point in buying AMD?
Especially when one considers that on a CHEAP Z68 or Z77 chipset board - this three year old i7-2600K can EASILY hit 4.4 Ghz - and it will STILL be more power efficient than the AMD part - as well as multitudes faster in EVERY way that truly matters - this just seem sad for AMD...
They are eating more power, and crapping less performance - even per $! Unless you really want a bargain basement gaming PC - then an A10 APU with a cheap GFX card will be cheaper than an Intel build with similar performance (but we are talking $500 and less for a entirely new build!)
So this FX just represents a sad bit of AMD history, sure the hardcore "fan-boys" will cling tightly to their AMD parts they have invested money into - but (and there is always that BUT) everything about this new FX chip is far behind, and the ONLY reason one should even consider purchasing one is if they already own a good Socket AM3+ mobo - for new builds? AVOID AMD FX CHIPS LIKE THE PLAGUE!
For those who are running their CPU's at 100% load 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, this isn't the right CPU. That's likely a quite small population of people. There are cons to the FX 9xxx CPU's to be sure, but I don't think what are often over-blown energy usage costs are one of them.
For someone looking to build a new system, probably not a lot of pros. For AM3+ owners looking for an upgrade from a lower part and guaranteed clocks, there could be some value in this processor.
The likelyhood of an existing AM3+ owner having a board that can support a 250watt CPU is pretty low, there really aren't many options. This CPU is a real turkey and people are not buying them.
Well, one pro is that you get a processor that is fairly comparable to an Intel i7 in performance, and most importantly, you'll be giving your money to a company that didn't try to screw you by attempting to corner the market through extortionate threats to their own OEM customers if they used AMD CPUs when they were better than Intel's.
In other words, there may not be any technical advantages over Intel's competing products, but there are also no significant disadvantages, and at least by buying AMD, you won't feel like you need to take a bath afterwards to wash the filth off. I say to hell with Intel. Stop giving them money as punishment for their gangsterism.
Mostly, this is why I bought an AMD desktop last year. It was similar in price than an Intel-one would have been for the same money. It consumes much more energy but that was something I could put up with.
Man I seriously don't want to live in England if your electricity is that expensive. That's $0.30 cents/kWh. But with our current president and administration who want our electricity prices to rise, we might soon be in that boat. I pay about $0.06/kWh.
Here in germany we pay 54 Euro Cents/kWh during peak times. While it sucks it has it upsides too - no stupid bitcoin mining crazy to speak of around here!
Germany is stupid and thinks solar is good for tech industries, Belgium has nuclear plants that give it huge rate discounts. Basically, you can buy this chip in Belgium just fine, but go get an intel chip for germany
Haha, I can think of more important reasons YOU wouldn't want to live in England! You know Gas is more than $8 a Gallon there right? Also, they tax cars based on CO2 generation and cars are almost twice as expensive as they are in the USA!
@Flunk, you do understand that is basically the reality for most of the Western world? Gas (Petrol, not gas-gas) is expensive, period. Cars are expensive. Period.
Totally unrealistic figures. Yet again intel fans come up with either straight out lies or complete nonsense. "Running this chip at load 24/7 at 18p per kWh for a year" *facepalms*
HPC and supercomputers are built from Opterons, not from FXs. If you have been playing on your home computer on full load 24/7 then you have bigger problems than paying your electricity bill.
I have a FX-8320 @4.5Ghz, and never goes over 75c. I got it because it was $215 for both the CPU and a very good motherboard, and paired it with two HD 7850's. With that said, an overclocked [email protected] is better then anything AMD can do over clocked even @5Ghz (for the most part) and at times far out classes it. But, an i5 and good motherboard will cost about $350 and $400+ for i7.. Almost twice. FYI, I live in Illinois and the electricity here is very very cheap.
a $300+ AMD chip?! LOL. Who the heck would buy this? It's not efficient, it's definitely not fast compared to $100 cheaper intel offerings (or similarly priced offerings in some of the other benches).
Second your opinion... It has been 3rd generation (or more ?) since FX gone out the door and AMD should have a solution to at least match Intel's performance by now, but why this ? It is pointless to have a power hungry beast that lost in the match with a processor that is halved in TDP in an Unzipping archive operation, not to mention electricity bill and the noise to cool down 220Watt TDP Processor... Not worth it
The amount of generations or the time span doesn't have any correlation with AMD catching up. Take an i7 4790K and manufacture it in 28-32nm node and see how awful it is. In other words, unless AMD can manufacture chips on the same node as Intel, it has no chance of competing whatsoever even if by magic their CPUs had identical IPC and clocks to Intel's. The delta in performance and performance/watt will only grow once Intel launches Skylake on 14nm next year.
Umm a 4790K even at 32nm would still spank this chip across the board. How "awful" indeed...
I mean forget the 4790K for a second, the 2600K at STOCK will beat this CPU out in nearly everything. and basically any i7-2600k on any board that supports overclocking WILL easily hit 4.2-4.4 - hell I had mine at 4.4 with a STOCK POS Intel Heatsink (POS in terms of its ability to cool, it is actually more than effective enough with how little heat the CPUs generate) - And at those speeds the 2600K beats out any and every AMD consumer CPU at almost everything, and what few benchmarks it will be behind in, it will not be by too much. And those benchmarks would include only VERY highly multithreaded applications of computational power - basically, server-type stuff. Certainly not in gaming!
Then there's the NEWER Intel CPUs like the i7-5930K (which I also own) which aren't too much more expensive than this flop, and will beat it out in absolutely anything and everything - at stock clocks again! With the exact same CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO I have on my i7-2600K machine (AWESOME cooler for the money, though I will probably replace the one currently on the 5930, as it does not provide the maximum OC headroom possible like it does on my 2600 machine) - with dual fans, I have all cores running totally stable at 4.4 GHz with 105.7 Bclock!
AMD really needs to dump this architecture for the consumer class entirely (though I admittedly am not too familiar with Server-class CPU benchmarks, from what I have read the newer Intel Xeon are spanking the current Opterons, but IIRC they still represent good value for money in the high end workstation and server classes - though Enthusiasts generally seem to stick with the Xeons as they like to be able to game at insane speeds and resolutions as well as do encoding, editing, CAD, etc. As I have seen quite a few "ULTIMATE Rig builds" where money is no issue, by people like NCIX, Linus Tech tips, PCper, and others on YouTube, but I have yet to see an ultimate Opteron machine)
So, yeah... All that speaks volumes to people who look at information objectively and without bias. IF AMD were to come out with a new chip tomorrow which not only spanked everything Intel has ever made, but also made it cheap like the original SandyBridge parts - and therefore changed the game, DAMNED right I would be coveting a brand new AMD rig, and would likely sell off my 2600K machine, despite my deep love for it (and the fact that it games slightly better than the 5930 due to higher core speeds by a decent bit) to try to fund such a build ASAP!
But as it is? You would have to be a blind fanboy to buy a CPU like this for a brand new build, as it does not perform well and eats power like crazy, requiring AMD to bundle a friggen AIO water-block with it! And even with the best of the best, it will BARELY overclock! So the stock speed benchmarks will never be too far from a sustainable, stable, overclock - a FAR different story from the i5-i7 2000-5000 K series CPUs - as I said, a pretty average overclock on an i7-2600K is 4.2 GHz, a full 1 GHz above stock speeds, as the 3.8 GHz turbo only works when a single core is under load, and even then it will still beat out tthis 5950 in most ways!
No, they actually don't. This is just cherry-picked and overclocked FX-8350 from October 2012 with all the associated power draw and heat growing superlinearly because of the much higher operating voltage.
However, AMD does develop their CPU side of the business, but since Kaveri this January the results go only into APUs (same will happen with Carrizo coming next year).
AMD APUs are actually very fine in their class, they are just in a shy situation regarding these factory overclocked 220W FXes. The rest of their lineup is fine.
> 300W alone for a CPU, holy mother of god. An entire Haswell gaming rig with 750 Ti would probably draw less power.
Don't know where you got that 300W from but yes, a decent Haswell system with 750 TI will not just probably but definitely draw less power than 300W. Mine takes around 35W idle and up to 120W in games.
I am not highly invested in either "camp" but I will say this is absolutely embarrassing for AMD. As a gamer, I could never justify purchasing this CPU when using with a dedicated graphics setup. The results show AMD's way off the mark in research and development in their GPU labs.
Has little to do with research and development. You can't expect a 28-32nm CPU to compete with a 22nm CPU no matter how hard you try. It would be akin to NV having 28nm GTX780Ti going up against a 40nm HD6970. AMD's biggest problem is no access to the same lithography tech as Intel.
Actually it has a lot to do with R&D. An ex-AMD employee said a few years ago that AMD's big mistake was making extensive use of automated design tools, resulting in a 3rd more transistors, using more power, for less performance. Presumably this was cheaper than paying the required talent to do the fine tuning normally expected at this level. Either way, this is why BD was so bad, and they've never recovered. AMD simply doesn't have the money to do the base R&D, that's the key blockage.
Umm, the i5-2500k AND i7-2600K are 32nm CPU's and even at a 4.7 GHz overclock do not even draw HALF the power and are over TWICE as fast! All from a 3 year old SKU!
The cherry on top of the pile of dog poop would HAVE to be the fact that AMD had to make an R9 290 with a 512 bit memory bus to TRY to keep up with Nvidia's 970 or 980 - and that GPU takes over twice the power as well!
So YES this has EVERYTHING to do with R&D! Both their CPUs and GPUs are HORRIBLY inefficient!
And again, process has little to do with it, bearing in mind that the 32nm i-cores are not only 3 years old, but draw well less than HALF the power, and still over 1/3 less at the same 4.7 GHz clock speed, except when an i7-2600K is running at that speed, it is FAR FASTER in EVERY way!
Who knows, Kaveri brought the three module support for the APUs. The devil is the implementation details and timing. I was little disappointed when they took out the remaining 95W four module chips from the channel.
What do you mean by "three module support for the APUs"? Talking about CPU side of things, all the APUs since Trinity only have 2 CPU modules aka 4 AMD cores. More than that, staying with this Bulldozer-derived CPU tech, APUs won't get more than 2 modules because of the die area and associated TDP and cost issues.
i've gotten the sabertooth 990FX GEN3 R2.0 and its got pcie 3 x16 with a 8350 and a sapphire 7870 ghz (both OC'ed) and its pretty good although rather greedy
It's nice that this kind of boards exist, but, sadly, PCI Express 3.0 is a rarity rather than a norm on AM3+. AMD only has PCI Express 3.0 as a standard on FM2+ with Kaveri APU.
I see by the comments below that I'm among the rational. AMD is stuck on the 32nm fab process making for a dismal performance experience for us all! My AMD 6-core could boil water. This is great for the cold midwestern American climate but the Summer is unbearable with AMD CPUs. I had waited over 2 years for a 22nm AMD 8 core FX that never appeared. Meanwhile, I'm running the "lower" 95watt CPU. I can't even imagine how it would be with the 220watt. How ridiculous!!
Exactly!! Someone understands. If AMD could move to 14nm, they could increase the number of modules 50%-100% and lower the power usage at the same time. When you CPU is on 32nm while Intel is soon to launch 14nm Broadwell, the chance of AMD competing in performance or performance/watt is 0%.
But more cores aren't really the issue for AMD, are they? In multi-threaded stuff they are already doing fine. What they need is better IPC. Even at 5GHz they barely beat i3s of the current generation. Unfortunately the FX-9590 isn't in bench yet, but the FX-8350 even loses to a chip on 32nm (i5-2500k) in most benchmarks except some multi threaded ones. Put an i7-2600k in its place and it loses even more consistently. That is not just a lithography disadvantage, that is a straight up embarrassment from the CPU architecture standpoint. And the fact that they aren't releasing any more FX CPUs based on newer architectures is a slap in the face of any PC enthusiast.
exactly! AMD has HORRIBLE IPC which results in horrible efficiency - ALSO bear in mind that the 3 year old i5 and i7 parts are 32nm fab, and are 95 watt TDP parts - which can easily be clocked at 4.7 Ghz and totally SPANK this CPU in every way!
AMD need a totally new architecture to go with a new fabrication, otherwise it will remain meaningless and eat more power. IPC is incredibly important - just because this FX 9590 is much newer than an i7-2600K and therefore has more and newer instruction sets, does NOT mean it performs better! It performs far worse in fact - whilst eating more power - using the same fab size!
It's not the manufacturing tech itself - their Bulldozer-derived microarchitecture has drastically slower IPC (Instructions Per Clock). If you you emphasize lithography, then let's compare FX Piledriver from late 2012 on GF 32 nm lithography and Sandy Bridge LGA1155 Core i7 from early 2011 on Intel's 32 nm lithography. Guess what? Sandy Bridge is around 50% faster in single threaded tasks than Pilderiver. At the "same" lithography. Despite the fact that Sandy Bridge i7 has just 9 MB L2+L3 cache, while Piledriver has 16 MB L2+L3 cache. So, AMD's chip has almost twice the amount of cache than Intel's chip and is still 50% slower. So, first, the case with AMD FX is mainly a problem of inappropriate microarchitecture, and only then comes the lithography lag.
So, even if a Cinderella's fairy comes up and magically moves FX Piledriver to Intel's 22 nm or even 14 nm, the resulting tiny Piledriver shrink will still be a Slowpoke in single thread duties - because it is its microarchitecture that prevents it from doing better.
I don't have a complaint about the architecture itself because of the price points. Intel CPU, motherboard and the RAM are all much more expensive! I'd be satisfied with AMD FX series (or the new Kavari) on the 20nm fab process.
+1 EXACTLY my point! People KEEP bringing up fab sizes, but it is a simple TRUTH that a 3 year old 32 nm SandyBridge is FAR faster in nearly every conceivable way - at STOCK speeds no less!
Apply a 4.7 GHz overclock (as my SandyBridge system has ) - and the Per Clock (as well as gaming performance!) actually BEATS my Haswell i7-5930K (which with the same Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO w/dual fans - is at a stable 4.4 Ghz) - in gaming!
In fact, I argued this point on my Steam Gamers group page and some said I was not fully understanding. I'll laugh a little about that because I talked with an employee of Intel at my work and he has a PhD in electrical engineering from Purdue. He said that I was correct and that the lithography makes a huge differences in power and performance of a CPU. Even if AMD CPUs/APUs are slower per IPC, it still does the job and it still costs much less to produce an entire PC system.
Fab size isn't the problem here! A 3 year old i5-2500K or i7-2600K is built with a 32 nm fab and is only a 95 watt TDP part! On top of that, it is QUITE easy to overclock either to 4.7 GHz - and even then the power draw is at least 1/3 less and the CPU will be MUCH faster in EVERY way!
I wanted to build a Hyper-V lab for my work, so I ended up going with AMD FX. I don't care about overcook and the power consumption argument to me is not a big deal. I got my 8350 and 8320 on sale, and for the number of threads, the cache, and the hardware virtualization support, it was one of the cheapest ways to put together two 32 GB lab servers.
So this a fanboy only product? Not sure how anyone else can believe its a better purchase over an i7. Slower in most things, similar cost, multiple times the power usage.
Well, for the unbiased customer there is indeed no sense in going with this FX rather than with i7. So, AFAIU, this is indeed a product for die-hard AMD fans. The only problem is that the number of these people is diminishing from year to year, I suppose.
I think you guys are a little too harsh. The architecture was developed 2012-2013, so realistically, this is a sandy bridge/ivy bridge comparison. If you were to OC an ivy bridge/sandy bridge to this performance, you'd be looking at similar wattage (I'm guessing here, 5GHz on ivy/sandy doesn't seem possible on CLC). The fact it comes close to haswell for a year or two old part, I consider that a win
Who cares when it was developed to do a comparison. They release it today so it has to compare against todays CPUs and this one sucks on so many levels it's not even funny anymore. Also no sane person cares about clock, it's either single- or multithread performance plus sometimes iGPU performance and of course efficiency, if you want crazy clocks you can dig out some Netburst Pentiums... Last but not least if you desperately want to see this PoC loose in some benchmarks against some mainstream Sandy Bridge CPU then have a look at the graphs and check for "Core i5-2500K".
Indeed, clocks comparison does not work in terms of performance comparison between different microarchitectures. One simple number: Haswell in single thread is around 70% faster (~1.7 times) than Piledriver (say, in Cinebench 1 thread) at the same clocks. ~70%. Check yourself. Nuff said.
Except they didn't release it today, they released it 14 months ago. So really, it's still an IB - FX comparison. AT was just really slow to put any press on this chips existence. It has no purpose other than to show the limit of the Bulldozer architecture, and it does that quite nicely. (Although I have an FX-8350 running at 5.12, so it isn't even the upper limits.) Really when it comes down to it though, it's a "for fun" chip. Like a super-car: it looks and acts fast, costs way too much, sucks down gas by the gallon, and is complete excess to your needs. But hey, it's shiny and looks good in the garage.
In fact, Sandy Bridge is much more efficient and has much higher IPC than Piledriver. So, Sandy Bridge i7 Core i7-2600K/2700K has to be overclocked around 4.3 GHz to match or surpass FX-9590. Ivy Bridge has slightly better IPC, than Sandy, so that 4.1-4.2 GHz should suffice for Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K to match or surpass FX-9590. And this is for full multithreading.
For single threading, Sandy and Ivy are already faster at stock turbo frequencies than anything Piledriver can offer. Piledriver has to be clocked beyond 6 GHz to try to match Core i7 stock single thread (LN2 may help, actually :)).
Yes, single-threaded performance is not so important these days, as many people like to point out, but lack of single-threaded performance is still a considerable drawback.
Yes, I realized clock to clock comparison doesn't really work - it would work if IPC was similar between different micro architectures... and well... I was over simplifying things. But, on the benchmarks, this FX core does seem to catch up to the i7-2500.
My main point was to emphasize that this CPU has been around for a while, and was only recently "released" to the general public as opposed to OEM's. Had this been available when it was developed, it might have made a bigger difference for AMD - which could have potentially kept them in the CPU race.
Well, to make a bigger difference, it had to be WIDELY released a year ago (say, around initial Haswell release) for, say, $250-280 (and not $350) for retail, and be supported immediately with at least 5-7 new MOBOs capable of working with 220W TDP out of the box. Since it did not happen, now it is maybe "too little, too late" - especially, considering the facts, that:
1) Devil's Canyon Core i7-4790K is already on sale, and it costs the same $$$ as last year's Core i7-4770K. Core i7-4790K is even further ahead of FX-9590 in terms of performance at stock (4.0-4.4 Ghz) and i7-4790K is even a little further overclockable to around 4.5-4.6 GHz with no issues, and FX-9590 is actually not.
2) Haswell-E is coming, and the cheapest Haswell-E, rumored to be Core i7-5820K, is supposed to have 6 Haswell cores and cost something around $400. This is of course worth thinking about for the people getting/building a new desktop machine.
SB is such a nice chip. Every 2700K I've obtained has happily run at 5GHz no problem, takes just a few minutes on a board like the ASUS M4E/Z. Built five of them so far. And unlike the latest HW, it won't throttle because the temps are still good.
Umm, it is QUITE possible to get a SandyBridge to 5 GHz, in fact I have my i7-2600K rock stable at 4.7 GHz (where my Haswell i7-5930k is 4.4) - and it TOTALLY SPANKS this POS FX 9590! Less power, same clock speed, MUCH higher performance!
AT is being TOO EASY on AMD, not too harsh! This CPU is not a "win" in any sense!
No matter what any one that loves this FX-9590 says, this processor is just an exercise in gluttony, and devolution.
I have been spoiled by computer evolution. coming from the commodore/Macintosh/SX286 days. you appreciate a few things. such as noise/heat/size reduction of modern systems. 50-80w cpus are quiet, compared to the pentium4 days.... or Hairdryer days... SSDs are silent, modern HDDs are basically silent, compared to 40MB drives and 3.5/5.25 floppies and don't forget the stack of floppies you had in the drawer instead of a single USB stick. modern gpus not oc'd are quiet, still remember the hiss of my gforce3Ti CRTs - actually have a noise when you turn them on, some buzz when in use... and don't forget the size. case- you either had a monster of a case that would break your table if you put it on it, or a fugly thing that you wanted to hide under the table. overall the heat produced compared to a 19" crt + pentium4/thoroughbred + 9800XT compared to a modern system also let you get rid of the window AC unit reducing a lot of noise. so i am spoiled because i can now have a system where i'm not sweating like a pig and going deaf while playing my favorite game or browsing the web. I don't need a 1000w speaker system to hear the gunshots clearly over my cpu/gpu/psu fans or window AC unit.
I no longer need a computer be a 4in1 device that acts as a heater, a LOUD white noise generator, an air filter, and computer. It should be similar to a BMW-M5, everyday comfort and driveability but grunt when you want it, but of course with better fuel economy.
Any chance we could get some testing with radeon gpu's using mantle ? :) would be pretty neat to see how some of the older/lower tiered cpu's break down. Unless you guys have done something like that already in another article then I apologize for asking.
this cpu just chew through integer workloads, faster than a 4770k, where it fails is every thing else. I reckon a well optimized program written directly[fma?] for it would haul ass!
Note that there is no recent Devil's Canyon Core i7-4790K here - this one, being around 13% faster than i7-4770K in CPU-bound tasks, would make the FX to look even less relevant.
"AMD clearly does care about the performance market" yeah, thats why they couldnt even be bothered to use the new kaveri cores, instead rehashing an old piledriver cpu with higher clocks and a TDP that puts netburst to shame. all the while, performing sligtly slower then a intel cpu with a third the tdp and running 1.5 GHz slower. They care about the performance market so much, that they put this chip on the 3 year old AM3+ platform, rather than the new FM2+ platform, just so we can use old chipsets with feature sets from 2011. And it costs as much as a core i7. CLEARLY, AMD still cares about the performance market.
I perfectly understand your sarcasm :) I guess, it was something like that: AMD did not and does not have the resources and/or desire to invest into pure many-module CPUs beyond Piledriver FX CPU. So, from the engineering standpoint, they stopped there. But then the marketing stepped in and said: "We need a faster CPU to brag. Because we aren't developing a new one, can you boost the current one?" And the engineering team said "Yes... Okay...". And they did. :)
the fx series does need to go down in watts, which only comes in a die shrink from what i know. but the thing it has going for it are 8 cores, which intel doesn't even have in their consumer or enthusiast cpu's. u have to go xeon to find an intel 8 core cpu. my theory that amd is not updating the fx series or their chipsets is probably due to the backlash of the of fx series. i forgot when the the fx-8150 came out but it was negative. i don't think amd wants to have another repeat of that so amd is putting their cards back in the deck. they're softly announcing this and that about apu's... and hoping the marketing of apu will be enough to garner positive feedback. bring the image back. that is all it is, i think. what the hell is an apu, anyway? oh, it's the future. this is what amd wants ppl to know. but, we know that apu is not the future. it's just a stop gap for amd. it's just a fancy acronym.
i don't think the low performance of amd fx cpu compared to an intel part is also solely amd's fault. i think software developers/coding can also be attributed to it. i mean, if you have this and that code built for intel chips since they're inside (i hate to say it) most of the pc's in the world, then of course, intel will have a lead from the get go. for example, windows 8 is suppose to be better for amd fx cpu's than windows 7. now dig deeper into how programs are run and make it so that an fx chip will shine as much as an intel chip, then we probably have a very well optimized program, which in the real world is probably a unicorn program. so, this unicorn program puts both amd and intel chips thru its paces, equally and optimally and fully. and i think that unless an intel chip has a specific function that makes it run faster (i forgot what it is), then an amd fx 8-core chip with its more logical, fully functional, real cores of 8 will probably be better than intels 4 cores with hyperhtreading. intel has patents for those specific, specialize tasks though and this is why intel is hard to beat and why amd loses to them.
this is why amd is waiting b/c 1)amd knows intel's roadmap and 2)they have apu's and consoles as stop gap 3) they'll return to the desktop performance cpu when the tide, the program/software/patents or whatever it is has leveled out so that amd can put out a competitive product that is truly innovative. and not just tick and tocks 4) the cpu fabs are probably too expensive right now for amd to jump in and do a die shrink (not sure tho; maybe intel has a hand in that too? idk)--like why is intel the only cpu company doing die shrinks every year and half? sounds weird to me. and it's closest competitor is just sitting back. weird right? anyway, im out of theories, i think.
oh, you'd think amd would just put 8 core kaveris without an igpu, right? but, no. i think amd is still not sure the performance gain with that will be enough to wipe out the negativity of the fx-8150 debacle. so, amd is just not doing it.
"but the thing it has going for it are 8 cores, which intel doesn't even have in their consumer or enthusiast cpu's." I stopped reading right there. If you think 8 cores in a 4 module FX CPU are comparable to 4 cores in Intel mainstream CPUs or 8 cores in Intel enthusiast CPUs, you should go back and read up on the architecture differences. The fact that an Intel 8 thread CPU (core i7 with 4 cores and HT) usually beats any FX CPU with 4 modules should be warning enough that you shouldn't draw any conclusions based on that.
Ive read up on bulldozer architecture. 4 modules with 2 logical and physical cores = 8 cores. Intels hyperthreading arent physical cores but software driven. so an OS sees an i7 with 8 cores even tho 4 of those cores are virtual. AMD has 8 physical/logical cores. Each module or 2 cores do have to share FpU, l2 cache (i think) and another thing. So, the cores are hampered by this but it doesnt take away the fact that there are 8 cores there. And i know its slow even though it has more cores than intel. But by refining it and better software optimization, i am wishing AMD to at least compete with intel enthusiast x99 chipset in the future with half the price. Why? Bc i cant afford intel. Simple as that.
Sorry it's not an 8-core at all, not when it has to share resources split int vs. fp. Hence why this very article shows again and again the older 4770K beating the 959 on threaded loads, with 60% less power consumption. Convincing yourself that AMD's "8 cores" marketing has any kind of sensible basis is as bad as believing MHz is an equally useful metric, or MIPS.
Intel's real, old, 6-core, the 3930K, utterly demolishes the 9590, for less power, etc. If you're on a budget, buy a used 3930K, it'll leave AMD's chips in the dust, and there are plenty of low cost X79 boards these days, especially on the used market (Gigabyte UD3 only cost me 55 UKP).
Noob, 2x ALU per unit DOES NOT equal 2 FULL CPU cores! The ONLY "edge" AMD has gained by this, frankly, AWFUL architecture, is in marketing, because they can somehow LEGALLY call each unit 2 CPU cores - when they do not function as such at all! In fact, HyperThreading provides better real world performance that doubling APU's when the architecture involved has much higher IPC as well as a DEDICATED minimum of 168 GB/s to L3 cache per core, at stock speeds!
AMD calling a 4 unit CPU an 8 core machine is essentially the same as intel calling a 4 core i7 an 8 core CPU! HyperThreading is NOT software! read more about CPUs bro.
you said intel has no non xeon 8 core cpu's. But haswell-e will have 8 core/16 thread. I currently run an i7-980x gulftown x58 system and will be replacing it with 8 core haswell-e. video production speed should sky rocket.
That depends on what you're doing, which app, where the bottlenecks reside, etc. If you've already oc'd your 980X then you're starting from a pretty good baseline, so don't expect HW-E to be that much better (NB: I have a 990X, a couple of 3930Ks, 4820K, seveal 2700Ks, etc.)
What really will help for you is the newer I/O provision, ie. SATA3, PCI Express, M.2, etc. The non-Intel SATA3 controllers on X58 boards were pretty awful, especially Marvell. And of course you can at least double your max RAM, which might be holding you back somewhat if you're a heavy AE user.
" Alongside testing this CPU, the 220W TDP requires a substantial motherboard to match. Due to the age of the platform, the AM3+ socket and the old 990FX chipset, finding a motherboard can be rather tricky. Many of the AM3+ motherboards that were launched were only suited for the FX-8350 processors, which had a 125W TDP. This is yet another reason that AMD wanted the FX-9590 in the hands of system builders who would chose high end motherboards that could cope.
Two of the newest motherboards to be released for 990FX were the ASRock 990FX Killer and the ASRock 990FX Extreme9. We reported the release of the Killer in December 2013, but the Killer is unsuitable here as the specification sheet lists processors up to 125W only. The Extreme9 is ASRock’s high-end AM3+ motherboard, and more suited to the task. "
This statement isn't entirely true; the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX motherboard supports this 220 watt CPU http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_... the only requirement is a BIOS update and better cooling.
Off the top of my head I don't know of anyone who has purchased a $350 i7 and paired it up with a $65 motherboard.. Most won't even use the stock cooler since +80c temperatures under load is a little on the alarming side.. Those that tend to purchase it as part of a new system are usually looking at $170 Motherboards and $30+ coolers.
Intel temperature issues != AMD power delivery issues. The former can simply be solved with a $30 HSF, while the latter needs a $170 mobo AND even stronger cooling.
And I'm one of those guys who run a 4790K on a $60 budget mobo. Paying an extra $100 for CPU at 4GHz stock with even higher turbo and HT is certainly more value for money than a $240 4690K with a $160 mobo with extravenous features that I don't need, and this does not include extra costs for cooling a OCed chip plus dealing with chip lottery. I don't know why is that even surprising to some...
I don't believe you have a $60 board paired up with your 4790K. Sorry S... it simply doesn't make sense. You may not have Z97 deluxe but I think it's doubtful you've paired it with a H81 either.. That's like going out and buying a 780Ti and then using the worst turd of a PSU to power the damn thing.. or saying yeah this Celeron should be enough for that.. lol.. no.
The Realmark Audio Analyzer results have labeled this motherboard as having the Realtek ALC1150 audio codec just like most other modern motherboards, however, as stated previously in the article this motherboard has the older Realtek ALC898 codec.
"If AMD is to return to the performance market, the power consumption has to be comparable to Intel, or if it is slightly higher, the chipset has to offer something Intel cannot. Any suggestions for what that feature should be should be submitted on a postcard/in the comments."
24 PCIe 3.0 lanes on-die for uncompromised graphics whilst allowing M.2/Express at 3.0 4x:
Kaveri, from a technological standpoint, is a refined version of Zambezi, but it's still not perfect; they fixed an AVX bug but hamstrung FP adds somehow. Work done per module is improved due to the decoder changes.
We don't know how L3 cache would help performance, as this is the first edition of the architecture that doesn't have such a flavour. The other issue is the reduced clock speed thanks to the 28nm SHP node; while it's very possible that a 4M/8T setup would exceed the 8350's performance, how much power would it use for that? I would theorise such a CPU (note - same clocks as the 7850K, and without L3 cache) outperforming the 8350 by about 10-15% in MT workloads, matching it in ST and even falling behind by 10-15% in FP; perhaps that's another reason for the lack of an FX line given that it'd be a regression. Right now, I don't think it'd serve in AMD's best interests to release a new FX series as it wouldn't benefit consumers at all.
I should imagine that if Excavator brings the rumoured IPC gains, AMD would simply dump AM3+ and resurrect FX as a 2M/4T FM2+ part; in essence, an i5 competitor. They did say that improved IPC was Excavator's raison d'etre; considering MT is fixed, it should mean instructions per core. Get the IPC high enough and they won't NEED to clock the parts so high, thus lower power; on this point, Carrizo is supposed to be rated at 65W TDP.
In my opinion the best cpu AMD has right now is A8 7600 coming in at $120 CAD. I see no reason to go Intel i3 as long as that puppy is there. (A argument can be made for Intel's AE 3x) The downside for AMD is I also see no reason why anyone should buy a more expensive CPU/APU from them.. their A-10 is priced in the same range as lower I5's which is a bit of a head shaker and their AM3+ is getting long in the tooth with no refresh.
I could see a new FM2+ FX branded cpu priced at the tier their offering their A-10s for as it would bring something more to the table.. but they do really have to do something about single threaded performance. Even if it wasn't being used as much in programs their line-up takes a beating in reviews which is bad optics for them and leads to people like us (who read these things..) to suggest other alternatives for people buying/building a system.
237W operational power consumption. This is just.... terrible for a 2014 CPU. And what is even worse, is that i7 with 1/3 of TDP performs as well or even better. AMD has to stick to APUs.
"One could speculate that releasing the next generation of FX-85xx might put them behind the FX-9590 in performance, or that the fabrication process was not suitable for a quad-module CPU with the new architecture improvements."
According to the Steamroller review, the 28nm bulk process that Steamroller was designed for won't clock as high as the 32nm SOI process that Piledriver uses. So an 8 core Steamroller processor would execute more instructions per clock, but would be clocked at least 400 Mhz slower, and as a result would be only marginally faster than Piledriver.
AMD is expecting to achieve another boost in instructions per clock with Excavator, but unless something has changed they plan to synthesize Excavator using software that minimizes die area at the cost of clock speed, so I'd expect Excavator to do more to improve performance per watt than to improve absolute performance.
After Excavator comes a completely new design, which we can hope will be a major improvement over the bulldozer derivatives.
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funny to read all these replies. makes you wonder what avarage age and technology knowledge is of these tech sites.....
All complaining about useless AMD and process tech but yet they don't understand that these own consumers are the ones to blame, they buy the jingle and bells and the marketing buzz... recent review on anandtech showed enough what was best to buy, yet most decide to buy the other marketing dominant brand as if there all day tasks are faster since the benchmarks show few percentage faster finished task... buyers need to blame themselve for there own stupid decisions. Want a fast system? get rid of Microsoft garbage. OEM-marketing kill the competition and consumers are the victim but they still dont understand it. (useless chipset revisions, socket changes, design rules like in ultrabook space and centrino, etc, etc..). poor consumers.
From a tech site you indeed need to review such a CPU, its mandatory but i don't think it gets the honor for what it supposed to be, anyhow there will be only few to sell since it has no reason to exist becide the mythical part.
I remember the days of pentium D and extreme, no reason at all to exist yet 1000's of buyers just for the brand....
There is still room for AMD in my home. I have 2 SB Core i3s for the gaming machines and I've just replaced an 80W Phenom II HTPC with an Intel NUC 2820. But my server (currently an Athlon II X4) will be soon an A10-7800 at 45W on a FM2+ with 8 SATA board...
How did you manage to post a review of a chip with a bundled retail liquid cooling system and not post a single picture of the liquid cooling system? How easy was it to install, what size openings are needed on the case, etc...
a) some impressions on the liquid cooling? (+pics) b) underclocking the CPU (and lowering voltage), then map that to power v. performance curves for the same set of benchmarks you ran... just to see how big a drop it would be in wattage.
I think coolermaster makes it.. Not bad, not great.. You'd be better served getting the the variant without liquid cooling (I think..) and than deciding on your own what you need.
These processors really need to be running at below Intel wattage in order to be competitive, even if they tried and sold me one of these cpus for $10 I wouldn't buy one. 220W and performs worse then i5, no thanks.
Well, this same FX Piledriver certainly can run below Intel wattage (say, around 70 W for the CPU itself), but only at no more than 2.5-3.0 GHz frequency - like Opterons 6300 do. Then, it won't make a lot of sense on the desktop either :)
Before this product was initially released as an OEM part I had posted on an AMD article that I would be interested in a 200 W APU not CPU. I wouldn't mind an APU that could clock the GPU and CPU outrageously. I have a 300 W video card plus a 105 W Intel CPU, which the CPU is supposed to be 95 W. So a 200 W APU that comes close to both of those is a cost savings if it will clock down while idle. Plus space and heat savings.
Evidently they opted for doing it with this CPU. This is not totally bad, but between the pricing, performance, chipset features, and efficiency versus the 8350 and Intel parts it is really tough to justify. I saw numbers in there for workloads where the Haswell i3 is more than the 9590. I bought the Phenom 9600 with the errata and the CPU was fine, but I am still not willing to go that far in loyalty to AMD on the CPU side anymore. They would do better to just import the 8350/9590 silicon onto their 28 nm process. So what if it takes a clock regression as it will also have a TDP drop. They really need to do a better job updating their chipsets. This is less forgivable than their CPU line. That old, crappy 9590 would look better with a new chipset (PCIe 3 at least).
I've been running AMD in my desktops as a primary since the K6-2 (and K6-3+ mobile in a desktop if anyone remembers that gem).
That being said, I have to call the current generation as AMD's version of the Pentium 4. I have an FX6300 in my main gaming PC. While it does well, it just isn't up to par with Intel's offerings.
I've been keeping an eye out for the next version of the AM3+ performance line and found that I've pretty much got it.
Uh... what?
AMD's flagship performance socket, AM3, has pretty much been dropped completely with all focus towards hot dual cores (seriously, that is what they are) with some rather nice integrated graphics. While I've sold several of these to my business customers I'm seriously considering jumping to Intel for my rigs.
The biggest reason is I've always had an upgrade path with AMD. It was always easy to keep building a new AMD as I'd have a couple of generations of CPU available to a platform and some of my parts from the previous system would cross. It was rarely ever a 100% replacement, more a long term evolution.
My next system will likely require a new motherboard to replace what is to me a fairly new board. With AMD effectively dropping the AM3 line just after I got onboard, I've got a sour taste in my mouth.
Those Core i7 are looking better. AMD has done this to themselves.
They took their IT customers, those that tell everyone else what to buy, told them about this awesome new CPU on the AM3 platform, the ultimate of the Bulldozer line, walked them out blindfolded for the big reveal, then walked away. We're standing there in a field of nothing with a blindfold on looking like jackasses.
The absolutely BEST game for CPU benchmarking remains Crysis 3.
I don't know why they use Tomb Raider and Company of Heroes which both are CPU agnostic. Not to mention that F1 series just hates AMD CPUs for whatever reason.
Games that really use the CPU: Crysis 3, Hitman Absolution, Assassin's Creed IV (I think). GRID 2, or really any mainline DIRT games. Hell, even Watch Dogs.
If any of those games that know how to properly use more than 2-4 cores were tested then this AMD beast would wipe the floor with those i3s.
Just laughing at "This AMD "beast" would wipe the floor with those i3s." - You used beast to describe AMD's flagship product, and then talked about proper software coding allowing it to wipe the floor - wiiith i3s! LOL! just LOL!
I really am not sure if you were being sarcastic or actually meant that, but I hope it was sarcasm!
I just got an FX-9590 and an ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 motherboard to go with it. I closely examined available Intel options and chose this chip. Most of the comments here put down this chip and AMD because Intel has higher-performing options and most of those comments are completely missing one vital factor: PRICE. I got this combo for $355 tax + shipping. Even if you go with the previous generation of Intel's flagship CPU, the i7-3770K, Newegg has them TODAY for $330. Hmm, that's almost as much as I paid for the FX with a brand new motherboard! Same story for the i7-4770K at $335.
I walked away during a CPU sale special paying $220 total for the FX-9590 chip. It's faster in video compression benchmarks than EVERY desktop Intel chip EXCEPT the X-series i7 chips. It runs with or near the 3770K and 4770K in almost every other benchmark, possibly excluding games.
For those of you jeering at "efficiency" and praising how much faster Intel's Haswell chips can be, I wish you the best...but I'll be able to get an SSD, better RAM, or a nicer graphics card because I have $100 extra in my pocket, all while enjoying roughly the same performance as the Intel chips you've formed a cult around. Best of all, there's no LGA socket with extremely fragile pins to void my warranty; you know, when you return a mobo and they refuse to honor your return because "user-caused CPU socket pin damage" even though it was sent back because a nearby defective power component visibly burned up. Plus, did you know that CPUs only use their TDP worth of heat when you're taxing them to the maximum constantly? Who knew?!
You can have your lower performance-per-currency-unit chips and theoretical efficiency, I'll take the best overall deal, thanks!
I agree enthusiast's are rarely concerned with power consumption. I quote a user i encountered who stated My Haswell is more energy efficient "meanwhile they have their rig picture with 3 Titans running in 3 way SLI for their avatar". Pure derp and a grasping desperately for the one and only straw they have in regards to downplaying the FX lineup. It's obviously neither price or performance, or multitasking for that matter.
I've just become accustomed to tuning them out like annoying kids at the pub.
Umm you KNOW that even stock clocked that the i7-3770K is better and faster in EVERY way, than the 9590 OCed to the max, right?
You also know that while you saved, literally, a couple bucks on BUYING your hardware - you are going to spend, comparatively, hundreds of dollars more running it for even 2 years!
Oh then there is the effect that the HUGE power draw has on components - mobos, PSUs, video cards, RAM - because ALL of it gets effected by the insane heat - and certainly ALL of it will be effected if you short your PSU!
And i7-3770K at stock frequencies out performing this POS FX 9590 - is NOT synthetic! That is real world PROVEN speed! NTM, you can EASILY hit 4.7 GHz on any SandyBridge chip - which will not only yield MUCH better performance, but will suck less power and be more reliable as well! And you aren't even going to have to spend that much to buy a good Z77 board and an i5/i7 2500k/2600k (ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 runs right around $100 right now, and is FAR from any budget board, and in fact has more features than ANY FX board that could run this 220W POS!)
So pat yourself on the back, you saved a few bucks on hardware! BUT you completely sacrificed ALL performance, and ANY reasonable upgradability! Also, you will end up paying FAR more than you saved in power costs! (I am sure your power company will thank you for choosing an AMD space heater for a CPU!)
Well on that note, you may save a few bucks on heating, given you live somewhere that gets colder than 50 degrees (Fahrenheit) at some point in the year anyway.
LMAO! Cult - you are such an AMD fanboy NOOB! It is not a cult when PERFORMANCE and EFFICIENCY are the deciding factors!
And again, you saved a few bucks when buying your already outdated POS AMD space heater - just wait til that power bill comes!
And if you seriously cannot afford an i5/i7 K processor, even a Sandy or Ivy Bridge, and a Z77 or newer chipset, what the hell good is faster ram and an SSD going to do you? None, unless your workload is entirely composed of highly multi threaded compression/encoding etc.
Have fun with your 220W space heater that has to compete against i3 CPUS! LMFAO!
Just another instance of AMD CHUGGING power and crapping performance! Combine this FLOP of a chip (220 W TDP - sweet Jesus! At STOCK) with an R9 290X (300 W TDP, again holy sh*t!) and you are up to over 500 watts TDP!
Compare this to an Intel i7-5930K (140 W TDP) paired with a GTX 970 (148 W TDP) and you are ONLY at 288!
Not ONLY that, but the Intel is faster BY FAR at stock speeds, as well the GTX 970, while costing only $30 more - provides ~10%-25% frame rates in basically EVERY benchmark!
I just feel sad for AMD anymore... I am guessing they are too busy with owning ATI and TRYING to compete with SandyBridge and newer Intel products (My i7-2600K beats this FX chip at STOCK speeds in most benchmarks - and basically ALL gaming benchmarks! And that is not even mentioning that the 2600K easily hits 4.4 GHz on any decent mobo/chipset! Then there is the fact that the 2600K is THREE years old, only 95 W TDP - which will NEVER go above 125 even at the 4.7 GHz/102.3 Bclock OC I run!)
AMD should have realized this Chip's Architecture was DOA with the first PileDriver CPUs falling FAR behind the Phenom 2 1100Ts! And even now the 1100Ts generally have better gaming performance!
The REAL question is, WHY? Why have they not dropped this design and brought us a new one? I mean they could try it with limited releases to test it at VERY least, but I hear no word whatsoever about AMD being anywhere close to a completely new chip design!
I was a staunch "AMD Fan-boy" back in the Pentium 4/Athlon XP days! They WERE far better! Also back then ATI could actually compete in gaming!
Now? AMD is only good for budget gaming builds - parts like this FX chip are just about pointless - apart from people who already own a good socket AM3+ mobo. But buying this chip for a breand new build? That would be a HORRIBLE idea! Only the biggest fans of AMD would waste such money and power..
And AMD VideoCards - yes they have better compute performance - so yeah, if you are still GPU mining new Crypto's (Like VertCoin's Lyra2RE Algorithm) - buy an AMD GPU, but 2 or 3 if that is your goal! But even then, apparently the HD 7000 series are STILL the best miners, as they do not consume INSANE amounts of power and do NOT run at a "SAFE 95 deg C" (AMD's quote on R9 290X operating temp!) So, whereas Nvidia and Intel move forward with less power consumption, cooler temps, and better performance where it matters, it REALLY seems AMD is taking steps backwards!
So this motherboard suits basically for those who will overclock the processor, graphics and RAM. Honestly, I don't know why would any purchase a AM3+-based motherboard since we have to wait for eight months only to get some AMD Zen processors that are (at least on paper) much better than FX. So, I am thinking about the new motherboard and a new processor. Since Doom 4 will come out next year, will have to get something better than my current configuration, that is based on the ASRock 970 R2.0 (BTW, this is a pretty good MB, have bought it here - http://hardware.nl/asrock/970-extreme3r20.html almost two years ago and happy with it)
I bought an Extreme9 just before Christmas 2015. Went to raid my 2 Crucial 512gb SSDs and computer would not see them. Called Asrock tech and they told me certain makes of SSDs are not compatible with Extreme9 boards. I explained that SSDs were much older and Asrock board should be backwards compatable. He gave me a short list of drives that were compatible and said I'd have to buy new drives. Asrock took no responsibility and were in no way helpful.
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dave1231 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Running this chip at load 24/7 at 18p per kWh for a year would cost about £525 although you might be able to turn your heating down a bit. Should be consigned to history.tech6 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
+1: Such abysmal efficiency makes no sense at all. If this is supposed to be a 2014 product then I fear for the future of AMD.shabby - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Efficiency goes out the door once you start overclocking.Flunk - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
That's not true at all, a lot of Intel CPUs will take a supstantial overclock with no or very slight voltage adjustments and then not exceed TDP by more than 25%. Overclocking THIS processor throws efficiency out the door but there are gains to be made at reasonable costs with Intel's Core processors.shabby - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
An extra 1ghz on an i7-4770k increases wattage by 60%http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_...
Which article is showing a 25% increase?
SmokingCrop - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This one does: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/01/intel-...Intel Core i7-4770K
3.5GHz -> 137 Watt
4.7GHz -> 171 Watt
shabby - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
One article shows a 25% increase with a 1.2ghz oc while another shows 60% increase with a 1ghz oc ... so which ones right?tuxRoller - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Possibly both. Depends on where these tests are done (the line voltage), components used, and, most importantly, the binning.basroil - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Both can be correct, depends on the test. Chips aren't as easy as pipeline clock increases, memory limited applications are still fairly common, as are cache limited ones (L1 cache should increase in speed but L2 and L3 won't in most cases), and there are still others that are unstable and can see huge jumps depending on how in sync components are.That said, seeing a performance increase larger than the clock increase (all in %) is rare at best, downright lying in most cases though. Usually a 50% increase will give you a 25-50% increase in non-memory limited applications.
basroil - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Strike the above, misread the comment!But actually very close, just replace everything with mobo, cooling, and lot. Some chips overclock better than others, and some motherboards and cooling help achieve that at lower voltages (and therefore power) than others. Your CPU might need 1.2V to hit 4.5gh while another needs 1.25V just to hit 4, it's just the luck of the draw.
thejshep - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
But even if you more than double the wattage of an i7, you're still not approaching the wattage this cpu takesSkillztech - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Cause it is totally intel biasedSkillztech - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
No need to over clock this chip at all, totally powerful. intel and the low voltage low power chips just suck at the same price range.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This FX-9590 is actually the last year's product. E.g., in Canadian Canada Computers this SKU (in the version without any cooler) lays on the shelves for months and almost nobody buys it. At the same time, they have a big turnaround of Haswell Intel i7's, which speaks for itself."Re-release" of this SKU happens because AMD has nothing better to offer, so they hope to get some public attention which it better than zero public attention :)
I'm not an old man (age 32 now), but I remember the times (2005) when even Alienware top laptops were based on AMD Turions (rebranded Athlons 64) - simply because these were better than Intel's Pentium M at the time.
And, in contrast, in around last three years since Bulldozer release AMD CPU business looks poorly.
Yes, I know, APUs, OpenCL, HSA. But the CPU side of things at AMD is sad.
Da W - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
AMD should just drop Bulldozer. That's probably what they're doing.Skillztech - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
8 cores high multi tasking and usage with high end core hungry software leaving intel in the dust. Plus the ability to game awesome. A real CPU.Budburnicus - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Intel's i7-2600K SPANKS this POS in every conceivable way! AND it is THREE years old! This is even at stock clocks, just TRY comparing this CPU in any overclock to an i7-2600K at 4.4 Ghz (and overclock that basically ANY 2600K can handle - I have mine at 4.7 and 102.3 Bclock)And with EVERY benchmark available - the 4.4 Ghz OC,ed i7-2600K will COMPLETELY blow this POS out of the water! (BTW Not only is 4.4 easy to hit, but the TDP never goes above 125 - even with my 4.7 OC, as stock TDP is only 95w!)
I USED to be an AMD "Fanboy" back in the days of Intel's Pentium 4 "Net Burst" architectural FLOP! And the Athlon XP' superior gaming performance and performance per dollar - with better overclocking!
But since PileDriver FIRST came out, I have only shuddered at the thought of this architecture even existing, let alone being pushed farther and farther! Intel KNEW Net Burst was horrible, and dumped it ASAP for first Core and then Core2 architectures - which were very competitive in all ways for their day.
On the eve of SandyBridge, once benchmarks became available it was OBVIOUS that the SandyBridge Architecture was game changing, especially since the about $350 (at release) i7-2600k - and even the $250 i5-2500K completely SPANKED even Intel's own i7-900X extreme edition CPUs whicbh cost about $1000!
Ever since AMD swallowed ATI it seems they really dropped the ball (in both courts!) Continuing this HIGHLY inefficient chip design - which is ACTUALLY only a Quad core - with just 2x the ALU's per core serving as a full "dual core" processing unit - they left out MANY components that make up a FULL core, and most importantly, while L2 cache is slightly larget than Intel's chips for the most part, the caches are MUCH slower! And a "Dual Core Unit" has twice the ALUs vying for L2 access, where L3 cache is INCREDIBLY slow at something like 200 GB/sec to ALL cores - where Intel's i7-2600K has 168 GB/sec DEDICATED PER CORE! And that is at stock speeds too!
So you have REALLY got to ask yourself, when a 3 year old Intel part - which by now is not only cheaper - but FAR more power efficient, is MUCH faster, at stock clock, than a BRAND new AMD part - which takes well over twice the power and puts out over twice the heat, WTF is th point in buying AMD?
Especially when one considers that on a CHEAP Z68 or Z77 chipset board - this three year old i7-2600K can EASILY hit 4.4 Ghz - and it will STILL be more power efficient than the AMD part - as well as multitudes faster in EVERY way that truly matters - this just seem sad for AMD...
They are eating more power, and crapping less performance - even per $! Unless you really want a bargain basement gaming PC - then an A10 APU with a cheap GFX card will be cheaper than an Intel build with similar performance (but we are talking $500 and less for a entirely new build!)
So this FX just represents a sad bit of AMD history, sure the hardcore "fan-boys" will cling tightly to their AMD parts they have invested money into - but (and there is always that BUT) everything about this new FX chip is far behind, and the ONLY reason one should even consider purchasing one is if they already own a good Socket AM3+ mobo - for new builds? AVOID AMD FX CHIPS LIKE THE PLAGUE!
SlowSpyder - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
For those who are running their CPU's at 100% load 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, this isn't the right CPU. That's likely a quite small population of people. There are cons to the FX 9xxx CPU's to be sure, but I don't think what are often over-blown energy usage costs are one of them.MatthiasP - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
The real problem is, there is not a single pro for this processor.SlowSpyder - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
For someone looking to build a new system, probably not a lot of pros. For AM3+ owners looking for an upgrade from a lower part and guaranteed clocks, there could be some value in this processor.Flunk - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
The likelyhood of an existing AM3+ owner having a board that can support a 250watt CPU is pretty low, there really aren't many options. This CPU is a real turkey and people are not buying them.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
220 W, not 250, but this does not change your statement :)basroil - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
220W TDP, the chart above shows it uses 237W without overclocking! AMD needs to get their stuff togethertakeship - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Yeah, AMD's "220" is 220w of heat, not necessary 220w of power. You'll measure more, maybe a lot more, at the wall.Death666Angel - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
That is the whole system, the mainboard, the drives, dedicated graphics card, conversion loss by your PSU. Get your facts straight.@takeship: Where would that 220W of heat come from is not from the power? Does the CPU somehow produce more heat from chemical reactions?
anubis44 - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Well, one pro is that you get a processor that is fairly comparable to an Intel i7 in performance, and most importantly, you'll be giving your money to a company that didn't try to screw you by attempting to corner the market through extortionate threats to their own OEM customers if they used AMD CPUs when they were better than Intel's.In other words, there may not be any technical advantages over Intel's competing products, but there are also no significant disadvantages, and at least by buying AMD, you won't feel like you need to take a bath afterwards to wash the filth off. I say to hell with Intel. Stop giving them money as punishment for their gangsterism.
asoltesz - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
Mostly, this is why I bought an AMD desktop last year. It was similar in price than an Intel-one would have been for the same money. It consumes much more energy but that was something I could put up with.FITCamaro - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Man I seriously don't want to live in England if your electricity is that expensive. That's $0.30 cents/kWh. But with our current president and administration who want our electricity prices to rise, we might soon be in that boat. I pay about $0.06/kWh.lkb - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Here in germany we pay 54 Euro Cents/kWh during peak times. While it sucks it has it upsides too - no stupid bitcoin mining crazy to speak of around here!TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Well, then I doubt you will go with FX - even despite the fact, that FX CPU dies are actually produced in Germany at Drezden GloFo Fab 1 :)TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Sorry, DreSden. My fault.SmokingCrop - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
lol wat.Here in Belgium, depending on your use, it's about € 0,13 - 0,23 ..
basroil - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Germany is stupid and thinks solar is good for tech industries, Belgium has nuclear plants that give it huge rate discounts. Basically, you can buy this chip in Belgium just fine, but go get an intel chip for germanyDeath666Angel - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
You should change your provider. I pay 23c/kWh. Unless you have an "all green" plan, you shouldn't pay that much.KWIE - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
Um, what? Where on earth are you living in Germany to be paying 54c/kWh??? I'm in Dresden and paying 24c/kWh across the board (no HT/NT).Flunk - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Haha, I can think of more important reasons YOU wouldn't want to live in England! You know Gas is more than $8 a Gallon there right? Also, they tax cars based on CO2 generation and cars are almost twice as expensive as they are in the USA!LemmingOverlord - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
@Flunk, you do understand that is basically the reality for most of the Western world? Gas (Petrol, not gas-gas) is expensive, period. Cars are expensive. Period.Skillztech - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Totally unrealistic figures. Yet again intel fans come up with either straight out lies or complete nonsense. "Running this chip at load 24/7 at 18p per kWh for a year" *facepalms*dshk - Saturday, November 22, 2014 - link
HPC and supercomputers are built from Opterons, not from FXs. If you have been playing on your home computer on full load 24/7 then you have bigger problems than paying your electricity bill.Budburnicus - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
+1 I feel sad for AMD anymore! This FX can't even compete with a three year old i7-2600K!NeatOman - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I have a FX-8320 @4.5Ghz, and never goes over 75c. I got it because it was $215 for both the CPU and a very good motherboard, and paired it with two HD 7850's. With that said, an overclocked [email protected] is better then anything AMD can do over clocked even @5Ghz (for the most part) and at times far out classes it. But, an i5 and good motherboard will cost about $350 and $400+ for i7.. Almost twice. FYI, I live in Illinois and the electricity here is very very cheap.colinstu - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
a $300+ AMD chip?! LOL. Who the heck would buy this? It's not efficient, it's definitely not fast compared to $100 cheaper intel offerings (or similarly priced offerings in some of the other benches).swizeus - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Second your opinion... It has been 3rd generation (or more ?) since FX gone out the door and AMD should have a solution to at least match Intel's performance by now, but why this ? It is pointless to have a power hungry beast that lost in the match with a processor that is halved in TDP in an Unzipping archive operation, not to mention electricity bill and the noise to cool down 220Watt TDP Processor... Not worth itRussianSensation - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
The amount of generations or the time span doesn't have any correlation with AMD catching up. Take an i7 4790K and manufacture it in 28-32nm node and see how awful it is. In other words, unless AMD can manufacture chips on the same node as Intel, it has no chance of competing whatsoever even if by magic their CPUs had identical IPC and clocks to Intel's. The delta in performance and performance/watt will only grow once Intel launches Skylake on 14nm next year.Budburnicus - Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - link
Umm a 4790K even at 32nm would still spank this chip across the board. How "awful" indeed...I mean forget the 4790K for a second, the 2600K at STOCK will beat this CPU out in nearly everything. and basically any i7-2600k on any board that supports overclocking WILL easily hit 4.2-4.4 - hell I had mine at 4.4 with a STOCK POS Intel Heatsink (POS in terms of its ability to cool, it is actually more than effective enough with how little heat the CPUs generate) - And at those speeds the 2600K beats out any and every AMD consumer CPU at almost everything, and what few benchmarks it will be behind in, it will not be by too much. And those benchmarks would include only VERY highly multithreaded applications of computational power - basically, server-type stuff. Certainly not in gaming!
Then there's the NEWER Intel CPUs like the i7-5930K (which I also own) which aren't too much more expensive than this flop, and will beat it out in absolutely anything and everything - at stock clocks again! With the exact same CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO I have on my i7-2600K machine (AWESOME cooler for the money, though I will probably replace the one currently on the 5930, as it does not provide the maximum OC headroom possible like it does on my 2600 machine) - with dual fans, I have all cores running totally stable at 4.4 GHz with 105.7 Bclock!
AMD really needs to dump this architecture for the consumer class entirely (though I admittedly am not too familiar with Server-class CPU benchmarks, from what I have read the newer Intel Xeon are spanking the current Opterons, but IIRC they still represent good value for money in the high end workstation and server classes - though Enthusiasts generally seem to stick with the Xeons as they like to be able to game at insane speeds and resolutions as well as do encoding, editing, CAD, etc. As I have seen quite a few "ULTIMATE Rig builds" where money is no issue, by people like NCIX, Linus Tech tips, PCper, and others on YouTube, but I have yet to see an ultimate Opteron machine)
So, yeah... All that speaks volumes to people who look at information objectively and without bias. IF AMD were to come out with a new chip tomorrow which not only spanked everything Intel has ever made, but also made it cheap like the original SandyBridge parts - and therefore changed the game, DAMNED right I would be coveting a brand new AMD rig, and would likely sell off my 2600K machine, despite my deep love for it (and the fact that it games slightly better than the 5930 due to higher core speeds by a decent bit) to try to fund such a build ASAP!
But as it is? You would have to be a blind fanboy to buy a CPU like this for a brand new build, as it does not perform well and eats power like crazy, requiring AMD to bundle a friggen AIO water-block with it! And even with the best of the best, it will BARELY overclock! So the stock speed benchmarks will never be too far from a sustainable, stable, overclock - a FAR different story from the i5-i7 2000-5000 K series CPUs - as I said, a pretty average overclock on an i7-2600K is 4.2 GHz, a full 1 GHz above stock speeds, as the 3.8 GHz turbo only works when a single core is under load, and even then it will still beat out tthis 5950 in most ways!
lurker22 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Is AMD even trying anymore? That power draw is PATHETIC in the year 2014xdrol - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I think the fact that this very processor is still 'the' flagship shows that no, they are not even trying.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
No, they actually don't. This is just cherry-picked and overclocked FX-8350 from October 2012 with all the associated power draw and heat growing superlinearly because of the much higher operating voltage.However, AMD does develop their CPU side of the business, but since Kaveri this January the results go only into APUs (same will happen with Carrizo coming next year).
AMD APUs are actually very fine in their class, they are just in a shy situation regarding these factory overclocked 220W FXes. The rest of their lineup is fine.
StrangerGuy - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
300W alone for a CPU, holy mother of god. An entire Haswell gaming rig with 750 Ti would probably draw less power.BTW $250 is insane for any motherboard let alone an AMD one. That's an i5 4590 and a budget mobo right there already.
Daniel Egger - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
> 300W alone for a CPU, holy mother of god. An entire Haswell gaming rig with 750 Ti would probably draw less power.Don't know where you got that 300W from but yes, a decent Haswell system with 750 TI will not just probably but definitely draw less power than 300W. Mine takes around 35W idle and up to 120W in games.
RussianSensation - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
The motherboard in the review is $170 not $250. But yes it's a lot better to buy an i5-7 than this chip.edwd2 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Will we be getting new FX chips in the future?or is it just APUs ...
Mrduder11 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I am not highly invested in either "camp" but I will say this is absolutely embarrassing for AMD. As a gamer, I could never justify purchasing this CPU when using with a dedicated graphics setup. The results show AMD's way off the mark in research and development in their GPU labs.RussianSensation - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Has little to do with research and development. You can't expect a 28-32nm CPU to compete with a 22nm CPU no matter how hard you try. It would be akin to NV having 28nm GTX780Ti going up against a 40nm HD6970. AMD's biggest problem is no access to the same lithography tech as Intel.mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Actually it has a lot to do with R&D. An ex-AMD employee said a few years ago thatAMD's big mistake was making extensive use of automated design tools, resulting
in a 3rd more transistors, using more power, for less performance. Presumably this
was cheaper than paying the required talent to do the fine tuning normally expected
at this level. Either way, this is why BD was so bad, and they've never recovered.
AMD simply doesn't have the money to do the base R&D, that's the key blockage.
Ian.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Umm, the i5-2500k AND i7-2600K are 32nm CPU's and even at a 4.7 GHz overclock do not even draw HALF the power and are over TWICE as fast! All from a 3 year old SKU!The cherry on top of the pile of dog poop would HAVE to be the fact that AMD had to make an R9 290 with a 512 bit memory bus to TRY to keep up with Nvidia's 970 or 980 - and that GPU takes over twice the power as well!
So YES this has EVERYTHING to do with R&D! Both their CPUs and GPUs are HORRIBLY inefficient!
And again, process has little to do with it, bearing in mind that the 32nm i-cores are not only 3 years old, but draw well less than HALF the power, and still over 1/3 less at the same 4.7 GHz clock speed, except when an i7-2600K is running at that speed, it is FAR FASTER in EVERY way!
TeXWiller - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Who knows, Kaveri brought the three module support for the APUs. The devil is the implementation details and timing. I was little disappointed when they took out the remaining 95W four module chips from the channel.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
What do you mean by "three module support for the APUs"? Talking about CPU side of things, all the APUs since Trinity only have 2 CPU modules aka 4 AMD cores. More than that, staying with this Bulldozer-derived CPU tech, APUs won't get more than 2 modules because of the die area and associated TDP and cost issues.TeXWiller - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
See http://support.amd.com/TechDocs/49125_15h_Models_3... page 28TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
OK,"2 or 3 core-pairs Add 3 CU support."
But there is no 3 "core-pair" (3 CU, 3 modules) Kaveri APUs on the market - at least, as of yet.
TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
No, no FX in the future - at least, not on Bulldozer-derived microarchitectures.Just APUs till 2016 at least.
will1956 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
i've gotten the sabertooth 990FX GEN3 R2.0 and its got pcie 3 x16 with a 8350 and a sapphire 7870 ghz (both OC'ed) and its pretty good although rather greedyTiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
It's nice that this kind of boards exist, but, sadly, PCI Express 3.0 is a rarity rather than a norm on AM3+.AMD only has PCI Express 3.0 as a standard on FM2+ with Kaveri APU.
roadapathy - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I see by the comments below that I'm among the rational. AMD is stuck on the 32nm fab process making for a dismal performance experience for us all! My AMD 6-core could boil water. This is great for the cold midwestern American climate but the Summer is unbearable with AMD CPUs. I had waited over 2 years for a 22nm AMD 8 core FX that never appeared. Meanwhile, I'm running the "lower" 95watt CPU. I can't even imagine how it would be with the 220watt. How ridiculous!!RussianSensation - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Exactly!! Someone understands. If AMD could move to 14nm, they could increase the number of modules 50%-100% and lower the power usage at the same time. When you CPU is on 32nm while Intel is soon to launch 14nm Broadwell, the chance of AMD competing in performance or performance/watt is 0%.Death666Angel - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
But more cores aren't really the issue for AMD, are they? In multi-threaded stuff they are already doing fine. What they need is better IPC. Even at 5GHz they barely beat i3s of the current generation. Unfortunately the FX-9590 isn't in bench yet, but the FX-8350 even loses to a chip on 32nm (i5-2500k) in most benchmarks except some multi threaded ones. Put an i7-2600k in its place and it loses even more consistently. That is not just a lithography disadvantage, that is a straight up embarrassment from the CPU architecture standpoint. And the fact that they aren't releasing any more FX CPUs based on newer architectures is a slap in the face of any PC enthusiast.TiGr1982 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Indeed; placed my response too.Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
exactly! AMD has HORRIBLE IPC which results in horrible efficiency - ALSO bear in mind that the 3 year old i5 and i7 parts are 32nm fab, and are 95 watt TDP parts - which can easily be clocked at 4.7 Ghz and totally SPANK this CPU in every way!AMD need a totally new architecture to go with a new fabrication, otherwise it will remain meaningless and eat more power. IPC is incredibly important - just because this FX 9590 is much newer than an i7-2600K and therefore has more and newer instruction sets, does NOT mean it performs better! It performs far worse in fact - whilst eating more power - using the same fab size!
TiGr1982 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
It's not the manufacturing tech itself - their Bulldozer-derived microarchitecture has drastically slower IPC (Instructions Per Clock). If you you emphasize lithography, then let's compare FX Piledriver from late 2012 on GF 32 nm lithography and Sandy Bridge LGA1155 Core i7 from early 2011 on Intel's 32 nm lithography.Guess what? Sandy Bridge is around 50% faster in single threaded tasks than Pilderiver. At the "same" lithography. Despite the fact that Sandy Bridge i7 has just 9 MB L2+L3 cache, while Piledriver has 16 MB L2+L3 cache. So, AMD's chip has almost twice the amount of cache than Intel's chip and is still 50% slower. So, first, the case with AMD FX is mainly a problem of inappropriate microarchitecture, and only then comes the lithography lag.
So, even if a Cinderella's fairy comes up and magically moves FX Piledriver to Intel's 22 nm or even 14 nm, the resulting tiny Piledriver shrink will still be a Slowpoke in single thread duties - because it is its microarchitecture that prevents it from doing better.
roadapathy - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I don't have a complaint about the architecture itself because of the price points. Intel CPU, motherboard and the RAM are all much more expensive! I'd be satisfied with AMD FX series (or the new Kavari) on the 20nm fab process.Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
+1 EXACTLY my point! People KEEP bringing up fab sizes, but it is a simple TRUTH that a 3 year old 32 nm SandyBridge is FAR faster in nearly every conceivable way - at STOCK speeds no less!Apply a 4.7 GHz overclock (as my SandyBridge system has ) - and the Per Clock (as well as gaming performance!) actually BEATS my Haswell i7-5930K (which with the same Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO w/dual fans - is at a stable 4.4 Ghz) - in gaming!
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
*per CORE* - not clock (same IPC obviously)roadapathy - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
In fact, I argued this point on my Steam Gamers group page and some said I was not fully understanding. I'll laugh a little about that because I talked with an employee of Intel at my work and he has a PhD in electrical engineering from Purdue. He said that I was correct and that the lithography makes a huge differences in power and performance of a CPU. Even if AMD CPUs/APUs are slower per IPC, it still does the job and it still costs much less to produce an entire PC system.Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Fab size isn't the problem here! A 3 year old i5-2500K or i7-2600K is built with a 32 nm fab and is only a 95 watt TDP part! On top of that, it is QUITE easy to overclock either to 4.7 GHz - and even then the power draw is at least 1/3 less and the CPU will be MUCH faster in EVERY way!Hell, at STOCK speeds, an i7-2600K is faster!
LarsBars - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I wanted to build a Hyper-V lab for my work, so I ended up going with AMD FX. I don't care about overcook and the power consumption argument to me is not a big deal. I got my 8350 and 8320 on sale, and for the number of threads, the cache, and the hardware virtualization support, it was one of the cheapest ways to put together two 32 GB lab servers.Sttm - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
So this a fanboy only product? Not sure how anyone else can believe its a better purchase over an i7. Slower in most things, similar cost, multiple times the power usage.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Well, for the unbiased customer there is indeed no sense in going with this FX rather than with i7.So, AFAIU, this is indeed a product for die-hard AMD fans. The only problem is that the number of these people is diminishing from year to year, I suppose.
darkich - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
What a terrible product.A 220W CPU now days?
Facepalm
gostan - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I know AT team needs to eat. It's just painful to see them try so hard to be easy on AMD.darkich - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
+1Sushisamurai - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I think you guys are a little too harsh. The architecture was developed 2012-2013, so realistically, this is a sandy bridge/ivy bridge comparison. If you were to OC an ivy bridge/sandy bridge to this performance, you'd be looking at similar wattage (I'm guessing here, 5GHz on ivy/sandy doesn't seem possible on CLC). The fact it comes close to haswell for a year or two old part, I consider that a winDaniel Egger - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Who cares when it was developed to do a comparison. They release it today so it has to compare against todays CPUs and this one sucks on so many levels it's not even funny anymore. Also no sane person cares about clock, it's either single- or multithread performance plus sometimes iGPU performance and of course efficiency, if you want crazy clocks you can dig out some Netburst Pentiums... Last but not least if you desperately want to see this PoC loose in some benchmarks against some mainstream Sandy Bridge CPU then have a look at the graphs and check for "Core i5-2500K".TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Indeed, clocks comparison does not work in terms of performance comparison between different microarchitectures.One simple number:
Haswell in single thread is around 70% faster (~1.7 times) than Piledriver (say, in Cinebench 1 thread) at the same clocks. ~70%. Check yourself. Nuff said.
Fouquin - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Except they didn't release it today, they released it 14 months ago. So really, it's still an IB - FX comparison. AT was just really slow to put any press on this chips existence. It has no purpose other than to show the limit of the Bulldozer architecture, and it does that quite nicely. (Although I have an FX-8350 running at 5.12, so it isn't even the upper limits.)Really when it comes down to it though, it's a "for fun" chip. Like a super-car: it looks and acts fast, costs way too much, sucks down gas by the gallon, and is complete excess to your needs. But hey, it's shiny and looks good in the garage.
TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
In fact, Sandy Bridge is much more efficient and has much higher IPC than Piledriver. So, Sandy Bridge i7 Core i7-2600K/2700K has to be overclocked around 4.3 GHz to match or surpass FX-9590. Ivy Bridge has slightly better IPC, than Sandy, so that 4.1-4.2 GHz should suffice for Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K to match or surpass FX-9590. And this is for full multithreading.For single threading, Sandy and Ivy are already faster at stock turbo frequencies than anything Piledriver can offer. Piledriver has to be clocked beyond 6 GHz to try to match Core i7 stock single thread (LN2 may help, actually :)).
Yes, single-threaded performance is not so important these days, as many people like to point out, but lack of single-threaded performance is still a considerable drawback.
Sushisamurai - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Yes, I realized clock to clock comparison doesn't really work - it would work if IPC was similar between different micro architectures... and well... I was over simplifying things. But, on the benchmarks, this FX core does seem to catch up to the i7-2500.My main point was to emphasize that this CPU has been around for a while, and was only recently "released" to the general public as opposed to OEM's. Had this been available when it was developed, it might have made a bigger difference for AMD - which could have potentially kept them in the CPU race.
TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Well, to make a bigger difference, it had to be WIDELY released a year ago (say, around initial Haswell release) for, say, $250-280 (and not $350) for retail, and be supported immediately with at least 5-7 new MOBOs capable of working with 220W TDP out of the box. Since it did not happen, now it is maybe "too little, too late" - especially, considering the facts, that:1) Devil's Canyon Core i7-4790K is already on sale, and it costs the same $$$ as last year's Core i7-4770K. Core i7-4790K is even further ahead of FX-9590 in terms of performance at stock (4.0-4.4 Ghz) and i7-4790K is even a little further overclockable to around 4.5-4.6 GHz with no issues, and FX-9590 is actually not.
2) Haswell-E is coming, and the cheapest Haswell-E, rumored to be Core i7-5820K, is supposed to have 6 Haswell cores and cost something around $400. This is of course worth thinking about for the people getting/building a new desktop machine.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Alas AFAIK the 5820K is a 4-core. 5930K is 6-core, 5960X is 8-core.
Ian.
TiGr1982 - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
Not really; so far, all the sources point that Core i7-5820K will be 6 core - unlike Core i7-4820K and Core i7-3820 before it.mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
SB is such a nice chip. Every 2700K I've obtained has happily run at 5GHz no problem,takes just a few minutes on a board like the ASUS M4E/Z. Built five of them so far. And
unlike the latest HW, it won't throttle because the temps are still good.
Ian.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Umm, it is QUITE possible to get a SandyBridge to 5 GHz, in fact I have my i7-2600K rock stable at 4.7 GHz (where my Haswell i7-5930k is 4.4) - and it TOTALLY SPANKS this POS FX 9590! Less power, same clock speed, MUCH higher performance!AT is being TOO EASY on AMD, not too harsh! This CPU is not a "win" in any sense!
bebimbap - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
No matter what any one that loves this FX-9590 says, this processor is just an exercise in gluttony, and devolution.I have been spoiled by computer evolution. coming from the commodore/Macintosh/SX286 days. you appreciate a few things. such as noise/heat/size reduction of modern systems.
50-80w cpus are quiet, compared to the pentium4 days.... or Hairdryer days...
SSDs are silent,
modern HDDs are basically silent, compared to 40MB drives and 3.5/5.25 floppies and don't forget the stack of floppies you had in the drawer instead of a single USB stick.
modern gpus not oc'd are quiet, still remember the hiss of my gforce3Ti
CRTs - actually have a noise when you turn them on, some buzz when in use... and don't forget the size.
case- you either had a monster of a case that would break your table if you put it on it, or a fugly thing that you wanted to hide under the table.
overall the heat produced compared to a 19" crt + pentium4/thoroughbred + 9800XT compared to a modern system also let you get rid of the window AC unit reducing a lot of noise.
so i am spoiled because i can now have a system where i'm not sweating like a pig and going deaf while playing my favorite game or browsing the web. I don't need a 1000w speaker system to hear the gunshots clearly over my cpu/gpu/psu fans or window AC unit.
I no longer need a computer be a 4in1 device that acts as a heater, a LOUD white noise generator, an air filter, and computer. It should be similar to a BMW-M5, everyday comfort and driveability but grunt when you want it, but of course with better fuel economy.
Leyawiin - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This article makes me feel good about the FX-6300 @ 4.5 Ghz I have. At least with the games they chose to benchmark I'm doing fine.siberus - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Any chance we could get some testing with radeon gpu's using mantle ? :) would be pretty neat to see how some of the older/lower tiered cpu's break down. Unless you guys have done something like that already in another article then I apologize for asking.monstercameron - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
this cpu just chew through integer workloads, faster than a 4770k, where it fails is every thing else. I reckon a well optimized program written directly[fma?] for it would haul ass!resination - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This is THE processor for the "rolling coal" set.CSammy - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Pathetic. The cover might as well be Intel pissing on this AMD processor, because that is quite literally the truth in nearly every single aspect.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Note that there is no recent Devil's Canyon Core i7-4790K here - this one, being around 13% faster than i7-4770K in CPU-bound tasks, would make the FX to look even less relevant.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
"AMD clearly does care about the performance market"yeah, thats why they couldnt even be bothered to use the new kaveri cores, instead rehashing an old piledriver cpu with higher clocks and a TDP that puts netburst to shame. all the while, performing sligtly slower then a intel cpu with a third the tdp and running 1.5 GHz slower.
They care about the performance market so much, that they put this chip on the 3 year old AM3+ platform, rather than the new FM2+ platform, just so we can use old chipsets with feature sets from 2011.
And it costs as much as a core i7.
CLEARLY, AMD still cares about the performance market.
TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I perfectly understand your sarcasm :)I guess, it was something like that: AMD did not and does not have the resources and/or desire to invest into pure many-module CPUs beyond Piledriver FX CPU. So, from the engineering standpoint, they stopped there.
But then the marketing stepped in and said: "We need a faster CPU to brag. Because we aren't developing a new one, can you boost the current one?" And the engineering team said "Yes... Okay...". And they did. :)
wurizen - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
the fx series does need to go down in watts, which only comes in a die shrink from what i know. but the thing it has going for it are 8 cores, which intel doesn't even have in their consumer or enthusiast cpu's. u have to go xeon to find an intel 8 core cpu. my theory that amd is not updating the fx series or their chipsets is probably due to the backlash of the of fx series. i forgot when the the fx-8150 came out but it was negative. i don't think amd wants to have another repeat of that so amd is putting their cards back in the deck. they're softly announcing this and that about apu's... and hoping the marketing of apu will be enough to garner positive feedback. bring the image back. that is all it is, i think. what the hell is an apu, anyway? oh, it's the future. this is what amd wants ppl to know. but, we know that apu is not the future. it's just a stop gap for amd. it's just a fancy acronym.i don't think the low performance of amd fx cpu compared to an intel part is also solely amd's fault. i think software developers/coding can also be attributed to it. i mean, if you have this and that code built for intel chips since they're inside (i hate to say it) most of the pc's in the world, then of course, intel will have a lead from the get go. for example, windows 8 is suppose to be better for amd fx cpu's than windows 7. now dig deeper into how programs are run and make it so that an fx chip will shine as much as an intel chip, then we probably have a very well optimized program, which in the real world is probably a unicorn program. so, this unicorn program puts both amd and intel chips thru its paces, equally and optimally and fully. and i think that unless an intel chip has a specific function that makes it run faster (i forgot what it is), then an amd fx 8-core chip with its more logical, fully functional, real cores of 8 will probably be better than intels 4 cores with hyperhtreading. intel has patents for those specific, specialize tasks though and this is why intel is hard to beat and why amd loses to them.
this is why amd is waiting b/c 1)amd knows intel's roadmap and 2)they have apu's and consoles as stop gap 3) they'll return to the desktop performance cpu when the tide, the program/software/patents or whatever it is has leveled out so that amd can put out a competitive product that is truly innovative. and not just tick and tocks 4) the cpu fabs are probably too expensive right now for amd to jump in and do a die shrink (not sure tho; maybe intel has a hand in that too? idk)--like why is intel the only cpu company doing die shrinks every year and half? sounds weird to me. and it's closest competitor is just sitting back. weird right? anyway, im out of theories, i think.
oh, you'd think amd would just put 8 core kaveris without an igpu, right? but, no. i think amd is still not sure the performance gain with that will be enough to wipe out the negativity of the fx-8150 debacle. so, amd is just not doing it.
what do you guys think of my theories?
Death666Angel - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
"but the thing it has going for it are 8 cores, which intel doesn't even have in their consumer or enthusiast cpu's."I stopped reading right there. If you think 8 cores in a 4 module FX CPU are comparable to 4 cores in Intel mainstream CPUs or 8 cores in Intel enthusiast CPUs, you should go back and read up on the architecture differences. The fact that an Intel 8 thread CPU (core i7 with 4 cores and HT) usually beats any FX CPU with 4 modules should be warning enough that you shouldn't draw any conclusions based on that.
wurizen - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Ive read up on bulldozer architecture. 4 modules with 2 logical and physical cores = 8 cores. Intels hyperthreading arent physical cores but software driven. so an OS sees an i7 with 8 cores even tho 4 of those cores are virtual. AMD has 8 physical/logical cores. Each module or 2 cores do have to share FpU, l2 cache (i think) and another thing. So, the cores are hampered by this but it doesnt take away the fact that there are 8 cores there. And i know its slow even though it has more cores than intel. But by refining it and better software optimization, i am wishing AMD to at least compete with intel enthusiast x99 chipset in the future with half the price. Why? Bc i cant afford intel. Simple as that.mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Sorry it's not an 8-core at all, not when it has to share resources split int vs. fp. Hence whythis very article shows again and again the older 4770K beating the 959 on threaded loads,
with 60% less power consumption. Convincing yourself that AMD's "8 cores" marketing has
any kind of sensible basis is as bad as believing MHz is an equally useful metric, or MIPS.
Intel's real, old, 6-core, the 3930K, utterly demolishes the 9590, for less power, etc. If you're
on a budget, buy a used 3930K, it'll leave AMD's chips in the dust, and there are plenty of
low cost X79 boards these days, especially on the used market (Gigabyte UD3 only cost me
55 UKP).
Ian.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Noob, 2x ALU per unit DOES NOT equal 2 FULL CPU cores! The ONLY "edge" AMD has gained by this, frankly, AWFUL architecture, is in marketing, because they can somehow LEGALLY call each unit 2 CPU cores - when they do not function as such at all! In fact, HyperThreading provides better real world performance that doubling APU's when the architecture involved has much higher IPC as well as a DEDICATED minimum of 168 GB/s to L3 cache per core, at stock speeds!AMD calling a 4 unit CPU an 8 core machine is essentially the same as intel calling a 4 core i7 an 8 core CPU! HyperThreading is NOT software! read more about CPUs bro.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
*than doubling ALUs*Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
EXACTLY! +1Laststop311 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
you said intel has no non xeon 8 core cpu's. But haswell-e will have 8 core/16 thread. I currently run an i7-980x gulftown x58 system and will be replacing it with 8 core haswell-e. video production speed should sky rocket.mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
That depends on what you're doing, which app, where the bottlenecks reside, etc.If you've already oc'd your 980X then you're starting from a pretty good baseline,
so don't expect HW-E to be that much better (NB: I have a 990X, a couple of 3930Ks,
4820K, seveal 2700Ks, etc.)
What really will help for you is the newer I/O provision, ie. SATA3, PCI Express, M.2, etc.
The non-Intel SATA3 controllers on X58 boards were pretty awful, especially Marvell.
And of course you can at least double your max RAM, which might be holding you back
somewhat if you're a heavy AE user.
Ian.
Arbie - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
I think 'ur' Shift key is broken.BMAN61 - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
" Alongside testing this CPU, the 220W TDP requires a substantial motherboard to match. Due to the age of the platform, the AM3+ socket and the old 990FX chipset, finding a motherboard can be rather tricky. Many of the AM3+ motherboards that were launched were only suited for the FX-8350 processors, which had a 125W TDP. This is yet another reason that AMD wanted the FX-9590 in the hands of system builders who would chose high end motherboards that could cope.Two of the newest motherboards to be released for 990FX were the ASRock 990FX Killer and the ASRock 990FX Extreme9. We reported the release of the Killer in December 2013, but the Killer is unsuitable here as the specification sheet lists processors up to 125W only. The Extreme9 is ASRock’s high-end AM3+ motherboard, and more suited to the task. "
This statement isn't entirely true; the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX motherboard supports this 220 watt CPU http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_... the only requirement is a BIOS update and better cooling.
StrangerGuy - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
So ~$170 solely for a mobo to reliably run a AMD chip.Intel is laughing to death somewhere a 4790K can be dropped into the cheapest of S1150 mobos and it just simply works.
just4U - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Off the top of my head I don't know of anyone who has purchased a $350 i7 and paired it up with a $65 motherboard.. Most won't even use the stock cooler since +80c temperatures under load is a little on the alarming side.. Those that tend to purchase it as part of a new system are usually looking at $170 Motherboards and $30+ coolers.StrangerGuy - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Intel temperature issues != AMD power delivery issues. The former can simply be solved with a $30 HSF, while the latter needs a $170 mobo AND even stronger cooling.And I'm one of those guys who run a 4790K on a $60 budget mobo. Paying an extra $100 for CPU at 4GHz stock with even higher turbo and HT is certainly more value for money than a $240 4690K with a $160 mobo with extravenous features that I don't need, and this does not include extra costs for cooling a OCed chip plus dealing with chip lottery. I don't know why is that even surprising to some...
just4U - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I don't believe you have a $60 board paired up with your 4790K. Sorry S... it simply doesn't make sense. You may not have Z97 deluxe but I think it's doubtful you've paired it with a H81 either.. That's like going out and buying a 780Ti and then using the worst turd of a PSU to power the damn thing.. or saying yeah this Celeron should be enough for that.. lol.. no.designgears - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
*facepalm*How many time did a stock i5 just beat an 8 core OC chip?!
mapesdhs - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
A point which way too many AMD fans simply choose to ignore. Ah the 1st Rulestrikes again...
Ian.
nenforcer - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
The Realmark Audio Analyzer results have labeled this motherboard as having the Realtek ALC1150 audio codec just like most other modern motherboards, however, as stated previously in the article this motherboard has the older Realtek ALC898 codec.Jedibeeftrix - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
"If AMD is to return to the performance market, the power consumption has to be comparable to Intel, or if it is slightly higher, the chipset has to offer something Intel cannot. Any suggestions for what that feature should be should be submitted on a postcard/in the comments."24 PCIe 3.0 lanes on-die for uncompromised graphics whilst allowing M.2/Express at 3.0 4x:
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/amd-t...
silverblue - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
Kaveri, from a technological standpoint, is a refined version of Zambezi, but it's still not perfect; they fixed an AVX bug but hamstrung FP adds somehow. Work done per module is improved due to the decoder changes.We don't know how L3 cache would help performance, as this is the first edition of the architecture that doesn't have such a flavour. The other issue is the reduced clock speed thanks to the 28nm SHP node; while it's very possible that a 4M/8T setup would exceed the 8350's performance, how much power would it use for that? I would theorise such a CPU (note - same clocks as the 7850K, and without L3 cache) outperforming the 8350 by about 10-15% in MT workloads, matching it in ST and even falling behind by 10-15% in FP; perhaps that's another reason for the lack of an FX line given that it'd be a regression. Right now, I don't think it'd serve in AMD's best interests to release a new FX series as it wouldn't benefit consumers at all.
I should imagine that if Excavator brings the rumoured IPC gains, AMD would simply dump AM3+ and resurrect FX as a 2M/4T FM2+ part; in essence, an i5 competitor. They did say that improved IPC was Excavator's raison d'etre; considering MT is fixed, it should mean instructions per core. Get the IPC high enough and they won't NEED to clock the parts so high, thus lower power; on this point, Carrizo is supposed to be rated at 65W TDP.
just4U - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
In my opinion the best cpu AMD has right now is A8 7600 coming in at $120 CAD. I see no reason to go Intel i3 as long as that puppy is there. (A argument can be made for Intel's AE 3x) The downside for AMD is I also see no reason why anyone should buy a more expensive CPU/APU from them.. their A-10 is priced in the same range as lower I5's which is a bit of a head shaker and their AM3+ is getting long in the tooth with no refresh.I could see a new FM2+ FX branded cpu priced at the tier their offering their A-10s for as it would bring something more to the table.. but they do really have to do something about single threaded performance. Even if it wasn't being used as much in programs their line-up takes a beating in reviews which is bad optics for them and leads to people like us (who read these things..) to suggest other alternatives for people buying/building a system.
FightApathy - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
237W operational power consumption. This is just.... terrible for a 2014 CPU. And what is even worse, is that i7 with 1/3 of TDP performs as well or even better. AMD has to stick to APUs.KAlmquist - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
"One could speculate that releasing the next generation of FX-85xx might put them behind the FX-9590 in performance, or that the fabrication process was not suitable for a quad-module CPU with the new architecture improvements."According to the Steamroller review, the 28nm bulk process that Steamroller was designed for won't clock as high as the 32nm SOI process that Piledriver uses. So an 8 core Steamroller processor would execute more instructions per clock, but would be clocked at least 400 Mhz slower, and as a result would be only marginally faster than Piledriver.
AMD is expecting to achieve another boost in instructions per clock with Excavator, but unless something has changed they plan to synthesize Excavator using software that minimizes die area at the cost of clock speed, so I'd expect Excavator to do more to improve performance per watt than to improve absolute performance.
After Excavator comes a completely new design, which we can hope will be a major improvement over the bulldozer derivatives.
mathewmichal7 - Sunday, August 10, 2014 - link
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duploxxx - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
funny to read all these replies. makes you wonder what avarage age and technology knowledge is of these tech sites.....All complaining about useless AMD and process tech but yet they don't understand that these own consumers are the ones to blame, they buy the jingle and bells and the marketing buzz... recent review on anandtech showed enough what was best to buy, yet most decide to buy the other marketing dominant brand as if there all day tasks are faster since the benchmarks show few percentage faster finished task... buyers need to blame themselve for there own stupid decisions. Want a fast system? get rid of Microsoft garbage. OEM-marketing kill the competition and consumers are the victim but they still dont understand it. (useless chipset revisions, socket changes, design rules like in ultrabook space and centrino, etc, etc..). poor consumers.
From a tech site you indeed need to review such a CPU, its mandatory but i don't think it gets the honor for what it supposed to be, anyhow there will be only few to sell since it has no reason to exist becide the mythical part.
I remember the days of pentium D and extreme, no reason at all to exist yet 1000's of buyers just for the brand....
duploxxx - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
since no edit button :) thx anandtech asking that already for more then 10yI meant age and knowledge of the readers of course
Klimax - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Lovely nonsensical post. Including out of date bashing of Microsoft. 90s called, they want your nonsense back.Mugur - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
There is still room for AMD in my home. I have 2 SB Core i3s for the gaming machines and I've just replaced an 80W Phenom II HTPC with an Intel NUC 2820. But my server (currently an Athlon II X4) will be soon an A10-7800 at 45W on a FM2+ with 8 SATA board...jgarcows - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
How did you manage to post a review of a chip with a bundled retail liquid cooling system and not post a single picture of the liquid cooling system? How easy was it to install, what size openings are needed on the case, etc...LemmingOverlord - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
May I suggest:a) some impressions on the liquid cooling? (+pics)
b) underclocking the CPU (and lowering voltage), then map that to power v. performance curves for the same set of benchmarks you ran... just to see how big a drop it would be in wattage.
just4U - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I think coolermaster makes it.. Not bad, not great.. You'd be better served getting the the variant without liquid cooling (I think..) and than deciding on your own what you need.Natfly - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Garbage....you can't polish a turd.The_Riddick - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
These processors really need to be running at below Intel wattage in order to be competitive, even if they tried and sold me one of these cpus for $10 I wouldn't buy one. 220W and performs worse then i5, no thanks.TiGr1982 - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
Well, this same FX Piledriver certainly can run below Intel wattage (say, around 70 W for the CPU itself), but only at no more than 2.5-3.0 GHz frequency - like Opterons 6300 do.Then, it won't make a lot of sense on the desktop either :)
eanazag - Friday, August 15, 2014 - link
AMD misunderstood me.Before this product was initially released as an OEM part I had posted on an AMD article that I would be interested in a 200 W APU not CPU. I wouldn't mind an APU that could clock the GPU and CPU outrageously. I have a 300 W video card plus a 105 W Intel CPU, which the CPU is supposed to be 95 W. So a 200 W APU that comes close to both of those is a cost savings if it will clock down while idle. Plus space and heat savings.
Evidently they opted for doing it with this CPU. This is not totally bad, but between the pricing, performance, chipset features, and efficiency versus the 8350 and Intel parts it is really tough to justify. I saw numbers in there for workloads where the Haswell i3 is more than the 9590. I bought the Phenom 9600 with the errata and the CPU was fine, but I am still not willing to go that far in loyalty to AMD on the CPU side anymore. They would do better to just import the 8350/9590 silicon onto their 28 nm process. So what if it takes a clock regression as it will also have a TDP drop. They really need to do a better job updating their chipsets. This is less forgivable than their CPU line. That old, crappy 9590 would look better with a new chipset (PCIe 3 at least).
0ldman79 - Monday, August 18, 2014 - link
I've been running AMD in my desktops as a primary since the K6-2 (and K6-3+ mobile in a desktop if anyone remembers that gem).That being said, I have to call the current generation as AMD's version of the Pentium 4. I have an FX6300 in my main gaming PC. While it does well, it just isn't up to par with Intel's offerings.
I've been keeping an eye out for the next version of the AM3+ performance line and found that I've pretty much got it.
Uh... what?
AMD's flagship performance socket, AM3, has pretty much been dropped completely with all focus towards hot dual cores (seriously, that is what they are) with some rather nice integrated graphics. While I've sold several of these to my business customers I'm seriously considering jumping to Intel for my rigs.
The biggest reason is I've always had an upgrade path with AMD. It was always easy to keep building a new AMD as I'd have a couple of generations of CPU available to a platform and some of my parts from the previous system would cross. It was rarely ever a 100% replacement, more a long term evolution.
My next system will likely require a new motherboard to replace what is to me a fairly new board. With AMD effectively dropping the AM3 line just after I got onboard, I've got a sour taste in my mouth.
Those Core i7 are looking better. AMD has done this to themselves.
They took their IT customers, those that tell everyone else what to buy, told them about this awesome new CPU on the AM3 platform, the ultimate of the Bulldozer line, walked them out blindfolded for the big reveal, then walked away. We're standing there in a field of nothing with a blindfold on looking like jackasses.
That is what I think of AMD's current roadmap.
Cryio - Tuesday, August 19, 2014 - link
The absolutely BEST game for CPU benchmarking remains Crysis 3.I don't know why they use Tomb Raider and Company of Heroes which both are CPU agnostic. Not to mention that F1 series just hates AMD CPUs for whatever reason.
Games that really use the CPU: Crysis 3, Hitman Absolution, Assassin's Creed IV (I think). GRID 2, or really any mainline DIRT games. Hell, even Watch Dogs.
If any of those games that know how to properly use more than 2-4 cores were tested then this AMD beast would wipe the floor with those i3s.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
LMAO!Just laughing at "This AMD "beast" would wipe the floor with those i3s." - You used beast to describe AMD's flagship product, and then talked about proper software coding allowing it to wipe the floor - wiiith i3s! LOL! just LOL!
I really am not sure if you were being sarcastic or actually meant that, but I hope it was sarcasm!
nctritech - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I just got an FX-9590 and an ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 motherboard to go with it. I closely examined available Intel options and chose this chip. Most of the comments here put down this chip and AMD because Intel has higher-performing options and most of those comments are completely missing one vital factor: PRICE. I got this combo for $355 tax + shipping. Even if you go with the previous generation of Intel's flagship CPU, the i7-3770K, Newegg has them TODAY for $330. Hmm, that's almost as much as I paid for the FX with a brand new motherboard! Same story for the i7-4770K at $335.I walked away during a CPU sale special paying $220 total for the FX-9590 chip. It's faster in video compression benchmarks than EVERY desktop Intel chip EXCEPT the X-series i7 chips. It runs with or near the 3770K and 4770K in almost every other benchmark, possibly excluding games.
For those of you jeering at "efficiency" and praising how much faster Intel's Haswell chips can be, I wish you the best...but I'll be able to get an SSD, better RAM, or a nicer graphics card because I have $100 extra in my pocket, all while enjoying roughly the same performance as the Intel chips you've formed a cult around. Best of all, there's no LGA socket with extremely fragile pins to void my warranty; you know, when you return a mobo and they refuse to honor your return because "user-caused CPU socket pin damage" even though it was sent back because a nearby defective power component visibly burned up. Plus, did you know that CPUs only use their TDP worth of heat when you're taxing them to the maximum constantly? Who knew?!
You can have your lower performance-per-currency-unit chips and theoretical efficiency, I'll take the best overall deal, thanks!
Jinx50 - Sunday, November 2, 2014 - link
I agree enthusiast's are rarely concerned with power consumption. I quote a user i encountered who stated My Haswell is more energy efficient "meanwhile they have their rig picture with 3 Titans running in 3 way SLI for their avatar". Pure derp and a grasping desperately for the one and only straw they have in regards to downplaying the FX lineup. It's obviously neither price or performance, or multitasking for that matter.I've just become accustomed to tuning them out like annoying kids at the pub.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Umm you KNOW that even stock clocked that the i7-3770K is better and faster in EVERY way, than the 9590 OCed to the max, right?You also know that while you saved, literally, a couple bucks on BUYING your hardware - you are going to spend, comparatively, hundreds of dollars more running it for even 2 years!
Oh then there is the effect that the HUGE power draw has on components - mobos, PSUs, video cards, RAM - because ALL of it gets effected by the insane heat - and certainly ALL of it will be effected if you short your PSU!
And i7-3770K at stock frequencies out performing this POS FX 9590 - is NOT synthetic! That is real world PROVEN speed! NTM, you can EASILY hit 4.7 GHz on any SandyBridge chip - which will not only yield MUCH better performance, but will suck less power and be more reliable as well! And you aren't even going to have to spend that much to buy a good Z77 board and an i5/i7 2500k/2600k (ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 runs right around $100 right now, and is FAR from any budget board, and in fact has more features than ANY FX board that could run this 220W POS!)
So pat yourself on the back, you saved a few bucks on hardware! BUT you completely sacrificed ALL performance, and ANY reasonable upgradability! Also, you will end up paying FAR more than you saved in power costs! (I am sure your power company will thank you for choosing an AMD space heater for a CPU!)
Well on that note, you may save a few bucks on heating, given you live somewhere that gets colder than 50 degrees (Fahrenheit) at some point in the year anyway.
Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
LMAO! Cult - you are such an AMD fanboy NOOB! It is not a cult when PERFORMANCE and EFFICIENCY are the deciding factors!And again, you saved a few bucks when buying your already outdated POS AMD space heater - just wait til that power bill comes!
And if you seriously cannot afford an i5/i7 K processor, even a Sandy or Ivy Bridge, and a Z77 or newer chipset, what the hell good is faster ram and an SSD going to do you? None, unless your workload is entirely composed of highly multi threaded compression/encoding etc.
Have fun with your 220W space heater that has to compete against i3 CPUS! LMFAO!
Budburnicus - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Just another instance of AMD CHUGGING power and crapping performance! Combine this FLOP of a chip (220 W TDP - sweet Jesus! At STOCK) with an R9 290X (300 W TDP, again holy sh*t!) and you are up to over 500 watts TDP!Compare this to an Intel i7-5930K (140 W TDP) paired with a GTX 970 (148 W TDP) and you are ONLY at 288!
Not ONLY that, but the Intel is faster BY FAR at stock speeds, as well the GTX 970, while costing only $30 more - provides ~10%-25% frame rates in basically EVERY benchmark!
I just feel sad for AMD anymore... I am guessing they are too busy with owning ATI and TRYING to compete with SandyBridge and newer Intel products (My i7-2600K beats this FX chip at STOCK speeds in most benchmarks - and basically ALL gaming benchmarks! And that is not even mentioning that the 2600K easily hits 4.4 GHz on any decent mobo/chipset! Then there is the fact that the 2600K is THREE years old, only 95 W TDP - which will NEVER go above 125 even at the 4.7 GHz/102.3 Bclock OC I run!)
AMD should have realized this Chip's Architecture was DOA with the first PileDriver CPUs falling FAR behind the Phenom 2 1100Ts! And even now the 1100Ts generally have better gaming performance!
The REAL question is, WHY? Why have they not dropped this design and brought us a new one? I mean they could try it with limited releases to test it at VERY least, but I hear no word whatsoever about AMD being anywhere close to a completely new chip design!
I was a staunch "AMD Fan-boy" back in the Pentium 4/Athlon XP days! They WERE far better! Also back then ATI could actually compete in gaming!
Now? AMD is only good for budget gaming builds - parts like this FX chip are just about pointless - apart from people who already own a good socket AM3+ mobo. But buying this chip for a breand new build? That would be a HORRIBLE idea! Only the biggest fans of AMD would waste such money and power..
And AMD VideoCards - yes they have better compute performance - so yeah, if you are still GPU mining new Crypto's (Like VertCoin's Lyra2RE Algorithm) - buy an AMD GPU, but 2 or 3 if that is your goal! But even then, apparently the HD 7000 series are STILL the best miners, as they do not consume INSANE amounts of power and do NOT run at a "SAFE 95 deg C" (AMD's quote on R9 290X operating temp!) So, whereas Nvidia and Intel move forward with less power consumption, cooler temps, and better performance where it matters, it REALLY seems AMD is taking steps backwards!
SviatA - Friday, October 30, 2015 - link
So this motherboard suits basically for those who will overclock the processor, graphics and RAM.Honestly, I don't know why would any purchase a AM3+-based motherboard since we have to wait for eight months only to get some AMD Zen processors that are (at least on paper) much better than FX. So, I am thinking about the new motherboard and a new processor. Since Doom 4 will come out next year, will have to get something better than my current configuration, that is based on the ASRock 970 R2.0 (BTW, this is a pretty good MB, have bought it here - http://hardware.nl/asrock/970-extreme3r20.html almost two years ago and happy with it)
Beljim - Saturday, January 9, 2016 - link
Do not buy from Asrock. You will be on your own.
I bought an Extreme9 just before Christmas 2015. Went to raid my 2 Crucial 512gb SSDs and computer would not see them. Called Asrock tech and they told me certain makes of SSDs are not compatible with Extreme9 boards. I explained that SSDs were much older and Asrock board should be backwards compatable. He gave me a short list of drives that were compatible and said I'd have to buy new drives. Asrock took no responsibility and were in no way helpful.
paradonym - Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - link
Where's the described M.2 Slot? Ctrl+F'ing the manual for M.2 doesn't shows up any point.