Bulldozer vz. Sandy Bridge

[Ualaa]

If that's the case... then you have...

AMD 4 modules...
4 full cores, and 4 almost cores.

i5 2500K
4 full cores, and no virtual cores.

i7 2600K
4 full cores, and 4 virtual cores.



Still, if you're going with more than 5 boxing, and the AMD 8-core is similar priced to the i5 2500K...
Then spend an extra $100 and get the i7 2600K...
Which while it costs $100 more is far stronger, no comparison.

Plus or minus $100 isn't that big of a deal, when you're spending around $1000-$1500 on a system.





However the AMD system ends up performing...
If you can then test an i7 2600K system for comparison.

The "pretending something didn't work" to get the other option, will be very worthwhile.

[lonerider]

Bulldozer cores are not real cores. They are closer to being real cores than Intel virtual cores are, but they share some hardware between them. That means that they just can't perform as good as a single "real" core. Even AMD refers to each pair as module and is very careful about comparing them to independent cores.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldoz...oarchitecture)

"A module consists in a coupling of two conventional x86 out-of-order processing engines each of which is considered to be a core. The processing engines share the early pipeline stages (eg. L1i, fetch, decode), the FPUs, and the L2 cache with the rest of the module."

"difference between the two approaches is that Bulldozer provides dedicated schedulers and integer units for each thread, whereas in Intel's core all threads must compete for available execution resources."

I'll leave it up to you on how to understand what that means.

Price differences at the time of my purchase:
$310 - FX-8120 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo ($290 after rebate)
$360 - Intel 2500K i5 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo (no rebate)
$450 - Intel 2600K i7 CPU + Gigabyte SLI mobo (no rebate)

I'm not building a $1,000-$1,500 unit, I'm just upgrading my existing one and luckily, I already have some parts laying around (DDR3 memory, harddrives, etc)

[Bollwerk]

well, I'll give it a shot with the FX, since Eta on the order is Tues next week. If results are disappointing, I can always return it and say it's a bad cpu/board. I'm really curious as to how itll perform as a multibox rig. I just cant see how an i5 would be superior running 2 wow instances per core vs. the FX running only 1 instance per core, even if the intel proc has obviously higher IPC. there are other popular sites that have benched the FX 8core cpu using highly threaded software and the FX came out ahead in performance vs the 2500k. So, if 8 instances of Wow are assigned one core affinity each, then it should get full utilization of all cores! I'll post results once I finish setting the new rig up.

If you're going to be boxing more than 5 clients, I don't think it's necessarily a fair comparison to include the 2500K (or any Intel without hyperthreading), even though it's in the same price range.
In other words, since we are talking about processing lots of threads, we should compare 8 "cores" to 8 "cores", however they are implemented.
It would be a better comparison to compare the 2700K or 3820 ($300 range) to the AMD FX-8150 ($250 range).
The cost difference is minor and should not be a concern if you're building a PC to box more than 5.
I understand you're only upgrading, rather than building a whole PC, but the principle should hold.

[lonerider]

2700K would cost me almost $500 for a CPU & SLI motherboard combo. That's way out of my price range. We are talking about the most bang for the wallet here, so the comparison for which is the better buy is totally based on price and multiboxing performance, not on how many cores/features. The package came in last night... I'm going to try build it later when I get home from work. Most likely, I'll have the new system up and running by tomorrow, that if I don't feel too lazy haha.

[lonerider]

Just finished building the thing last night, what took forever was the Windows patches, updates, etc (not to mention, house chores lol). When I was done it was almost midnight. Initially, the thing ran a little hotter than I've expected, thanks to the crappy OEM bundled heatsink/fan. I'm going to wait for a sale on a liquid cooler or one of those high-end air pushers. In the meantime, the CPU is running on stock speeds (3.1Ghz default, 4Ghz turbo mode), but I've lowered the CPU voltage to -0.05 over default setting. It dropped running temps from 57' to 52' under load. I'll probably drop it a bit more when I get home tonight.

The thing RUNS like a champ. Running my normal boxed team of 5 wow clients, and set CPU affinity to 5 separate cores per instance. Each window is super smooth... no more choppy frames in IF (which I was suffering from before this upgrade... had Q6600). Average CPU utilization is around 50-60% per bound core in Ironforge (on "medium" graphics settings across all toons). I'll post screenshots tonight, will probably download MSI's afterburner so I can see the exact frame rates per instance.

My new specs:

AMD FX-8120 @ stock speeds, -0.05 CPU voltage (OEM Heatsink/fan)
Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 SLI motherboard
8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24
Dual MSI GTX-460 768MB in SLI (surroundview mode, x3 LCD screens, 5760x1080 resolution)
Dual 500GB 7200 RPM HDDs in Raid-1
Ultra 750W PSU

[Apps]

no more choppy frames in IF

OH! why didnt you say you were alliance!? Theres your problem right there, we couldve saved you a lot. lol

Seriously, glad you got it up and going... and are happy. How do you like SLI mode? I love it.

[lonerider]

Hehe, I'm just so used to the Alliance cities... that's why I stuck with the faction. Wish I didn't have to work today so I could tinker around with the upgraded rig. I want to run lower voltages @ stock clocks. Less heat & power draw are my main objectives, not necessarily higher clock speeds... despite the $hitty stock CPU fan and cheap PSU, I want a stable rig. The two TwinFrozr MSI 460 SLI cards both draw a LOT of power, so I might need a better (& certified PSU) down the road once I desire for overclocking.

[Bollwerk]

What resolution and graphics settings are you running each window at?

[lonerider]

My center screen has the master toon (warrior) @ 1920x1040 resolution, while the slaves are at 960x1040 respectively (2 mages on the left screen and priest/druid on the right screen). Total resolution for all 5 windows (side by side) across 3 LCD screens is 5760x1040.

NVidia's 3-screen surroundview mode (SLI) is amazing for multiboxing (I don't have to PiP or control another PC). I'm going to set CPU affinity later to 2 cores each for my warrior, priest, and druid... then one core each for my nuking mages. That's a total of all 8 cores fully utilized. I'll report the results later.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The thing RUNS like a champ. Running my normal boxed team of 5 wow clients, and set CPU affinity to 5 separate cores per instance. Each window is super smooth... no more choppy frames in IF (which I was suffering from before this upgrade... had Q6600). Average CPU utilization is around 50-60% per bound core in Ironforge.

Nice. Glad it's working well for you.