AMD FX-8370E CPU Review: Vishera Down to 95W, Price Cuts for FX
by Ian Cutress on September 2, 2014 8:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmarks
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, with both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Handbrake balances cores and frequency, with the LQ film test often condensing CPUs based on frequency and the double UHD test expanding by cores. The double UHD test puts the 8370E at the bottom of the AMD 8-thread CPUs as expected.
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
Photoscan results seem to take the following order: i7, i5, FX (8), FX (6), i3, FX (4), A10, A8. The 8370E sits at the bottom of the FX 8-thread section as before.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
WinRAR takes advantage of all the AMD threads due to its integer workloads.
PCMark8 v2 OpenCL
A new addition to our CPU testing suite is PCMark8 v2, where we test the Work 2.0 and Creative 3.0 suites in OpenCL mode. As this test is new, we have not run it on many AMD systems yet and will do so as soon as we can.
The PCMark8 tests both seem to favor frequency at this point, with the FX-9590 taking the lead.
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
Again, more threads gives an intesting workload. The FX-8370E beats out the i5-4690K as well.
Cinebench R15
Unfortunately the Achilles heel strikes again in single threaded performance. Multithreaded puts it just behind the FX-8150.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9
FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and results are given in seconds.
Web Benchmarks
On the lower end processors, general usability is a big factor of experience, especially as we move into the HTML5 era of web browsing. For our web benchmarks, we take four well known tests with Chrome 35 as a consistent browser.
Sunspider 1.0.2
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
WebXPRT
Google Octane v2
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mrdude - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
No, no they haven't. Keller has stated that a new 'high performance architecture' is in the works, and that it will be an x86 variant but nothing outside of that. Bear in mind that AMD still considers Vishera a 'high performance architecture', so that statement has no meaning.Germanicus - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
There is no question your bashing and trolling.mrdude - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Yep. Me with my 5870 and 955 Deneb that I bought several years ago, still waiting, bashing and trolling for an upgrade.Here's the link to Jim Keller's interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q
Germanicus - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Watched it already.TiGr1982 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Stop hoping for AMD and buy/build a modern Intel desktop i5/i7 config, e.g. as I did last year.It will be around twice as fast as Deneb - I owned Deneb 940 (used at 3.4 GHz) in the past, so I'm comparing from my own experience.
mrdude - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
I have both a Sandy Bridge and a Haswell laptop as my daily drivers. The desktop just sort of sits there soaking up files :P I've long since gotten over my AMD love affair. It's been a long time since the T-bred and Barton days.duploxxx - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - link
twice as fast, yeah right go figure.... So now you just read this article twice as fast???the issue with review sites is theoretical benchmarks, daily use you don't even notice the difference, HD choice and stupid slow Microsoft OS make the difference in daily tasks. In specific multitasking, sure but then again these AMD parts do actually work well and most of these tasks are done in the background anyhow while doing other stuff, so who cares it would take 1min longer.
So what is the issue? its review benchmark charts and e-penis behaviour.
Now people start complaining that Intel is deliberatly reducing renew cycles while its consumers own fault choosing the famous jingle and brand. No reason to buy a atom - celeron - pentium or i3 while APU series offer better overall added value.
bsim500 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
So the "95w" 8-core chip actually runs at 3.3GHz and gets thrashed in 100% of tested games by even a 2-core 54w i3-4360?......And the faster "125w" 4GHz version pulls an eye-watering (and consistent across multiple tests) +233w under load?
2009 just called and want their CPU's back...
Germanicus - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
See my comment above.bsim500 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
I read your comments above. All you did was declare everyone who didn't fawn over the new chips to be a "troll", dodged a question someone asked then suggested that everyone who buys an Intel chip should "feel dirty" (which is trolling)...