FX-6100 / FX-6200 vs. Core i5-2500K

[Welch]

Unfortunately if you pick and Asus motherboard, they are well known for pricing them similarly on both Intel and AMD. They are kind of screwing the AMD crowd a bit because the chipsets are generally cheaper to implement, or the cost rather, and i'm sure AMDs standards for mobo manufacturers isn't as rigorous as Intel (the Apple of CPUs). Asus can usually demand that premium from both crowds because they have a certain image in the enthusiast community, partially and rightfully so, and some of it is a bit more hype than necessary, I still buy Asus so lol.

If you really want to compare the price options of motherboards across CPU brands, your best bet isn't to use Asus for that reason, but I'd also stay away from the really horrible brands that are in the 50-60 dollar range. Find the cheapest reputable brands on both of them that have the same/similar main features, or at least features that the user can't do without or would affect performance. Since overclocking seems to be a must in order to unlock the full potential of the CPUs in question (as a value mark), both boards should probably have full overclocking abilities.

[Chrispy_]

The real problem with Bulldozer is that your key applications must efficiently exploit multiple threads.

It's not enough for the applications to be multi-threaded, they have to be so efficiently multithreaded that they compensate for the 2500K's 64% per-core advantage. Realistically, stuff that falls into that category will likely become a GPGPU compute application before it becomes anything else.

Perhaps in the distant future all software will be massively multi-threaded - maybe even driven by AMD's own fusion initiative, but at the moment Microsoft are still making clunky old 32-bit operating systems (bogged down by two decades of legacy crap and backwards compatibility). The companies that provide bread-and-butter income for many software developers are still running Server2003, XP, and in some cases even Windows 2000.

Bulldozer was built to take advantage of upcoming operating systems and the latest, greatest compilers and applications. However, getting the industry to accept even yesterday's software is still harder than squeezing blood out of a stone.

Right now, I assume we're looking at everyday windows computing where gaming, rendering or encoding are the most taxing things a processor ever has to do. For Gaming, an i3 can run rings around bulldozer for the same money, and for rendering/encoding, an ancient Phenom II X6 can beat Bulldozer at a lower price point with lower clocks and a two-core disadvantage.

[just brew it!]

I just picked 2 of the exact same mobo's for the respective processors. You can find cheaper P67s and Z68s than those

I'll take a look and see what I can find but I don't remember seeing any sub $100 p67 motherboards.

There are three currently listed on Newegg -- two from Asrock and one from Intel.

Unfortunately if you pick and Asus motherboard, they are well known for pricing them similarly on both Intel and AMD. They are kind of screwing the AMD crowd a bit because the chipsets are generally cheaper to implement, or the cost rather, and i'm sure AMDs standards for mobo manufacturers isn't as rigorous as Intel (the Apple of CPUs). Asus can usually demand that premium from both crowds because they have a certain image in the enthusiast community, partially and rightfully so, and some of it is a bit more hype than necessary, I still buy Asus so lol.

They seem to segment their AMD product line based on whether the board is using a current-gen or previous-gen southbridge. The sub-$100 ones are typically based on slightly older tech.

I still buy them too, in part because they're the only desktop motherboard maker that hasn't decided that desktop users don't care at all about ECC.

[bru_05]

Right now, I assume we're looking at everyday windows computing where gaming, rendering or encoding are the most taxing things a processor ever has to do. For Gaming, an i3 can run rings around bulldozer for the same money, and for rendering/encoding, an ancient Phenom II X6 can beat Bulldozer at a lower price point with lower clocks and a two-core disadvantage.

That's the other thing. A Phenom II X6 is a much better deal, then plan to move to Piledriver later on. And, personally if you are deadset on an AMD build go for a 955 or 965. Right around $100 and OC up to 3.8 on stock volts and more if you want to give them some juice. Great value with the option of Piledriver in the future.

[Welch]

That said Brew, is there an Asus AMD board with ECC for bulldozer? Considering BD's roots as a server chip, an FX-6100 may have a use for users putting BD to use as a home server, or perhaps compiling code, or maybe just Folding@Home for the Gerbils? I never really considered this during all of the talk people had about how bad BD was. If ECC is available, if not for a home server, how about a small-medium sized business' server? I'd imagine someone had to put out some benchmarks in this type of application with all of the "BD is a server chip" talk.

[just brew it!]

That said Brew, is there an Asus AMD board with ECC for bulldozer? Considering BD's roots as a server chip, an FX-6100 may have a use for users putting BD to use as a home server, or perhaps compiling code, or maybe just Folding@Home for the Gerbils? I never really considered this during all of the talk people had about how bad BD was. If ECC is available, if not for a home server, how about a small-medium sized business' server? I'd imagine someone had to put out some benchmarks in this type of application with all of the "BD is a server chip" talk.

AFAIK all of their AM3+ boards support it. The $95 M5A97 even claims to support IOMMU (another feature which is more typical of server platforms). Yes, you can build some reasonably nice budget servers using AMD desktop hardware...

[flip-mode]

Hey, now that we've moved beyond arbitrary and pointless litmus test system budgets, I'm interested again! derp derp

Seriously, now. It's pretty tough to get a good grasp of the FX 6100 due to the dearth of quality reviews of the thing around the web. The reviews that can be found aren't the best, and they often pit the FX 6100 against CPUs that are out of it's price range. I don't see the point of comparing the FX 6100 to the i5 2500. The i5 2300 - which I've never even heard of before just now - is $180 and is much closer to the $150 price of the FX 6100. The i5 2400 is $190 and seems a much better value than the i5 2300. Then there's the Phenom II X6 1045T at the exact same $150 price as the FX 6100. All prices Newegg. But reviews of the FX 6100 that I've seen don't include any of those processors.

Being at work, I haven't been able to do much searching, but this is the best review I've found so far:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-81 ... e-review/1

I would quite like TR to put out a review of the lesser FX chips, with some balls to the wall overclocking and all. TR doesn't seem to think they're even worth reviewing.

[bru_05]

Seriously, now. It's pretty tough to get a good grasp of the FX 6100 due to the dearth of quality reviews of the thing around the web. The reviews that can be found aren't the best, and they often pit the FX 6100 against CPUs that are out of it's price range. I don't see the point of comparing the FX 6100 to the i5 2500. The i5 2300 - which I've never even heard of before just now - is $180 and is much closer to the $150 price of the FX 6100. The i5 2400 is $190 and seems a much better value than the i5 2300. Then there's the Phenom II X6 1045T at the exact same $150 price as the FX 6100. All prices Newegg. But reviews of the FX 6100 that I've seen don't include any of those processors.

Being at work, I haven't been able to do much searching, but this is the best review I've found so far:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-81 ... e-review/1

I would quite like TR to put out a review of the lesser FX chips, with some balls to the wall overclocking and all. TR doesn't seem to think they're even worth reviewing.

Yeah if you stick with newegg for prices then the 2500k isn't as good of a value. Microcenter has the i5 2400 for $149, I usually check there first then go to newegg. Nice to have a BM store for computer parts
They have an i3 2100 as well for $99. Check Anandtech's Bench and you can compare most any processor out. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2
*EDIT* - Except for BD, only have the 8150 ha fooey... Here is another review. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

[flip-mode]

Yeah if you stick with newegg for prices then the 2500k isn't as good of a value. Microcenter has the i5 2400 for $149, I usually check there first then go to newegg. Nice to have a BM store for computer parts
They have an i3 2100 as well for $99. Check Anandtech's Bench and you can compare most any processor out. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2
*EDIT* - Except for BD, only have the 8150 ha fooey... Here is another review. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

I'm fortunate enough to be close to a Micro Center as well. It's too bad you have to be a walk-in to get that price.

I saw the X-bit review and was nonplussed, but I never remember about AnandBench... I'll have to give it a quick look .... and it looks like Anandbench doesn't have the FX 6100 either! Did I miss it somehow?

[bru_05]

I'm fortunate enough to be close to a Micro Center as well. It's too bad you have to be a walk-in to get that price.

I saw the X-bit review and was nonplussed, but I never remember about AnandBench... I'll have to give it a quick look .... and it looks like Anandbench doesn't have the FX 6100 either! Did I miss it somehow?

Nope, I edited my post. It was only for the 8150... The x-bit review at least gives an idea of just how far behind the BD chips are and how much the Piledriver chips need to make up. The i3 2120 even does some damage. In the Anandtech bench you can put the 2120 against the 8150 and it doesn't get blown away.

Luckily for me Microcenter is a 5 minute drive, so I always try to check there first. They will price match Newegg most of the time too.

[flip-mode]

Luckily for me Microcenter is a 5 minute drive, so I always try to check there first. They will price match Newegg most of the time too.

It's 10 miles for me and they absolutely refuse to match any online prices. It's interesting that the one by you will do that.

[bru_05]

Luckily for me Microcenter is a 5 minute drive, so I always try to check there first. They will price match Newegg most of the time too.

It's 10 miles for me and they absolutely refuse to match any online prices. It's interesting that the one by you will do that.

Which Microcenter are you close to? *EDIT* I see your location lol. I said most of the time, because some of the workers won't do it... I almost made off with a 2600k for $229 and $50 off my mobo, but one of the managers came over and said I couldn't use my coupon to stack on the deal. She was only over there because this other guy was making a scene about a $10 cheapo keyboard.

Anyway, there aren't a whole lot of reviews for the 6100... A good place to check might be the forums at Overclock.net in one of the BD club threads. Probably be able to find some benchies there.

[flip-mode]

Anyway, there aren't a whole lot of reviews for the 6100... A good place to check might be the forums at Overclock.net in one of the BD club threads. Probably be able to find some benchies there.

Yep, and making a $150 CPU decision without a proper review doesn't fly well for me. It's really surprising that none of the top tier review sites have looked at these at all. Are they that bad?

[bru_05]

Anyway, there aren't a whole lot of reviews for the 6100... A good place to check might be the forums at Overclock.net in one of the BD club threads. Probably be able to find some benchies there.

Yep, and making a $150 CPU decision without a proper review doesn't fly well for me. It's really surprising that none of the top tier review sites have looked at these at all. Are they that bad?

I just checked Microcenters website... Looks like the $50 bundle deal is only for the 2600k now.

Do you have a mobo already? Or are you looking to build from scratch?

Check this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx- ... 98-13.html
Might help out a bit.

[clone]

There are three currently listed on Newegg -- two from Asrock and one from Intel.

I found a P67 for $95 but if you've found some for notably less I'll update my post, took a look at the Asrock on Newegg but it was also $95

Hey, now that we've moved beyond arbitrary and pointless litmus test system budgets

I hope you don't really believe that price doesn't play a role in every consumers purchasing decision.... that said I agree their is a lack of decent FX-6100 reviews.

the problem with non K series cpu's is that the multiplier is locked, they do perform nicely at stock speeds though and when I was working within budgetary constraints the i5 2320 at 3ghz listing for $185 was interesting until the Microcenter offering i5 2500k for not much more blew it out of the water.

on a side note I haven't really been looking into overclocking lately and just read the "locked multiplier" concern from a review talking about how poor the non "K" series is for clocking.

[Welch]

Well considering that there are new FX chips in the works like the FX-6200 that the OP was referring to, I see no reason why TR shouldn't be the ones to step up to the plate and take a swing at the FX-4xxx and FX-6xxx chips. If for nothing else than to retain the data for comparison against these new FX chips being released to fill a need. Both of the new offerings according to the TR news post have several 100mhz tacked onto their base clock and some healthy Turbo clock increases too

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22546
Check out the link and comment below Flip-Mode, Voldenuit, loophole, myself and BobbinThreadbare. If enough of us are truly interested, I'd imagine the Damage labels may be able to squeeze in some reviews (Purtty Please!)

I mean if no other top tier site has these reviews on these chips, people have to get them from somewhere, why not bring some more traffic to TR?

[bru_05]

the problem with non K series cpu's is that the multiplier is locked, they do perform nicely at stock speeds though and when I was working within budgetary constraints the i5 2320 at 3ghz listing for $185 was interesting until the Microcenter offering i5 2500k for not much more blew it out of the water.

on a side note I haven't really been looking into overclocking lately and just read the "locked multiplier" concern from a review talking about how poor the non "K" series is for clocking.

The Microcenter 2500k is the best deal on a processor, although it's not nearly as nice anymore now that they took away the $50 discount on a mobo (probably bc of the Ivy delay). No reason to clear stock at a lower margin... But, the 2600k is still a sweet deal (overkill for most though).

As far as the OCing goes on the non K chips, I think there are some guides on how to OC the turbo, but "don't quote me boy cuz I ain't said ****." Start the day off with an Eazy E quote, today will be a good day.

[Welch]

The 2500 that i bought from newegg ended up being a decent deal too... 224.99 for the cpu, then 219.99 marked down asus sabertooth motherboard to 199.99 (typical price) but then a $20 dollar discount on 2 x 8 gb corsair 1600 modules (combo with motherboard) plus a 10% off any asus motherboard got me an additional 20 bucks off. Yep it let me stack them. While i may not have gotten a large discount in one lump sum... all of them added up brought the discount to 60.00. Im not counting the $15 corsair case rebate... brings it to 75 bucks difference for shoppin the sales

[Walkintarget]

The 955 be and 965 be are actually really easy/good overclockers. The 965 BE is a 3.4 stock and hits 4.2 easily on air. Most people reported getting it to 4.4-4.5 with aftermarket cooling without and issue and upwards of 4.8 if it was out of a good bin.

I beg to differ on this one. I have an earlier C3 965 BE and it hits a hard wall at 3.8. I can up the voltage well past 1.45 and it can boot into Windows but not complete benchs. It is fine all day benching at 3.7, but I am sure that it could never, even on its best days, hit 4.2+. Comparing my OCs on my BE with others over on Anandtech, there does seem to be a wall on those chips at 3.8ghz. How on Earth you guys can get 4.2 from them is beyond me. I'm using an MSI 790-G45 with perpetually on sale DDR3 10666 RipJaws

[Welch]

I'm assuming something else you had in your system was keeping you from hitting that point. When he got the chip everyone was tagging 4.2 as the software OC point for the 965. He got his the first week it came out so it was the "I" nomenclature, not the "M" which lowered the TDP a bit and allowed for 1333 filling all 4 slots of with DIMMS, otherwise you were limited to 1066. Either that earlier revision was a better OC contender, or something else in your system wasn't liking your OC. I also know he was using Corsair dimms, not sure the speeds, ect. I'll have to ask him but he has since sold the rig, but will remember all of those specs.

[Voldenuit]

I just picked 2 of the exact same mobo's for the respective processors. You can find cheaper P67s and Z68s than those

I'll take a look and see what I can find but I don't remember seeing any sub $100 p67 motherboards, ok I'm just going to edit as I find data so their will be several to this post as I go.

also NOTE: prices will be in Cdn and that U.S. pricing will likely be 5% lower, because USB 3.0 support is so limited I'm passing on it's value, because Crossfire and SLI are so limited I'm passing on their value as well, for ppl who really need USB 3.0 and are planning on using 2 gfx cards combined in all their micro stuttering glory you'd likely not be interested in the data I'm presenting.

AMD FX 6100 platform (with overclocking)

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=67664 ... omoid=1201
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... omoid=1078

$50
$150+
$200

VS i5 2500k platform (with overclocking & NOTE: these numbers are pricematched so if the link shows a higher price it's because I found it cheaper elsewhere and would pricematch it)

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... cture=ASUS
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... omoid=1078

$210
$95+
$305

remember their is also a tax issue to be noted, it's not a lot but it is real and can't be avoided so with the $100 difference you have to add another $10+ to the price for i5 2500k platform depending on region.

first off WOW what a difference, I really hadn't expected to find sub $65 mobos for AMD FX, also FX is cheaper vs i5 2500k and both are impressively overclockable.

if it were me I'd go with the Asus mob for $62.00 just because I've no love for MSI but even at $212 for cpu and mobo FX6100 vs $305 for cpu and mobo i5 2500k that's almost an extra $100 that can pay for the extra 8gb's of ram & better video or even better video sticking with just 8gb's of ram or toss it at an SSD..... i5 2500k while impressive, I'm not sure is that impressive.

I love my SSD and I'd love better video and FX 6100 is a decent cpu especially for the price.

ta dah their is not only a viable reason to purchase FX 6100 but arguably a good value reason for buying vs i5 2500k for some.

I'd just like to point out that the lower-tier i5 processors (2300, 2400 etc) are not unlocked but you can still unlock the upper turbo multipliers (up to 4 speed bins) for overclocking (as long as you have a P67 or higher chipset). They're only ~$30 more than the FX-6100, and realistically, you're not going to be overclocking that 6100 on a $50 board for very long before everything blows up . This will bring down the price advantage that the AMD build has to a lot less than $100.

I still think that the FX 4100 is a good option for budget gaming builds when every dollar counts, but the higher tier bulldozers are still not as price/performance-competitive as I'd like*.

* EDIT: Especially since the older Ph-II X6 1100T kicks the ass of the 6100 six ways to sunday.

[flip-mode]

The 955 be and 965 be are actually really easy/good overclockers. The 965 BE is a 3.4 stock and hits 4.2 easily on air. Most people reported getting it to 4.4-4.5 with aftermarket cooling without and issue and upwards of 4.8 if it was out of a good bin.

I beg to differ on this one. I have an earlier C3 965 BE and it hits a hard wall at 3.8. I can up the voltage well past 1.45 and it can boot into Windows but not complete benchs. It is fine all day benching at 3.7, but I am sure that it could never, even on its best days, hit 4.2+. Comparing my OCs on my BE with others over on Anandtech, there does seem to be a wall on those chips at 3.8ghz. How on Earth you guys can get 4.2 from them is beyond me. I'm using an MSI 790-G45 with perpetually on sale DDR3 10666 RipJaws

My experiences match yours. I think my 955 BE is a C2. It'll do 3.8 with 1.5 and it gets very very power hungry at those voltages - 100 additional watts over stock settings which kinda blows my mind (of course, that's at the wall so there's some PSU overhead, but I've got an 80+ gold unit).

I haven't messed much with ACC settings yet, but I have a little and they do seem to open up some additional head room, but I don't think that 4 GHz is possible, 3.9 GHz maybe. None the less, people getting 4.5 with anything but a Thuban core has got to be rare.

[Walkintarget]

I'm assuming something else you had in your system was keeping you from hitting that point. Either that earlier revision was a better OC contender, or something else in your system wasn't liking your OC. I also know he was using Corsair dimms, not sure the speeds, ect. I'll have to ask him but he has since sold the rig, but will remember all of those specs.

Thanks, Welch !! I wouldn't mind leaning on it a bit harder, but its a workbench rig, and as such I value 100% reliability over any bleeding edge overclock. My MSI board is clearly a bit long in the tooth and would be my primary culprit if I were a betting man. I actually got the 965 BE for free from a friend, who in turn got it for free from Newegg, so I'm just happy I gave it a good home.

[just brew it!]

My experiences match yours. I think my 955 BE is a C2. It'll do 3.8 with 1.5 and it gets very very power hungry at those voltages - 100 additional watts over stock settings which kinda blows my mind (of course, that's at the wall so there's some PSU overhead, but I've got an 80+ gold unit).

That's actually not terribly out of line. Power usage of the CPU increases roughly linearly with clock, and with the the square of voltage. You're also going to have losses in the motherboard VRMs; overall efficiency going from the wall plug to the CPU socket is probably down around 65% or so even with an 80+ Gold PSU, especially when the VRMs are being pushed hard.

If the CPU was pulling 115W at stock, we'd expect it to pull around 170W OCed to 3.8 @1.5V. Factor in losses in the PSU and VRMs, and you're in the vicinity of an 80W increase.

[bru_05]

I had a C3 955 that went to 3.8 on stock volts. I think the 965 stock voltage goes up to 1.4 from 1.35. I suspect there is some sort of wall but I could hit 4.0 on mine with 1.4, haven't seen many over 4.0 on air. I liked running on stock so I just left it at 3.8.

Hyper 212+ btw.

As far as the costs go with 6100 vs 2500k, if you wanted to go super budget system across the board I'm sure you could get pretty close on overall price. But your value with the 2500k will be better because it will keep up with newer games/applications longer than the 6100. See what happens with the 6200 though. I suspect it will be better than the 6100 but I don't think it will OC much better than the 6100. Seems to me like it will be a slightly improved pre-OC'd version of the 6100.

[flip-mode]

OK, serious question: why go 6100 at all when the 1045T can be had for the same price and will offer higher performance at the same clock? Maybe the 1045T even offers higher performance out of the box??? Dunno. And currently the FX chips seem to hit a wall somewhere around 4.5 or 4.6 GHz. I'm thinking the 1045T hit's the wall around 4.2-4.4 GHz, but would probably still perform better at those clocks than a 6100 at 4.4-4.6. It's a toss up. Perhaps that's why they're priced the same.

[clone]

I'd just like to point out that the lower-tier i5 processors (2300, 2400 etc) are not unlocked but you can still unlock the upper turbo multipliers (up to 4 speed bins) for overclocking (as long as you have a P67 or higher chipset). They're only ~$30 more than the FX-6100, and realistically, you're not going to be overclocking that 6100 on a $50 board for very long before everything blows up

to be sure that's why I chose a P67 mobo because the $50 AMD board did support overclocking.

also agree the $50 AMD mobo's overclocking would be limited, the MSI website notes that if overclocking heat could be an issue but that could be entertaining in it's own right, I'd explore the watt limits, I'd ad ramsinks to the VRM along with a fan to actively cool hot spots on the mobo and then play with it. I grabbed the $50 board as a base line comparison but also mentioned in my previous post that I'd pay more if overclocking.

OK, serious question: why go 6100 at all when the 1045T can be had for the same price and will offer higher performance at the same clock?

it's a valid question and one that plagued me when I decided Bulldozer was junk and started looking for an alternative during the early reviews.

that said I just fixed a friends computer and he offered to go to Micro Center for me and grab some parts so I think I'll be going i5 2500k with a p67 mobo... will have to look at the differences between p67 and 68.

[bru_05]

that said I just fixed a friends computer and he offered to go to Micro Center for me and grab some parts so I think I'll be going i5 2500k with a p67 mobo... will have to look at the differences between p67 and 68.

Sweet!

Wish I had some friends that would do that for me haha.

P67 vs Z68

Z68 has Intel Rapid Storage Technology, Onboard Video/QuickSync, and SSD Caching.

[flip-mode]

that said I just fixed a friends computer and he offered to go to Micro Center for me and grab some parts so I think I'll be going i5 2500k with a p67 mobo... will have to look at the differences between p67 and 68.

That's a hefty reward! Sheesh, what'd you fix his mainframe?

[Jason181]

This means you have to overclock an FX-6100 or an FX-6200 to 4.0GHz to reach (approximately) the aggregate performance of an i5-2500K. Each FX core @ 4.0GHz will score 1,130, which still falls way below an i5-2500K core's score of 1,686 ... but you have two more cores.

Except that in fpu-limited scenarios like gaming, you actually have one less cpu in effect.

For integer-intensive highly multithreaded workloads, I agree that it would be a pretty decent tradeoff.

...should you wish to leave the 2500K (at stock) behind for just $15 more...

But why on earth would you buy a 2500k and not overclock it?