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LovermanOwens
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Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:01 pm

Hi all,

I have a FX-8150 OC'ed to 4.5Ghz stable on one of the ASUS ROG 990FX boards with 2 7970's in crossfire powering an eyefinity setup (3 1920x1080 monitors). I have been playing BF4 and I haven't been able to play it max settings. I have been able to get a good framerate @ Ultra settings with no AA. I know that i don't NEED to upgrade but i am afraid that my setup isn't going to be able to keep up with future titles as well as I would like it. Xmas is coming and I was thinking about just asking for newegg cards for Christmas to help fuel a round of upgrades. Should i take the next step and get a 4830k or should I set my sights on a 4770k? I know the move to Intel will make a difference given the crossfire setup i have, but I am wondering if it is worth it. With Mantel coming out sometime in the next month or so I might not even have a need to upgrade. What do you guys think? Should i make the plunge or save my dough for things like paying off my school loan/prepping for my first kid this coming spring. I mainly game with this system so that is my prime consideration. Thanks for taking the time to look at this.

Owens
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Cyril
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:08 pm

If BF4 is the only game you're concerned about right now, I would recommend waiting for the Mantle patch next month before you do anything. Mantle is supposed to lower CPU overhead and to help with multi-GPU scaling.
 
puppetworx
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:15 pm

I would wait on Mantle since you're using two GCN GPUs - it could make a big difference.
 
clone
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:30 pm

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 2:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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superjawes
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:48 pm

Yeah, wait for Mantle and see if that improves things.

But if you do end up getting a new CPU, go with Intel. It sucks, but for most applications, Intel processors are faster or at least comparable to AMD's offerings, but they do so while drawing less power and running cooler.
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Airmantharp
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:59 pm

Isn't Eyefinity still broken for non-290-series cards? I thought we were still waiting for that solution; he may very well be running into frame-pacing issues. The cards should certainly be fast enough for that resolution at near ultra settings.
 
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 2:06 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Isn't Eyefinity still broken for non-290-series cards? I thought we were still waiting for that solution; he may very well be running into frame-pacing issues. The cards should certainly be fast enough for that resolution at near ultra settings.


Yes, under Crossfire. 5760x1080 is six million pixels and too much for non-XDMA (everything not a 290) cards to handle.
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LovermanOwens
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:03 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Isn't Eyefinity still broken for non-290-series cards? I thought we were still waiting for that solution; he may very well be running into frame-pacing issues. The cards should certainly be fast enough for that resolution at near ultra settings.


In my CCC I have the frame pacing option checked. Even with it checked it is still broken with eyefinity?
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:08 pm

Make the jump, you will be happy you did.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:21 pm

LovermanOwens wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
Isn't Eyefinity still broken for non-290-series cards? I thought we were still waiting for that solution; he may very well be running into frame-pacing issues. The cards should certainly be fast enough for that resolution at near ultra settings.


In my CCC I have the frame pacing option checked. Even with it checked it is still broken with eyefinity?


Yes. It only works up to 2560x1440 and on single displays for cards below the 290-series. The 290-series has a completely different solution.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:03 pm

Maybe you'd like to turn your pair of Radeon HD7970 cards into a Radeon R9-290 or two. Sapphire's Dual-X version of the Radeon R9-290X is not yet available at Newegg. We should expect a Dual-X R9-290 version to appear soon.
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NovusBogus
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:56 pm

Your current CPU's not bad but if you want to upgrade it, get the i7. AMD simply can't compete with post-SB Intel, it is what it is.
 
LaChupacabra
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:59 pm

If you're seeing your framerates drop going from the same resolution to the same resolution and the only thing changing is your AA settings swapping the CPU isn't likely to give you any additional performance. AA on AMD cards is done (I believe, but could be wrong) inside the GCN cores.

If you'd like to test the theory run the game with the 8150 OC'd like normal and collect some data. Then clock the 8150 down and see if your numbers change. The only thing that I can think of affecting your AA performance would be the driver overhead and like others have said Mantle should help alleviate that.
 
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 8:13 pm

COME TO THE DARK SIDE!!!

Ok, a little more seriously, a quad-core Ivy or Haswell part (especially the 3570K or the 4670K) will give you a faster CPU and a platform with PCIe 3.0, which will be more than ready to support a future GPU upgrade (and that can be AMD, so you don't have to leave AMD entirely). If you don't plan on overclocking, then drop the "K" part and save yourself a few bucks.

However, while those chips are certainly going to be better for playing games, I'm not going to act like the difference will be night & day either usin the same GPUs. Games are still strongly GPU bound, so if you are only looking at an upgrade for the purposes of improving game performance and you are on a limited budget, I'd still focus more on the GPU.
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f0d
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:37 pm

if you are only playing battlefield then AMD cpu's are competitive with intel cpu's (probably the only case) and mantle will definitely help with performance
with just about everything else they are a little on the slow side

imo either way i would wait for haswell-e and upgrade to an 8core haswell next year - the amount of cores will start to matter in around a year or 2 i reckon

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-beta-test-gpu.html
Image
Image
 
NeelyCam
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:57 pm

f0d wrote:
if you are only playing battlefield then AMD cpu's are competitive with intel cpu's (probably the only case) and mantle will definitely help with performance
with just about everything else they are a little on the slow side

imo either way i would wait for haswell-e and upgrade to an 8core haswell next year - the amount of cores will start to matter in around a year or 2 i reckon

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-beta-test-gpu.html
Image


Where are the Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs?
 
sschaem
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 11:15 pm

Your 4.5ghz fx CPU is not your problem.
Going Intel will do you any good....

Your best bet, sell your 7970 and buy one of the upcoming custom cooled 290x
 
Airmantharp
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Wed Nov 27, 2013 11:27 pm

sschaem wrote:
Your 4.5ghz fx CPU is not your problem.
Going Intel will do you any good....

Your best bet, sell your 7970 and buy one of the upcoming custom cooled 290x


Or for an immediate replacement, a pair of 4GB GTX770's :/. But if you're willing to wait, a custom-cooled 290/290x would likely do a great job!
 
f0d
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Thu Nov 28, 2013 3:03 am

NeelyCam wrote:
f0d wrote:
if you are only playing battlefield then AMD cpu's are competitive with intel cpu's (probably the only case) and mantle will definitely help with performance
with just about everything else they are a little on the slow side

imo either way i would wait for haswell-e and upgrade to an 8core haswell next year - the amount of cores will start to matter in around a year or 2 i reckon

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-beta-test-gpu.html
Image


Where are the Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs?

just add a fps or 2 on the 2600k results - theres not much difference between them
Image
 
LovermanOwens
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Re: Longtime AMD user thinking of going over to Intel

Fri Nov 29, 2013 12:27 pm

Guys thanks for all the suggestions. I think I am going to wait until mantle shows itself before jumping over to the evil empire. Some of these newegg deals are hard to say no to, but waiting for the haswell-e might be the best thing to do. Plus with a kid on the way who knows how much free time I'll actually have.

Thank you all very much. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving(for those in the US).
AMD FX-8150 @ 4.5Ghz| Asus Crosshair V| 4x4 gig ddr3 1866| too many hard drives to count | 2 7970 Ghz Editions| Antec Quattro 1000 PSU | Thermaltake Armor + | Logitech THX 5.1 | 7.1 Razer Tiamat Headset

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