So this is my specs as of now: I'm wondering if it's worth it to upgrade to the 8320 or 8350? Or should I just upgrade to the newest intel socket? Also I have a set of 290's in crossfire.
Don't go Intel now, just for the sake of it. It's not really worth it. It's the go-to solution for people, but doesn't take into cost/benefit compared to other solutions. Yes, Intel is will be faster, but you have to be a little realistic about things. If you go Intel now you will be going most likely i5-4690K. The i7-4790K is quite a bit more expensive for a small gain so not worth it. So, you would then look at your RAM, and think upgrade. Before you know it, you've spent $700+ and get gain, but maybe not $700 worth. Also, you will be getting a CPU that is just about to be replaced. Not only that, the replacement uses a different chipset and socket, so you are already buying effectively outdated hardware. Might be okay if you are in absolute need right now, but you're not. So, you wait a few months. You will still need a new CPU, new motherboard, and new RAM (DDR4). Thing is, Skylake looks to be overpriced, and DDR4 for decent modules isn't as competitively priced as DDR3. Come DirectX 12 games, the different between AMD and Intel is likely to be much less, further negating the need for you to upgrade. Your best option? How about selling both your R9-290's and getting a Fury, or Fury Nano etc when available? This will give you much better benefit than going Intel, and be cheaper (seeing as you are selling your R9-290's). Sure Intel + Fury will be faster, but this difference is much less in DirectX 12 games. You also avoid the inconveniences of Crossfire. So, you do the cheap, worthwhile upgrade, that gives you better game performance, better compatibility, and saves you power. With the money saved, you put that towards you future PC fund. When AMD Zen comes out next year/early 2017, you can do a full upgrade then (either FX or APU, since there are future potential benefits to both under full DirectX + AMD, but that's a different matter). DDR4 should also be cheaper then.
Oh BTW, taking the legal approach, you will have to add on a Windows 10 licence to the new build if you do decide to go Intel. Changing your CPU is fine. Windows 10 is NOT free for new computers, it is only free for upgrades of existing Windows 7 and 8.1. This means activation on your current machine, and it's tied to it. It is not transferrable to new computers. So this adds US$119 for Home edition or US$199 for Pro edition to the cost of going Intel. No discussions of ways around that here . Sure, you will have to do the same if you go AMD Zen later, but that would be a much more enticing proposition! If you can get the 8320 for a very decent price, then it may be worthwhile to do so and sell your current CPU, in addition to selling your R9-290's and getting Fury/Fury Nano. So: Going FX-8320, AMD Fury, sell off your existing CPU and GPU, and free upgrade to Windows 10 = much greater cost/benefit ratio. I'm taking the realistic approach here.
Just no. If he wants an upgrade, he needs to go Intel. The 8320 is barely any different than what he has, and it's just not worth the effort. If the 4690K is about to be outdated, what does that make the 8320? At least Z97 is a modernized platform. It's nearly irrelevant that Broadwell is releasing soon, as the reviews already put it at 5-10% faster than Devil's Canyon. Big whoop. He can wait if he wants, but there's no need. And obviously X99 isn't necessary for a gaming system. It's nice, and if you can afford it then great, grab that, but it's not needed. And really, $700 for that? The CPU can be had for $250, a decent mobo with crossfire support is $150, and 16GB of RAM can be had for $110 now. That's barely over $500 for the upgrade. Also good luck getting anyone to buy an 8150 for any decent price at this point
I'm just going the cheapest solution here. Recommending an upgrade to an outdated system is just (no offence) stupid. Games are going DirectX 12 over the next year or so. DirectX 12 becomes much less CPU dependent, meaning going Intel won't really benefit you any. This should be a very prime point to take into consideration, because it makes the whole pro-Intel argument that people use as their 'go-to' invalid (they won't admit this, but it's true). Intel over AMD benefits most with dual card solutions. Dual GPU's (whether SLI or Crossfire) can always be a little iffy. Going single AMD Fury Nano (for example) over dual R9-290's would give you more benefit and cost very little. True, some games show much higher FPS even with single cards on Intel than AMD, however it never seems to be a situation of playable vs unplayable. New drivers and Windows 10 (which you get for free on your current rig) is untested with AMD vs Intel. Probably will remain that way, at least in the sense of HONEST and BALANCED reviews. Some reviews may cherry pic games that favour either brand, either intentionally or unintentionally. The results aren't as simple as saying Intel is always X percent faster, for some games the difference is very minimal. With Windows 10 and the new drivers, the difference is probably a little less even in DirectX 11 games since AMD in their very latest test drivers have been reducing the DirectX 11 overhead (for Windows 10). Considering the costs involved, and the fact that Windows 10 + the new drivers (under DirectX 11) will favour benefitting AMD CPU's, plus DirectX 12 will favour benefitting AMD CPU's, I really don't see it as being cost effective upgrading to an outdated platform. I stand by my response of: sell your R9-290's going AMD Fury Nano (or Fury etc) upgrade to Windows 10 for free use the latest AMD drivers when you do upgrade to Windows 10 possibly get a better FX processor if you can get it for a decent price use the money saved by not doing a ridiculous upgrade and put it towards a PROPER upgrade in 2016, whether that is to AMD Zen or Intel Cannonlake. Keep in mind going i5-4690K now will mean you're three generations CPU behind in one years time. Haswell Refresh (i5-4690k) --> Broadwell (1 generation ahead) --> Skylake (2 ahead) --> Cannonlake (3 ahead). If the argument that people have is that Skylake and even Cannonlake is only a big whoop 10 percent faster, that is even a better reason to wait and go AMD Zen next year. Hey, next year you could then sell off your Fury and get the 14/16 nm replacement, whatever that is . Just trying to give you the best solution, not just the standard 'go-to' solution, 'just because'.
I made the jump from AMD (Phenom II 940BE) and DDR2 to Intel (i5 3570k) and DDR3. At the time I was running crossfired 5850's. The change from AMD to Intel was quite substantial in my case where I saw 10FPS gains across the board and mainly noticed that minimum frames were much higher. Keep in mind that in my case it was a complete platform upgrade and that DDR2 performance was also hindering my older setup - although the 940BE was overclocked to 3.6Ghz at the time - these gains were all with the i5 at stock. In saying that - in your case the move will not be so substantial - sure moving to devils canyon will yeild you higher performance but thatguy91 has a valid point too. GPUS are what yeild the best results and on the 29th Win 10 launches. Not a lot of people seem to know this but even if you are running an older XP system, all you need to do is install the win 10 preview because Microsoft has also announced that users running the preview will also receive the free upgrade so if you're not already on 7/8.1 - id suggest downloading the **** out of that Your cpu will do you just fine for now and dx12s api will help your cpu last even longer while you save up to get a real cpu upgrade eg: when more than 4cores go mainstream.
Yeah, buying into an inferior product just because DX12 might make it okay is not sound logic. You're still not understanding that he wants more performance now. He could very well wait if he wanted, but he doesn't, which is why he's asking about upgrading.
If you want performance now, its not gunna happen substantially by changing to an intel cpu though, it will come by upgrading the GPU. You can upgrade the cpu and motherboard now if you want to throw money at your pc - and it will help in future. But the best way to gain fps in the now, is to upgrade the gpu.
Someone else with common sense! If you've got the money to throw at going Intel, you might as well wait and get Skylake, new cpu, motherboard, RAM (all of this is required), probably a new CPU cooler, case, power supply, Windows licence, SSD's, basically everything. If you want to do the cheapest route: Replace the two R9-290's with a AMD Fury Nano when it comes out, and sell your R9-290's. More expensive but potentially still worthwhile as a holdover: Upgrade the CPU to a FX-8320, 8370, 9370, or whatever is COST EFFECTIVE vs benefit. Sure, going Intel would be faster, but it just costs a crapload more and may not give the massive benefits made out by some other posters in this thread. Google reviews of the performance, review that are NOT cherry picked or skewed in order to favour 'how bad' they try and make AMD look. An easy way for them to do this is use SLI/Crossfire, they typically use SLI, but both aren't ideal on AMD. They can also use very low game settings like 1024x768 and settings set to low etc, which does highlight the CPU limitations, but who plays at those resolutions? When you push the graphic settings like you would with a AMD Fury Nano etc the difference for the most part is quite minimal. Sure, Intel is still faster, but is it justified in the extra cost? Like I said with DirectX 12, it makes the pro-Intel argument invalid. Also, there has been large improvements in the last leaked AMD drivers for Windows 10 reducing CPU overhead, and this closes the gap in the performance between the two. Other point about comparative reviews. They compare the FX-8350 (for example) with an i7-4770K. If the do the comparison based on system cost, they should compare a FX-8350 vs Intel Core i5 4460. They don't, because the former favours Intel better . Yes, the Core i5 4460 costs the same here as a FX-8350. You can't even compare a FX-9590 that comes bundled with a liquid CPU cooler, with a i7-4790K, the i7-4790K is still way more expensive! So, most reviews in other words are quite sh!t (pardon the language). Now, the FX-8320 is probably better value of the FX-8350, and overclocks nearly as well. The equivalent in Intel for that price? There is none, here the i5 4460 costs 20 percent more. Keep in mind that the i5 4460 isn't unlocked, it's not a i5-4690K. Probably the best argument is, how much do you want to spend? Also If you do change over to Intel, how long will you want the system to last, since you've spent that extra money on it?
If he continues using multi-gpu's his performance will improve by a fair margin. Even for single GPU usage, it depends entirely on what he does with his computer and what games he plays. Anything CPU bound is going to struggle on an AMD processor, that includes most RTS titles and MMO's for a start. Regardless of what others are saying in this thread, Devil's Canyon is current gen. Hell, I'd take a 2500K over an 8320 any day. Arguing that someone shouldn't go Intel because it's dated tech is pretty strange considering AMD's been using the same platform for how long now? A new i5 or i7 will be running on a substantially more up to date platform. I can't see AMD making a super CPU with it's next architecture, and that's at least a year away to start with. At best they'll match Intel, which will have 10-20% performance gains at the most from current tech. DirectX 12 isn't going to provide some sort of gaming revolution as many seem to think, it depends entirely on what the developers do with it. Meanwhile, current games and games due for release in the next year or two are for the most part not going to benefit from it. I wouldn't want to struggle with playing titles for 1-2 years on the off chance developers cease to be lazy and make proper use of the next iteration of DX.
You will definitely see a difference going from an FX 8150 to an FX 8320. Also, if you overclock, you will also see a better yield in that as well. How much are you able to get that FX 8320 for? Either way, I am absolutely certain you will be happy with your decision.
There will be a performance difference from the 8150 to the 8320, but not a big one. For budget reasonings the 8320 is the way to go, but if you want to redo your whole machine and upgrade new then go Intel.
In my opinion, if he does do a full system upgrade now, then a 5820K is the least he would want to go on the Intel side. All the other systems use DDR3 which is on it's way out over the next couple of years. Also, a 5820K would last a lot longer than literally last years DDR3 tech.
We're talking a lot of money here. I think at least with my suggestion it would be quite cheap, and any money left over from the 'budget' could go towards the new architectures later next year, whether it be AMD Zen (I think this would be great) or Intel Cannonlake), as well as going to a 14/16 nm GPU of course. I'm suspecting that the budget can't accommodate the quite large cost of going 5820K, DDR4, new motherboard, new CPU cooler, and whatever else at this stage.
He has two 290's, of course an Intel upgrade will give substantial gains. Come on now. Why would he downgrade from 290 crossfire to a single card? To take advantage of these as of yet unknown DX12 benefits you keep talking about? I would kind of understand if DX12 was out, and it was proven that AMD CPU's were magically fine, but it isn't. It's still on the horizon. Even when Windows 10 launches it will be potentially another year before we see the first title with a DX12 render path. Please just use your common sense and admit that "upgrading" to a CPU that's barely better makes no sense. FX came out in 2012, it's just not sensible to buy in 2015.
I'm not saying the move to intel will not give any performance increase, it will, but for the money its not much of an upgrade and wont translate into that much of a noticeable upgrade considering hes already running a decent AMD cpu at 4.7Ghz. The best way to gain fps is via a GPU upgrade. But like I said, if you have the money to throw at your PC a new intel cpu + mobo upgrade will compliment a gpu upgrade and allow your gpu(s) to breathe more freely, thus slightly more performance. Don't go thinking changing to an intel cpu and keeping your 290's will give you a 20% fps upgrade though, it won't.
