AMD FX-8320E CPU Review: The Other 95W Vishera
by Ian Cutress on January 13, 2015 10:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmarks
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, 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.
For Low Quality conversion, the 8320E has trouble keeping up with the full-fat i3, but beats them by a good margin when the frame sizes open up.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
Dolphin historically prefers high IPC single core performance, which the 8320E is lacking.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
The eight threads of the FX-8000 series show through here, beating all the i3 and some of our i5 parts.
PCMark8 v2 OpenCL
A new addition to our CPU testing suite is PCMark8 v2, where we test the Work 2.0 suite in OpenCL mode.
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.
For x265 conversion those extra threads end up highly beneficial for the FX-8320E, nudging inbetween our i5 data.
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. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
While single thread performance is behind, the overclocked FX-8320E storms ahead of our FX-9590 results.
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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cobrax5 - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
I don't think they were saying Intel chipsets work with AMD, they are saying Intel has a greater variety of options from value to performance.I'm actually a fan of AMD keeping their chipset as long as possible as it allows people to update just their old CPU. However, 6 years is a bit long. They really do need to completely revamp it. I guess they are just buying time until skybridge or whatever the ARM/x86 is called...
eanazag - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link
Budget chipset is the 970. Real budget is a different AMD CPU like the AM1 socket or APU FM2 sockets.That is just how AMD does it, which is different than Intel. Intel offers 2 sockets. AMD has 3.
hojnikb - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link
Not really. 970 is more like a midrange chipset like h97 with intel. You can't find cheap board with 970 like you can with intel.And having a different socket for low/midrange also kills it. Basicly you cant combine cheap board with a fast cpu like you can with intel.
Amd should just stick to one socket. AM4 for apus and normal cpus like fx. That way you have a much bette selection for a given platform and better upgrade path (unlike fm2+).
And ditch am1, nobody really needs socketed option on the lowest end. Just save a bit of money and solder that puppy in there.
abhaxus - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link
I picked up an asrock 970 extreme4 on newegg for $69...how much cheaper do you need?hojnikb - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
You can grab H81 mobo for as little as 44.99$. Thats a ~25$ difference, which could be spent elsewere.jabber - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Does it have serial and parallel ports on the back? ;-)hojnikb - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
It has actually (looking at h81m-d plus).I dont see an issue here.
Cryio - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Their newest chipset, the FM2+, is for home office, HTPC and low-end gaming. So if you want the latest in MOBO tech from AMD, you need to get either an APU or an Athlon.LarsBars - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link
I snagged two FX-8320Es for $119 each to use in two Hyper-V lab machines to leave powered on around the clock. I wanted the extra threads, high memory capacity, and low cost (and, as much as possible for an AMD machine, low power consumption.)They seem to be working out great. I am really glad to see AT still reviewing AMD even though it seems people have given up on them. Thanks, Ian.
Samus - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link
Wow, AMD hasn't had a chipset update in 4 years? I wish Intel would take a note from them.