Is the FX-4170 that bad?

[OldSchoolNinja]

Wakirimas Brethren,

I received my AMD FX-4170 today and had been looking forward to it. However while waiting for its arrival I did some more reading up on the FX-4170. The more I read the more I worried.

I already knew that the FX series still doesn't come close to Intels performance and that's fine by me. I am a loyal AMD'er and have been for close to 15 years. However even fellow AMDer's were less than enthusiastic about the FX series.

What I found surprising was that I am being told that the FX series is a step down from the Phenoms - less performnce, more wattage, and higher cost. I've churned through quite a few benchmark tables and this appears to be true.

Those tables coupled with predominantly negative commentary have me considering returning it for a Phenom instead. I still can't beleive that AMD would market a new line of chip that is inferior in virtually every category to what came before it.

Before I make a decision I wanted to get the OC'ers take on this as you guys have always had better and more detailed information. I can't help but think there is something that these naysayers are overlooking in the FX line. One guy told me he put his up for bid on E-bay at $1.00 and no one even bothered to bid on it. Are they really that bad?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Old School Ninja

 

[ivanlabrie]

What's your current board? If you can return and get an fx4300 or 6300...They are much better.

 

[Aldakoopa]

My FX-4100 is fine for all I need it for. Couldn't be happier (unless I oc'd it to 5GHz )

 

[RGone]

O_S_N, the verdict is really very much split. Most of what goes on here in this forum section is just race to overclock. Newbs that don't get you raise the FSB or multiplier and give ti some volts to remain stable. Pretty much it.

Do some benches or P95s and post them in the gneral cpu section and only one peron seems to notice. Now that said I have a number of FX-8120 benches done. Cinebench 11.5 CPU and GPU. 3Dmark06 CPU tests which is all that older DX-9 bench is good for today. 3DmarkVanttage and SuperPi runs. From 4100 to 4800Mhz. No they are not posted an likely will not be. But I say all that to get to this...I have a good friend with a new FX-4170 and same CHV Asus board I have. His Cinebench 11.5 scores with the four core 4170 are JUST about EXACTLY half of what my 8core FX-8120 gets for score.

I moved my video-editting from my 8 core i860 @ 4000Mhz to my CHV, FX8120 @4500Mhz since it is just about TWICE as fast in rendering. These FX processors especially 8 core ones hunker down and grind when given REAL work to do.

The friend I mentioned that has the FX-4170 is running a program that takes 5 days to complete when run on a 955BE at 4.2Ghz. He is running the same program with his FX-4170 @4.8Ghz. Same board and ram. Just swapped the FX-4170 in and clocked to 4.8Ghz. P95'd it and now it is churning on the long application. We will see in about 40 hours if the FX-4170 running 600Mhz faster can really beat the 955BE. We are going to post something about the outcome of that testing in general cpus.

RGone...ster. .

 

[OldSchoolNinja]

Wakirimas Brethren,

My new motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

My new vid card:

EVGA 02G-P3-1568-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I have also had more than one comment that my new GPU will be severely bottlenecked by the FX-4170.

To clarify - my primary use for the rig is gaming. I'm an older gamer so my tastes follow. I doubt I'll ever play Crisis but I am a fan of flight sims, Serious Sam, Rome Total War, and the like.

Sincerely,

Old School Ninja

 

[trents]

Wakirimas Brethren,

My new motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

My new vid card:

EVGA 02G-P3-1568-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I have also had more than one comment that my new GPU will be severely bottlenecked by the FX-4170.

To clarify - my primary use for the rig is gaming. I'm an older gamer so my tastes follow. I doubt I'll ever play Crisis but I am a fan of flight sims, Serious Sam, Rome Total War, and the like.

Sincerely,

Old School Ninja

I would not assume your CPU will bottleneck your GPU, especially if you use modest game settings and overclock the CPU.