AMD 'Taste Test' at FX GamExperience

[caveman-jim]

Legitreviews has some nice coverage of AMD's blind truth test the company conducted at this weekends FX GamExperience with [H]ardOCP, in Texas.

ach test station had a ballot that allowed the testers to check the system that gave them a better gaming experience. AMD had roughly 140 people take the challenge during the single day event.
AMD Pepsi Challenge Ballot

The first test that the gamers were issued was down on a pair of $500 gaming machines. System A was powered by an Intel Core i3-2105 ' Sandy Bridge' processor with Intel HD Graphics 3000 and an ASRock H61 motherboard. System B was powered by an AMD A8-3850 'Llano' APU with Radeon HD 6550D on an ASRock A55 motherboard. All of the rest of the components were identical. The obvious goal of this test was to look at similarly priced systems and to see if there was a noticeable difference in gaming performance due to the integrated graphics.

The next challenge given to gamers was two high-end systems that were both running AMD Radeon HD 7970 'Tahati' DirectX 11 graphics cards running an Eyefinity display setup. The Intel system was powered by an Intel Core-i7 2700K 'Sandy Bridge' processor with an ASRock P67 Fatal1ty motherboard and 8GB of AMD DDR3 performance memory. The AMD system was powered by the FX-8150 'Bulldozer' processor an ASRock 990FX Fatal1ty and the same 8GB of AMD DDR3 performance memory. The key to this demo was focused on processor performance and not graphics performance. The Intel Core i7-2700K retails for $369.99 and the AMD FX-8150 retails for $269.99, so the question here was if gamers could tell a difference between the systems.

The blind tests compared two systems for gamers to try out and determine which ran better, worse, or no different. The results? The A6 APU is better than a Core i3, and the FX processor is better than the Core i7.

Read the legitreviews.com write up here.

[Dr. Zhivago]

*gloat gloat*

[poohbear]

lol what nonsense. a soda taste test is an opinion based on whether the person likes sweet thigns, but hardware performance isn't opinionated, numbers dont lie! Bulldozer clearly gets trounced over and over by the i5 in any game where the CPU matters. This taste test stuff is so silly.

[Ryoko]

was serious sam 3 one of the games tested?

[Sound_Card]

I really would of grabbed an FX if they had better up to date chipsets. Basically the better mobo's sold me on the Intel set up.

[nycdarkness]

lol I like how they picked the 2700k and not the 2600k or even a 2500k. Such bs. Either pick matching price points or pick flagships. Cherry picked setups. Embarrassing to anyone who knows a thing or two.

[caveman-jim]

I really would of grabbed an FX if they had better up to date chipsets. Basically the better mobo's sold me on the Intel set up.

like fewer PCIe lanes on Z68 than 990FX? Or fewer PCie lanes to the USB 3 chips like on any AMD mainboard? Or 2 SATA 3 6Gbps ports vs. 6? What's not up to date? PCie3?

lol I like how they picked the 2700k and not the 2600k or even a 2500k. Such bs. Either pick matching price points or pick flagships. Cherry picked setups. Embarrassing to anyone who knows a thing or two.

Your post make no sense.

[Sound_Card]

True^, I just recently found it annoying having only 2 SATA 6.0gb/s ports. However, their was noticeable stability issues with the 990 boards with bulldozer dropping in. For the most part they seem fixed now. I guess PCIe 3.0 is a mute point considering 8x 3 = 16x 2 in bandwidth. No pile driver support scared me, and z68 getting ivy bridge support made my choice clear on top of IMHO a very useful feature dubbed SRT fast caching.

It sucks though. If I was not so impulsive, I might of just stuck with BD.

I think what NYC is saying is that peoples choices probably would not have been reflected any differently with a 2500k/2600k, over the 2700k. But obviously the 2700k makes it look worse because it cost more. I guess so...
Only way to know for sure, is testing an identical speced machine with a 2500k/2600k vs one with a 2700k, and see how many blind votes one gets over the other.

[nycdarkness]

like fewer PCIe lanes on Z68 than 990FX? Or fewer PCie lanes to the USB 3 chips like on any AMD mainboard? Or 2 SATA 3 6Gbps ports vs. 6? What's not up to date? PCie3?



Your post make no sense.

Let me help clarify for you.

First test: 2 500 dollar machines one intel vs one amd. Price matched testing

Second test: Processors not priced matched testing. Therefore, picking what they perceive to be flagships for each manufacturer. Hence, 2700k vs 8150. However, 8150 is AMD's top chip the 2700k is not Intel's top chip. So with that realization why not pick chips by price? 2600k and 2500k are a lot more similar in price to a 8150. I don't think this taste test would of worked if they picked a 2500k and users noticed no difference ( which they wont). I understand it's marketing however doesn't change the fact that it's pathetic. I know you knew what I meant by my original post. Your just not a fan of comments that put AMD into a bad light.