Friday, January 11, 2013

My thoughts on Tek Syndicate's FX 8350 results

You guys have probably seen this man already, right? It is logan from Tek Syndicate (Razethew0rld on YouTube).
If you haven't then don't worry. All you need to know is that he makes YouTube videos about technology stuff, and owns a website.

Now, he has gotten quite a lot of popularity recently, especially his video where he talks about how Apple hasn't really invented anything (very good video, go watch it here).
Anyway, I was going to write a post about him sooner or later but it seems like I have to do it now, thanks to his latest video "AMD FX 8350 vs Intel 3570K vs 3770K vs 3820 - Gaming and XSplit Streaming Benchmarks". This video is spreading so much misinformation and I am really doubting Logan's credibility after it.
So the video compares the AMD FX 8350 against the Intel i5 3570K and the reason why it has gotten so much attention is because it shows the 8350 beating the 3570K. Why is this so newsworthy? Well first of all, AMD fanboys now has something to attack Intel fanboys with. They haven't had this in a long time because well, AMD's CPU hasn't been very good for the last few years. Secondly, this contractions basically all other reviews of the chip. That by itself is pretty much enough to ignore it. If 5 trusted sites says one thing, and then this very new site comes along and say all other sites are wrong, then you wouldn't trust it, right? Well it seems like a lot of forums do trust him. So, here are some things I think Logan did wrong.

First of all, he is using a 7870 as the GPU. This is a bad idea since a lot of the games he will be testing will be GPU bound, especially since he is running some of them at 2560x1440. Oh, and he also runs with x8 AA, even though he should have it completely turned off for a CPU test.
In a CPU test, you want to use a really beefy GPU, like a 680 or a 7970, and then run the game at very low settings. That way you will eliminate as much of a GPU bottleneck as possible. I was really surprised that he got such huge difference, since no other site shows that. The sites I have checked which compared them in games showed a difference of only ~5%, or the Intel chips beating the AMD ones. Please note that for gaming, the i5 and i7 will perform very similarly.
Overclock3D "If you are looking to upgrade a full system then it's impossible to recommend. It's too slow, it draws too much power, it's too hot. It's just not worth it."


Problem number 2. He doesn't mention how he did the test. This is extremely important because it is a way for users to verify what he is doing is correct and the results can be replicated. When doing a test you should not only list which parts you are using, but also where the benchmark was made (either using a built in tool, or show on which map and area you do the test). If you look at the website he lists what parts he used. Here is the list:

AMD FX 8350 Rig
  • MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard
  • 16 GB Kingston 2133MHz DDR3
  • Corsair H80 Liquid Cooling Unit
  • Kingston HyperX3K 120 GB SSD
  • HIS ICEQ Radeon 7870
Intel Z77 Rigs (3570k and 3770k)
  • EVGA Z77 Stinger mini-ITX Motherboard
  • 16 GB ADATA 2133 MHZ DDR3
  • Corsair H100
  • ADATA 256 GB SX900 SSD
  • HIS ICEQ Radeon 7870
Intel 3820 Rig
  • ASRock X79 Extreme4m Motherboard
  • 16 GB Gelid 2133MHz DDR3
  • Corsair H80 Liquid Cooling Unit
  • Kingston HyperX3K 256 GB SSD
  • HIS ICEQ Radeon 7870
The first thing I thought was "wait a minute, what the hell is he doing?". When you do a serious comparison, you only change the parts you absolutely must change. In this case it would have been the motherboard, and the CPU. However, he changes everything from the CPU cooler to the memory and the SSD and everything. That's not how you do proper tests Logan. If you look at serious reviewers like Anandtech then you'd see that he uses the same stuff for his reviews. That's to minimize the risk of other parts changing the results. 


Problem number 3. He says that the Intel CPUs got a big pool of L3 cache, which is correct. He also says that the AMD CPU has a big pool of L3 cache and shared L2 cache for each core. However, the way he says it makes it sound like the Intel CPUs does not have any L2 cache at all, which is wrong. Each Intel core has their own pool of L2 cache, which they don't have to share with other cores (unlike the AMD cores has). 


Problem number 4. The way he present numbers in the video is horrible. He should have showed a graph and not just have each result show up on the screen in the bottom corner in small text, and then disappear after just a few seconds.
Not only is his way of showing the numbers awful, he actually reports the wrong numbers multiple times. At 04:45 he says "3570K, 24.92 frames per seconds" but the video video however, it shows 37.12 FPS. That's a pretty huge difference, and the higher number was the correct one (according to his website). 

He also says "with the 3770K, 197.44 frames per seconds" but the video shows 111.97 fps, and the website says 111.920. So we got 3 different numbers for one of the tests. What? That's not a mistake you can do if you want to be taken seriously.
The results for the 3820 doesn't even appear on the screen in the video.


Problem number 5. The i5 beats the i7 in some games. To be more precise, they got exactly the same results in Crysis 2 at both 1080p and 1440p. Even with two identical i5's, you would still get a difference of ~5% (called the margin of error). To get exactly the same results twice is far to unlikely to be true. Then the i7 gets far better results than the i5 in Warhead, even though they should be about the same (Warhead won't take advantage of the extra threads). Also, he didn't do any tests with Xsplit and the i7-3770K.
The result for Crysis Warhead on the i5 is also strange. 26 FPS at 1080p normally, and 24.9 FPS at 1080p with Xsplit? Are you telling me that using Xsplit only reduced the FPS by 1? To me, that either means that there was a GPU bottleneck, or that something was wrong when he did the run without Xsplit (or he is just pulling numbers out of his ass).


Problem number 6. I have not played Trine 2, but those numbers seem waaay to low for a 2D platformer. 32 FPS in a 2D platformer with an i7-3820? That doesn't sound right at all. Also, the 3770K beats the 3820 by ~48% in Trine 2 according to Logan. That doesn't seem right at all.




Problem number 7. He says that the AMD chip is really good at overclocking, but he does not mention that you can easily get the i5 and i7 up to ~4.5 GHz with a ~30 dollar cooler (like the Cooler Master 212). The AMD FX chip also produces A LOT more heat, and uses A LOT more power, so chances are it won't overclock nearly as well as the Intel processors.


I am going to write more about Tek Syndicate and Logan in the future, but that's enough for today.



Just to clarify, I am not trying to bash AMD or anything like that. What I am trying to do is warn people about Tek Syndicate and their videos, because they are filled with errors. Logan has proved that he just makes things up which sounds good multiple times in the past (when he talks about memory, and his monitor review are good examples of this).
Be very, VERY cautious when you listen to what Logan says, it might just be bullshit pulled out of his ass. As this article shows, he is not serious or professional at all when it comes to testing and reviewing. Read proper reviews from people like Anandtech, TechPowerUp, Overclock3D and many more to verify before listening to Logan's advice.

19 comments:

  1. Hey Lawlz, that was a nice post.

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  2. Problem number 6: it just don't seem right. somethun feelin funny in my bones, yanno? some people been sayin' all this talk 'bout CPU bound games, but i ain't never heard o' no such thin.

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    Replies
    1. I looked up some other benchmarks of Trine 2 and people are getting ~40 fps with the i5-2500.
      Also, this statement is taken from Nvidia:
      "Frozenbyte has stated that Trine 2 is entirely GPU limited, meaning your CPU will have little impact on your performance beyond allowing your graphics card to reach its maximum potential."
      That's from Nvidia and the developers themselves. So why is there such a huge difference in Logan's test?

      Source: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/trine-2-stunning-3d-vision-ready-sequel-launches-on-steam

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  3. the 3820 has a quad channel memory controller, so in this case, he actually did the right thing by using different memory (presumably 4 sticks) to better represent how ppl would configure that platform.

    The 3570k and fx 8350 should have had the same memory. Though, tbh, it probably doesnt matter, the tests he did wouldn't be affected too much by discrepancies in memory bandwidth or memory latency.

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    Replies
    1. He could have used a two dual channel config on the other systems (which would simply turn into a quad channel config when he plugged them into the LGA 2011 motherboard) for more consistency. Anyway, he didn't even use RAM from the same manufacturer in his test. He used Kingston RAM on the AMD system, ADATA on the LGA 1155 system and Gelid on the LGA 2011 system.

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  4. Logan claims the i5-3570K got 45% the performance of the FX8350 in Far Cry 3.

    WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

    While I can't repeat his tests since I don't know what he did this I'm averaging TWICE this on a similar i5 setup and his numbers are WAY, WAY off the other tech reviews.

    So Logan is correct and EVERYBODY else is wrong. Reminds me of this joke:

    Man in a car gets a call from his wife:
    "Honey, there's some idiot driving the wrong way on the highway."
    Man replies:
    "Dear, there's not just one, but HUNDREDS!"

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  5. Just because the masses believe something does not make it more accurate, it's like saying religion is accurate. People test platforms in many different ways, logan video does not make everybody wrong, it just means in his usage of it, the system preformed just as good in his test. The next questions is if the other testers were using the hotfix he was using.

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  6. Anandtech reviews are known to be biased... glad to see that you recommend them to intel fanboys

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  7. I used to respect Logan and what he had to say, defended his 8350 videos, etc.

    Now, after him encouraging uninformed ppl to invest in speculative bubble(s), I no longer respect his opinion.

    Not a single fuck will be given, I know... but he's a shill and doesn't admit when he doesn't know what he's talking about (or given credit to people who might be trying to save people from making huge mistakes).

    I hope they all sink everything they have into bitcoins or litecoins or whatever and then lose it all. For some people, losing it all is the only way they ever learn the lesson....

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  8. You know what , This review is written after giving it some though and all the points are valid. How the h/w ? Hell, this is not AMD Vs intel anymore if you keep changing the h/w!!
    And one thing is kinda shady here : Reviewer you should mention intel L3 cache was almost twice those of AMD (With their poor handling of it ) Until 8150.
    I can come across AMD and intel and one of my friend got his mobo fried with ocING amd. Intel is easy to OC with cheap cooler or even NO COOLER.
    GOod review.
    Agreed.
    Logan - Do over.(I still like your other review though).

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    Replies
    1. Dude, overclocking anything is pretty much easy if u know what ur doing. But OC an i5/i7 with cheap cooler? Hell WITHOUT any cooler? Are u mad?

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    2. My guess is that when he says "without any cooler" he means using the stock cooler. By cheap cooler he probably means for example the Hyper 212+.

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  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4et7kDGSRfc

    https://teksyndicate.com/videos/amd-fx-8350-oc-vs-i5-3570k-oc-battle-continues

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  10. He did some mistakes I agree, but he did use them hotfix for AMD that I suppose none of the other reviews even know off. That might be the clue for AMD doing good. About Trine 2, why dont u test it for urself? Get the same GPU and play a level on both the systems?

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    1. The hot fix means next to nothing. I addressed this in my other post. It makes something like a 5% difference and it still doesn't explain the other really weird stuff in the video.
      Why should I test Trine 2? I am not here to argue for or against the FX 8350. I am here to point out huge mistakes in Logan's video.

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  11. After his audio videos, he lost all credibility, he has some kind of sheep following from pseudo intectual Dawkins repeaters and those types of geek-hipster types who never get outside and have massive vitamin D problems.

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  12. Well done! I really congrats you for providing the valuable information about Liquid cooling . The content that you have posted in blog is very unique and informative.

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  13. Everyone knows Logan is AMD fanboy. But he's smart, uses intel CPU in his own rig. If AMD is so good, why he's using Intel?

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