(Added to your Rep cause I really liked your information) <img alt="tongue.gif" class="bbcode_smiley" src="http://files.overclock.net/images/smilies/tongue.gif"><br><br>

Oh, I think you thought I meant competitive as in business-competitive, no I meant performance/price-wise more utilized for consumers. Yes, you are right that the 3960X is much faster than the FX-8350 outright, I really ought to have added that <i>for the money involved it's negligible</i> (Should've been more specific, sorry) to say that your 240 FPS will look all that much better than my 120 FPS, nor be any smoother. And I'm not neglecting anything, I said real world benchmarks, and by that, I mean 3D game benchmarks, not talking Sandra or anything here (My bad, again I apologize for not being specific)<br><br>

Crysis 2 @ 2560x1600 Ultra Settings<br><a class="bbcode_url" href="http://media.bestofmicro.com/I/C/318180/original/crysis%202%202560.png" target="_blank">http://media.bestofmicro.com/I/C/318180/original/crysis%202%202560.png</a><br><br>

3DMark 11<br><a class="bbcode_url" href="http://media.bestofmicro.com/H/Z/318167/original/3dmark11%20physics.png" target="_blank">http://media.bestofmicro.com/H/Z/318167/original/3dmark11%20physics.png</a><br><br>

Sandra 2011<br>

<a href="http://media.bestofmicro.com/I/U/318198/original/sandra%20arithmetic.png" target="_blank">http://media.bestofmicro.com/I/U/318198/original/sandra%20arithmetic.png</a><br><br>

But of course the 3930k is much faster overall doing physics and grunt work, and is an killer brute of a chip, that doesn't break a sweat doing double of what AMD's chip does, I have no issues admitting that.<br><br>

When single-threaded applications or multithreading using dedicated subsystem threads no longer rule the software world, and when multithreaded batch processing takes over, single threaded performance won't be obsolete, but relied upon less. Most multithreaded applications take the former over the latter, and still rely heavily on single threaded performance *cough* Intel *cough* even when shown that they are multithreaded. Not exactly the best way to prove that AMD is competitive since Intel has a pretty massive lead in single threaded performance.<br><br>

Am I stating that the FX-8350 is at all the equivalent of the 3930k? Hell no. Am I stating that performance/price is much better for the 8350 over the 3930k <b><i>In the areas I stated</i></b>? Very much so, it's <b><i>5x's</i></b> the price. AMD CPUs will also hold their ground longer as they age over their single-threaded opposition of the same generation as more and more tasks focus on multithreading, which is what AMD is going for anyways.<br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>

<div class="quote-block">However, gaming, email, and porn aren't the sum of "real-world" tasks, not for anyone who has reason to spend more than 150 dollars on a CPU.</div>

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Okay, I laughed at the porn part, I couldn't imagine a porn build, however, gaming, email and <i><b>internet</b></i> are the sum of "real-world" tasks. "... not for anyone who has reason to spend more than 150 dollars on a CPU" is a very unfair view, because I can't tell my clients that they have to have a <i><b>real</b></i> reason reason to buy CPU of that performance, because it's *their* money. And...... That would kill my business. Sure, I totally agree, even Intel's lowest Pentium class can easily do what they want, but the *majority* of the population that <b><i>I</i></b> know, do just that (A few break the mold now and again). And that's not even including those of us who buy these expensive parts for overclocking, which is one of my favorite hobbies. We all have reasons for buying enthusiast parts, maybe not all of them are useful as others, but that's another discussion entirely.<br><div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>

<div class="quote-block">Intel is making ~160mm^2 dies and selling them for 120-300 dollars each; ~294mm^2 and selling them for ~300; as well as 435mm^2 dies and selling them for 500-1000 dollars, for their high-end consumer parts.<br><br>

AMD has priced their parts competitively for the end-user, but they are not competitive in a business sense. Intel's margins are vastly larger than AMDs because Intel can fit much more performance in a given area, and Intel makes nearly all of it's own silicon.<br><br>

AMD CPUs are priced where they are to move product and prevent the loss of too much market share. AMD needs to get more money per part to be really competitive, and the only way to do that is to build better parts than they have now, for less money than it costs them now.</div>

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Thanks for the useful information, found it interesting. <img alt="thumb.gif" class="bbcode_smiley" src="http://files.overclock.net/images/smilies/thumb.gif"> I'd like to see AMD maybe working with more partners and expanding in order to increase their production and decrease cost and keep their CPU's priced at this point really. While increasing their own profits as well of course! Hopefully, this is what they're doing with IBM at the moment, but IBM won't comment on any of this at the present. <img alt="rolleyes.gif" class="bbcode_smiley" src="http://files.overclock.net/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif"> Thanks for the explanations, feel like I learned a lot in this discussion, especially concerning AMD and Intel product strategies.