ARMA 1080p
First up we have ARMA 3 and right away at 1080p you will notice a shocking decline in performance for the FX-8350 when compared to the 6700K. This CPU bottleneck does reduce the performance margin between the RX 480 and GTX 1060 from 31% down to 17% in favor of the green team.
ARMA 1440p
Increasing the resolution to 1440p drastically reduces the impact of the CPU bottleneck and now the FX-8350 is just a few frames slower than the 6700K with both graphics cards.
Ashes of the Singularity 1080p
Ashes of the Singularity has some interesting results for us. The RX 480 delivers the same performance using the FX-8350 as it does the 6700K using DX12 while there was a sharp decline in performance when using DX11. The GTX 1060 also sees the same large drop in performance using DX11 and while performance also drops using DX12 the impact is lessened.
Ashes of the Singularity 1440p
Moving to 1440p we see similar performance trends when playing Ashes of the Singularity at 1080p.
Batman 1080p
The Batman Arkham Knight results are also very interesting and rather unexpected. Using the FX-8350 we see that both graphics cards are noticeably slower at 1080p. However the average frame rate of the GTX 1060 is higher though oddly the minimum frame rate is much lower. The RX 480 sees virtually no change in minimum frame rate from the 6700K while the 1060 sees a 16% decline.
Batman 1440p
Moving to 1440p neutralizes the results and we see similar trends using the FX-8350 as we did with the 6700K.
Battlefield 4 1080p
Our Battlefield 4 test primarily tests GPU performance and therefore the FX-8350 is really no slower than the 6700K here.
Battlefield 4 1440p
The same is true at 1440p though it is interesting to note that the RX 480 delivered the exact same performance on both processors while the GTX 1060 was slightly slower with the FX-8350.
Battlefront 1080p
Battlefront is another game where our test is primarily GPU dependant and as such even at 1080p both these GPUs deliver similar performance on the FX and i7 processors.
Battlefront 1440p
This is of course also the case at 1440p and again it is great to see the RX 480 provided the same results on both platforms.
Black Ops 1080p
Once again in an unexpected twist it is the GTX 1060 that drops performance on the slower FX-8350 processor while the RX 480 delivers the same 95fps average and 83fps minimum.
Black Ops 1440p
Even at 1440p in Black Ops III the 1060 was slower with the FX-8350 while the RX 480 provided the exact same performance.
Crysis 1080p
Crysis 3 is another heavily GPU dependant game, at least the section we test is and as a result the FX-8350 and 6700K results are much the same with both GPUs.
Crysis 1440p
As expected we find much the same at 1440p.
DiRT 1080p
DiRT Rally provides more than a few surprises at 1080p. Firstly there is a huge performance discrepancy between the FX-8350 and 6700K. The GTX 1060 was 21% slower on the overclocked FX-8350 while the RX 480 was 36% slower. More crucially where the RX 480 was previously just 15% slower than the 1060 it is now 32% slower with the FX-8350. So this is the first game where we see the RX 480 perform much worse than the 1060 on the slower FX processor.
DiRT 1440p
As we’ve seen previously, increasing the resolution to 1440p heavily reduces the performance margin between the 6700K and FX-8350 in CPU dependant games. The RX 480 and GTX 1060 are now separated by a similar margin on both processors.
Doom 1080p
Doom is yet another game that throws up some very interesting results. Notice how the RX 480 dominates when running on Vulkan with the 6700K. Moving to the FX-8350 seems to completely eliminate that performance advantage. Whereas the RX 480 was previously 36% faster it is now just 8% faster on the overclocked FX and 5% faster without overclocking.
Meanwhile we see the complete opposite with the GTX 1060 which is now faster than the RX 480 using Vulkan with the FX processor. Whereas it was previously just 3% faster on the 6700K we now see a much more substantial 20% performance gain.
Doom 1440p
Moving to 1440p completely changes what was seen at 1080p. The RX 480 is now able to comfortably beat the GTX 1060 with either processor and huge gains using vulkan can now be seen on the FX-8350. Meanwhile very little in the way of extra performance can be seen when using the GTX 1060.
F1 2015 1080p
F1 2015 isn’t a hugely CPU demanding game, though the in-game benchmark does feature a full grid of AI controlled cars so that no doubt sucks up a few system resources. Here we see that the performance trends on the FX-8350 are similar to the 6700K for both GPUs at 1080p.
F1 2015 1440p
Moving to 1440p we find that it is only the GTX 1060 that drops in performance though to be fair it wasn’t CPU limited on the 6700K. In any case the 1060 and 480 deliver the exact same performance on the FX-8350 in F1 2015.
Fallout 1080p
Fallout 4 is a super CPU intensive game, mostly due to poor optimization but that is another story. Anyway here we see a rather large decline in performance from the 6700K to the FX-8350 for both GPUs, though having said that the RX 480’s minimum frame rate is hit the hardest.
Fallout 1440p
Moving to 1440p completely eliminates the performance variances seen at 1080p and both GPUs performed as you would expect them to using a high-end processor.
GTA V 1080p
Grand Theft Auto V saw a massive decline in performance when going from the 6700K to the FX-8350. Both the RX 480 and GTX 1060 suffered similar performance hits however.
GTA V 1440p
Once again increasing the resolution to 1440p eliminated the performance hit when using the FX-8350 for both graphics cards.
Hitman 1080p
Using DirectX 12 neither GPU took much in the way of a performance hit with the FX-8350, though it was a very different story with DX11.
Hitman 1440p
Now at 1440p we see virtually the same performance when using DX12 on both processors.
Just Cause 1080p
Just Cause 3 is relatively heavy on the CPU so a decline in performance with the FX-8350 was expected. The impact wasn’t that significant and both GPUs suffered a simile performance loss.
Just Cause 1440p
Moving to 1440p almost eliminated and performance hit the RX 480 took when using the FX-8350. The GTX 1060 didn’t fair too poorly either though it did suffer a slightly larger performance drop when moving to the AMD processor.
Mad Max 1080p
Mad Max isn’t at all CPU dependant… and well the results support that claim.
Mad Max 1440p
Given what we saw at 1080p the 1440p results are as expected.
Mirror’s Edge 1080p
Mirror’s Edge is another game that is primarily GPU dependant and as a result the RX 480 and GTX 1060 aren’t much slower when paired with the AMD FX processor.
Mirror’s Edge 1440p
The performance trends are much the same at 1440p, again both GPUs delivered similar performance with the FX-8350.
Overwatch 1080p
Overwatch does a good job of utilizing a large number of CPU cores so despite benchmarking with two teams full of AI controlled bots the FX-8350 does rather well. Here we see virtually no difference between the 6700K and FX-8350 with either of the GPUs.
Overwatch 1440p
Naturally given what was seen at 1080p we also find no difference in performance at 1440p.
Primal 1080p
Far Cry Primal is another game that is predominantly GPU bound and therefore the FX-8350 is able to provide similar performance to that of the 6700K with these GPUs.
Primal 1440p
The same is of course true at 1440p where we see virtually no difference in performance between these two systems.
Rainbow Six Siege 1080p
Rainbow Six Siege is another GPU bound game and therefore the RX 480 and GTX 1060 performed much the same using the FX-8350 system as they did with the 6700K system.
Rainbow Six Siege 1440p
Oddly at 1440p the minimum frame rate of the GTX 1060 was much lower than we were expecting on the FX-8350 system, so not sure what is going on there.
Shadow of Mordor 1080p
The Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor benchmark isn’t particularly CPU demanding so as expected both GPUs provided similar performance on the FX system.
Shadow of Mordor 1440p
This is also the case at 1440p as we see almost identical performance on both systems.
The Division 1080p
The benchmark in Tom Clancy’s The Division focuses heavily on GPU performance and therefore we once agains see similar results on both systems.
The Division 1440p
As we have seen time and time again in GPU bound games and even some CPU bound games, testing at 1440p creates a GPU bottleneck.
Tomb Raider 1080p
Testing Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080p sees the RX 480 and GTX 1060 deliver similar performance on the FX-8350 system though as was the case on the 6700K system, the 480 delivers much lower minimums.
Tomb Raider 1440p
Oddly at 1440p the GTX 1060 is able to outperform the RX 480 on both the 6700K and FX-8350 systems, given the 1080p results this is very unexpected.
Warhammer 1080p
For now I have only tested Total War Warhammer using DX11 and as a result the GTX 1060 does have an advantage on both systems.
Warhammer 1440p
The GTX 1060’s advantage remains at 1440p, though it fares even better on the FX system.
Witcher 1080p
Finally we have The Witcher 3 and if you have made it this far good for you, must have been a slow day! Anyway at 1080p we find similar performance on the FX-8350 system with both the GTX 1060 and RX 480 when compared to the 6700K machine.
Witcher 1440p
The same is true for the 1440p results, both cards were just a few frames slower when compared to the 6700K results.
Conclusion
As found previously when using much older Intel and AMD processors the RX 480 makes out just as well as the GTX 1060 on ‘less powerful’ processors shall we say. If you were to cherry pick the results you could argue either is better but looking at all 24 games we find what is very much a back and forth fight on the FX-8350 system.
Speaking of the FX system we found that at 1080p it didn’t look great in relation to the overclocked 6700K in a number of games. However in most of those titles moving to 1440p eliminated the FX-bottleneck and allowed for i7-like performance. This means budget gamers are still being looked after reasonably well by the FX-series though these processors should be avoided by high refresh rate gamers.
Although I do typically recommend budget gamers avoid the power hungry FX series in favor of the much more efficient 4-threaded Core i3 processors, I can see why so many still prefer AMD’s affordable 8-core processors.
The worst examples of poor FX performance can be seen in ARMA 3, DiRT Rally, F1 2015, Fallout 4, Grand Theft Auto V and Just Cause 3. That said bumping the resolution up to 1440p closed up the performance gap to almost nothing in most of these games with these new mid-range GPUs.
Meanwhile the other 18 games played just as well on the FX-8350 rig as they did with the overclocked 6700K. So to summarize the last 2000 odd words the AMD FX-8350 will do just fine with the RX 480 and GTX 1060, especially if you plan to game at 1440p. Thanks for joining me for another benchmark marathon.
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