FRONTPAGE AMD FX-8350 - Piledriver - CPU Review

hokiealumnus · Oct 23, 2012

Thanks for the kind words folks!

tungureanu said:
but in every day gaming and office tasks , cn you see the +15% difference?

Well, the games are outlined and I'm going to start benchmarking with a 7970 to see how it fares, but no, you won't see a 15% FPS difference if that's what you're asking.

As for everything else, it felt just like an Intel computer in daily use. Processors are more powerful than necessary for daily tasks like web browsing and writing .docs. The graphs in our reviews are the most intensive thing I do with Excel, so I can't tell a difference there.

SupaMonkey said:
http://www.overclockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/oc-amd-vishera-slide-03-640x360.jpg

In those tests where we see this chip doing well, is it the chip improvements or the extra cores that are helping the most?

Both. The chip improvements amounts to about 5-10% improvement (estimated). Add the increased clockspeed and you reach the up to 15% mark. The extra cores in applications that use integer processing definitely come in handy as well.

bernie_lomax said:
good review OP! is it safe to say that we will see a similar improvement in the 4xxx and 6xxx series processors?

I think that's a safe assumption, assuming the clockspeed increase is the same over their predecessors. We never tested those, so I can't really speak to it directly though.

EDIT - I also note that Newegg is selling the FX-8350 for $219.99. While that's ten dollars more than I had hoped, I'd still call that a good buy. The same could definitely not be said for Bulldozer after its launch day price hike. They did well this time around.

tungureanu · Oct 23, 2012

i kind of hoped for more. i think i will skip piledriver and wait 1 more year to upgrade the cpu

Frakk · Oct 23, 2012

Nice review thanks, not a bad chip at all.

rescuetoaster · Oct 23, 2012

Very cool man, thanks for the review. I've been holding off on building a rig for a coworker, and I'm glad I did. I like all of the media rendering benchmarks, I think this will work well for her.

I'd like to get one myself, but I can't justify spending money on a new CPU when my current one isn't being challenged by anything yet.

TeknoBug · Oct 23, 2012

On second though, when is the FX 6300 due out, that will be significantly cheaper and 6 cores is still plenty for today's tasks.

bernie_lomax · Oct 23, 2012

TeknoBug said:
On second though, when is the FX 6300 due out, that will be significantly cheaper and 6 cores is still plenty for today's tasks.

im almost certain it was released today with the fx8350, 8320, and 4300

edit: yeah here it is on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286&name=Processors-Desktops

freakdiablo · Oct 23, 2012

djscrew said:
great review, looks like a great chip too

my question is ... will AMD continue to be able to pull these kinds of performance gains out of their slowing process tech?

It seems that they may be doing too many tocking and not enough ticking... I worry that AMD may get behind the curve to a dangerous point...

After all, it really does come down to heat for desktop performance, I mean if you can reduce the heat you can increase the clocks. I think it may be only a matter of time before Intel strikes to clean AMD's clock. Anti-competition won't come down on them as strong as before since ARM is their new biggest threat.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that these days, AMD doesn't fabricate it's CPUs like Intel does, so it's kind of at the mercy of it's partners for things like die shrinks.

However, 15% gains is still a good step forward, especially since it's starting to trade blows with Intels newer stuff in some tests.

wagex · Oct 23, 2012

dang son, i could very well be switching over to the red side in the future if they keep up these price points! they seem to be back to the best bang for the buck!

YAMA187 · Oct 23, 2012

great review!!! im thinking about getting one,!!

Aldakoopa · Oct 23, 2012

It will be a few months or so before I actually get one. Gonna stick with the good ol' 4100 for a while longer.

It's still serving me well. Great review, looks awesome! And the prices aren't bad at all for that kind of performance.

Scout · Oct 23, 2012

wagex said:
dang son, i could very well be switching over to the red side in the future if they keep up these price points! they seem to be back to the best bang for the buck!

I think they did just reclaim the best bang for the buck good on AMD. Now lets see them keep this pace and they got hope.

trekky · Oct 23, 2012

now that i see this i may want to get this and sell my 1100t
i see my 1100t goes for ~$160
so for $40 i think this would be a great upgrade!

TeknoBug · Oct 23, 2012

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested

Looks like the 6300 is a decent buy, all I care about is gaming (and surfing) and should be more than enough.

The 8320/8350 is showing some ups and downs compared to other CPUs.

I.M.O.G. · Oct 23, 2012

Who is reading everywhere else - did anyone else do subzero and hit higher clocks?

I see one on HWBot already (8 cores enabled also):
http://hwbot.org/submission/2322981_namegt_cpu_frequency_fx_8350_8176.5_mhz

swampdonkey · Oct 23, 2012

Finally I can get rid of this phenom!!!

MattNo5ss · Oct 23, 2012

Great job hokie, as usual :thup:

Power consumption is still kinda high and single threaded/FPU performance is still lower than I'd like to see, but it competes with the 3570K in more typical uses and it's priced right.

I.M.O.G. said:
Who is reading everywhere else - did anyone else do subzero and hit higher clocks?

I see one on HWBot already (8 cores enabled also):
http://hwbot.org/submission/2322981_namegt_cpu_frequency_fx_8350_8176.5_mhz

...and that's with all modules/core turned on. Not bad at all

I.M.O.G. · Oct 23, 2012

I think I'm going to buy one... With Bulldozer, only the early chips were worthy of super high clocks, so now is the time to take one for a spin.

wagex · Oct 23, 2012

I.M.O.G. said:
I think I'm going to buy one... With Bulldozer, only the early chips were worthy of super high clocks, so now is the time to take one for a spin.

buy me one too sir

I.M.O.G. · Oct 23, 2012

Sorry, Microcenter is running the same price as Newegg on these.

hokiealumnus · Oct 23, 2012

A couple of items to note: I stopped at 1.9V and didn't go north of that because I needed to keep the chip for further testing. Also, it wouldn't do 5GHz below 1.5V. Other chips did reach 5, others did worse than ours, so there seems to be a fair bit of variation.

FRONTPAGE AMD FX-8350 - Piledriver - CPU Review

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