All new build or drop in FX8350?

[Rvenger]

Vic- you shouldn't have any issues with achieving 4.5ghz under 1.5v on an 8320. Price/performance on the 8320 is unmatched, especially in multithreaded situations.

 

[crashtech]

This is when we all (well, most of us) love Vishera, when the infrastructure is already in place, and you drop it in and go. This it when it makes sense.

 

[Idontcare]

Get the 8350 if you intend to OC using the stock HSF.

Get the 8320 if you intend to replaced the stock HSF with something considerably better than the stock HSF that comes with the 8350.

 

[SPBHM]

I almost always recommend Intel CPUs, but if you already have some compatible MB, I would easily recommend the 8320 or 8350... for MT there is a clear gain from the PII, for gaming it might not change much... but... in games like Crysis 3 and BF3MP64 it should be a decent gain I guess

 

[PPB]

Get the 8350 if you intend to OC using the stock HSF.

Get the 8320 if you intend to replaced the stock HSF with something considerably better than the stock HSF that comes with the 8350.

Why? You take in consideration that if the 8350 is better binned than the 8320, the last one would need a higher vcore to achieve the same overclock as the 8350, upping the temps in the process?

 

[SlickR12345]

You can always wait until you absolutely need a new CPU, the 965BE still has at least 1 year life in it, without really showing its age, but the FX8350 would be a big improvement in pretty much everything except games.

Expect to have the same performance in games and in certain games even slower.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Why bother with the stock HSF at all? For ~$30 you can have a Hyper 212 EVO, and you can use it over and over again. I have the plus version and have used it for 3 different processors, great cooler and a great investment.

 

[Bradtech519]

I got my fx8359 GD80, zalman, and ram for 300 on eBay. I came from a 965 like you have. I had to set CPU voltage, ram voltage manually to get it stable on this board. It is a nice CPU and I do light gaming and VM labs like you talk about. I run an urban terror server and ts3 server my friends and I kill bots on. The system never bogs down. I'm impressed with the performance boost over the 965 in distributed computing projects games, and the extra cores to handle running my various test beds and game servers my friends play on. Only complaint is the MSI GD80 board not being that good of an over clocker. There's a lot of issues with the fx8350 specifically and bsods. You may google your board since its even older than mine. I loved MSI in the early 00s but switched to gigabyte in the latter half of the 00s.

 

[Idontcare]

Why? You take in consideration that if the 8350 is better binned than the 8320, the last one would need a higher vcore to achieve the same overclock as the 8350, upping the temps in the process?

The stock HSF for the 8320 is rather anemic for hitting 4.5GHz OC's; whereas the stock HSF for the 8350 (they are different HSF's) is nicely equipped to hit 4.5GHz.

Why bother with the stock HSF at all? For ~$30 you can have a Hyper 212 EVO, and you can use it over and over again. I have the plus version and have used it for 3 different processors, great cooler and a great investment.

If you are worried about price/performance, 3rd party heatsinks rarely make financial sense in terms of the OC (and performance) they deliver above and beyond that which you can get out of the stock HSF that came with your "budget" processor.

Buying a $30 HSF for a $150 CPU only makes economic sense if it adds an extra $30/$150 = 20% higher OC to the OC you were already going to get with the stock HSF that you paid for when you bought the CPU.

A Hyper 212 EVO isn't going to give you 20% higher clockspeeds above the stock HSF of an 8350, but it might give you higher clockspeeds above what you'd get from an 8320 with its stock cooler (once you subtract the $20 delta you paid for the 8320).

 

[Idontcare]

You can always wait until you absolutely need a new CPU, the 965BE still has at least 1 year life in it, without really showing its age, but the FX8350 would be a big improvement in pretty much everything except games.

Expect to have the same performance in games and in certain games even slower.

Personally I'd expect it to have better performance in games on a real-world end-user's rig like the OPs which is surely going to have all kinds of background tasks running (anti-virus, search caching, software update checks, etc) going on that are not adequately captured or represented in the gaming benchmarks that review sites generate with their isolated and sterilized bench rigs.

If you play games with a rig that is setup like a the rig used for benchmarking on a review site then sure, the extra cores with lower IPC are going to waste. But most end-users don't have rigs like that IMO.

 

[crashtech]

Expect to have the same performance in games and in certain games even slower.

Can you link some benchmark results that confirm this? Ones that aren't GPU bound, that is.

 

[PPB]

That's odd, I tought they were the same HSFs for all the FX line (they are still bundling top bin FX with the kuhler clone AIO?).

Im considering also a drop in replacement of my x6 to an 8320, specially for the tweaking capabilities (tuning all those Pstates for a mixture of low power and high performance setups seems really fun) and the ability to OC it to 4.5 without a hassle. Im currently sporting a 212+ but I'm wondering if i would be to close to the danger zone temps (>55°C) with it. I was thinking for a H60 but honestly, every single air cooler/AIO watercooler seems like a terrible perf/$ compared to this one, lol.

 

[sequoia464]

If you are already set on getting an FX-8350 as a drop-in replacement for your 965 @ 4.1, I would say good choice.

I have an old rig (not as old as yours, ~2 years old, although some parts like the vid card are a bit older) similar to yours, but it used to run a 1090T. Could only clock it reliably up to 3.9GHz.

Almost a month ago, was able to see an FX-8350 for very cheap, and since the board in that old rig can accept it, got the FX as a straight CPU-swap.

Even against an overclocked 1090T @ 3.9, a stock FX 8350 was no worse off in the benchmarks ...

There are some other interesting data points, but you get the idea. Overall, as the first set of results would say, it is definitely no worse than a 1090T@3.9. The power savings are also significant. Compared to the 1090T@3.9, the FX 8350 idle power consumption is ~40W less. Load power consumption is even better, at ~70W less.

Clearly, with overall performance no worse than an OC'd 1090T, but with significant idle and load power consumption, it is (mostly) a no-brainer as a cheap CPU-swap.
.

Thanks for this, a while back I changed out a 960T that I was using - 6 cores @3700 - for an 8320 running @ 4300. I questioned if it was really worthwhile. Looks like it was.

 

[AnandThenMan]

If you are worried about price/performance, 3rd party heatsinks rarely make financial sense in terms of the OC (and performance) they deliver above and beyond that which you can get out of the stock HSF that came with your "budget" processor.

Buying a $30 HSF for a $150 CPU only makes economic sense if it adds an extra $30/$150 = 20% higher OC to the OC you were already going to get with the stock HSF that you paid for when you bought the CPU.

A Hyper 212 EVO isn't going to give you 20% higher clockspeeds above the stock HSF of an 8350, but it might give you higher clockspeeds above what you'd get from an 8320 with its stock cooler (once you subtract the $20 delta you paid for the 8320).

A good cooler is about the best investment you can make for your system, and as I already mentioned you can use it over and over again. Even if you NEVER overclock, you get near complete silence and of course the potential to overclock at some point while still maintaining low noise levels.

If you only apply a single metric to buying a HSF, well then you are missing the point of buying one in the first place.

As for dropping the likes of a 8350 in an existing system, very much worth while in my experience. I do a lot of simultaneous tasks and the 8350 eats that stuff up, the fact that I got to keep all the other hardware the same is icing on the cake.

 

[sequoia464]

That's odd, I tought they were the same HSFs for all the FX line (they are still bundling top bin FX with the kuhler clone AIO?).

I was thinking for a H60 but honestly, every single air cooler/AIO watercooler seems like a terrible perf/$ compared to this one, lol.

There was a thread on the AMD HSF's a while back that outlined the different types, I couldn't find it, someone here might be able to post a link.

As far as the H60; I was using one in push pull, it was adequate, barely, during the winter. Had to replace it with a H80i once summer hit. Given the noise of the H80 I wish I had gone with a H100.

Edit; found that thread on the AMD heatsinks - I haven't seen my stock 8320 unit for a while so I'm not sure how it compares to the 8350's. Link .. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2296689&highlight=amd+heatsink

 

[AtenRa]

Go for the FX8350, disable Turbo and manually raise the multiplier. I would go as high as possible using 1.425v. Also, raise the NB to at least 2400MHz, it will give you a small boost in performance too.

 

[NTMBK]

Sage advise... currently I'm draining every last iota of life from this P4 socket 478 AGP system before upgrading. I use it daily, and unfortunately, it just won't DIE! D:

Ooph, that's got to suck. Just ditch it and pick up a cheap C2D, man! You can get an old C2D desktop for around £70 in my area- that's got to be worth it, to let you escape the old P4.

 

[bgt]

I also never use stock HSF's. They are always too noisy. Better get a huge cooler and a dead quiet 120mm fan like a NB fan. This is the quietest solution IMHO.

 

[bgt]

Ooph, that's got to suck. Just ditch it and pick up a cheap C2D, man! You can get an old C2D desktop for around £70 in my area- that's got to be worth it, to let you escape the old P4.

Yes, a P4....brrrr. Thats an ancient oven.

 

[Maximilian]

Wow not one person recommending selling it and getting a used ivy/sandy with HT or whatever, there's usually always one peddling this option lol.

Anyway yeah, get the 8320, its a solid chip and a nice upgrade from what you have. :thumbsup:

 

[jacktesterson]

There isn't much point in buying a 8350 over a 8320 IMO (Unless 100-200 MHz extra is really worth it to you on your OC)

I recently got mine for $135 Used all in shipped - Look around!

 

[bgt]

Wow not one person recommending selling it and getting a used ivy/sandy with HT or whatever, there's usually always one peddling this option lol.

Yes...........surely amazing. Maybe they are still sleeping

 

[inf64]

There isn't much point in buying a 8350 over a 8320 IMO (Unless 100-200 MHz extra is really worth it to you on your OC)

I recently got mine for $135 Used all in shipped - Look around!

135$ for such a performance (esp. OCed to 4.7Ghz) is a steal

 

[Durvelle27]

For all the HSF talk. Both the 8350 & 8320 come with the same stock cooler unless you get the one bundled with the AIO. The 8320 would be a great choice but if ocing I wouldnt recommend stock cooling I would recommend at least a hyper 212+ or better. It should hit 4.5GHz pretty easily.

 

[beginner99]

I doubt OP will see much of a benefit from this upgrade if he says his current system is as snappy as the dual socket dell workstation.

Personally I would just wait till the system actually feels to slow. And the mobo is "old" too and was overclocked so who knows, it might fail soon and if you need a new mobo, I would go intel anyway. So I would not change anything.