Liquid CPU cooler for 8350

[MrTeal]

To be honest I'd take the $130 i3-6100 + BCLK overclocking over a $150 8370E every day of the week for gaming. Even cheap AMD builds aren't a good idea unless you're literally so low down on the totem pole you can only afford iGPU. The i3-6100 leaves you an easy upgrade path on a modern board, and it's going to end up being as fast or faster than an overclocked 8370E (when the 6100 is overclocked to a typical 4.4ghz). The stock i3-6100 beats a 8320 @ 4.6 in a lot of games too....

http://www.techspot.com/review/1087-best-value-desktop-cpu/page4.html

That's an interesting review. It's funny how much it varies from the gamegpu.ru review that shows the 8 core AMD chips doing pretty good. In addition to more modern games, the obvious difference is 980Ti SLI vs a single 960, so the gamegpu.ru games will be a lot more CPU limited. Of course, no one running 980 Ti SLI is looking at either of those chips.

The platform cost of going 8320E is still going to be lower for the AMD system since you can pick up a 970 based board dirt cheap, especially if you have some DDR3 to reuse. Given how many downsides there are to non-K overclocking, I don't think it's a slam dunk if you use the computer for other things that can utilize more cores (and you enjoy having you computer keep your feet warm in the winter).

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yup, right now they have the FX8370E for $150 and it looks like a further $40 saving when bundled with a compatible motherboard. Nice.

150.00 seems expensive for MC. I thought you could get FX 8xxx for around 120 or 130 dollars. It would have to be in that price range before I would consider it. Otherwise it is too close to intel quads. I suppose it is OK if you are into overclocking and tweaking. Stock though, FX will be competitive in some well threaded games, will use more power, but overall I think even a locked i5 would be faster. You might have to move up to a K chip to get the 40.00 discount though, which would make the FX more price competitive.

 

[frozentundra123456]

That's an interesting review. It's funny how much it varies from the gamegpu.ru review that shows the 8 core AMD chips doing pretty good. In addition to more modern games, the obvious difference is 980Ti SLI vs a single 960, so the gamegpu.ru games will be a lot more CPU limited. Of course, no one running 980 Ti SLI is looking at either of those chips.

The platform cost of going 8320E is still going to be lower for the AMD system since you can pick up a 970 based board dirt cheap, especially if you have some DDR3 to reuse. Given how many downsides there are to non-K overclocking, I don't think it's a slam dunk if you use the computer for other things that can utilize more cores (and you enjoy having you computer keep your feet warm in the winter).

Yea, I dont know what is with game.gpu lately. Their results seem pretty much at odds with most other testing sites. I thought it might just be one game anomaly or something, but their tests seem to consistently show FX doing much better than most other reviews.

 

[MrTeal]

150.00 seems expensive for MC. I thought you could get FX 8xxx for around 120 or 130 dollars. It would have to be in that price range before I would consider it. Otherwise it is too close to intel quads. I suppose it is OK if you are into overclocking and tweaking. Stock though, FX will be competitive in some well threaded games, will use more power, but overall I think even a locked i5 would be faster. You might have to move up to a K chip to get the 40.00 discount though, which would make the FX more price competitive.

Just get the 8320E and up the clocks. If you're close to a MC you can pick up a 8320E and a 970 based MB for $140, plus get a $15 MIR.

Yea, I dont know what is with game.gpu lately. Their results seem pretty much at odds with most other testing sites. I thought it might just be one game anomaly or something, but their tests seem to consistently show FX doing much better than most other reviews.

Even outside the AMD results, their multicore scaling seems better than anyone else. The 5960X@3GHz is consistently ahead of the 4770k@3.5, often by a pretty wide margin.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Not really necessary, TBH. I generally recommend people Noctua air coolers for the FX series if their cases are big enough to accept them

The new, NH-C14S cooler is both low profile and high performance.

 

[SlowSpyder]

150.00 seems expensive for MC. I thought you could get FX 8xxx for around 120 or 130 dollars. It would have to be in that price range before I would consider it. Otherwise it is too close to intel quads. I suppose it is OK if you are into overclocking and tweaking. Stock though, FX will be competitive in some well threaded games, will use more power, but overall I think even a locked i5 would be faster. You might have to move up to a K chip to get the 40.00 discount though, which would make the FX more price competitive.

Whether or not someone thinks an i3 or i5 would be better wasn't what I was getting at. The FX 8370E for $150 is a great price for that part. The FX8350 is $30 more than that on Newegg, on Google shopping sites the FX 8370E is $185 for OEM to over $200 for retail depending on the site... $150 isn't bad for that CPU given it's price elsewhere. Whether or not someone would choose it over an i3 or i5 is another topic.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Maybe I was thinking of the 8320.

Edit: my local microcenter BTW, shows the 8370 at 179.99, at least in their on-line add. Maybe there is a special sale price I am not seeing. I dont seem to get their ad anymore. Sorry, 8370E *is* 150.00, 8370 is 179.99.

 

[superstition]

Maybe I was thinking of the 8320.

Edit: my local microcenter BTW, shows the 8370 at 179.99, at least in their on-line add. Maybe there is a special sale price I am not seeing. I dont seem to get their ad anymore. Sorry, 8370E *is* 150.00, 8370 is 179.99.

Unless you're building a system for a massive overclock (5 GHz or so) the 8320E is the more cost-effective purchase from Microcenter. It varies from $100 - $100. It comes with a weaker stock cooling fan than the 8370E and a slightly lower binning. To get either to 4.5 GHz requires basically the same amount of volts. I have tested both. The only difference is that the 8370E seems to need a little less voltage at the highest clocks.

Cooling quality is essential because 8 cores in Prime put out a lot of heat. "The Stilt" has a method of testing for stability that doesn't use full Prime (affinity, fan speed reduction, etc.) — which seems to be a way to avoid a reduced overclock due to the artificially high load of Prime and, especially, risk to one's motherboard VRMs if one has a weaker board.

VRM quality is also key. The UD3P 2.0 board is good for 4.4 to 4.5 GHz before it starts to throttle under Linpack. And that's a board with a higher-quality VRM setup than a typical 970 board. If you're aiming for higher clocks then get an ASUS 990 board.

 

[Madpacket]

Purchased a 8320e + AsRock Fatality FX99 = $159 back in December at Micro Center. Added 16GB RAM G.Skill Overclockable DDR3 RAM for $79 CAD and a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo for $69. Reused old dual fan Coolermaster Hyper 212 and it's happily running at 4.5Ghz at 1.35 volts in a $40.00 Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-01 RED LED Black ATX Mid Tower Gaming Computer Case. Added a lightly used Asus Geforce 750Ti I got for $75 along with a $20.00 used Corsair CX500 and built an entire decent 1080P gaming / encoding / rendering, developer, VMWare server for under $500 in total.

Sure you could go with a $130 Core i3-6100 + $100+ Z170 + %~20.00 more expensive RAM and build a similar computer that may be slightly better in some specific games but then when you add up an entire budget build you can see where you could spend the $100.00 difference on a much more capable video card or another 250GB SSD for a 500GB Raid stripe.

This is where I think the argument for the not-guaranteed to overclock very welll, locked processor with an unusable GPU with the possibility to be disabled by an Intel "McUpdate". These unbalanced i3-6100 / Z170 combo falls apart unless you plan on wasting $130.00 now on a processor and finding out it can't handle newer multithreaded games that well (console engine development continue to take advantage of multi-cores, especially with the 7th core being unlocked on both PS4 and Xbox One to be used to speed up gaming) and then in a year likely having to sell anyway for a Core i5/17 to get the desired speeds you wanted in the first place.

If the i3-6100 was a little cheaper and you could pair it with a much cheaper H81 and still get away with Bclock overclocking it would be more attractive but you lose the APU capabilities of the CPU (you're losing something you're paying for) but you're forced into buying Intel's highest end chipset / motherboards to gain bclock overclocking.

The unlocked FX8320e + FX97/99 AMD solutions just make more sense if you're on a budget. You can build a much more balanced PC for the same or less money and you still get a very feature rich motherboard.

Just my 2 cents.

As for the OP, you do want to overclock your CPU. Each FX CPU is unlocked and has a some free performance on tap. You can get away with a simple $15.00 aftermarket cooler http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103182 that will allow you to reach roughly 4.2/4.3Ghz without much effort or voltage increase. These specific coolers have very quiet fans compared to stock so they're worth changing for even if you don't plan on overclocking. The 8350 is already pretty fast out of the gate but this cooler will make a pretty dramatic difference in acoustics and performance for a small investment. I still recommend grabbing a higher end Noctua Heatsink/Fan if you can afford it as they're top notch and offer amazing warranties and give you free bracket upgrades when new sockets come out but that adds to the total cost.

Anyway, get at least a $15.00 cooler (or grab a quality Noctua) and overclock that CPU to 4.3Ghz (4.5 or higher on an 8350 with a good Noctua is pretty reasonable) Ignore the "you should have bought X because Y" arguments. You already have a decent processor that will likely age better than any Core i3 series processor.

If you're dead set on water cooling grab at least a Corsair H60 (the cheaper CLC are pretty garbage quality wise or very loud) but I recommend the H105 for the 8350 if your case can accommodate the thickness of the radiator as its a little smaller and easier to mount and cheaper to find replacement fans for (120mm vs 140) and I believe cools the same or better than the 110 series, plus it's normally a little cheaper).

Good luck.