Mini Review: FX-8350

[guachi]

Until last week, I was using my 6+ year old PII x4 965. At the time, the 965 could match the best Intel had for a little less money.

I bought a FX-8350 for $90 from Newegg. That is, the price was $160 - $10 promo code -$60 from the free Warhammer game I was going to buy anyway.

Mini-review: It's 100% faster than my old system. I encode lots of video and it's almost exactly 100% faster. It's like Christmas in July!

Sure, there are Intel processors that are faster. But for $90 + MB for $80 (had to get a new one) + $0 for RAM (reused 8gb of DDR3) its perf/$, especially in encoding, is impossible to beat.

This may be one of the few usage cases where the AMD chip was actually a good idea, but I'm happy.

 

[nerp]

Hey nice. I think you scored a solid upgrade for the money spent. Always happy to know of another AMD box out there whirring away happily.

 

[whm1974]

Sure, there are Intel processors that are faster. But for $90 + MB for $80 (had to get a new one) + $0 for RAM (reused 8gb of DDR3) its perf/$, especially in encoding, is impossible to beat.

And you will see even better perf/$ with encoding if you upgrade your memory from 8GB to 16GB(or even more).

 

[Gikaseixas]

Are you planning to test some games? What about power consumption, temps?

Sent from my HUAWEI MT7-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[JimmiG]

For the price, that's pretty good, but the FX series really only make sense if you already have a compatible mobo. If you're going to spend the money for a new mobo anyway, Intel is the only way to go at the moment. I hope that changes with Zen.

I'd love to build an all-AMD Zen+Vega system just for fun. Due to the stagnation of the CPU market, there's no longer any way to "upgrade", so at least you can try different products just for fun. But at least it has to be faster than my 2013 system.

 

[Ventanni]

What a deal man. Glad you got a nice upgrade The FX-8350's are great processors.

 

[imported_falacy]

Great deal on the cpu, guachi! Despite the complaints, an FX can do a whole lot really well and for cheap.

I upgraded my Q8200 system to an FX-8320 in 2013 and still love the heck out of it. I primarily program in linux and run multiple virtualbox vms, which the system handle with ease. With the R9 270 video card I cam play games like Guild Wars 2 and elite dangerous on high detail too. Not bad at all for the $135CAD I paid for cpu. I have my doubts that an i3 would fair so well with the vms snd compiling software. The 8320 was only a couple percent off being twice as fast as the Q8200 in compiling when I tested it.

FSB of Core2 really sucks in games that use deferred rendering, but going from 800mhz ddr2 to 2133mhz ddr3 probably made more of a difference than hyper transport over fsb.

Anyway, as an old timey Anandtech reader from the turn of the century, I have to say that the reality that I am so happy with my FX-8320 system that I don't even feel like upgrading it is a perfect example of everything that has gone wrong with cpus and software lol... Or right, as the case may be!

Ps. The kids have been using the o'l Q8200 with Linux since I upgraded. Nice 17" Dell CRT from 2004 to boot, because... fingers and free!

 

[guachi]

And you will see even better perf/$ with encoding if you upgrade your memory from 8GB to 16GB(or even more).

I seriously thought about upgrading the memory. I'd end up with 2 EOL parts - the AM3+ motherboard and the DDR3 RAM. I decided against it when i realized I had 4x2 GB of RAM (that cost $200 in 2010!!!) and any upgrade would result in not being able to use some of my old memory.

Which isn't to say I won't get more RAM. It's really cheap. Just that it wasn't absolutely required for the upgrade as it would have been for an Intel upgrade.

For the price, that's pretty good, but the FX series really only make sense if you already have a compatible mobo. If you're going to spend the money for a new mobo anyway, Intel is the only way to go at the moment. I hope that changes with Zen.

The "had to upgrade mobo" is why I hadn't upgraded yet. My old mobo didn't have AM3+ (AM3 only, boo!!!) or USB3 (boo!!!) and it was a must for anything I got. And that feature was more $ in the past for the add-on support.

The final cost of the mobo was $77. The price dropped $15 the day I bought plus had a $10 rebate on top. I got my required USB3 (2 rear, 2 front -fast!) and 1150 audio (very good for the price!). And considering the CPU was $70 less than original, it's not too bad.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you can make the 8Gb RAM work then just stick with that. Btw try experimenting with undervolts and overclocks on your chip. You might be able to get it to perform much better than stock at lower power consumption.

For example, if you are running it @ stock, you can almost certainly undervolt that thing. The latest spin of FX chips have much nicer voltage curves on them than the stuff from 3 years ago.

try seeing if you can get 4.2 GHz to work @ 1.3v-1.35v vcore. You might be able to go lower than that range, too.

 

[guachi]

I had read about successful undervolts. The wattage of the AMD chip is certainly higher than current Intel chips, though exactly the same TDP as my old chip, 125 watts.

It looks like .1 volt less is easy to achieve. Can't hurt to lower wattage when the CPU is going 100% for hours and hours (and hours) encoding video.

 

[SlowSpyder]

For people who already have AM3+, an FX upgrade can make sense. I too went from a Phenom II (1090T) to an FX and don't regret it.

 

[whm1974]

I seriously thought about upgrading the memory. I'd end up with 2 EOL parts - the AM3+ motherboard and the DDR3 RAM. I decided against it when i realized I had 4x2 GB of RAM (that cost $200 in 2010!!!) and any upgrade would result in not being able to use some of my old memory.

Which isn't to say I won't get more RAM. It's really cheap. Just that it wasn't absolutely required for the upgrade as it would have been for an Intel upgrade.

Well you did the best you could, and I don't blame you for not wanting to put money into an EOL product.

For AMD's sake I really hope they release Zen this year.

 

[Iron Woode]

Until last week, I was using my 6+ year old PII x4 965. At the time, the 965 could match the best Intel had for a little less money.

I bought a FX-8350 for $90 from Newegg. That is, the price was $160 - $10 promo code -$60 from the free Warhammer game I was going to buy anyway.

Mini-review: It's 100% faster than my old system. I encode lots of video and it's almost exactly 100% faster. It's like Christmas in July!

Sure, there are Intel processors that are faster. But for $90 + MB for $80 (had to get a new one) + $0 for RAM (reused 8gb of DDR3) its perf/$, especially in encoding, is impossible to beat.

This may be one of the few usage cases where the AMD chip was actually a good idea, but I'm happy.

when my PII x4 965BE system died after 6 years, I replaced it with a Haswell upgrade.

I scored an I5 4570 for $115 and bought an Asus H81M-E board. Using 4gb ddr3 1333 it encodes videos (handbrake) twice as fast as before.

My AMD board was only AM3. And rather spend money on a aging socket I went with Intel.

I wish you luck and I hope you enjoy your system for a long time.

 

[Crono]

My main PC is Skylake-based now, but my old/secondary machine has an 8350 in it. I don't regret getting it a few years ago; it's certainly provided plenty of bang-for-the-buck, especially for (occasional) video editing. AMD may not have beaten Intel in a long time at the high end, but the FX-8350 is still plenty fast for most uses.

The AM3/AM3+ socket/platform is definitely aging now, though, so it's really only worth looking at if you can get it on sale or bundled with something you want. An i5-6400 is only $30 more than a FX-8350 on Newegg, not including sales/codes. There aren't that many good, low-priced AM3+ motherboards that support faster DDR3 and have most newer features (e.g. USB 3.0/3.1, M.2), considering you can get a broader variety of LGA 1151 mobos with DDR4 support - and, thankfully, DDR4 is relatively cheap now - starting at ~$45.

 

[kawi6rr]

I've been running an FX 8350 with an R9 290 for a few years now and it's been great, does everything I need and is smoking fast. That's a great deal you got on that chip!

 

[Leyawiin]

The only way that somewhat makes any sense is the free game (and I personally would never base a long term hardware purchase on a game I may only play a few months). You still bought a new AM3+ motherboard and an FX processor in 2016. Think about it folks.

 

[superstition]

I'd end up with 2 EOL parts - the AM3+ motherboard and the DDR3 RAM.

Now that AM3+ offers m.2 x4 and USB 3.1C there isn't really much concern over it being EOL — if one even needs those. It's not like Intel's sockets hang around very long anyway.

Broadwell C is a nice gaming chip but by the time it was released its boards were EOL.

It comes down to price and what you plan to do with it. If one has a Micro Center one can get an 8320E for $90 with $40 off a board. It's hard to do better than that if you can handle the technical requirements of overclocking. Pair it with a midrange GPU like the 480 and it's not a bad system unless you spend a lot of time playing poorly-threaded games like SWTOR.

DDR3 RAM is also not an issue since DDR4 has worse latency. Hruska estimated it would take DDR4 to 4200 before it would catch up to DDR3 due to the latency issue. DDR4 was designed for servers (reduced power consumption) not for desktop enthusiasts.

You still bought a new AM3+ motherboard and an FX processor in 2016. Think about it folks.

8320E and UD3P board = $130 plus tax from Micro Center (when not on sale). I got my combo for less because the board was on sale, too. I think it was something like $117 for both. I got a used dual tower 140mm Zalman cooler from Newegg for $15 and overclocked to 4.4 GHz. Hard to beat that with an Intel system for performance per dollar.

The 8320E with ASRock 970A-G/3.1 (with m.2) is now $117 before tax. It is probably fine for 4.2 or 4.3 GHz, with a fan on the VRM sink. Without a Micro Center, though, I would be much less inclined to buy an FX/AM3+ combo now.

 

[DrMrLordX]

DDR3 RAM is also not an issue since DDR4 has worse latency. Hruska estimated it would take DDR4 to 4200 before it would catch up to DDR3 due to the latency issue. DDR4 was designed for servers (reduced power consumption) not for desktop enthusiasts.

Skylake seems to do well with DDR4, and it loves the extra speed when you can get it. Regardless, the market jumped ship to DDR4 so we're stuck with it for better or for worse.