Which Processor?? Crosshair V Formula-Z

[EXCellR8]

Local computer store was liquidating a bunch of stock, so I grabbed an ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z board that was marked down some... along with a few other goodies but no CPU.

It's been awhile since I've build an AMD machine, so I was looking for suggestions on a processor. I have an Intel i5-3570k in one of my machines so if I got something that could perform around those lines that would be great. I see the FX-6300(?) is a popular pick, and offers good gaming and task performance at a reasonable price. The 8-core chips are very tempting but honestly I don't think I could use them for what they are intended--but at the same time at ~$200 I wouldn't feel like I was wasting a good deal of money.

Any suggestions are welcome; I will be reusing a 1/2" ID liquid cooling system and probably won't OC much. System will be for high end gaming and moderate to heavier tasking.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[AtenRa]

FX8320, OC to 4GHz

 

[VirtualLarry]

Fx-6350

 

[EXCellR8]

at $140 or so the 6350 seems to be a very good choice, and sits right below 4ghz. it's not that I have anything against overclocking, but I don't like to mess with my RAM and will typically use a standard speed. there really wouldn't be any logical reason for me to OC anyway unless I wanted to see some higher bench numbers... not into it.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Sell it, get a cheaper motherboard, and the difference means effectively a free CPU! :awe:

 

[Durvelle27]

go for a FX 8320 and OC it 4.2GHz

 

[EXCellR8]

go for a FX 8320 and OC it 4.2GHz

could be done easily i suppose considering i'm on liquid, though I feel the high OC would be a bit excessive for a chip with so many cores. the extra power with encoding and rendering would certainly be welcome though.

thanks for all the suggestions btw.

 

[Durvelle27]

could be done easily i suppose considering i'm on liquid, though I feel the high OC would be a bit excessive for a chip with so many cores. the extra power with encoding and rendering would certainly be welcome though.

thanks for all the suggestions btw.

i have a FX 8320 and can oc to 4.5GHz with a Hyper 212+ with no problems so you'll be fine with all 8cores

 

[AtenRa]

could be done easily i suppose considering i'm on liquid, though I feel the high OC would be a bit excessive for a chip with so many cores. the extra power with encoding and rendering would certainly be welcome though.

thanks for all the suggestions btw.

4GHz is the default frequency of FX8350, 4.2GHz is not high OC for the FX8320.
I would OC the FX8320 by raising the NB to 2400MHz, 240MHz for the Bus Speed and 17 or 17,5 multiplier.

 

[EXCellR8]

sounds good. might as well ask about the 6350 though. do you think i could, speaking hypothetically, reach ~4.5GHz with that chip or would it not allow for any OC? are all the FX series processors unlocked? there doesn't seem to be that much info on that chip specifically...

i don't really have too much time for games anymore, but is there any (real) benefit from having 8 cores for gaming or is it kind of a toss up when speaking about 4+? i've noticed it can be quite handy with precaching and calulating shaders/lighting and stuff but would anything be noticeable?

i have an HD7970 so I'm not really concerned about framerate; therefore, I guess either CPU would be suitable. right now it's looking like i should just shoot for the big 8.

 

[Durvelle27]

sounds good. might as well ask about the 6350 though. do you think i could, speaking hypothetically, reach ~4.5GHz with that chip or would it not allow for any OC? are all the FX series processors unlocked? there doesn't seem to be that much info on that chip specifically...

i don't really have too much time for games anymore, but is there any (real) benefit from having 8 cores for gaming or is it kind of a toss up when speaking about 4+? i've noticed it can be quite handy with precaching and calulating shaders/lighting and stuff but would anything be noticeable?

i have an HD7970 so I'm not really concerned about framerate; therefore, I guess either CPU would be suitable. right now it's looking like i should just shoot for the big 8.

All FX chip's are Unlocked so all of them can be OC'd.

In some newer games the 8cores come in handy and i really wouldn't want to pair a HD 7970 with anything below a FX 8320 or i5-3470

 

[EXCellR8]

my card isn't anything real special... base model 3GB with no OC. i had it paired with my older but highly overclocked i7-920, which seemed fine, but it was an older board. this is the system i am rebuilding/converting to AMD since I wanted a change; i think the board may be on its way out.

along with my i5-3570 the 7970 usually laughs in the face of whatever i throw at it, but since I use eyefinity I am sometimes not able to max everything out in games with a single card, but performance is good otherwise--tasking included.

thanks again all for the help... i should be able to order something by the end of the week. still kinda on the fence about going with either 6 or 8 cores. leaning more toward 8, i'll figure it out.

 

[guskline]

I have a FX 8320 OC'd to 4.3 Ghz on an Asus Sabertooth 990FX Rev2 mb. The CPU is cooled by a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro liquid cooler. In my Bios I teaked some of the cpu parameters a bit but the voltage remained stock. It is rock solid in OCCT, IBT, AMD Overdrive.

BTW, the FX 8350 is marked down to 179.99 at Newegg until May 6. I have a FX 8350 @ 4.6 Ghz and it is a smooth chip. With the temporary reduction in price the 8350 is only $5 more than the 8320..

 

[bononos]

......

thanks again all for the help... i should be able to order something by the end of the week. still kinda on the fence about going with either 6 or 8 cores. leaning more toward 8, i'll figure it out.

The downside of the 8xxx is that because of AMD's lax binning because its in trouble, the power consumption may be way high enough to cause some mbs to throttle. The lower models will have less of this problem but its the 8xxx series which are really competitive to the i5. So you are in a quandary.

 

[AtenRa]

The downside of the 8xxx is that because of AMD's lax binning because its in trouble, the power consumption may be way high enough to cause some mbs to throttle. The lower models will have less of this problem but its the 8xxx series which are really competitive to the i5. So you are in a quandary.

He already has the best AM3+ motherboard and NO he will not have a problem with any FX CPU. The problem with some motherboards is in the motherboards VRM implementation and not with the CPU.

 

[EXCellR8]

That is if the board even works like it should... I've read some not-so-positive reviews so I'm sort of crossing my fingers. I just bought it on a whim seeing it marked way down at a local store, so I grabbed it.

And also, I bought the FX-6350... despite the vote for a 8320. I should be able to see the same performance in 90% of games and honestly I don't think I need all those cores for any type of work I do. The heaviest my machines see is mental and v ray rendering in 3ds Max and the occasional 1080p encoding. I'm sure the 83xx processors would come out ahead with that stuff but I don't do much of it anymore; at the end of the day even my quad cores handled those types of things just fine.

I'm not all that into the benchmarking thing so I should be happy with the 6-core; I'll fiddle around with the OC at some point.

Thanks for the help!