AMD Vishera FX-6300 & FX-4300 Review Comment Thread

[SKYMTL]

While the FX-8350 may have hogged the lion's share of AMD's Vishera launch coverage, a number of more affordable processors were introduced alongside it. The six core FX-6300 and quad core FX-4300 are both priced under $140 and should provide some real competition for Intel's i3 series Ivy Bridge CPUs.

Read more here: AMD Vishera FX-6300 & FX-4300 Review

[YoungMan]

I was expecting the quad core to be significantly better than its APU counterpart.

[SKYMTL]

How would it be though? The APU is able to get to 4.2GHz with Turbo while the quad only gets to 4.0. Granted, TDP overhead means the FX-4300 will spend more time at or near its max Turbo rate (due to the lack of an internal graphics processor) but that will only affect some tests and not others.

[Mena]

Wow....

AMD seriously needs to smarten up with its power draws for its CPU's. AMD CPU's are really power hungry compared to Intels.

[YoungMan]

I was going for more of a value/pricing perspective. FM boards are much cheaper than AM3+, and for the same price of the CPU, you get a decent onboard video. The CPU difference is too small to make the FX worth it.

[frontier204]

Thanks for throwing in the gaming bench for the overclocking section. It lets me know that it'll be a downgrade for me if I replace my Sandy Bridge platform that can't overclock with an overclocked FX for gaming I wanted to try my first custom water loop with these FX but if it won't make a difference and I'll have to replace my UPS for the added power consumption...

I'm surprised how little a difference the lack of shared cache has between the A10 and the FX-4300 in everything other than gaming with dedicated GPU, a bench in which both AMD CPUs are slaughtered by Intel at the same price point. IMHO you got that conclusion correct in not awarding the 4300. The FX-4300 is comparable to Sandy Bridge Pentiums in performance, but the price is just too high to put those in the same bracket.

[SKYMTL]

I really had to scratch my head over AMD's quad core pricing strategy. I had a whole other section written but it wouldn't have really added to the conclusion since it was more opinion-based rather than factual.

Basically, I can't see why AMD would want to protect the A10 series, especially against the FX-4300. The APUs are aimed at an OEM / system builder market while the FX-series certainly isn't so there can't be all that much product overlap. Had the FX-4300 been priced at $110, I would have been singing its praises.

[Bond007]

Nice review and nice conclusion. Seems the 6300 and 8350 would be solid recommendations if you don't mind a bit of extra power consumption for the price, and its not a dedicated gaming rig. The 4300 performance drop per $ is just too great.

I am now wondering about the 8320 though. I am curious if they will get as much of an OC as a 8350 given the money saved going with the 8320. I am not sure if its performance would end up closer to a 6300 or a 8350, given it has similar clocks to a 6300, but the core count of the 8350.

[sswilson]

IMO there's still nothing there to recommend one of these over either a deneb (got a 965 for $90 the other day) or the hex cores (not so easy to find these days) unless there's a specific application which takes advantage of their new instructions.

I haven't seen it mentioned so am assuming that the answer in no, but am wondering if anything in win8 benefits from bulldozer/piledriver? (Not that I'm going to be running win8..... ;) ).

[upcoast604]

Some what disappointed again, there's nothing worth ditching the 965be for.