Solution

The only decent processors in the FX lineup are the 81xx series.

Anub1s

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May 27, 2012
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If budget allows, I vote for this.

If you're building on a budget and intend to spend the money saved on, say, a better GPU or something, AMD will be the way to go.
 

The 980 is the best at overclocking? haha
Yes it would be better for gaming than the 4170 with a small OC
Still 2500k would be best if it fits the budget
 

SmartGeek

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Jun 3, 2012
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Hi Operationplague,

It depends on what you want to do with your PC. If you plan to game, then you should go with the AMD FX-4100 not FX-4170. FX-4170 is just a pre-overclocked version of FX-4100 for increased price. You can overclock the FX-4100 to 4.2GHz yourself without increasing voltages or cooling power and it will provide equal performance just like the FX-4170. Several benchmarks on the internet show that AMD FX-4100 performs similar or in some cases a little bit better than other Bulldozers out there as most of the games only take advantage of 2 or 4 cores.

But if you want to do video converting, compression of large files, etc., which can take advantage of more cores, then you should buy the AMD FX-6100 CPU. Again, buying FX-6200 is just a waste of money as it is just a pre-overclocked version of the FX-6100 and is a little bit more costlier.

Regards,
SmartGeek
 

Most Phenom II's top out at around 4ghz regardless, 4.5ghz if you are lucky and have roughly $1000 on cooling.
 

$hawn

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Oct 28, 2009
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What u've said is mostly true, but not entirely. Ofcource ramping up the 4100 clocks to 4.2GHz will give u the same performance as a 4170, but it will not always do it using the same amount of power draw, or within the same voltage ranges:) its a small gamble.

No 2 semi-conductor IC's are electrically identical, even if they came from the same wafer, sitting next to each other. All chips are tested against a list of parameters to determine what they end up becoming.

Logically thinking, it'd be safe to assume that the slightly better quality bulldozer chips(with respect to power draw, voltages etc), become FX 8150 or server versions, and the worst ones become FX 4100, even if they have all 4 modules working.
 

Tacoboy

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May 13, 2006
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I'm in the same boat, FX-6200 vs. FX-4170, want to swap AMD 945 & 880G MB to FX CPU & AMD 970 MB)
I'm thinking of upgrading Win 7 to Win 8.

Wonder if Win 8 would take advantage of 6 cores (over 4 cores)?
Does Win 8 have better multi-thread support over Win 7?