Best AM3+ CPU for the money?

[DarkEvonik]

Hello everyone.

I'm an actual AMD FX-4100 user (since 2012 when I made my first build), and now I feel the need to upgrade my PC, and in order to do it I'm getting a new motherboard and CPU.

My question is: as of 2015, wich one is the one CPU you would suggest me to buy? I've been going thru Amazon and I've found that the 8320 is about $135.00, but I don't know if the new generation of FX processors are better or the old 8320 can do the same job.

As for the use I will be giving the CPU: I mostly play games, I don't do editing or rendering. I mostly use my computer on games and rarely Visual Studio programming. But I feel that this upgrade should last me longer than 3 years, because I don't feel like getting a new CPU too soon after this purchase.

That's all I have to say, if you need more info I can post it below. I hope I made myself clear, sorry for any confusion I made.

 

[clutchc]

Since you are getting a new motherboard too, now would be a good time to switch to Intel.

 

[DarkEvonik]

Since you are getting a new motherboard too, now would be a good time to switch to Intel.

I've think about switching brands, but I'm not too familiar with Intel and I know that my budget would have to stretch in order to get a good and lasting processor. Any suggestion for a MB and CPU?

 

[Redneck5439]

Honestly right now is a troubled time to be considering an upgrade or new build. If you are going to switch to Intel its going to be costly. Intel high end boards (that can overclock well) are pricey and the low end boards, although highly recommended for cheap builds are problematic at times especially if you want to overclock. Intel processors in the price range perform just about on par with AMD processors at the price range on modern games. With DX12 games right around the corner the disparity is going to be even less in the near future as DX12 will allow all 8 cores of an FX8xxx processor to communicate with the GPU. On the other hand the best processor to upgrade to would be the FX 8370. It is easily capable to overclocking to the level of the FX 9590 at lower Vcore, power usage and heat production. It will require a good motherboard to be able to do it though (Asus Sabertooth, Formula V, ect). If you have a Micro Center in your area they are always running great deals and you could pick up the motherboard and processor cheaper.

As for your question About the FX processors the very best binned FX 8xxx processors are made into FX 8370 and FX 9xxx series. The worst binned processors are made into FX 8320. The FX 8370 is also a newer more tweaked processor and has a slight edge clock per clock over the FX 8350. Having the best binning also means your going to be able to hit better overclocks at lower power usage and less heat production than anything else in the FX 83xx or Fx 95xx line.

One more thing to consider is that AMD is going to be releasing its brand new Zen and AM4 platform Q3-Q4 2016. Not a whole lot is known about Zen or AM4, however we do know AM4 will boast DDR4 memory and Zen will be on 14nm process (much better power usage). AMD has confirmed that Zen will have 40% IPC gain over Excavator which will place it somewhere around the processing power of Intel Ivy Bridge. AMD may not recapture the performance crown with first generation Zen, however Zen and AM4 will be a great upgrade and you may just want to hold off, save up and upgrade when it releases next year rather than being on an older platform and processor (which you will be at your price range upgrading to either Intel or AM3+). If Zen doesn't live up to expectations you could always then apply your saved money to upgrading to Skylake, however be warned that Intel has gone cheaper on their newer processors. The processor and motherboards of Skylake aren't made quite as robust as earlier Intel chips (just like with Haswell Intel cut costs with cheaper assembly- just ask someone coming from a robust Sandy Bridge processor to Haswell and trying to hit huge overclocks... only if you pop the top of the processor) as a result a lot of aftermarket cooling options are actually cracking motherboards and damaging Skylake processors due to too much pressure on their cheaper design. It will be interesting to see how well these processors survive the test of time if they can't even survive having an aftermarket cooler put on them.

 

[Redneck5439]

Just thought I would add I upgraded my computer from Phenom II 965BE to FX 8350 and most recently to FX 8370. The FX 8370 is by and large the best processor I've had in my personal system. In multi core benchmarks it is able to hold its own against i7s and easily beats i5s. Single core of course Intel is king, however modern games are heading away from one or two core gaming, heading away from DX 11, and by next year DX 12 multi threaded games will be the new norm. As it stands right now with my Sapphire R9 290 I'm able to play all the new releases at Ultra settings @ 1080p with no performance problems. My r9 290 runs at 100% during game play so I have no bottleneck. Witcher 3 runs like a dream and even older titles like Skyrim don't give me any troubles even running tons of mods. My FX 8370 is a true gaming computer, wouldn't hesitate to build another one if I needed it.

 

[DarkEvonik]

Just thought I would add I upgraded my computer from Phenom II 965BE to FX 8350 and most recently to FX 8370. The FX 8370 is by and large the best processor I've had in my personal system. In multi core benchmarks it is able to hold its own against i7s and easily beats i5s. Single core of course Intel is king, however modern games are heading away from one or two core gaming, heading away from DX 11, and by next year DX 12 multi threaded games will be the new norm. As it stands right now with my Sapphire R9 290 I'm able to play all the new releases at Ultra settings @ 1080p with no performance problems. My r9 290 runs at 100% during game play so I have no bottleneck. Witcher 3 runs like a dream and even older titles like Skyrim don't give me any troubles even running tons of mods. My FX 8370 is a true gaming computer, wouldn't hesitate to build another one if I needed it.

I can agree to what you say, new gens are relyong more on core count, and just btw I also have a Radeon R9 270x HAWK, from MSI and I almost never (on CPU demanding games) reach 100% usage, meaning my CPU is a bottleneck. Regarding the 8320, what do you mean by "binned"? And do you think it can pair well with my GPU? Or is it a bad choice and I need to throw in a couple more bucks for the 8370?

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

 

[Redneck5439]

Binning is the categorizing of finished products based on their thermal and frequency characteristics or in the most simple terms its mostly dependent on the silicon used for that particular single chip. In layman's terms AMD doesn't produce its own silicon (which has been the reason for a lot of production delays and other problems for AMD). The silicon for each processor is quality tested by AMD before release and has to meet a certain standard ie it has to perform at least on base level performance so a FX 8350 has to have a totally stable core clock at 4.0Ghz at standard Vcore ie thermal an frequency characteristics for FX 8350. When a chip is tested below that standard it becomes an FX 8320, when a chip is tested to exceed that standard by a good degree it is made into an FX 8370 or FX 95xx. Before the FX 95xx series and the FX 8370 all chips that met or exceeded the FX 8350 were simply FX 8350 creating what most call the chip lottery--- you could get a processor that would overclock to 5Ghz plus or you may get a processor that pushing Vcore to the limit on liquid cooling would only result in 4.5Ghz, it was all luck of the draw. With the best binned chips now FX 8370 you are practically certain to get a processor that can overclock to 5Ghz plus with lower Vcore and lower heat production than FX 8350 or even the FX 95xx series (as those chips operate at much higher wattage). On water cooling my FX 8370 is totally stable @ 5.0Ghz @ 1.44 Vcore and hits 5.3Ghz @ 1.5 Vcore (totally stable). The processor works so well that for everyday usage I keep my system at 4.5Ghz as there isn't a game around that I can't play on Ultra settings (1080p) with my R9 290 @ 100% usage (no bottleneck). Once video games actually start to make my system work, or I'm not getting 100% out of my GPU then I have the option of overclocking back to 5.3Ghz. Really by the time that happens I'll be ready to upgrade to Zen. With the performance I'm getting from this system I don't plan on upgrading until Zen is in its second generation.

As for your particular needs- if you need to upgrade now and can't wait for Zen- the FX 8320 can probably handle the R9 270X on demanding games with no bottleneck and should be able to overclock to at least 4Ghz or a little better, however if you want a little more future proofing and want to be certain you won't bottleneck I do highly recommend spending a few more dollars for the FX 8370. It is newer and tweaked for better performance, with its superior binning it also runs with less Vcore and lower heat than previous processors (FX 8320 and 8350).

 

[DarkEvonik]

Binning is the categorizing of finished products based on their thermal and frequency characteristics or in the most simple terms its mostly dependent on the silicon used for that particular single chip. In layman's terms AMD doesn't produce its own silicon (which has been the reason for a lot of production delays and other problems for AMD). The silicon for each processor is quality tested by AMD before release and has to meet a certain standard ie it has to perform at least on base level performance so a FX 8350 has to have a totally stable core clock at 4.0Ghz at standard Vcore ie thermal an frequency characteristics for FX 8350. When a chip is tested below that standard it becomes an FX 8320, when a chip is tested to exceed that standard by a good degree it is made into an FX 8370 or FX 95xx. Before the FX 95xx series and the FX 8370 all chips that met or exceeded the FX 8350 were simply FX 8350 creating what most call the chip lottery--- you could get a processor that would overclock to 5Ghz plus or you may get a processor that pushing Vcore to the limit on liquid cooling would only result in 4.5Ghz, it was all luck of the draw. With the best binned chips now FX 8370 you are practically certain to get a processor that can overclock to 5Ghz plus with lower Vcore and lower heat production than FX 8350 or even the FX 95xx series (as those chips operate at much higher wattage). On water cooling my FX 8370 is totally stable @ 5.0Ghz @ 1.44 Vcore and hits 5.3Ghz @ 1.5 Vcore (totally stable). The processor works so well that for everyday usage I keep my system at 4.5Ghz as there isn't a game around that I can't play on Ultra settings (1080p) with my R9 290 @ 100% usage (no bottleneck). Once video games actually start to make my system work, or I'm not getting 100% out of my GPU then I have the option of overclocking back to 5.3Ghz. Really by the time that happens I'll be ready to upgrade to Zen. With the performance I'm getting from this system I don't plan on upgrading until Zen is in its second generation.

As for your particular needs- if you need to upgrade now and can't wait for Zen- the FX 8320 can probably handle the R9 270X on demanding games with no bottleneck and should be able to overclock to at least 4Ghz or a little better, however if you want a little more future proofing and want to be certain you won't bottleneck I do highly recommend spending a few more dollars for the FX 8370. It is newer and tweaked for better performance, with its superior binning it also runs with less Vcore and lower heat than previous processors (FX 8320 and 8350).

That's quite interesting, I've learnt something new today. After your input I guess I'll be sticking with a 8370, I'm not so eager for Zen, and I know I can manage with the 8370 for a long time. DDR4 is available, but DDR3 is not dead yet so I can manage. I really appreciate everyone's help, I've made my decision.

 

[Redneck5439]

Binning is the categorizing of finished products based on their thermal and frequency characteristics or in the most simple terms its mostly dependent on the silicon used for that particular single chip. In layman's terms AMD doesn't produce its own silicon (which has been the reason for a lot of production delays and other problems for AMD). The silicon for each processor is quality tested by AMD before release and has to meet a certain standard ie it has to perform at least on base level performance so a FX 8350 has to have a totally stable core clock at 4.0Ghz at standard Vcore ie thermal an frequency characteristics for FX 8350. When a chip is tested below that standard it becomes an FX 8320, when a chip is tested to exceed that standard by a good degree it is made into an FX 8370 or FX 95xx. Before the FX 95xx series and the FX 8370 all chips that met or exceeded the FX 8350 were simply FX 8350 creating what most call the chip lottery--- you could get a processor that would overclock to 5Ghz plus or you may get a processor that pushing Vcore to the limit on liquid cooling would only result in 4.5Ghz, it was all luck of the draw. With the best binned chips now FX 8370 you are practically certain to get a processor that can overclock to 5Ghz plus with lower Vcore and lower heat production than FX 8350 or even the FX 95xx series (as those chips operate at much higher wattage). On water cooling my FX 8370 is totally stable @ 5.0Ghz @ 1.44 Vcore and hits 5.3Ghz @ 1.5 Vcore (totally stable). The processor works so well that for everyday usage I keep my system at 4.5Ghz as there isn't a game around that I can't play on Ultra settings (1080p) with my R9 290 @ 100% usage (no bottleneck). Once video games actually start to make my system work, or I'm not getting 100% out of my GPU then I have the option of overclocking back to 5.3Ghz. Really by the time that happens I'll be ready to upgrade to Zen. With the performance I'm getting from this system I don't plan on upgrading until Zen is in its second generation.

As for your particular needs- if you need to upgrade now and can't wait for Zen- the FX 8320 can probably handle the R9 270X on demanding games with no bottleneck and should be able to overclock to at least 4Ghz or a little better, however if you want a little more future proofing and want to be certain you won't bottleneck I do highly recommend spending a few more dollars for the FX 8370. It is newer and tweaked for better performance, with its superior binning it also runs with less Vcore and lower heat than previous processors (FX 8320 and 8350).

That's quite interesting, I've learnt something new today. After your input I guess I'll be sticking with a 8370, I'm not so eager for Zen, and I know I can manage with the 8370 for a long time. DDR4 is available, but DDR3 is not dead yet so I can manage. I really appreciate everyone's help, I've made my decision.

+1 I'm with you there brother, the FX 8370 will manage well into Zen's second generation. With games limited by the PS4 and Xbone the FX 8370 with good GPU will be able to game the full lifetime of the current console generation. By the time they come out with PS5 and it has trouble keeping up second generation Zen will be a great upgrade (along with a new and improved GPU). Enjoy your new processor, take it from me, its a beast