AMD ''Vishera'' FX-Series CPU Specifications Confirmed
A leaked AMD document coming out of EXPreview, shows the details on the first three FX "Vishera" based processors by AMD.
The new CPUs incorporate AMD's "Piledriver" architecture, and will be available on launch as an eight-core, six-core, and four-core processors. In a document received by Chinese site EXPreview titled "2012 consumer-level desktop platform Quick Reference Guide for Desktops", AMD listed FX processors and the upcoming release of the APU model, the core number, frequency, and the TDP specifications.
The flagship FX-8350 is listed with a 4.00 GHz clock speed (4.20 GHz TurboCore speed), eight-cores, and TDP of 125W. The FX-6300 features 3.50 GHz clock speed (4.10 GHz TurboCore speed), six-cores and TDP of 95W. To round off the list, the FX-4320 features 4.00 GHz clock speed (4.20 GHz TurboCore speed), four-cores and TDP of 95W. None of the FX processors support integrated GPU, but support a full list of "Piledriver" features, such as AMD Perfect Picture HD, AMD Steady Video 2.0 Technology and AMD Wireless Display.
In addition, the leaked document confirms clock speeds, integrated GPU, and GPU cores of several FM2 A-series APUs, such as the A10-5700, A8-5500 and E2-1800.

You might be surprised. Disable one core per module to eliminate resource sharing (letting the still active core of each module get a significant performance per Hz boost while cutting power consumption by 30-40%) and overclocking the CPU and CPU/NB freuqneyc (increases the L3 cache frequency) on the FX-8120 and the FX-8150 can make them able to compete with the K edition i5s. Doing the same with this FX-8350 might let it be able to top Intel in lightly threaded performance until Haswell launches and even compete with the quad core LGA 1155 i7s in highly threaded performance with this *mod* and beat them without it.
It might actually be one of the best things around if used properly.
It might actually get Intel to update the i3s with Ivy if they intend to do that at all until Haswell comes out. Ivy i3s with raised frequencies relative to the Sandy i3s could make a good middle-ground between the i5s and the older i3s that can compete with AMD's quad core Vishera and Phenom II CPUs better.
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Is this something that's confirmed or just BS? i believe we all want the source of this statement.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21865
That was with mere thread-scheduling improvement rather than disabling of cores, had a frequency disadvantage to the normal core configuration, and it stil managed a 10-20% improvement (usually closer to 20%). The CPU/NB frequency controls, among other things, the L3 cache frequency (defaults to 2.2GHz). Increasing it to the CPU frequency would make it a full-speed cache and that helps a lot in performance per Hz of the CPU frequency too. This is not BS.
Also, with a 30-40% power consumption drop (you can't expect halving the core count to not reduce power consumption greatly, can you), overclocking headroom increases (and it was already pretty high). These CPUs can probably break 6GHz on air. Admittedly, that is an estimation rather than provable fact right now, but my estimations are usually pretty good and considering that the current FX 81xx CPUs can already break 5GHz on lower end Air coolers in the same configuration (they can reach for 4.5GHz on their stock coolers with all eight of their cores, what do you expect), chances are good that these CPUs which have higher thermal headroom at a given frequency (and don't need as high voltages to reach said frequencies) can hit a higher frequency.
Another thing to keep in mind is that they already have higher performance per Hz than the FX-81xx CPUs did.
Too bad there still doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to dump my near 4 yrs old Phenom II. 4 cores at 3GHz is still good enough.
Damn, 4 yrs and if the GTX280 hadn't been such a dud, it could still run new games at max settings as originally purchased. Progress really isn't racing on like it used to...
AMD probably beat Phenom II significantly, but I highly doubt that they can fight with the i5s without the mods that I've mentioned. Chances are that it will be one or two more generations before they can do without them and still meet or beat the Sandy and Ivy Bridge i5s and even then, the Ivy i5s can have their IHS removed and the crap paste switched out with better paste (making them actually better than Sandy at overclocking) and give them a run for the money. Disabling one core per module and upping that CPU/NB frequency is a necessity to truly meet or beat the i5s with overclocking, at least for now.
EDIT: Even with the mods that I've mentioned, AMD needs a higher frequency to compete with Intel. There's no trick that I'mn aware of left to get AMD on-par with Intel in performance per Hz right now. Maybe getting top-end memory as well as the mod and overclocking the CPU frequency and the CPU/NB frequency will help, but even then, it's unlikely that it will match Intel. Maybe with another generation, AMD can do that, but if they can keep frequencies this high, they might not need to match Intel in CPU performance per Hz per core anyway.
Too bad there still doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to dump my near 4 yrs old Phenom II. 4 cores at 3GHz is still good enough.
Damn, 4 yrs and if the GTX280 hadn't been such a dud, it could still run new games at max settings as originally purchased. Progress really isn't racing on like it used to...
Try Sleeping Dogs and such at maximum settings for 1080p and we'll see if it really can handle today's games with maxed out settings (it can't even come close because even no AA would probably be too much for it, let alone maxed out AA and other such quality enhancements). Heck, many games today are far too much for any graphics setup when you play them on their absolute maximum settings.
They'll probably work like the current FX CPUs do in that regard, but it's usually recommended that you use them in an AM3+ socket.
For everyone else, those "mods" he's talking about, ~I~ can confirm they work as advertised. You can further enhance the speed with AMD PSCheck and thread affinity (windows).
Time to explain Window's schizophrenic task scheduling engine. Threads are dynamically scheduled to whatever resource is free, those threads are forcibly interrupted several times per second to allow other tasks to get a chance at running. That is how task swapping works, your PC is constantly switching between a few hundred threads even if the thread is in wait state and only gets 1 cycle. Now what does windows do with your thread when it's time to switch it back? You'd figure it would put it back where it got it but no, windows will assign the thread to whichever "core" is least free, so you thread can jump around between all cores on the CPU.
That is why "turbo boost" rarely seems to work, rather then one core at 100% and three at 0% you have four cores at 25%. We use processor affinity to force the thread to stay on one or two CPU's that we chose, this way we can ensure the other modules will clock down / turn off to conserve TDP. That in turn free's up power to boost the two modules we are using to higher frequencies.
My most successful attempt as with my laptop AMD A8-3550MX. It's a 2.0 Ghz four core APU (K10.5), by down clocking three cores to 800Mhz I can get one core to run stably at 3.0Ghz. I can even get two cores to run stably at 3.0Ghz but as the CPU shares the same cooling system as the GPU, I can't be doing any gaming. You can use this same methodology to get any AMD CPU to run better, including bulldozer. Disabling every odd numbered core (1.3.5.7) yields a four "core" CPU that is a bit slim on the ALU's though doesn't have any arbitration issues with cache / instruction decoder. You could also only disable the last odd core leaving you with three full modules and one dedicated core module. Run like normally and when your going to lead a lightly threaded single task program, schedule it on the last core to get maximum performance.
Now I haven't played with PD, I don't know how effective their tweaks were with the instruction decoder / cacheing system. At worst you can do the same as you do with BD to pump out more performance.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?275873-AMD-FX-quot-Bulldozer-quot-Review-%284%29-!exclusive!-Excuse-for-1-Threaded-Perf
Interesting, cos of the number of benchies shown