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Report: AMD CPU Price Drops Incoming; New FX-CPUs

By - Source: XbitLabs | B 39 comments

AMD might be dropping some of its CPU prices in a couple of weeks, which is unarguably a good thing.

Xbitlabs.com reports that AMD is dropping the prices of a handful of its FX-Series processors on September 1. Along with these price drops, AMD is also launching three new CPUs.

The new CPUs in question are the FX-8370, FX-8370E and FX-8320E. The first two are both eight-core chips and have a base frequency of 4.1 GHz, with a Boost frequency of 4.3 GHz. The E variant has a TDP of 95 W, while the standard version has a TDP of 125 W. Curiously, they are both listed at $189.

The FX-8320E features the same 3.5 GHz base frequency, and it has the same 4.0 GHz Boost frequency as its FX-8320 counterpart, as well as the same $139 price tag.

The price reductions appear to be AMD's effort to wiggle itself into a more competitive position. The FX-9590, which has cost around $800 in the past and was only available to OEMs at first, will have its retail price reduced from $299 to $215. The FX-9370 will drop in price to $199, placing it at the attractive sub-$200 mark. The ever so popular FX-8350 will lower in price by $20, dropping to $169. Note that these prices are for buying the CPUs in bulk, so retail prices may differ.Chart Source: XBitLabsChart Source: XBitLabs

Whether these price changes will help AMD's sales remains to be seen, though a little competition never hurt anybody.

These price changes and new CPUs are expected to be made official on September 1, so while the rumors might be believable, continue to treat them as rumors for now.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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  • -4 Hide
    Shneiky , August 21, 2014 8:46 AM
    And here I was excited about Steamroller FX. Nope. Nothing new. Still the same Piledriver fiasco.
  • 7 Hide
    tridon , August 21, 2014 8:54 AM
    The 8370E is actually looking like a somewhat relevant cpu. Well... not for everyone of course, but I would reckon the lower tdp will make it more competitive than the 8350 is.
  • 6 Hide
    ssdpro , August 21, 2014 8:57 AM
    What is so fiasco about piledriver? I run a Z87 w/4770K system and a 990FX w/8350 system - while the AMD system can't compare with the processing power of the Intel, it isn't a disgrace or anything. If anything I think the AMD system is a bit more predicable and stable at the expense of everything, excluding PCIe, being about 20 percent slower.
  • Add your comment Display all 39 comments.
  • 7 Hide
    Kieran Warren , August 21, 2014 9:02 AM
    Sadly AMD are struggling to compete in the high end CPU market these days. This can cause huge problems. Without any competition Intel would be able to raise their prices without a large performance boost meaning we get worse value for money. However they seem to be competing just fine in the lower-mid range CPUs and provide great bang for buck in almost all graphics card ranges.
  • 3 Hide
    de5_Roy , August 21, 2014 9:13 AM
    that's good news. both fx6350 and fx6300 will sell at very attractive prices. fx4320 looks like a bad buy compared to them. for a bit more budget, fx8320 also looks good considering intel only sells dual cores (core i3) desktop processors under the $170 range.
  • 9 Hide
    icemunk , August 21, 2014 9:16 AM
    AMD should just go full retard on the FX series.. just like put out a 8GHZ 500Watt TDP stock-liquid cooled chip with 16 cores or something completely nuts. Then on the other end they can focus on efficiency on their FM2 cores, and push for smaller form factors.
  • -9 Hide
    photonboy , August 21, 2014 9:19 AM
    AMD is dying a slow death.
    The company keeps getting bailed out, but they just don't have the engineering and liquid assets to ensure their future.

    Intel's squeezed them out of the high-end. Now Intel's efforts on mobile efficiency of the x86 CPU's is going to squeeze AMD out of the low end.

    NVidia's got a lot of things going on as well to diversify.

    I'd love AMD to do well however I'm not seeing a lot of hope for ten years down the road.
  • 2 Hide
    Shneiky , August 21, 2014 9:41 AM
    Seeing how Steamroller performs in their APUs, creating a 3/4 module Piledriver FX on at least 20 nm (too bad it is not possible now), would let AMD at least come back into the heavy Integer performance and post some nice numbers along with few watts reduced TPD. The 7800/7850K's CPU performance is almost on par with a low-end I3 and it trades blows and even slightly edging the FX4300, despite it being 100 MHz clocked higher and having 125W TPD for CPU only.

    AMD has horrible floating point performance, so I am hoping they can at least bite the integer performance, sell some, gain some money, do some more R&D, get a new product out, so they can keep Intel prices from skyrocketing.
  • 2 Hide
    childofthekorn , August 21, 2014 9:51 AM
    The reviews for the A10-7800 being more power efficient compared to the 7850k and then this coming out makes me curious, what is different about this chip that its capped at 95w.

    Although significant, but not a game changer, IMO.
  • -1 Hide
    silverblue , August 21, 2014 10:00 AM
    I'm not sure about the 125W 8370, unless the higher TDP means it can be overclocked better. Should AMD have created a higher clocked 8350 at 30% lower power consumption, that's not bad going considering.

    I'd still rather have Steamroller cores at those clock speeds, mind...
  • 2 Hide
    TechyInAZ , August 21, 2014 10:05 AM
    I believe this will boost AMD's sales, since an AMD FX that performs equally with an i7 in threaded apps for only $130 is a good deal.
  • 6 Hide
    Chris Droste , August 21, 2014 11:02 AM
    My question really is what's holding AMD back from the dedicated CPU updates? we know they have and have implimented and have next-gen Kaverni/Steamroller architecture, we know they can pare down to more efficient power consumption, is it just that they don't have the resources to push the fabrication down to 22nm? or are they just letting themselves stagnate until 14nm(16nm?) is feasible and skip a die shrink step? Even if they're not fighting i7s with their 8-series FX you'd think they'd still keep pushing out something in AM3+ guise to keep the money flowing. I haven't even heard of stepping improvements that you typically get with chips as they mature, usually giving people less power leakage/OC improvements. is there some sort of engineering powerstruggle arguing internally about how the Phenom2 architecture seemed to have better IPC or what? i mean, SERIOUSLY. no CPU releases = no new product = no new product interest = no new sales. the 8350's a fine chip and a great buy for $160 especially if you already have an older board...but most people on the AM3 platform probably already went to a 6350 or 8350 like LAST YEAR already. and those people aren't going to be shopping FM2 platforms anytime soon to replace their main rig. I know AMD isn't exactly cash-healthy but stagnation isn't going to help.
  • -9 Hide
    gear999 , August 21, 2014 11:51 AM
    If AMD sold true eight core CPUs (none of that confusing module/floating point stuff) that was manufactured with 22nm which would cost $180 minimum (FX 8520?) and $230 maximum (FX 8550/8570?) which had enough power per watt to rival Intel, they could really get going again.
  • 0 Hide
    DJready , August 21, 2014 12:48 PM
    Why they don't just make a better single core performance cpu's instead of just filling the gaps with higher ghz.
  • 2 Hide
    childofthekorn , August 21, 2014 12:54 PM
    Quote:
    My question really is what's holding AMD back from the dedicated CPU updates? we know they have and have implimented and have next-gen Kaverni/Steamroller architecture, we know they can pare down to more efficient power consumption, is it just that they don't have the resources to push the fabrication down to 22nm? or are they just letting themselves stagnate until 14nm(16nm?) is feasible and skip a die shrink step? Even if they're not fighting i7s with their 8-series FX you'd think they'd still keep pushing out something in AM3+ guise to keep the money flowing. I haven't even heard of stepping improvements that you typically get with chips as they mature, usually giving people less power leakage/OC improvements. is there some sort of engineering powerstruggle arguing internally about how the Phenom2 architecture seemed to have better IPC or what? i mean, SERIOUSLY. no CPU releases = no new product = no new product interest = no new sales. the 8350's a fine chip and a great buy for $160 especially if you already have an older board...but most people on the AM3 platform probably already went to a 6350 or 8350 like LAST YEAR already. and those people aren't going to be shopping FM2 platforms anytime soon to replace their main rig. I know AMD isn't exactly cash-healthy but stagnation isn't going to help.


    Even if you (and i for that matter) like the 8350, they aren't going to produce more bulldozer chips if they aren't selling. Rumors are that Steamroller am3+ next year at 20nm. I'd prefer they hold off until excavator personally and just focus on making the chip more efficient.

    They're good for day to day use, but the thermal envelope being as high as it is, the inefficiency per clock and high IPC as well as large power draw keeps as many from being sold. Once they get this crap worked out they'll cmoe out wtih a new desktop processor thats competitive. Jim Keller (the engineer who helped AMD pull intels reigns with the release of Athlon x64) is back and working on something brand new, I'm looking forward to seeing if its a competitive option or not.
  • -2 Hide
    dextermat , August 21, 2014 12:59 PM
    The problem with Amd and Intel is their are too many cpu we don't need....

    As an example : "The new CPUs in question are the FX-8370, FX-8370E and FX-8320E. base frequency of 4.1 GHz, with a Boost frequency of 4.3 GHz"
    How much of a difference does .2 GHz really does (usually we see a bigger gap between the base and boost (at least .5 GHz)

    While I think the real deal is mostly the wattage (95 and 125)
    But bottom line, when I buy a cpu, I just want it to work efficiently.

  • 3 Hide
    salgado18 , August 21, 2014 1:23 PM
    Quote:
    My question really is what's holding AMD back from the dedicated CPU updates? we know they have and have implimented and have next-gen Kaverni/Steamroller architecture, we know they can pare down to more efficient power consumption, is it just that they don't have the resources to push the fabrication down to 22nm? or are they just letting themselves stagnate until 14nm(16nm?) is feasible and skip a die shrink step? Even if they're not fighting i7s with their 8-series FX you'd think they'd still keep pushing out something in AM3+ guise to keep the money flowing. I haven't even heard of stepping improvements that you typically get with chips as they mature, usually giving people less power leakage/OC improvements. is there some sort of engineering powerstruggle arguing internally about how the Phenom2 architecture seemed to have better IPC or what? i mean, SERIOUSLY. no CPU releases = no new product = no new product interest = no new sales. the 8350's a fine chip and a great buy for $160 especially if you already have an older board...but most people on the AM3 platform probably already went to a 6350 or 8350 like LAST YEAR already. and those people aren't going to be shopping FM2 platforms anytime soon to replace their main rig. I know AMD isn't exactly cash-healthy but stagnation isn't going to help.

    I'm on a 8120, and loving it, but power consumption is too much for my taste, especially overclocking (constant 4 GHz keeps all games fluid), so I disabled half of it to have an FX 4100. I thought about getting an 8320 for the efficiency improvement, but that would be too little improvement to make the expense worth it.

    But now there's an 8320 at 95W stock! That is tempting, and if money allows, I might buy one. Not many people will be interested in these new processors, but there's a market for them. Steamroller would be better, but we do with what we have. :/ 
  • -8 Hide
    Gaidax , August 21, 2014 1:25 PM
    So basically they took their stock of ancient CPU's, bumped the clock by 100Mhz and changed the sticker to attract more suc... I mean customers.
  • 0 Hide
    salgado18 , August 21, 2014 1:25 PM
    Quote:
    If AMD sold true eight core CPUs (none of that confusing module/floating point stuff) that was manufactured with 22nm which would cost $180 minimum (FX 8520?) and $230 maximum (FX 8550/8570?) which had enough power per watt to rival Intel, they could really get going again.

    That's obvious, but they can't just put more floating point and halve the power because yes, can they?
  • 4 Hide
    silverblue , August 21, 2014 1:28 PM
    Quote:
    If AMD sold true eight core CPUs (none of that confusing module/floating point stuff) that was manufactured with 22nm which would cost $180 minimum (FX 8520?) and $230 maximum (FX 8550/8570?) which had enough power per watt to rival Intel, they could really get going again.

    Such a CPU would bankrupt them at that price. A return to a more traditional core setup may make more sense but you'd be talking four cores at the most.

    There are many problems with Piledriver, but on the whole it's nowhere near as bad as Bulldozer. Slow cache, modular power gating and a lack of floating point resources still don't change the fact that the architecture still generally improves upon Phenom II for the same amount of power - my PII X3 710 is rated at 95W for a triple-core 2.6GHz CPU whereas a 6300 is clocked nearly 1GHz higher, has double the cores and still uses less power. Intel just improved their power usage at a much faster rate (and AMD clocks its parts too highly to help them keep up, at the risk of increasing power consumption far too much).
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