AMD Reveals FX-8300 and Athlon X4 860K CPUs

Chinese website Expreview has reported that AMD announced its FX-8300 CPU along with its new Athlon X4 860K.

Starting with the Athlon X4 860K, we find that the CPU follows the same recipe as all the other current Athlon CPUs, but kicks it up a notch. It  drops into the FM2+ socket and does not have any on-die graphics enabled. It is just a CPU – not an APU. The four Steamroller CPU cores are clocked at 3.7 GHz and are overclockable through an unlocked multiplier. AMD has fitted the CPU with 2 MB of L2 cache. If this chip is priced right, it might make a decent choice for budget-oriented gaming builds.

Moving on, there is the FX-8300. This CPU is built to be a cheaper 8-core CPU, bringing buyers an 8-core chip on a lower price point along with a lower TDP. The CPU will still consume 95 W, but for those who need serious multi-threaded performance along with a low price point, this one might be worth a look. The CPU cores are clocked at 3.2 GHz but can boost up to 3.5 GHz if the appropriate cooling is present.

There is no exact word on pricing for these CPUs yet, nor do we know when they will be available. We've reached out to AMD for more information, so stay tuned.

Update: The FX-8300 is a Greater China only product, which is only available to OEMs. The Athlon X4 860K will be available worldwide this month with an MSRP of $84.

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

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • Red_Sun
    I think I hold on to my Phenom II 980 for a bit longer...
    Reply
  • Zeroplanetz
    So basically the FX 8300 is lower than the fx8320? But also lower tdp? Why not just get the 8350 on sale since that same person will still get a better than stock CPU cooler?
    Reply
  • tridon
    While not exactly food for the high end enthusiast, it's good to see that AMD still remembers that there some consumers that do not wish a graphics card glued to the cpu. I hope Tom's get one of the new Athlon chips for testing as soon as they are available. Maybe it will be able to trespass on i3 territory when overclocked.
    Reply
  • srap
    Wait. I thought there is already an FX-8300, so how does this differ?
    Reply
  • chicofehr
    I have a Phenom 2 X6 @4.2GHz. Will this outperform that? This Hz for Hz should perform on par with the Phenom 2 by now I would hope.
    Reply
  • childofthekorn
    I have a Phenom 2 X6 @4.2GHz. Will this outperform that? This Hz for Hz should perform on par with the Phenom 2 by now I would hope.

    Depends what your looking at. Phenoms will perform better than any FX in single threaded, by a small margin. Phenoms will also draw less power over time, by a small margin. Hz ratings will only go so far as IPC, quality of other components such as cache, FPU and a few other components that I don't fully understand make up a huge portion of the overall performance. FX series they used some cheap components that are huge parts of the equation of why FX series failed when comparing to an 8350 to an I7 processor. Personally got my 8320 @ 4.0 Ghz and its suited me just fine for gaming/movies/running game server and mumble all at the same time.
    Reply
  • elbert
    I have a Phenom 2 X6 @4.2GHz. Will this outperform that? This Hz for Hz should perform on par with the Phenom 2 by now I would hope.
    Games are about even but look for the 8 cores to get a big boost from dx12 and mantle. Here is a comparison of the 2 under DX11. Note your OC doesn't matter as you should get about the same results from this fx-8300.
    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/203?vs=698
    Reply
  • ickibar1234
    Yet still no high end laptop CPU/APUs
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    "new processors". No. Same old with new names and different clockspeeds. I would like them to actually release a cpu core that is a lot more efficient per-core and per-clock. They wont last much longer longer in the x86 cpu biz if they dont really kick it up a notch.
    Reply
  • jdwii
    I have a Phenom 2 X6 @4.2GHz. Will this outperform that? This Hz for Hz should perform on par with the Phenom 2 by now I would hope.

    I own the 8350fx after several benchmarks being done newer games just prefer the newer CPU's from Amd i can say farcry 3-watch dogs and simcity-BF4 all played 20% better on the FX and i had the 1100T OC 3.9Ghz and my 8350fx is only at 4.3ghz. Application performance is only around 10-15% better however but gaming is definitely up in new games take a look at some newer game cpu benchmarks
    Reply