Review: AMD FX-8350

Thoughts and rating

AMD realised some time ago that the decade-old Athlon CPU architecture was drawing to an inevitable close. Understanding that application workloads for servers, home computers and notebooks have naturally changed over time, it brought out the Bulldozer core about a year ago. Working just fine in multi-threaded applications commonly used in the server space, Bulldozer was, and remains, a little underwhelming as an all-round consumer CPU.

Bulldozer's successor, launched today, is the Piledriver processor, headlined by the FX-8350 chip. It is better than Bulldozer's FX-8150 in almost every way, which means strong credentials in multi-threaded benchmarks yet only adequate performance practically everywhere else. Without taking the savage, expensive step of redesigning the entire core, AMD has done the only step open to it, that is, polished the Bulldozer architecture enough to pique enthusiasts' interests.

We believe that a cutting-edge CPU needs to be strong in all areas, not just a few. The AMD FX-8350's heritage means that while it can look really impressive in certain tests, it cannot tick as many desirable checkboxes as the competing Intel Core i5 chips.

The Good

Better than Bulldozer in almost every way
Very attractive pricing
AM3+ socket is backwards compatible

The Bad

Not as fast as old-gen Thuban (1100T) in light-load apps
Under-load power-draw not ideal
Arguably still behind Intel IB as an all-round chip

HEXUS Rating

AMD FX-8350

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

HEXUS Right2Reply

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