Reviews - AMD FX-8370E 95W (32nm Vishera)

[HEXUS]

AMD FX goes after Intel Core i5.

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[Jowsey]

Great review. Just a quick musing. For future power optimised products such as these I would love to see a how low can you go sort of testing. IE, how long could you under volt this before you had some instabilities. But that's jut me nit picking at a very good CPU testing suite.

[MrRockliffe]

It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

[The Hand]

It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

It's a pity AMD didn't move to 28nm, but I wasn't expecting them to do that in all honesty, since it's a tweaked FX chip. Maybe AMD will make the jump to 20nm in a year? Lol I can dream!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The FX8320E is the same price as the FX8320 on OcUK ATM.

[kalniel]

It just doesn't make sense to buy it. I'm not an Intel fanboy - I buy what's better an the i5 is simply better at that price. Better performance AND lower power consumption. It's a shame really, as it'd be nice to see AMD compete with Intel once again.

I remember years ago when the skt 939 X2 processor from AMD ruled the roost. Intel eventually countered well with the core architecture, but many of us had motherboards and RAM, and just wanted to upgrade CPUs.. and AMD switched to AM2 which meant if we upgraded, we had to get a new motherboard and RAM anyway, and so many people switched to Intel. I even wrote to the VP of AMD asking if they were planning on producing an 'upgraders' CPU and he graciously replied saying the move to DDR2 meant they needed a new socket etc.

Now though, this is the equivalent chip that I was looking for back then. If you have a motherboard that can't cope with the 125W TDP of the 8350 etc. (and are upgrading from say a 6-core chip) then this is a big increase in performance with just a drop in change of CPU.

In other words, it's something from AMD to their current users, which is to be applauded, much the same way that Intel's recent pentium was.

[crossy]

The FX8320E is the same price as the FX8320 on OcUK ATM.

And they've got the FX8370 at the same price as the "E" model.

Now though, this is the equivalent chip that I was looking for back then. If you have a motherboard that can't cope with the 125W TDP of the 8350 etc. (and are upgrading from say a 6-core chip) then this is a big increase in performance with just a drop in change of CPU. In other words, it's something from AMD to their current users, which is to be applauded, much the same way that Intel's recent pentium was.

Quite true, but I'm left wondering why - other than the 0.1GHz increase in Turbo speed - why I'd choose the 8370 over the (cheaper!) 8350 if I was going to replace my existing PhenomII hexacore. Especially as the 8350 seems to beat the '70E in most of the benchmarks in this article. Actually, if I went on this article, I'd perhaps be left feeling that the 8370E is a bit of a dud - as you say, merely a sop to those with existing AM3+ installations.

Come on AMD, you must try harder!

[kalniel]

Yeah I don't think the 8370 is really for people with the 8350 either - it's a small increment increase in model number.

[raven1001]

Let's not beat about the bush, AMD CPUs suck. I hope one day they can compete with Intel.

[kalniel]

Let's not beat about the bush, AMD CPUs suck. I hope one day they can compete with Intel.

No, they don't suck. They're not up to Intel's premium chips, but they compete and beat a whole bunch of Intel's other chips if you don't mind giving up a bit of efficiency. If you are not power constrained, but are budget constrained and your primary use is something like handbrake encoding then AMD probably gives better system value for money than Intel.

[raven1001]

They suck.

[flufflogic]

The £100 8320E is hard to ignore for budget concious gamers, methinks. Surprised they're still unlocked, TBH.

[Jimbo75]

Roll on 2016...

[zaph0d]

Unfortunatly AMD cpu's are... a little behind in the technology world. The Archtechture is a couple generations behind and the process they make them on is currently 1 generation behind but intel's moving to a newer process soon (16/18 nm I believe)

The main reason AMD chips don't compete well with Intel's is they're currently having to push GHz up to compete on performance, this increases power consumption and heat generation at an exponential rate. All this due to using older tech.

This is not entirely AMD's fault - they have a total financial turnover that's less than the budget that Intel approves just for R&D work. Kinda makes it hard to compete - it's really a David & Goliath battle and the only way AMD gets ahead - as they did with the old K8 and K9 arch's about a decade ago is to dev-skip. Instead of following the linear engineering path to it's chip conclusion you abort the production phase and go into the next dev phase, this means you're longer between chip generations but can allow you to skip ahead, but you take a beating in the meantime.

AMD's best hope is to shift away from desktop systems into more integrated systems where their knowledge in APU systems is stronger by far than Intel's.

[Myss_tree]

If you were building a pc from scratch there is nothing in this review that would seriously make you consider an AMD FX cpu.

[jimbouk]

If you were building a pc from scratch there is nothing in this review that would seriously make you consider an AMD FX cpu.

I would say more that nothing in this review makes you consider buying a AMD FX-8370E cpu. AMD really only seem to still be competitive in the sub £100 category or when you want and APU solution.

Shame, roll on a new platform with DDR4. Fingers crossed they can pull it back.