AMD45646788 FD8350FRHKBOX FX-8350 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition Processor

Previous to this processor, I had an FX 6100. It worked for the time, but I was having problems with recording gameplay (particularly at 1080p) and video editing (though, this may not have been at the fault of the processor). I was debating between this processor or an i5 of similar price (and leave room for an i7 in the future?).As far as if I made the right decision between these two options, I'm not sure. So, I'll just get into what it can do on it's own.The immediate differences I noticed with this upgrade would be with game recording. I use a Radeon HD 7850 with 2 GB video memory, and it was a decent fit with the FX 6100 and most gaming goes on a 1600x900 resolution. I upgraded to a 1080p monitor, and that was when certain problems where becoming more apparent. An example would be recording Borderlands 2 at 1080p. Even with practically all settings turned down, at 1920x1080, the game would move somewhat slowly from time to time, but especially when viewing larger areas.Another issue I had was with video editing. My FX 6100 would not be able to keep up with major splitting and cropping of videos in VideoPad. Though, one thing I should mention. When it comes to certain problems in video editing and game recording, make sure you're using proper software. You're better off spending the extra money on something well made like Bandicam or Sony Movie Studio before upgrading your processor (something I've learned from trial and error).As far as game recording goes with the FX 8350, I can now go with 1080p on Borderlands 2 and many other games at medium higher settings. It should be noted with my 4 mbps upload speed, sharing 1080p videos on the internet is actually more trouble than it's worth. So, before upgrading your processor in hopes of making incredible 1080p videos, take into consideration the additional hassle vs benefit of these much larger file sizes. With these considered, I don't see much reason to stick with 1080p over 720p, but that's just a personal preference (and probably not even necessary for my audience (myself being my biggest fan (WE LOVE YOU JASON))). One more thing to consider is your hard drive configuration. I found having a separate hard drive for recording helps improve game recording, as well as having the additional space.When it comes to video editing, I'm still learning the best way to get my system to perform these given actions. Still, to give you an idea, a video I split and cropped with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 12, with very little effects, running about an hour long, and recorded at 1080p will take my system a good three hours to render (but can sometimes be as little as two hours). This is even with 16 GB of 2133Mhz DDR3. Though, I'm guessing with very little effects, my system is not utilizing this memory nearly as much. That, or I haven't quite gotten my system to utilize it yet. A quick test run of over 5 hours of video at 1080p being rendered was estimated at taking over 12 hours to finish. I plan on doing a bit more testing as far as 720p video is concerned in these renders in the near future (and may update this when I do). Another note (note after note after note) is that I only have one drive array close to RAID and that would be a striped setup I have some games installed. I also use this for my render to path while exporting my video, and have tried my SSD as a location for temp files, but I'm still guessing I need to find a proper configuration for optimizing my hard drives for video editing (and suggestions are welcome!). One last note for video editing should be, I only render with the CPU. Not because I can, but because the HD 7850 does not seem to do anything, even when given the option. Might be because of the speed of the CPU as it is.As overclocking goes, I have an AMD 970 series chipset on my motherboard, and it does not want to get over 4300 Mhz on the clock without trying to cook my socket. I may be able to get it to 4500 with a lot of effort, but the performance gains vs temperatures do not not make me want to exceed what the base clock + turbo core already have to offer. If you want to overclock this up to a decent speed, I would recommend doing a bit of research before getting this CPU for overclocking. I wish I had more to offer in regards to how my overclocking experiences went with this processor. I've heard the 990 series is better for a decent overclock, and there's probably other considerations to make. Again, sorry I don't have more to offer aside from trying to make Vishera stir fry.When it comes to only gaming at 1080p, I don't see myself needing much more than this processor at stock speeds. Games like Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 6, Borderlands 2, Tomb Raider, and Saints Row IV can be handle at near optimal settings between my FX 8350 and the HD 7850. If anything, I can only assume my video card is holding me back in regards to peaking out everything on Ultra with no problems. Any bit of a higher resolution than this and I don't really have much for feedback.I would say I'm happy with this purchase and don't see myself needing an upgrade for a while (past maybe the mainboard). It would be nice sometime in the near future to try out an Intel i5 with similar tests and see how both machines stack up (would be nice to have real life comparisons and see where I landed with this build). So, this is everything I've tried with my FX 8350 I can think worth mentioning. If anybody has any corrections they'd like to make or suggestions in any regards, I'm more than welcome to them.Last note among the many notes: Right now, my FX 6100 is in a machine with 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3 (Corsair Vengeance Low-Profile 2 GB sticks, to be more specific) and an Nvidia GTX 560 Ti. For gaming on a 1600x900 resolution, this setup works fine (only reason I replaced the 560 Ti was because of peculiar driver problems found in certain games, but that's another story for another time). So, before making the huge step to a FX 8350, an FX 6300 might be better for sub-1080p resolutions, and mostly likely for anything that isn't game recording.

JUNE 12, 2013 UPDATEI've had this CPU for going on four months now. It's still rocking it! Runs the latest "Metro Last Light" with a breeze. TO fixing my heating issues I mention below, I have upgraded the fans on my radiator to the Corsair SP120 high performance fans. As of now I have this thing running at exactly 5018Mhz stable right now. Also over time I experimented with RAM. Believe it or not, decreasing my RAM speed actually gained me some FPS in all of my games (its running slightly below 1600Mhz now). I recommend doing FPS benchmarks if you are aiming for gaming with this. Also I wanted to add in my last Power Supply blew up on me. I am now using the gold rated Corsair HX750 that seems work better with this CPU overclocked in terms of heat/stability.Let me skip all the BS. This is a BEAST of a CPU! I've had an AMD Phenom II x6 1045t for the past year now. Although I loved the 1045t CPU, it simply wasn't the greatest for gaming. My stock speed was 3.9Ghz and I overclocked it to 4.5Ghz via the turbo, but with turbo on the Phenom II chips, only three cores would activate. I also was gifted recently an XSPC Raystorm rs360 liquid cooling kit and with that high end cooling I simply wanted the best overclockable chip out there.For about three month's I eyeballed this CPU up on various websites. I wanted it desperately, but I had a few issues and asked myself the following questions. Was it a big enough upgrade over the 1045t? Was it worth buying over the cheaper 8320 model? Lastly should I consider saving up for an intel system instead because of AMD's rocky future in the CPU world (reports say the excavator models are pushed back to 2014 at least)?I took the plunge - I ordered this CPU and could not be happier. The base speed of 4Ghz is awesome, it's nice to see something like that right out of the box. Furthermore the overclockability of this chip is absolutely astounding. You can overclocked it to the Moon assuming you have proper cooling. With the Raystorm rs360 I was able to get this chip to a stable 5Ghz, liquid cooling the CPU and the VRM's on my motherboard.Overclocking is nothing without performance though - how does the CPU perform? Excellent! I got a very noticeable framerate increase in all my games. Crysis 3 I can run completely maxed out with msaa on medium at 60fps (which some intel users can't even handle :o)Some minor pet peeves/issues with this CPU:1) If you're doing overclocking, you will absolutely need a custom cooler. This is a very power hungry, very hot CPU at overclocked speeds. This thing has scarily overheated on me a few times already, I've gotten this to a stable 5Ghz, although I can run it at speeds of up to 5.4Ghz it simply gets too hot at anything else. Although the stock cooler is actually impressive having copper on it, it's still not going to do the job. Here's what I recommend per the speeds you are trying to reach based on my own experience and from what I've read on the web:- Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO or similar: 4.6Ghz- Closed loop cooler (such as the h100i): 4.8Ghz- Custom cooling kit: 5Ghz+- At least a 600w PSU for anything above (this thing consumes alot of power overclocked)2) AMD STILL SUCKS WITH HIGH SPEED RAM. If you're overclocking this thing even slightly, good luck getting the specified 1866Mhz RAM to work with it. I can only run mine at around 1700Mhz. I tried two modules at 8GB and four modules at 16GB. Could never get this to stably run 1866Mhz, even at stock CPU speeds. If you'r buying RAM stick with a 1600Mhz kit.Other than the power/heat issues and the RAM, this is a great CPU. I paid for a $200 CPU and it felt like I got what I paid for performance wise. Vs. Intel you will see alot of users complain that the "per core" performance isn't as good, and than an Intel i5 3550k will outperform this. Personally I don't give a crap. I'm not reverting my whole system over to Intel just because some silly benchmarks are slightly better. Besides the multi-threading of this CPU will blow away an i5, especially in DX11 games which do utilize all 8 cores.One more thing - vs the AMD 8320 I think this is a much better buy - $10-20 more and you're getting a CPU that's going to be much better in the overclocking department and the increased speeds are going to be much better in gaming. Overall definitely worth the money. Great CPU that will last years to come and AMD's future is rocky if you're waiting for the "next" best thing I think you should just go with this...My build:8350 @ 5Ghz, 1.5v core, 250Mhz bus speed, 20x CPU multiplierGigabyte 990FXA-UD3XSPC Raystorm rs360 water coolingPrimoflex tubing w/ deionized waterEnzotech wmst-81 VRM Water BlockG Skill Ares 1866Mhz (4x4) 16GB RAM (@ 1700Mhz)MSI Radeon Twin Frozr III 7950 overclockedCorsair Force 120GB SSDThermaltake 600W PSULG Blu Ray reader/writerNZXT Phantom Full Tower case (white)