AMD FX 8320e 8 core CPU Review

Conclusion  

When AMD first released CPUs for their AM3+ platform we at OC3D were not overly impressed, behind the hype of AMD's "Bulldozer" architecture was some very power hungry, hot running and under-performing CPUs. When AMD's second generation of FX CPUs, Piledriver, was released AMD had lessened a lot of these issues, but many of those flaws still remained.

Now over 2 years later AMD has released new CPUs in the form of the FX 83x0e series which again addresses the issue of power consumption and thermal performance, but without any real changes made to the CPU itself. The FX 8320e has the same AMD Piledriver CPU cores/modules as the original FX 8320 but performs very similarly (slightly lower performance) while consuming a lot less power under full load. Simply put the change from a power consumption of 188w under OCCT to 144w is exceptionally impressive, especially given how similar the CPUs otherwise are. AMD has not even used die shrinks or even a change in CPU architecture to achieve this, which makes us at OC3D have high hopes for AMD's future CPUs when they finally move to a smaller process node and a new CPU architecture.    

The one thing that niggles me about this CPU is the fact that it gives you very similar performance to the FX 8320 CPU, which we have to remember is a CPU which was released 2 years ago and that the overclocks we achieved on this CPU are no different than what we would otherwise expect from an AMD FX Piledriver CPU (which also essentially throws all the work AMD has done to lower the power consumption of the CPU out the window). 

Right now the AMD FX 8320e CPU is AMD's most affordable 8 core CPU to date with a price of £109.99 at overclockers uk, which could be very tempting upgrade for those already on the AM3+ platform or users who want to use the raw power of an 8 core CPU at a price where Intel's only equivalent is a mid-level locked Dual core i3 CPU. Simply put this CPU offers an amazing price to performance ratio.

This CPU does produce some great results for the price, but we must remember that Intel is still not beaten in terms of power consumption per unit of performance, but their CPUs are using an architecture over a year newer and are using a 22nm process compared to AMD's older 32nm process.

This CPU at stock has shown a significant drop in power consumption compared to it's older model and offers a lot of performance for the price, especially if you overclock, for this reason I will be awarding this CPU the OC3D Value For Money Award.

You can discuss the AMD FX 8320e CPU on the OC3d Forums.