AMD FX-8350 Desktop Processor Review

Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices
Product Name: Desktop Processor
Model Number: FX-8350
SKU: FD8350FRW8KHK / FD8350FRHKBOX
Price As Tested: $199.99 (Newegg | Amazon)

Full Disclosure: AMD provided the product sample used in this article.

Ask any AMD fan how they feel about the FX-8150 "Bulldozer" CPU, and you'll get one of two responses: massive disappointment or frenzied rationalizations (you can check out the comments section of Benchmark Review's FX-8150 review to see examples of both). The "massive disappointment" crowd points to the fact that in most benchmarks, less expensive Intel processors performed better than Bulldozer; while the "frenzied rationalization" folks claim that there's some sort of impossible-to-quantify-but-nonetheless-very-real advantage to the AMD CPUs: that they provide a better, smoother experience in heavy multitasking situations.

The market response might be best summarized by this little chart of Newegg prices of the AMD and Intel processors I used in my review of the FX-8150:

While the price of the AMD CPU has dropped by 30% in the last year, the price of the Intel processor has increased slightly.

Granted, there's more to a CPU than its raw performance, and the FX-8150 at its current price provides more bang for the buck than does the 2500K. But everyone loves a winner, and AMD is seeking to bolster its bragging rights with the new iteration of their original Bulldozer architecture in the form of the FX-8350.

I count myself among the AMD fans; this probably stems from the time a decade or so ago when I built a dual-core AMD computer to do video processing work. At the time, AMD's true dual-core design easily outperformed Intel's quasi-dual core, in which two separate Pentium cores on a chip were forced to use the front side bus to communicate. But Intel came roaring back and has dominated the performance charts ever since, forcing AMD to compete on price. AMD says that the FX-8350, based on the Piledriver architecture, offers 10-15% better IPC (instructions per clock) performance, and higher clock speeds as well.

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