Bad news: AMD’s flagship FX-8150 processor still costs $245, and it’s still relatively overpriced compared to the competition. Good news: the remainder of the FX-series lineup has gotten more compelling, thanks to a couple of price cuts and two new arrivals.
Let’s start with a look at the price cuts. They’ve affected the eight-core FX-8120, which has slipped from $205 to $185, and the six-core FX-6100, which is down from $155 to $145. These figures apply to CPUs sold in bulk quantities, of course, so retail prices might turn out to be a tad higher.
Now, here are the two newcomers:
Model | Base speed |
Turbo speed |
TDP | Cores | L2 cache |
L3 cache |
Top DDR3 speed |
FX-6200 | 3.8 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 125 W | 6 | 6 MB | 8 MB | 1866 MHz |
FX-4170 | 4.2 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 125 W | 4 | 4 MB |
Compared to their direct predecessors, the new chips seem to be substantially faster. The FX-6200’s base clock is 500MHz higher than the FX-6100, and the Turbo peak has been increased by 200MHz. Meanwhile, the FX-4170 adds 600MHz to the FX-4100’s base clock speed while pushing the Turbo maximum up by 300MHz. Both of the new entrants have unlocked upper multipliers, as well, so they should be straightforward to overclock, provided AMD has left some headroom there.
AMD isn’t saying when the processors will be out or how much they’ll cost. “Global availability of the AMD FX-4170 and AMD FX-6200 is happening on a rolling timeline, so availability will vary by market,” the company says. As for pricing information, that will follow “upon availability.”