AMD FX8320 Black Edition 8 Core (3.5/4.0GHz, 8MB Level 3 Cache, 8MB Level 2 Cache, Socket AM3+, 125W, Retail Boxed)

If you're a gamer and an avid overclocker, this review is for you! I want to briefly share my experiences and thoughts on this processor to help you make the right choice for you. So lets get started.Gaming:Performance here will depend on what type of system you want to build. If you're someone who has a single 1080p monitor and mediocre graphics card (GTX 760, R9 270X or below) you will be happy to know this processor will hold its own in most games at stock speeds. As long as you aren't too bothered about maximising everything and pushing the most FPS possible that is. If that applies to you, then this is an absolute solid buy. It hits the sweet spot between price and performance. Even the most modern games will run buttery smooth and with 8 cores at your disposal, you'll be able to multi-task with ease. This includes tasks like streaming to YouTube or Twitch whilst gaming, to give an example. Just a tip; This processor runs at 1.32V out of the box. With this kind of voltage on the stock heatsink you may find it can get quite hot and noisy especially in the summer. As such, you may actually find undervolting the processor will reduce power consumption and heat whilst keeping the same performance.Now, if you want to build a kick-ass 1440p multi-monitor, multi-GPU rig then I highly recommend investing in an aftermarket cooling system. Whether you want to go air or watercooled is completely up to you. This is because to get the most out of those types of systems, you're going to need to overclock the processor. I'll talk more about overclocking in the next section. My point being with high-end graphics cards, the processor at stock clocks will most probably be holding the GPU back from performing at its best.Overclocking:As all AMD FX chips are unlocked, overclocking is as simple as raising the multiplier. While there is a difference between the FX-8320 and FX-8350 (I'll get to that later), you won't notice this difference until you're overclocking to extremes. So you may want to save yourself a few pennies and buy this processor and simply increase the multiplier to match the same clock speed of the FX-8350. On decent motherboards, you can actually increase the clock speed without increasing the voltage which means you can overclock without increasing heat, thus allowing you to use the stock CPU cooler. On both the MSI 990FX-GD80 and ASRock 990FX Extreme9 boards I was able to increase the clock speed all the way to 4.2GHz on the stock voltage. Increasing the clock speed with allow high end graphics card/s to breath a bit better causing an increase in FPS.So what is the difference between the FX-8320 and FX-8350 you ask? They're both made with the same architecture, what gives? Well I'm not 100% sure, although I think the difference lies within the capability of each chip. From what I can gather, FX-8320's are clocked lower because they reach their maximum capability faster than the 8350's. This means theoretically when overclocking both chips to their limits, the FX-8350 can either reach a higher clock speed or match the FX-8320's overclock with less effort. The best example of this is if you're shooting for the golden 5GHz clock speed. An FX-8320 may never overclock to that speed, or if it can, it may require a high-end motherboard and cooling solution such as liquid/watercooling. Whereas the FX-8350 may be able to overclock to 5GHz at a lower voltage therefore not needing a watercooling kit.Verdict:While I'm happy with the FX-8320 as it does exactly what I need it for, I can't help but notice the current small price gap difference between the FX-8320 and the FX-8350. I purchased this processor at £105 but at the current time of writing this review it is £115. With the FX-8350 being only a tenner more at £125, I would personally be more inclined to opt for that processor as it is a more capable processor. With the higher stock clock speed, even non-overclockers will benefit from the extra money spent.However, if the price gap between the two is any larger, I would definitely consider the FX-8320 over the FX-8350, it's almost a no-brainer.

I bought this because it offered me the cheapest compute power for the price. I know that the 8 cores are split across 4 modules, each having 2MB cache (4 x 2mb = 8mb advertised) and 1 floating point accelerator (per module), but that hasn't preventing it from performing video conversions and multi-threaded file compressions (pigz) amazingly quickly! It also has virtualization extensions/support for my Virtualbox and KVM needs.When running video conversions, I can feel the heat flooding out of my tower. I am running this with a cheap custom cooler (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2) for less than £20, and a case that has 4 x Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 running at full throttle. The setup was cheap and works well (at cooling) but it's a noisy beast and one could easily be tempted to spend more on a water cooling system than the CPU cost.A lot of reviewers mention that there is no point using the stock cooler that this comes with. I whole heartedly agree. Take this into account when considering your motherboard. The cooler I fitted just touches the first RAM module's outer casing which I wasn't pleased about.

Easily wipes the smile of intels faces, this thing is a ROCK SOLID multitasker, Its a thing of beauty having a computer this fast. As fast a Bugatti Veyron from the second its installed you will wonder why you wasted so much money on intel processors in the past.Im heavily into video muxing and rendering, and this cpu rips through video tasks like a knife through buttersoftware i use is AVIDEMUX, TFM Audio Tool And Sony Vegas. All with 5.1 DTS sound.These AMD 8 cores are the ones to go for in this department theyre unmatched.My last i5 made me double facepalm, I was expecting more for the money, so I though "goodbye intel" the original wallet emptiers.If future I will be sticking to AMD stuff like glue because you just don't get this value with intel, The 8 cores this thing has will rip through anything faster than ive ever seen before, whatever my old cpu could do this does better and twice as fast, forget online benchmarks 8/10 of them are corrupt and don't tell the whole story.gaming? show me a game this cant play at 60fps+ and ill buy you one! This should be a serious contender for bang per buck awards, ive realised now people with common sense buy AMD and people with more money than sense buy Intel.Max Payne 3 - 60fps+ @ 1920x1080Walking Dead Survival Instinct - 60fps+ @1920x1080Loads of other demanding games too, twinned with my Sapphire HD5870 everything runs flawless, of course there are gonna be intel fanboys who claim the grass is so much greener on there side, doods, swallow your ******* pride for once and try something new.AMD were the inventors of multicore cpus and 64 bit architecture.Try Burn test AVX that will give you the real GFLOPS count not standard intel burn test thats been coded to make amd cpus look bad :)Im getting a geekbench score of 15,470 and 90GFlops, beat that intel for £95 i challenge you.