It's been a long time since AMD offered a credibly performing alternative to Intel's high-end CPUs, but it's always had a good range of cost-effective options at the lower end and it's looking to continue that with its latest release. Although it hasn't arrived with much fanfare, AMD has now launched the FX-6330 Black edition and it's already selling in China at around the $110 mark.
Specifications for the new chip list it as based off of the Piledriver architecture, using a 32nm process. It has a total of six Vishera cores (as per TechReport), each clocked up to 3.6GHz at base, boosting up to 4.2GHz as and when required. It also has 6MB of level two cache and 8MB of level three cache.
Source: PCPop
PCPop, the Chinese website that broke the news of this new CPU, managed to get hold of a retail version of the chip and benchmarked it against Intel's Core i3-4160 and it held its own, dominating it in some benchmarks. At this price point, the AMD chip would seem to offer a credible alternative to Intel's low-end i3 CPUs, though it does of course mean opting for the rather old AM3+ platform if that is your choice.
Considering AMD is expected to launch its new AM4 chipsets alongside the new Zen CPUs next year, opting for an older generation system right now wouldn't be the smartest move, but considering its launch within the Chinese markets, perhaps that Eastern audience will be its target demographic.
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KitGuru Says: While Intel CPUs certainly dominate among enthusiasts, how many of you are running an AMD system?
My new Computer is now feautring a Amd after looking into a i3 4170 and the Amd 6300. This new CPU if gets released soon maybe better providing it doesnt draw to much power. Hope they price it reasonable over here and get some benchmarking comparing it to the 6300.
As long as you don’t plan on playing starcraft 2 or the like, then by all means – give this little CPU a go! I’d suggest looking into the ASRock 970M Pro3 mATX motherboard, which is one of the very few “new” AM3+ motherboards available – it is cheap but has a great feature set and overclocks really well. This FX 6330 will undoubtedly OC better than the 6300, especially if you have an extra $20 to spend on an aftermarket air cooler. Last bit of advice, grab some fast DDR3(2133 or 2400MHz) as it is around the same price ($70 US for 16GB 2400MHz) and will improve the performance of these FX CPUs. If you have any questions about building your rig, there are plenty of us out here that would gladly help you!
I don’t plan on playing Star craft but rather DayZ, and the like. As wel las some of the new games of 2016 (even if i turn it down to Med settings or even 720p). Already have the motherboard sorted, RAM i already have 8GB of 1600 Mhz RAM (set me back £30 for the colour i wanted) I probably upgrade to 16GB if i see it is necessary.
will this CPU be a good upgrade over a phenom II x4 960T?