AMD FX-8350 Vishera 8-Core CPU Review

Name: AMD FX 8350 Processor
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, October 23, 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also monitored how much power our test systems consumed using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the processors alone.

Total System Power Consumption

Tested at the Outlet

The new Piledriver-based AMD FX-8350 is clearly more efficient than the previous-generation FX-8150. Not only did the FX-8350 offer clearly better performance than its predecessor, but it did so with lower idle and peak power consumption. While it's an improvement over the previous-gen FX though, the new 8350 still uses much more power than the higher performing, Ivy Bridge-based Core i7-3770K. Intel's current processors are simply in another league in terms of power efficiency due to their architectural and manufacturing advantages.

We also monitored the FX-8350's power consumption while we had the chip overclocked. As you can see, boosting the chip up to 4.7GHz (with a model +.03v bump in voltage) resulted in a huge increase in power consumption, to the tune of almost 100 watts. Although there is some headroom left in the chips, AMD is obviously pushing the envelope with the FX-8350's default boost clock of 4.2GHz. A less than 10% increase in frequency and a tiny bump in voltage resulted in a 41% increase in power consumption.

Tags: AMD, CPU, processor, AM3, Piledriver, Vishera, FX 8350

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com