AMD Confirms FX-9000 Processors Will Not Be Available Individually For Consumers

AMD recently released two brand new processors to its FX portfolio. These consisted of the FX-9590 and the FX-9370 processors. Below is a quick recap of the details about those two processors from our previous article:

The FX-9590 and FX-9370 CPUs both run AMD Turbo Core 3.0 which allows the FX-9590 to turbo up to a maximum 5GHz and the FX-9370 to turbo up to a maximum 4.7GHz. According to AMD both these CPUs have eight Piledriver cores. The base clock of the FX-9590 is 4.7GHz while the base clock of the FX-9370 is 4.4GHz. Both have 8MB of L2 and L3 cache and reportedly support up to DDR3 2400MHz memory. Apparently the OEM/System integrator pricing for these CPUs is $800 for the FX-9590 and $400 for the FX-9370.

Up until now we weren’t sure if they would be system integrator exclusives or if they would be available to consumers as retail boxed units as well, but AMD has now confirmed the status of these new products. AMD have recently told the Tech Report that these new processors will not be available to consumers. In fact they are now going to be System Integrator parts ONLY. That means you can only buy these in pre-built systems, of course that probably won’t stop some people whipping these out of systems and putting them up on eBay, or even some system integrators selling them as OEM parts. However, AMD will endorse none of this and will not sell these as individual boxed retail units.

The reason for this all comes down to the 220W TDP. This creates motherboard compatibility issues and cooling solution issues. These concerns are explained more below, with a quote from our previous article:

There is some worry among motherboard vendors as most AM3+ motherboard sockets are only designed for around a 125W TDP with a little bit of overclocking headroom. Apparently the FX-9590 and FX-9370 have 220W TDPs meaning motherboard vendors will have to issue a compatibility announcement, some lower end and mid range motherboards just won’t have the VRM to support these new CPUs. Although if these CPUs are only released through the OEM system integrator channel, then compatibility issues shouldn’t be a problem as system builders will be given details on which motherboards they can put these CPUs in.

What are your thoughts on this?

Image courtesy of AMD