Mid last year, AMD announced that they were going to be giving their FX line of CPUs a little boost of energy and a little face lift to rekindle their budget appeal and performance for the entry level markets. The FX line of CPUs, also known as Bulldozer, has always filled in the gap between entry level processing power and top performance with chips that are able to give performance on a budget.
As part of this regeneration, AMD have targeted their 4-core lineup of chips and one of these in particular is the FX-4100, a quad-core 3.6GHz chip that still retails for a wallet friendly ~£70-80, although we do have to take in consideration that this older model is now end-of-line. In order to keep this chip alive and to boost its energy, AMD have upped its core clock speed by 200MHz taking it up to 3.8GHz and boosting to 3.9GHz when it feels like doing so. Other changes to the package include a far improved stock cooler which AMD claim will allow for better overclocking from the totally unlocked Black Edition chip over its older brother.
On top of the higher clock and better cooler, AMD claim that users should see a gain in performance of 3-9% in general day to day computing which for a chip of roughly the same price is a welcome sight. Given the FX-4130 is here to replace the FX-4100 we have tested the older chip alongside this one to give up-to-date test results and a far better comparison to see how much of a difference there is to be had at stock clock speeds.
It would have been a great choice only if AMD have optimized the power consumption.
We all know that all the FX series processors are infamous for their high power consumption, but I’ve expected an improvement..
Still, it would be a good choice, but definitely not the best.
Like.
like
Great review, very informative, and well written for the most part. Because it was so well written, I was a bit startled at the end when the reviewer said “AMD have rekindled the entry level FX line of CPUs and given them a new leash of life”. What are they, a dog with a zen complex? I believe the phrase wanted was “a new lease on life”. Just sayin’……