The least to say anticapated Bulldozer architecture was not a big success for AMD when it launched last year. The successor to Bulldozer and the FX series has appeared in sales material, where clock frequencies and TDPs are mentioned for three models.
Piledriver is the next step from Bulldozer, which launched in the form of FX-8150, Piledriver is in many ways what Bulldozer should have been. The improvements in Piledriver include reduced leakage, lower energy consumption and many small tweaks to raise performance on average six percent over Bulldozer. Tom’s Hardware that tested the APU Trinity for desktops with Piledriver cores, reported an boost of up to 15 percent depending on the application.
Byt now we are not dealing with Trinity but the successors to the FX series, as they have appeared in sales material from AMD. There are three models with eight, six and four cores and they will all run at lower power ratings than current FX processors.
| Model | FX-8350 | FX-6300 | FX-4320 | FX-8150 | FX-6200 | FX-4170 |
| Architecture | Piledriver | Bulldozer | ||||
| Code name/circuit | Vishera | Zambezi | ||||
| Cores/modules | 8/4 | 6/3 | 4/2 | 8/4 | 6/3 | 4/2 |
| Frequency | 4,0 GHz | 3.5 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 3.8 GHz | 4.2 GHz |
| Turbo | 4.2 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 4.3 GHz |
| Unlocked multiplier | Ja | Ja | ||||
| L2 cache | 4 x 2 MB | 3 x 2 MB | 2 x 2MB | 4 x 2 MB | 3 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB |
| L3 cache | 8 MB | 8 MB(?) | 8 MB(?) | 8 MB | ||
| Memory support |
DDR3-1866(?) | DDR3-1866 | ||||
| TDP | 125W | 95W | 95W | 125W | 125W | 125W |
| Socket | AM3+ | AM3+ | AM3+ | AM3+ | AM3+ | AM3+ |
The top model FX-8350 keeps the same Turbo mode as FX-8150 at 4,2 GHz, but instead gets a higher base frequency at 4.0 GHz with the same 125 watt TDP. Together with the improvements in the architecture, it is hopefully enough to be an interesting and affordable alternative to Intel’s quad-core Ivy Bridge processors. Just like FX-8150, FX-8350 gets 8 MB L2 cache and 8 MB L3.
The other two modesl: FX-6300 with six cores and FX-4320 with four cores, gets lower clock frequencies than the models they are replacing, but should still be faster thanks to the new architecture. We see that AMD has managed to lower energy consumption as both are now rated 95 W TDP. It is still unclear how much L3 cache there will get, but most likely it will be 8 MB.
FX-8350, FX-6300 and FX-4320 are the top models of the respective series and we should expect lower spec’d models up ahead. Extra interesting is that the material says these will all be available in Q3, which means a launch in September. The material is quite fresh too, from July, which makes it more reliable. We need confirmation though as this is still vague.
Source: Wccftech
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