Question 1

Is the included heatsink and fan good enough if I don't plan on doing any overclocking?

Accepted Answer

Yes if you're not overclocking the included heatsink fan will work fine. I always recommend getting an aftermarket heatsink or water cooler if you plan on gaming hard but for the time being the stock heatsink will be okay.

Question 2

Does it include a fan/heatsink assembly?  
If not, what do you recommend for non-overclocked use?

Accepted Answer

Yes it includes a standard heatsink.

However, I'd strongly suggest an aftermarket one from here.  The stock fan is absurdly loud and nowhere near as efficient.  Make sure when you search for it that you make sure it fits socket AM3+ or you'll have issues.

The Arctic Freezer A11 with arctic silver platinum heat dope works great!  I'm running my system OC'd to 4ghz without issues using it.

Question 3

Does the heat sink come with thermal paste pre applied?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the heat sink comes with thermal paste pre applied! Hope this helps you with your decision to purchase this item. I have been well please with my set up. I am currently running both windows 10 pro and windows 7 ultimate.

Question 4

Does this CPU work with PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600 dual channel) RAM?

Am considering purchasing, yet with many PC3-12800 RAM sticks as I have on hand, have no intention on buying a CPU + RAM. The FX-6300 will likely run my RAM fine.

Accepted Answer

Sure it works with all DDR3. But it has on chip memory controller for 1866, so 1866 would be optimal.
Honestly, I had an FX-6350 before this and this is not a huge improvement over that. But I DO have 1866, so you might want an FX-6350, if you must stick with 1600 ram.

Question 5

what kind of overclock have you been able to achieve; and at what voltages?

Accepted Answer

Temperatures get hotter than I prefer, with a Thermaltake Frio for the cooler, at anything over 4.3GHz at 1.35V and the CPU NB at 2.4GHz at 1.225V (my motherboard starts overheating when CPU core temps get over 55 C or so).  Best case scenario, it can handle 4.5GHz at 1.4V, maybe 4.6GHz at around 1.425V.

Question 6

Will this CPU run with PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600) RAM? I was considering the FX-6300, but this looks to be a better deal for the money.

I don't want to have to purchase a CPU & RAM together, have a lot of PC3-12800 sticks on hand.

Accepted Answer

Pretty sure it depends on your motherboard.  Most AM3 motherboards will handle plain ole DDR3.  I bought one to do the same thing with an older gigabyte motherboard.  I have another 8350 Vishera processor that is working fine on an identical AM3 motherboard with PC3 12800.

You may need to flash update certain motherboards to handle these FX series processors so check your specs

Question 7

This is my first build. Will this be good enough for casual gaming?

Accepted Answer

This CPU gives you plenty of power to run lots of games with high speed Wifi. There are many of mother boards out there designed for gaming, you need to decide for your needs. I use MSI 970 Gaming series mother board and over clocking my CPU to 3.5GHz, the system is stable at this speed. Happy with the system performance.

Question 8

After research, it appears as though the 8MB L3 cache, by Newegg reviewers & 3rd party sites, may be inaccurate. Everyone that I checked, showed 0MB L3 cache, which for many, may trigger a rightful RMA process for misleading specs.

Many of us doesn't expect perfection, yet this is a critical spec, the more cache, the better performance. Does this CPU have an L3 cache or not?

Accepted Answer

I am running this processor, and run wmic using:  C:\>wmic cpu get L2CacheSize, L3CacheSize

gives: 
L2CacheSize  L3CacheSize
8192         8192

Question 9

How does this taste?

Accepted Answer

Its a great buy. But id recommend waiting until march 3rd for AMD's new ryzen line of processors at the same price or better with superior performance. But back to the 8300 its sturdy even when turbo is off

Question 10

Will this CPU work with an MSI 760GMA-P34 FX MoBo with 16GB of DDR3 1600 G.Skill Aries Ram? I run a 4300 CPU and want to get some more boost with the rig I have now for gaming.

Accepted Answer

Hello Mike!  To make a long story short, yes this CPU should work fine in this motherboard along with that memory.  However, that being said you may want to consider a BIOS upgrade on said motherboard to ensure maximum compatibility potential.  If you're unsure on how to update the BIOS, if you navigate to the MSI homepage (do a quick google search of MIS 760GMA-P34 and it should be the first option) you will find a multitude of information including instructions on BIOS updates (although if you're at all unsure you should have a local technician help you as an incorrect BIOS update can render your board useless) and a compatibility chart.  I hope this helps Mike, good luck!

Brand	AMD
Series	FX-8000 Series
Name	FX-8300
Model	FD8300WMHKBOX

CPU Socket Type	Socket AM3+
Core Name	Vishera
# of Cores	8-Core
# of Threads	8-Threads
Operating Frequency	3.3 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency	4.2 GHz
L2 Cache	4 x 2MB
L3 Cache	8MB
Manufacturing Tech	32nm
Instruction Set	64-Bit
Hyper-Transport Support	Yes
Memory Types	DDR3 1866
Memory Channel	2
Virtualization Technology Support	Yes
Thermal Design Power	95W

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