Pros: Cheap Very playable Minecraft Works better than my old Athlon II x2 3.0ghz / Radeon HD 5450 Desktop, and it costs less than that combination

Cons: Uses integrated RAM (well it is an APU)

Overall Review: Running Ubuntu 13.04, runs Minecraft 40-50fps on Normal view distance with all other settings turned up and Vsync off (so like max smooth lighting, fancy graphics, advanced opengl, max particles, etc.). Built my mom a $210 linux desktop (after rebates, not including mouse / keyboard / monitor / speakers) that runs Minecraft reasonably well. Theoretically, it should be able to play games better than my old Athlon II x2 3.0ghz / Radeon HD 5450, albeit not much better, and I was able to play Skyrim on that thing (with a heavily modified configuration, as well as 800x600 resolution with 4x MSAA, still looked ok actually, ran a few mods too like open cities). Difficult to overheat this thing. Could probably build a custom linux ISO, but for an AMD APU 3.2ghz is a solid low-end icicle compared to some stuff they've been putting out. I put a bigger heatsink/fan on it, but it probably doesn't need it.

Pros: Lots of cores Half as many floating point modules Replaced my heater in my computer room Low wattage version of the FX-8320, works great in 970/760g chipset motherboards

Cons: If you don't disable Active Power Management in the BIOS it seems to throttle such that it never pulls more than "~70 watts" (see other thoughts) Expensive compared to other models that are similar and run better

Overall Review: AMD really messed up their active power management to no end. It's unmodifiably locked to (according to HWinfo64 while running Intel Burn Test) around 70 watts. Since I overclocked it, I obviously disabled it, but it doesn't even let the thing push past 2.8ghz under full (100%, load no more, IBT something or other) load. Under half load it goes nuts at stock settings (3.2ghz / 4ghz turbo) and runs games / pushes turbo rather properly. Because of this, I must overclock it without turbo (not losing much really, since the turbo is only fully adjustable in AMD Overdrive and not in the BIOS of my ASRock 990FX Extreme9). I keep all of the power saving settings in BIOS turned off except for Cool'n Quiet (so it can adjust ghz in steps like a normal CPU without turbo and stuff), set it to 4.2ghz @ 1.25 VID with 50% LLC, only ever gets toasty (CM Seidon 120v cooling it, push/pull fans) if I run Intel Burn Test, and not very toasty (62C or so max). Battlefield 3 runs very well along with everything else, and for much cheaper than most Intel processors in its price range. With the BIOS option of "one core per unit" in number of active cores, I was able to overclock this further than normal at a lower VID (it still got super toasty). With standard all cores active, I managed: 4.5ghz @ 4.15 ish vcore With one core per unit, I managed: 4.7ghz @ 1.395 ish vcore It ran Battlefield 3 much worse, but Starcraft 2 slightly better (low thread count games will see small performance gains while games optimized for AMD 8 core processors will see a decent loss), and it generated significantly less heat (lasted like 5 minutes running Intel Burn Test before I killed it, instead of like 2 minutes with all cores @ 4.5ghz).

Pros: CPU 12 phase VRM design, long life even with high voltage AMD 8-core CPUs Big heatsinks on the 12+2 phase VRMs Option to "disable one core per unit" in the BIOS: for an FX-8xxx that effectively makes it a core-i5 and theoretically allows for higher overclocking headroom (see other thoughts!) ... Lots of... fan headers? I no longer need a heater in my computer room (CPU/GPU help that as well)

Cons: Pulls some major wattage itself Wattage = heat generation PCI-e x16 2.0

Overall Review: I plugged in an FX-8320e to this thing and messed with some overclocking. I managed 4.5ghz at above 1.4v and decided my CPU cooler simply was not enough (CM Seidon 120v, lol). Then I tried the "one core per unit" option (something similar to that, don't remember specifically) and managed 4.7ghz @ just under 1.4v (VID 1.385 or so, vcore pushing 1.395, LLC @ 50%), which was a notable improvement in single threaded / up to 4 thread / floating point computation performance. It managed to push out a few more frames per second playing Starcraft 2 (only uses 2+1 worker thread or something like that) but lost quite a bit of FPS in Battlefield 3 (all of which was over 100 anyway); however, it did all of this at much more respectable temperatures (unlike 4.5ghz @ 1.41 ish vcore). While I don't recommend this for general use or probably at all (especially considering consoles are using what is basically a significantly cut down / lower wattage version of an FX-8xxx series chip), it's at least interesting and might be useful if you only want to play Starcraft 2, WoW, or Diablo 3 (oh Blizzard, move on to more than 2 primary threads :P). Another thing, PCI-e x16 2.0 will technically bottleneck a GTX 780 by around like 1% (considering the game is optimized for lots of threads / AMD 2x integer core as floating point module design) if you're playing something that can fully utilize a GTX 780 (Battlefield 3/4 or such).

Pros: Powers stuff (3+ months) Quiet (haven't tried the red fan button) 80-plus bronze

Cons: Not 80-plus platinum?

Overall Review: Running an AMD Athlon 740, Radeon HD 7850 (slight OC), single 7200 RPM HDD, M/K, basic speakers this thing pulls at max around 220 watts from the wall (tested with a killawatt meter). Idling, I only use around 75 watts average, low end 60 watts high end 85 watts. Given my idle wattage, it runs outside efficiency range (being under 20%) and I may be wasting money. So maybe I should have bought a smaller power supply. Regardless, it's for a gaming computer that I turn off regularly, so I'll save more money on the 80-plus rating than I'll lose on the idle time (only about 20% of the time it's on).

Pros: Works, no bad sectors Paired just fine with another brand same clock / timings

Cons: (cheap?)

Overall Review: Been working just fine, no trouble yet. Good stick of RAM, works just fine with other brands.

Pros: Works - no bad sectors Paired just fine with another brand same clock / timing RAM

Cons: Little Pricey

Overall Review: Got in a combo deal. Good RAM, little pricey, works great.