Pros: You can pick up wifi signals of your neighbors that are located 1-2 blocks away. Solidly built Works great for upgrading a router or wireless network card.
Cons: "So that must be Lord Farquaads Wifi Antenna. Do you think maybe he's compensating for something?" Seriously this thing is almost as long as my forearm. Makes it a bit cumbersome to hook it up to computers that need to be moved around from time to time.
Overall Review: I have bought like 4 of these things in the past year. Fantastic way to boost signal.
Pros: Low power consumption 4 gigs of GDDR5 Does not requite a 6 pin connector Runs Cool Runs Quiet FULL support for DirectX12, Vulkan, and OpenGL 4.5 Runs Overwatch at Ultra settings locked at 60fps, Can do Epic but won't stay at 60fps all the time. FULL support for DirectX12, Vulkan, and OpenGL 5. Hasn't broken 74 degrees C when putting it through its paces in Evolve Stage 2 for 3 hour long gaming sessions. (Running at high with full textures) Paragon at medium settings arounr 70fps we could push her higher if we wanted to. Most games 2014 and older are maxed out. Shadow of Morder using default High settings we are getting 55fps average, 36 min, 74 peak using the games benchmark tool. Full support for AMDGPU Open drivers in Linux Ubuntu based flavors.
Cons: While it feels solid enough, the shroud is made out of plastic. The lack of a 6 pin connector may inhibit overclocking potential if that is what you are into. I haven't bothered ocing this baby since I am so used to MSI Afterburner, but Wattman has a ton of nice features for it. (Found in Radeon Settings--> Global Settings) Drivers are a bit picky in how you install them. When I loaded it her up the first time she had 1 BSOD and at onepoint the drivers wouldn't run. Recomended install procedure: 1. Download latest drivers from AMD's website (This card does not come with a driver CD ;) ) 2. Disconnect the machine form the internet Uninstall ALL existing drivers. 3. If they are found in programs and features, kill them there, then go to device manager, and ensure display adapters only shows "Microsoft Basic display adapter" If it doesn't show that, uninsstally the driver from there and delete all packages. 4. Reboot machine 5 Naviagte to where you downloaded the drivers to and then install them. 6. You can now reconnect the pc to the internet and enjoy! Key Notes: if you have integrated graphics (via motherboard or on the cpu die,) be sure they are disabled in the bios. Many driver releases will support dedicated gpus but not apus from AMD (In our case we are working with the A10-7850k)
Overall Review: I would recommend this for people who are hoping to play in the Windows enviroment who are on a tight budget, or looking to upgrade a lower end machine. I am still amazed at how this thing is pushing out slightly less firepower than my old 270x/7870 (Don't worry this is not replacing that) minus 2 6pin power connectors. Recommended cpus for pairing: Any first gen intel core cpu, AMD phenom quad cores above 2.5 ghz any intel core i3 series AMD FX cpus AMD quad core APUs and Athalons Build this gpu went into: Windows 10, A10-7850k (integrated R7 gpu has been disabled in BIOS) running at 3.9ghz (Will push her more with new cpu cooler) 8 gigs 2133mhz Ram 500 Watt PSU Gigabyte F2A88X-D3H motherboard Hope this review was helpful!
Pros: Great cooling Fans HDD mounts are superb and do not require any aftermarket brackets for 2.5inch drives (laptop drives and SSDs) Plenty of space Looks Sick! Nice side panel. Good cable management Attractive price USB 3.0 headers. Power button is nice Cleaning is pretty easy Water cooling tube slots if you were so inclined.
Cons: Side panel window could have been a bit wider. Like extended right up to the point where it lines up with the drive bays No included speaker? My old Rosewill Challenger case came with a MOBO speaker, but I guess you could make an argument that it is the motherboard that should come with that.
Overall Review: Looking for a decently priced case with all the essential bells and whistles with a rebellious slash design in the front? This is your baby.
Pros: A88x chipset 8 of FRONT FACING sata 6Gbps ports! Chipset coolers aren't too shabby. Excellent driver support options from Gigabytes website. Dual Bios is a life saver. (Haven't needed it on this board but boy did it save a lot of hassle when I had a psu blow on me last year in a friends build). Love the layout and color scheme. Runs Linux Ubuntu Server 14.04.1 Windows 10, and windows server R2 2012 without any problems.
Cons: TL DR: 1. Overclocking issues. 2. Not full atx width when it comes to mobo standoff screws (put ram in before installing mobo) 3. Overclocking with this puppy has been a pain. I can't seem to find what the default voltages are, and I can't get any changes made to voltage to stick- I. e. I can't set them to a static value. Cpu multiplyer is working fine enough as is the iGPU multiplyer, but cpu speed throttles down when the igpu kicks in regardless of me disabling c6 state, turbo boost, and cool & quiet. Not quite sure what to do about that. Will look into some fancier cooling options and see if that does anything for me but otherwise I can't really push my A10 7850k all that hard unless I am not using the igpu which was kinda the point of this build haha. This could be a ram or memory controller issue: I am rolling with 2x4 gigs of 2400mhz gskill Aries ddr3 ram and 2400 was just not stable using the XMP or AMD profiles. It booted fine and would run, however, I would get random crashes to desktop regularly and had one BSOD. Downclocked to 2133 and didn't have a problem. Buddy played Shadow of Mordor for like 10 hours straight without even a hickup after the downclock. Not the end of the world though. Was using the light grey slots as indicated by the manual for when doing ram tweaks. Would like to bump up voltage just a hair to see if that improved stability but again, I am unable to make changes to voltage stick :( Was able to get to 4.2Ghz without touching voltage, but would auto throttle the instant the igpu was put under load to about 3ghz. I am on the latest BIOS so can't really do anything but wait and see if a new release will fix my overclocking woes. (Currently running bios version F6) Because of this if there are any of the more "enthusiast" fm2+ boards with a A88x Chipest priced competitivley (within $20) I would say go for those if you are into overclocking. Otherwise this board is nearly perfect. At my time of purchase the board was well below that hundo dolla level. (using weird lingo to avoid being scrapped for including pricing/availability rule violations)
Overall Review: Currently using this thing for 3 purposes 1. Budget sub $500 gaming pc for friends to use when they come over as most of them are using cruddy laptops with intel hd 4000 series graphics lol. 2. Home NAS server running Ubuntu Server 14.04.1 3. Using it to test out/learn the ways of Windows Server 2012 R2 Full build specs: A10 7850k 2x4 2400mhz Aries Gskill RAM 500 Watt (EVGA 100-W1-500-KR 500W) 80+ cert Power Supply Unit 1 120gig Mushkin MLC SSD 1 old seagate 500gig laptop drive I saved from an old machine that a client gave to me to recycle/salvage Server 2012 R2 180 day eval copy Ubuntu Server 14.04.1 SSH Samba packages installed Windows 10 x64 Cooler: using the stock cooler from my FX 8320 125Watt TDP- this will probably be the next thing I upgrade in the rig if I don't just cave and buy a R7 360.
Pros: First- shout out to the XFX reps that respond to EVERY review you guys are awesome and helpful. Fantastic price to performance. Dat 8gb of VRAM *_* This card is nearly silent under load it is still uber quiet. 512 bit bus. Runs cooler and faster than my XFX R9 290 Comes with a back plate which looks pretty rad. XFX's Lifetime warranty. (Be sure to register to get this ;) ) Supports Freesync, VSR (Virtual super Resolution) 4k Free sync is amazing just saying I can't go back haha.
Cons: Few to Keep in mind Primary functional one: HDMI port is rev 1.4. This means if you want to crank out 4k res over HDMI you are limited to 30fps (If you do it over display port you won't have this issue however many will consider/want to hook this up to a 4k TV rather than a monitor ) Rather power hungry be sure to have a beefy psu. Back-plate covers the PCI express release lever which makes popping this thing in and out of a MOBO a slight challenge The power connectors... they have the same annoying flaw that was present in XFX's 280 290 280x 290x non reference designs: They are a bare to unplug from due to the way the shroud half covers the release on the 6 and 8 pin pci power cable. Bit long keep this in mind as it will not fit in every case out there. Put this into a Antec v2 1100 without any issues if you are looking for a case to refer to for size.
Overall Review: I am an AMD fan and I am an XFX fan. Cards I have owned or put into builds I have made for friends, family, clients so far have included HD 7870, 7950, R9 280, R9 270x R9 290, R7 240, and now the R9 390. Never had a problem with any of them other than few minor things like I listed in the cons. My 290 and this 390 that I have put into a buds rig (He was the buyer hence me not being the "verified owner") easily push 2560x1440p resolutions. These are absolute OVERKILL for 1080p. They can do 4k but if you are looking for 4k max settings you will want to consider either 2 of these or something a bit fancier. This card was paired with a i5 6600k (running stock) with 8 gigs of ram. Plows through The Witcher 3 with hairworks on at 1080p around 40-60 fps. Evolve vsr-ed to 3800x1800 around 60fps. (running catalyst 15.7.1) The 290 and the 390 are very simlar cards (same # of stream processors same gcn architecture) the 390 has faster clock speeds and they run a bit cooler that being said the fps difference is nominal, which is something to keep in mind for pricing. ALWAYS CLEAN INSTALL DRIVERS :D (Do this buy uninstalling old drivers before installing new ones)
Pros: Nice sound quality. Incredibly easy to use and setup. Button away from switching from bluetooth to wired connection. Dat bass.
Cons: Short cables between the right and left speakers. If you use this alongside a larger T(50inches pluss) or a triple monitor setup, you might not be able to span the whole width to have them on the outside of the screen(s).
Overall Review: Got this as a present for my younger sister since I put together a machine for her out of spare parts. Was very pleased with the quality of the parts, sound, and just how nice it was to work with. Good size for a room or office setup.
Pros: The price. AC tech Usb port for firmware updates and FTP file storage Finally have gigabit ports for my home network. Again.. Price. I love the user interface for setting up/configuring this router. Super nice layout that is organized and easy to work with. Sexy Antennas that can be easily swapped out (doubt you will need/want to though they are plenty capable)
Cons: No flashing LEDs by each port :( That is my one and only complaint about this router. By default there was a wpa PIN enabled that I did not configure after doing the initail SSIDs and passwords, so that was a minor nuscance to have to go back and disable, but that is a REALLY minor issue and not really a con as it doesn't impact the performance of the router itself.
Overall Review: At the time of purchase and of writing this review, this was the only AC router that could be found at this price point. As a firm beliver in wired connections, I really didn't care to have the fanciest router out there but I really wanted to have the AC tech. Unless you are gonna be doing large file transfers in a peer to peer setting over wireless, or if you have Gigabit connections provided by your isp you really don't need AC750 wireless bandwith.. infact even then this would still be a bit overkill haha. Thanks TP link!
Pros: Windows 7 home premium x 64 bit Supports up to 16 gigs of ram Class fantatstic os I am sure when 2020 comes around it will be morned and praised as highly if not more so as windows XP I have been using windows 7 on my laptop for almost 4 years now and I recently built a machine on windows 7 pro so I figured I would write a review as there aren't that many helpful reviews on this site presently imo.
Cons: Execution date of 2020 is set. Boots a bit slower than windows 8/8.1 ( if you are on 8 do yourself a favor and upgrade to 8.1 before shelling out 100 for windows 7) GAMERS: Direct X 12 will likely not be coming to Windows 7, no cause to be alarmed if you purchase win 7 right now you are elgible to upgrade to 10 which will have Dx12 free of charge, but it will not be free of hassle which is something to keep in mind. There are easily 200 updates for windows 7 so set aside at least 3 hours for updates but that is to be expected for an os that has been around as long as 7. Doesnt know to not defrag ssds. Be sure to set that to never happen if you install this on an ssd.
Overall Review: This is OEM software. It comes as 64 bit and 64 bit only, there is also a 32 bit only oem software on newegg. 32 bit will limit you to 4 gigs of ram or less. Many people have asked what is the difference between oem and retail. As far as the os itself is concerned, nothing. HOWEVER OEM is limited to ONE machine. You build your build install the os and boom. All you are able to change in your build is your cpu, ram, gpu and Hard drive or SSD. Upgrading a motherboard will requrie you to repurchase windows on oem software. Hope this helps!
Pros: Nice to hold and feels sturdy enough. For I paid 14 usd for a usb 3.0 32 gig flash drive. So was a good bargain. I get usb write and read speeds on small files (20-50MB is small for me) I like the design. Blue led is nice
Cons: Unfortunately write speeds substantially decline on larger files. After about 120MBs into a larger file the speed drops to about 14mb/s. I am not talking about email files or a bundle of little files I am talking about iso files. Large raw data. My old usb 3.0 would hold 100MBps transfer speeds on those files. This version of the Flash Voyager Slider is not the one you want if you need rapid transfer speeds of Large files (500mb+) The usb plug is a little wiggly now but that tends to happen to all flash drives after some use.
Overall Review: For the price I paid this is not a bad flash drive by any means. -1 egg for not meeting my expectation on write speeds of larger files. Full retail value however, I would look at some newer revisions of matching prices with better write speeds.
Pros: Small Reliable Fast enough for my needs Was really a steal of a price when I got it. I am a currently a college student and in my dorm I only have two Ethernet ports available to me. This is a problem when I have my desktop my laptop my tv my gfs laptop and other things I like to hook up to Ethernet when I am working on them. I also frequently attend lan parties and college wifi is pretty inconsistent when it comes to gaming/streaming/downloading. This thing is nice and portable for such occasions.
Cons: If any exist it might be that it is limited to 100mbps so if you are lucky enough to have gigabit connection speeds you might want to look elsewhere.
Overall Review: When you are looking at switches the two big questions I think you need to ask yourself is how many devices will I be using, and how badly/if at all do I need 1000mbps speeds. I got this little guy for ten smackaroones and I couldn't be happier. Downloaded 7.5 gigs in 22 minutes through this little guy just last night while 3 other buddies were playing league and watching netflix. 100mbps is not slow lol. 10/10 would buy again.
Pros: Windows 7 home premium x 64 bit Supports up to 16 gigs of ram Class fantatstic os I am sure when 2020 comes around it will be morned and praised as highly if not more so as windows XP I have been using windows 7 on my laptop for almost 4 years now and I recently built a machine on windows 7 pro so I figured I would write a review as there aren't that many helpful reviews on this site presently imo.
Cons: Execution date of 2020 is set. Boots a bit slower than windows 8/8.1 ( if you are on 8 do yourself a favor and upgrade to 8.1 before shelling out 100 for windows 7) GAMERS: Direct X 12 will likely not be coming to Windows 7, no cause to be alarmed if you purchase win 7 right now you are elgible to upgrade to 10 which will have Dx12 free of charge, but it will not be free of hassle which is something to keep in mind. There are easily 200 updates for windows 7 so set aside at least 3 hours for updates but that is to be expected for an os that has been around as long as 7. Doesnt know to not defrag ssds. Be sure to set that to never happen if you install this on an ssd.
Overall Review: This is OEM software. It comes as 64 bit and 64 bit only, there is also a 32 bit only oem software on newegg. 32 bit will limit you to 4 gigs of ram or less. Many people have asked what is the difference between oem and retail. As far as the os itself is concerned, nothing. HOWEVER OEM is limited to ONE machine. You build your build install the os and boom. All you are able to change in your build is your cpu, ram, gpu and Hard drive or SSD. Upgrading a motherboard will requrie you to repurchase windows on oem software. Hope this helps!
Pros: Fast and snappy Runs Skyrim at near max settings! 28 nm tech 45-65 configureable tdp (yes you heard me right configurable tdp options in the bios for this little guy) the haswell i3 rests at 54 Extremely power effiecent Fantastic integrated graphics (Runs Skyrim at max settings 2xAA and 8xAntisintropic filtering) all on its own, and it can be juiced up even more if you add in a cheap little r7 240 alongside it. Takes an I3 out back and slaps it around in price to performance. (depends on the mood newegg/supply and demand is for this) wait a bit if it is listed above 100 trust me it will drop below again in a matter of a week or two) PCI E 3.0 for amd Keeps league of Legends at above 80 fps on average on max settings. HSA commands The places this new set of compute cores and cpu cores all in one package will take us I am quite excited for. All in all, the a8 7600 is a wonderful all around APU. Great for buisness low powerconsumption builds, budget entry level gaming rigs, and general home computers. (Bit overkill for an htcp but still a good choice).
Cons: The intel competitor single threaded performance is a good deal ahead of this thing, but it is not worth the extra 20-30 dollars imo. The stock cooler works..... but man it is like having a Mandrake from Harry Potter # 2 cry nonstop. If you can fit it in your budget, you might want to consider aftermarket cooling options that would run a bit quieter and cooler.
Overall Review: The A8 7600 is essentially a 10 7700k with a locked multiplier. There are so many pros for this little apu, but it requires a bit of research to get the absolute best performance out of it. For starters, if you plan to game, YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST get the fastest DDR3 ram your budget will allow. 2133 is the highest supported by the 7600 and the a10 770k officially the 7850k supports up to 2400 officially. 2x4 or 2x8 dimms to get that oh so wonderful 128 bit memory bus bandwith. The more bandwith you have the faster your vram will be that is shared with the system ram. At idle the system it is currently placed in sips a ameasly 30 watts of power. Full load about 100. (enough to power an old incandesent light bulb) System Specs: This little cpu 2x4 2133 cl 11 1.6v Gskill Sniper Series Ram Asus A78M-A FM2+ MOBO 120 gig Kingston SSD 430 Watt 80 plus certified matx evga psu Rosewill FBM-01 Micro atx case with 2 system fans Win 7 x64 Pro
Pros: Sleak shinny front end. Very kinesthetically pleasing power button. Plenty of room for a Micro ATX case. GREAT price Screw holes at the bottom to mount an ssd without needing to purchase a mounting 2.5 to 3.5 inch bracket :D I was looking for the cheapest case I could aquire for a build for my mothers business, and this fit the bill perfectly! Perftect case for home builds and entry level and above average gaming builds.
Cons: The black slots/expansion bay slot covers are not really reinstertable once you remove them, so If you plan to be swapping out graphics cards and motherboards, you may find yourself with an empty .5x5 inch hole. The audio and microphone jack are a bit less than super solid feeling.
Overall Review: I scored this for a good price, and would certainly reccomend this case. Excellent work Rosewill as usual :) This has been my 4th case from you guys in the past 2 years. Build: Asus A78m-8 Micro atx fm2+ mobo A8-7600 apu 2x4gb 2133 gskill ram (overkill for her needs I know but I got a great deal on it and I know she runs multiple monitors which eats up a tiny bit more vram) evga 430 watt 80 plus psu kingston 120 v300 ssd win 7 x64 pro.
Pros: The pros are obvious, 4gb gddr5 ram 512 bit bus!!! (Jaw drop) 2560 Stream processors. Comparable performance to the gtx 970 and r9 290x for a good penny cheaper (I got mine for 269). One of the most beautiful cards I have worked with. I like the light up logo even though I need to take off my side panel to stare at it lol. Catalyst omega is nice, I am having a bit of fun playing with vsr (virtual super resolution). This is my.... 6th and final xfx card I have had the pleasure of working with in the year of 2014. I have worked with 2 r7 240s 1 280 1 270x black edition (which this replaced) and 1 7870. All of them have been beautifully made cards, and I love xfx. This card will max out any game at 1080p and it will hold its own at 1440p for most games at max settings. 4k is do able too however you will be limited to 30 fps on its hdmi rev 1.4 port.
Cons: Very power hungry. You will want a solid well regarded 630 psu or better with this sucker if you are on a multi rail psu dont try and power all the connections with it on one. If you are on a single rail psu you need at least 48 amps on it. 80+ bronze is a must, but higher is better. She is fairly long but you know that heading in be sure to pre measure your case. I fit it in my rosewill challenger with some effort. In the future I would like to see xfx make a light up logo on the side of the card would be a bit easier to see haha.
Overall Review: Please read this part: The 290 and up are enthusiast grade cards. They are not something to just grab and go with. When installing these, be sure to get the latest drivers from online. If you are upgrading from a previous graphics card (in my case I was coming from a 270x/7870) You NEED to do a clean uninstall of previous drivers, and this should be done BEFORE you insert this puppy. This is done by going into control panel and finding everything that says amd vision, catalyst control center etc and uninstalling it. If you can find anything in the control panel related to graphics drivers rinse and repeat. Once the drivers are removed, power down pc insert gpu. It should boot up just fine provided you have a compatiable mobo/chipset I have heard certain older intel chipsets simply will not POST with this card. From here install the recently downloaded drivers from amd. although the download step can be done at anytime ;) Failure to do this properly may result in the infamous BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH that is associated with the 290s. My build: Fx 8320 I have overclocked it to 4.3 ghz in the past but currently running it at stock as I dont really have a need for it to be faster and I want to take it easier on my psu r9 290 running stock 2x4 gigs 1600 mhz cl 9 g skill ram Cooler Master hyper t4 cpu cooler Gigabyte 990fx ud3 mobo 1 tb WD blue 256 gb Samsung evo ssd Rosewill Challenger mid atx case XFX 650 watt pro psu 80+ bronze. I am 3 for 3 with these so far, and I know I am pushing its limit with my build. I have seen up to 480 pulled from the wall so far. If it goes out I will likely go to either 750 or 850 watts. Windows 8.1 64 bit home premium I was following the pricing of this card since may of 2014 when it was about 500 now it is down to 300-280 on average if it is above 300 I would say it is not worth it due to how much more effiecient the gtx 970 is. I would also advise if you are already on a fairly high performance card to wait until feb when the r9 300 series gpus drop.
Pros: This is a fantastic deal for an am3+ board with a 990fx chipset. Great for overclockers and gamers. Plenty of pci lanes including 2 2.0 x 16 lanes for those who want to crossfire or sli. Capable of pushing any fx cpu to their max. Plenty of sata plug-ins with 6 gbps speeds. Looks real awesome. Love the black grey look. This is the lowest I would go if you are thinking of putting in an amd 9000 series fx cpu. Revision 4.0 will support a fx 9370 or a 9590, but I would recommend looking at the ultra durable 7 board from gigabyte for one of those. I love the save profiles that the uefi bios gives ya. I have 3 profiles that I use regularly: 1 default with xmp enabled, 1 for overclocking, and one where I turn my fx 8320 into a quad core for when i am just basic web browsing, although I really dont need to do that since the parking feature does that for the most part for me.
Cons: If you are looking for the fastest boot time possible, this isn't the board for ya. POSTing takes about 3-4 seconds everytime. I would have preferred to not have sideways facing sata ports but that is a meh complaint. Other than that I have no complaints what so ever.
Overall Review: If you dont plan to overclock or run sli/crossfire, consider something with a 970 chipset will save you a bit of money. My build: Fx 8320 Cooler master hyper t4 Currently a single xfx 270x black edition card gigabyte 990fx ud3 Rev 4.0 xfx 650 watt pro 256gb Samsun evo ssd 1 tb wd blue Rosewill challenger case Windows 8.1 home premium
Pros: Thin Light Efficient Powerful. Dell Keyboard. Screen looks good! Boots pretty fast for a 5400rpm harddrive due to windows 8.1 fast boot. This laptop packs quite a nice punch with its 4th gen haswell core i5. I personally have an i5 3210m in my laptop (2.5-3.1ghz) which sucks double the power and only scores 20 more points in cinebench r15. i5 4010u: 236 i5 3210m: 256 Very power efficient My girlfriend is able to do 3 sometimes 4 rounds of League of legends before we need to plug it in (about 2 hours-3 hours) otherwise we are seeing as much as 4-6 hours for basic web browsing and paper writing. It is very pleasant to hold and feels very solid. Shiny finish on the sides and a pleasant texture for grip. The integrated graphics are a decent step up in what they are capeable of for this laptop HOWEVER
Cons: 1 stick of 8gb of ram. This is a boost to the average user who is not too worried about graphics output. 1 stick of 8gb of ram will mean a bit less power consumption which adds to more battery life, but since it is not dual channel setup, the integrated graphics take a hit in performance by restricting the memory bus to 64 bit instead of 128. This is not a gaming laptop though so this shouldnt be a bother to most people. My gf is still able to play league with 40-80fps on med high settings (minor stutters). 3 cell battery. I WOULD LOVE to see how long this thing would last if it had a 6 cell battery. Still gets has good battery life and the 3 cell allows this to be fairly lightweight. Speakers are a little quiet.
Overall Review: For an i5 laptop from dell with 8gb of ram and 1 tb of storage, this is a great deal. Highly recommended for someone who wants a fast laptop with decent battery life, and basic graphics output. Hope this is helpful for people!
Pros: 8 cores (see other thoughts for a fun rant about this lol). Multi tasks like a champ This cpu is like a v8 turbo diesel truck engine (powerstroke ftw). It is not the fastest out there but it can handle any load that your standard gamer or home 3d or video renderer will do with plenty of room to spare. the 8320 and its "bigger" brother the 8350 are the best overall bang for your buck in raw cpu power. If you are a comfortable with over clocking go with the 8320, but if not go with the 8350. They are identical in all areas aside from the clock speeds they come with out of the box. Not that you really need it to be any faster than it is out of the box in my opinion. Runs all my games like butter at max settings at perfectly playable to obscenely high fps paired with my r9 270x which is overclocked to 1100mhz. I have worked with the fx 6300 (which I put in my brother's build) and the 8350 which is in one of my friends builds and the 8320 which is in my personal build. All of them are very solid cpus. The 8350 out of the box scored slightly lower than a stock i7 3770 for a good chunk less! (do the math I would tell you how much it is but I dont want that to scratch my review as it would be including "prices/avaialblilty" Cinebench revision 15 i7 3770@3.5ghz score: 662 this score was provided to me by the sofware itself I didnt get to test this one, all the other ones I tested 5 times and took an average of them. 8350@4ghz: 636 8320@3.5ghz: 556 Comparison to i5 series: 489 (3570 specifically which is VERY similar to the 4670 in performance aside from the new Haswell power saving features etc): which is priced comparably to the 8350 when it is not on sale.
Cons: 32nm tech. This is getting very outdated I hope amd will release a new fx line based on their 28 nm tech that is being used in their new apu line. Intel is at 22nm currently and plans to be at 14 by December 2014! For those of you who dont quite know what this means, an intel cpu at 22nm clocked at say 3.5 ghz is comparable to an amd 32nm cpu clocked at 4 ghz. This means a bit more power usage and heat. If you are gaming this is really irrelevant because there is no real gain in investing in faster ram speeds than 1333mhz (SPECIFIC TO DISCRETE GRAPHICS CARD USERS), but this line of cpus is not going to be able to handle some of the redonculous ram speeds some of the intel cpus will be able handle. The stock heatsink provided will work, but I wouldn't use it. Idle with the stock heatsink is between 35-40 and that was enough for me to get an aftermarket cooler. I didn't want to see its max temps under load. Bought myself a cm hyper t4 brought my idle temps to 25-30 degrees C. Just factor some kind of aftermarket cooling into this if you want to fully push this thing without being worried about shortening its life span. Lastly this will "limit you" to pci 2.0 slots for expansion, not that it really matters ( the story may be different if you plan to do 4k but that is not in my area of expertise. 1080p is plenty for me. Also if you are budgeting for 4k you would likely be searching for a bit more performance rather than the best price/performance.
Overall Review: Ignore anyone who says it is only 4 core with 8 threads they only looked at what windows task manager showed them. There are in fact 8 cpu core modules, they just share cache memory per 2 cores which makes it read as 1core with 2 threads x4. They do this because it makes the cpus run more effieciently then the preivious version of this line the fx X1X0 such as 8150 or 6100 otherwise known as bulldozer. Maxed out settings (aside from anti aliasing and games that require 3gb of vram) on: Assasins creed 4 Tomb Raider- Benchmark provided with the game gave me 40 fps on average with vertical sync on. (60hz 1080p tv) Crysis 3- BattleField 4 and 3- TitanFall Watch dogs- World of tanks Sniper Elite 2 and 3 Starcraft 2 (this was the only game the 8320 “struggled with” at stock settings because sc2 only utilizes 2 cores) League- max fps of 360 so far ahah Another thing start discounting the idea that games only use 4 cores. That is changing rapidly and I expect it to become more and more common for games to recomend 8 threads. Xbox 1 and ps4 both have 8 core cpus. Watch dogs in my opinon just needs 6 cores minimum on the amd side. Games that I know of at the time of writing this review that can use 8 threads or more recieved a hyphen (-) aside from league in my list of games maxed. Hope this reivew helps out alot of people! My personal build: Fx 8320 xfx r9 270x 2gb black edition (may upgrade this to a r9 280 or 290 sometime in the future to aquire more vram) xfx 650Watt psu pro series gskill ares 1600mhz gigabtye 990fx motherboard 1 tb wd blue 7200 256gb samsung evo ssd Rosewill Challenger usb 2.0 version case Cooler master hyper t4 cpu cooler Windows 8.1 home premium.
Pros: 8 cores (see other thoughts for a fun rant about this lol). Multi tasks like a champ This cpu is like a v8 turbo diesel truck engine (powerstroke ftw). It is not the fastest out there but it can handle any load that your standard gamer or home 3d or video renderer will do with plenty of room to spare. the 8320 and its "bigger" brother the 8350 are the best overall bang for your buck in raw cpu power. If you are a comfortable with over clocking go with the 8320, but if not go with the 8350. They are identical in all areas aside from the clock speeds they come with out of the box. Not that you really need it to be any faster than it is out of the box in my opinion. Runs all my games like butter at max settings at perfectly playable to obscenely high fps paired with my r9 270x which is overclocked to 1100mhz. I have worked with the fx 6300 (which I put in my brother's build) and the 8350 which is in one of my friends builds. All of them are very solid cpus. The 8350 out of the box scored a slightly lower than a stock i7 3770 for a good chunk less! (do the math I would tell you how much it is but I dont want that to scratch my review as it would be including "prices/avaialblilty" Cinebench revision 15 i7 3770 score: 662 this score was provided to me by the sofware itself I didnt get to test this one, all the other ones I tested 5 times and took an average of them. 8350@4ghz: 636 8320@3.5ghz: 556 Comparison to i5 series: 489 (3570 specifically which is VERY similar to the 4670 in performance aside from the new Haswell power saving features etc): which is priced comparably to the 8350 when it is not on sale.
Cons: 32nm tech. This is getting very outdated I hope amd will release a new fx line based on their 28 nm tech that is being used in their new apu line. Intel is at 22nm currently and plans to be at 14 by december 2014! For those of you who dont quite know what this means, an intel cpu at 22nm clocked at say 3.5 ghz is comparable to an amd 32nm cpu clocked at 4 ghz. This means a bit more power usage and heat. If you are gaming this is really irrelevant because there is no real gain in investing in faster ram speeds than 1333mhz (SPECIFIC TO DISCRETE GRAPHICS CARD USERS), but this line of cpus is not going to be able to handle some of the redonculous ram speeds some of the intel cpus will be able handle. The stock heatsink provided will work, but I wouldn't use it. Idle with the stock heatsink is between 35-40 and that was enough for me to get an aftermarket cooler. I didn't want to see its max temps under load. Bought myself a cm hyper t4 brought my idle temps to 25-30 degrees C. Just factor some kind of aftermarket cooling into this if you want to fully push this thing without being worried about shortening its life span. Lastly this will "limit you" to pci 2.0 slots for expansion, not that it really matters ( the story may be different if you plan to do 4k but that is not in my area of expertiese. 1080p is plenty for me. also if you plan to do 4k I would guess your budget allows for a bit fancier cpu and you arent hunting for the best performance per dollar, as much as you are hunting for sheer performance.
Overall Review: Ignore anyone who says it is only 4 core with 8 threads they only looked at what windows task manager showed them. There are in fact 8 cpu core modules, they just share cache memory per 2 cores which makes it read as 1core with 2 threads x4. They do this because it makes the cpus run more effieciently then the preivious version of this line the fx X1X0 such as 8150 or 6100 otherwise known as bulldozer. Maxed out settings (aside from anti aliasing and games that require 3gb of vram) on: Assasins creed 4 Tomb Raider- Benchmark provided with the game gave me 40 fps on average with vertical sync on. (60hz 1080p tv) Crysis 3- BattleField 4 and 3- TitanFall Watch dogs- World of tanks Sniper Elite 2 and 3 Starcraft 2 (this was the only game the 8320 “struggled with” at stock settings because sc2 only utilizes 2 cores) League- max fps of 360 so far ahah Another thing start discounting the idea that games only use 4 cores. That is changing rapidly and I expect it to become more and more common for games to recomend 8 threads. Xbox 1 and ps4 both have 8 core cpus. Watch dogs in my opinon just needs 6 cores minimum on the amd side. Games that I know of at the time of writing this review that can use 8 threads or more recieved a hyphen (-) aside from league in my list of games maxed. Hope this reivew helps out alot of people! My personal build: Fx 8320 xfx r9 270x 2gb black edition (may upgrade this to a r9 280 or 290 sometime in the future to aquire more vram) xfx 650Watt psu pro series gskill ares 1600mhz gigabtye 990fx motherboard 1 tb wd blue 7200 256gb samsung evo ssd Rosewill Challenger usb 2.0 version case Cooler master hyper t4 cpu cooler Windows 8.1 home premium- I would highly recommend 8.1 btw it boots faster, is a bit more effiecient esp in its usage of multiple cpu cores, although you can fix this in 7 I hear with a patch that is not automatically found in windows update. I may be wrong about that bit however. the info I am using for 7vs 8 in core usage is a bit older from another reiview on newegg and a youtube video that was released before 8.1 was a thing and it was just windows 8.
Pros: Decent Cas latency 1600mhz good warranty on them low profile cooler which is nice if you are installing a cooler like the hyper t4 or t3 on an amd board. Look nice. Got mine for a very good price at the time (see other thoughts)
Cons: None
Overall Review: Ram pricing has been wonky for the last year as far as I can tell. If you already have 8 gigs, I wouldn't bother upgrading for awhile until the price comes down a bit. 8 gigs has allowed me to run tomb raider, league, world of tanks 3 tabs in google chrome and sniper elite 3 with only 60% usage. You really dont need more than 8 right now if you are gaming. When I got mine they were going for $68.
Pros: "Optimized for amd platforms" Didnt need me to remove anything inorder to install it just apply paste set cooler and then with a bit of manuvering and effort latch on the tension bracket for the socket. See other thoughts Very quiet Keeps my fx 8320 at 25 degrees at idle and has never gone above 42 so far. Decent thermal paste.
Cons: This cooler is optimized for the amd sockets of fm2 fm2+ and am3/am3+ sockets in regards to how you do not need to remove a back plate or do anything wonky inorder to install it. However you will only be able to orient it with the air flow blowing up not to the side. This is not a problem for me since I have an exhaust fan on the top of my case (rosewill Challenger). This cooler is not to be paired with high profile ram heatsinks. they wont fit on this thing if you are running on the amd side.
Overall Review: If you plan to use this to work with overclocking, I would just through in some fancier thermal paste like artic silver. The thermal paste that comes with it will work but it is cheapish stuff and it is quite sticky.
Pros: The pros remain the same: 4 cores really great graphics for the value very nice processing power. 2.1 ghz to 3.1 ghz effiecient very sleek and nice to hold. perfect for any web browsing college student and medium to lightwieght gamer. Runs League of Legends on high to very high at 30 to 60 fps. 8mb of L2 Cache?? WOWZA! 6.3 wei graphics subscore 18fps in cinebench open gl 98.01% reference match in gl.
Cons: The lid/screen did not close completely flush with the keyboard The keyboard was not the greatest to type on but it wasnt unpleasant to use. The LARGEST complaint I have with this laptop, is the friggin bloatware on it. Some of the features like graphics, memory testing and other various things like that including the warranty are useful, but the power plans they added in addition to the windows power settings were such a pain to work with: Max battery life would often restrict cpu performance WHILE PLUGGED IN to 1.4-1.9ghz instead of the 2.1 which is considered the base of this cpu which normally can turbo up to 3.1 (3.04 was the highest I ever saw). While Max battery health would restrict charging to 60% battery and then if you were to charge it to full while plugged in, it would discharge to 60%. Almost done here: The time frame to get into the bios is about half a second if that. Internet on this thing is just well so much slower, and when ever a website is entered in ANY browser (firefox chrome and internet explorer were used) there would be this annoying "advertisement management" website that would pop up claiming it was possible to disable it but never could get it disabled. Of the 4gb of ram installed, .8 is setaside. point freaking 8 gb of ram is just not useable.
Overall Review: NEWEGG HAS AWESOME CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!! It is a solidly put together laptop and the non flushness of the screen was very minor. Most of these problems could be solved by a clean install of windows and a formating of the hard drive, but who wants to buy a laptop with an os preinstalled on it, just to install a different os. My girlfreind and I just figured for the moneywe paid, we were willing to rma it and look into another inspiron 15r (with an i3) I would have preferred to keep that amd a8 but oh well. Not sure if I will try Lenovo out again, the laptop is a joy to hold but the extra garbage they threw on the hard disk and the limitations of the extra bloatware kinda ruin that effect.
Pros: Was very cheap for all the great features this board has to offer! Worked right out of the box first test boot made the glorious little beep and my little brother and I just about lost it we were soo excited. For the price of this board you cant beat it.
Cons: there are a few things to keep in mind with this board: 1. The screws in the top right corner will not line up with a standard atx case. So be sure to install your ram before you put the mobo in the case otherwise it will bend during ram installation. We just left the ram in after our test boot. 2. No mouse support in this board's "uefi" bios 3. CrossfireX is not viable since the pci e slots are not both 16x. 4. The english is not the best but not worth docking an egg for any of these things in my opinon given the great deal this board and biostar offers.
Overall Review: On a budget? Comfortable with pc building? BUY IT!! also wouldnt recomend an 8 core with this board
Pros: Games run super smoothly in windows 8 and 8.1 Uses muticore cpus more efficiently (using an fx 6300) Boots VERY fast.
Cons: Still miss the classic start bar options found in windows 98-windows 7. 8.1 removed wei scores.
Overall Review: If you are building a gaming pc go with this software.
Pros: 2 fans 256bit memory 2 gb ddr5 1 ghz gpu great price Stays cool in a case with good circulation. Very similar to my R9 270X. Should run all current and past games on ultra (not accounting for filters and anti aliasing).
Cons: none come to mind. It is a very large card, be sure to have a good sized case with room for cooling. Won't make us sandwiches?
Overall Review: Using this in a build for my youger brother. FX 6300 2x4 gigs 1600 mhz team vulcan ram Biostar ta970 mobo Xfx pro650w psu
Pros: Works fine on usb 2 and 3 ports. Tested it in Windows 10, 8, 7, Mac OS, Ubuntu Ubuntu/Ubuntu Server, Linux mint, Solus running Kernel 4.8.4. Simple plug and play no driver install needed.
Cons: not gigabit. . . but why would you expect that from a device that is usb 2.0?
Overall Review: If you just want a solid highly compatible Ethernet connection and you are not looking for gigabit transfer speeds, this is a great choice.