AMD has launched two new Bulldozer based chips in an effort to make up for the disappointing debut of its Bulldozer core a few months ago.
The newcomers are quad and six-core based. The new quad-core FX-4170 runs at 4.20 GHz base clock speed / 4.30 GHz Turbo mode and the six-core FX-6200 runs at 3.80 GHz base clock speed and at 4.10 GHz in Turbo mode.
There are other improvements too. For instance the new chips belong to the B3 core stepping while all older Bulldozer chips belong to the B2 core stepping. In addition rumors indicate that the two new chips enjoy a better integrated memory controller that runs at 2.20 GHz – 200 MHz faster than the memory controllers found in all current FX chips.
But that’s not all – the arrival of faster Bulldozer cores has made AMD reduce the price of the FX-8120 though AMD didn’t provide information on how much.
Unfortunately the good news ends here. The CPU clock speed increase has put an end to the 95W TDP for the quad and six core FX chips– instead now both FX-4170 and FX-6200 come with a 125W TDP. The second disappointment is hidden in the clock speeds – while the base clock speed increased quite a bit the Turbo mode clock speed didn’t. For example the 4170’s Turbo mode clock speed is 13% higher (compared to a 16% higher baseline clock) while the 6200’s Turbo Mode is a modest 5% higher than its predecessors.
These facts suggest that AMD may reach a limit in CPU clock speed for its FX chips sooner that expected unless the US chipmaker improves the power consumption of the FX cores, which is known to be high. This perfectly fits the rumors around the anticipated FX-8170 that is expected to run at 3.90 GHz base clock speed (up ~8% from the FX-8150) and Turbo of 4.20 GHz (7% higher that that of the FX-8150).
In addition AMD has killed the shipments of older parts – for example the older Phenom II X6 processors have become really hard to find and even if you are able to find one you won’t like the price – it has gone through the roof. A small consolation would be (and that’s only in case your motherboard supports the FX chips) that the new FX-4170 and especially the FX-6200 processor are likely to reach the performance of the now rare Phenom II X6 processors.
The FX-4170 and the FX-6200 currently retail for around 140 USD and 180 USD accordingly, compared to 109 USD and 149 USD for the older FX-4100 and FX-6100 parts.
Source: Hot Hardware