I'm looking to upgrade to a better CPU, but I'm stuck in indecision. I currently have the GA-990FXA-UD5 motherboard (Rev 1.0, latest bios) with the very entry-level AMD FX-4100, and was considering upgrading to the FX-8350 (with the primary intention of getting faster Handbrake encoding times); but I've read many reviews suggesting that the FX-8350 is very unstable on the UD3 and possibly UD5 motherboard. Some people purportedly claim that the FX-8350 works just fine on the UD5, but most seem to suggest avoid.
I was debating between the risk of getting an FX-8350 for my UD5 and testing and hoping for the best, or investing even more to also get a more "compatible" motherboard. However, after discovering FX appears to not have a future in AMD's Roadmap, one thing led to another and I'm now considering investing in getting an Intel 4790K with a new Z97 motherboard. However, Intel seems to be shifting to a few new CPU's with motherboards that will support DDR4 memory in the near future. Is that worth the wait, along with any future features?
Ideally I'd want to get a decent but relatively inexpensive (<$200) AMD FX cpu-upgrade (without having to switch motherboards) to tide me over for a year or so until some of these industry changes take place. Does anyone here have experience with the 990FX Gigabyte motherboards paired with the FX-8350 and/or recommend any other FX-cpu that would be a substantial but stable upgrade (over the FX-4100) on the UD5 motherboard (preferable with better Handbrake encoding times)? Should I wait for Intel's new CPU's for relatively more "futureproofing," or is the 4790K a worthy investment that will last for quite awhile?
I *believe* the problem lay with early revisions of Gigabyte boards. Later revisions *may* have resolved those issues, but Gigabyte has left a bad impression on many AM3+ customers.
If you can give some additional details about your board, I'll get back to you.
Edit:
I see you listed it as rev1.0, I must have skipped over it when I was reading. I recall a cooling issue with VRM on this particular board. It's probably fine to use the 8350, but you have to be very cautious when overclocking.
I have the earliest revision (Rev 1.0) of the GA-990FXA-UD5 motherboard, so the odds are stacked against me. However, I have seen a forum post with a person claiming to have Rev 1.0 of the same UD5 motherboard with the FX-8350 working stable without crashing; so I'm not sure if it's primarily the UD3 that's the least stable with the FX-8350. Here is my current hardware: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/pdxscully/saved/xJNzK8
Edit: Thanks, good to know; I wasn't planning on overclocking as I don't have the best setup for doing that. Barring any other verified red-flags, I may get the FX-8350 to try out and hope I won't be cornered into getting a new motherboard if it's unstable.
I have a GA-990FXA-UD3 and I ran a 8350 on that with no problems at stock. Overclocking was limited, I remember running a stable 4.4 GHz though. RAM overclocking was an almost total bust, almost no higher clocks than 1600 Mhz.
I still have my UD3 here somewhere. I've been planning on getting a better heatsink for the VRMs, and maybe make a backplate for it.
If you're not in a hurry, AMD will lower prices on their top model beginning of next month. They will also introduce a couple of low power 8-cores. And it looks like the 6300 will get even cheaper.
I've a 990FXA-UD7 Rev 1.0 board and the V-Droop is horrendous, at least .5V between idle and load - not acceptable Gigabyte *shakes fist* which is why I upgraded to a CHV-Formula Z board, the UD7 is now my Media Server Board with my 1090T
Brilliant, I think I'll wait and see what the two new 95W FX 8-series will be; thanks a bunch. Edit: Someone on another forum apparently found product pages for the new releases: FX-8320E (3.2GHz, 95W), FX-8370E (3.3GHz, 95W), and FX-8370 (4GHz, 125W).