AMD FX-8150 8-Core Black Edition Processor Socket AM3+ FD8150FRGUBOX

I somehow got a good deal for this CPU but I was told to wait for the 8350's? (Correct me if I am wrong) but I went ahead and bought it with the combo deal of ASUS Crosshair V. Got the product on time and built the motherboard and CPU within 15 minutes. Used DDR3-1866 Memory and everything was booted up flawlessly. No need to flash bios to recognize all 8 cores. The rendering was a boost of 10% in performance but there isn't much change in gaming. Battlefield 3 was a 2% increase while Supreme Commander 2 was at 15% increase due to the game is heavily on CPU. Overall my performance with this CPU is solid and so far overclocking it easily @ 4.0GHZ for better boost of performance. Running on Water Cooling and Temps are way below for overclocking. I did replace the stock heat-sink and fan and got a copper made after-Market Heat-Sink and Fan. It was very easy to mount on though compare to the Intel i7's cross X bracket which is a real pain in the butt.I was deciding to build a Intel i7 980 6 core processor or this AMD and I was glad to stick with AMD for now until prices drop on the socket 2011 motherboards.Overall I love the CPU and was worth it. It made me happy to be running this CPU right now. I will be waiting next year for the Piledriver CPU's

I've had many AMD Processors in the past. AMD is just so much cheaper than Intel, and as a result, you get more processor for your money. If you wanna go crazy, get Intel. But if you need good speed at a great price, pick AMD instead. I've used many different kinds of AMD processors, anything from an Athlon X2 to this one. This is obviously the fastest one and really isn't too much more expensive than the older ones. I've also used both the FX-8120 and this one, the 8150. To be honest, you won't notice a crazy difference between the two, but the 8150 is a tad bit faster (3.6GHz apposed to 3.1).So what kind of things does this processor really excel at? If you're a gamer, it's a good option, but don't expect a CPU to really help out gaming too much. Instead, you might want to invest that money in a nice Graphics Card. If you do a ton of video editing, this is a great option. Rendering videos is very processor dependant, and this CPU takes on the task with not much hesitation. Beyond that, a beefy CPU like this will greatly improve the performance on just about every task you computer does.I would definitely recommend the FX series of processors that AMD sells. Even their Quad and Six core processors in the FX series are just absolutely crazy. Just make sure your socket is AM3+, since many AMD motherboards still run the older AM3 socket.Good luck with your decision. If you pick AMD, you'll be one happy mofo :)

This is going to be a rather long review; so I'll get the condensed versionout of the way first. If you enjoy reading long reviews, well, you are in luck!Who should buy this CPU:* If you already have an AMD AM3+ capable motherboard and have a low end quadcore or anentry level Phenom II x6 (6 core)* You have to buy AMD because that's how you will always be (see my paragraph below)* You require serious number crunching ability for your heavy threaded applications* You love to overclock your CPU and the price of cooling equipment be damned! This is aBlack Edition processor aka the CPU is built for overclocking and comes fully unlocked* You care about native DDR3-1866MHz support and Quad Channel DDR3Why you would want to skip this one:* You have a decent Phenom II X4 or a Phenom II X6 processor* Your applications are single-threaded (Bulldozer lags behind Intel I5-2500k here)* If you are in the "should I buy Intel I5-2500(k) or go AMD" camp* You upgrade every 9-12months; might as well wait for early 2012 (2nd generation Bulldozer)Now the longer version:I usually start my reviews by giving the context of where I stand with a particularproduct line and how that influences my buying process. Since 2000, I've had nothingbut AMD processors in my desktops. I've moved around as far as motherboards and chip-sets go but as far as processors go, it's been AMD all along. Even for my fileserver/secondary machines at home. I am probably what you'd call an AMD fanboy except for thefact that I exclusively buy Thinkpads for my personal laptops (current one has the oldergeneration I7-640m) and Thinkpads usually come with Intel processors. The machines atwork run I5-2500k and I7-2600. So the point is that I love AMD processors but I am notquite a fanboy.What do I use my AMDs for? My main desktop at home has 3 different uses: 1. Video(Capture, Editing, General Processing), 2. Gaming (think resource intensive titles),3. Photo processing (Lightroom 3, Photoshop). My current machine has an AMD 1090xt6core and while I am generally happy with the unit (bought it on Amazon for $169),I find myself wanting more CPU power during video processing (6 cores being maxedout by a H.264 encoder makes me want more CPU power).This is my current setup:. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3. RAM: G.Skill 1866MHz DDR3 16GB. VGA: Asus GTX 480 with Nvidia drivers 280.26. OS Disk: Kingston SSDNow V Series 128 GB. Scratch Disk: Raid0 with 2*Crucial M4 128 GB SSDsI managed to get my hands on an 8150 and slapped it on my GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3(grabbed the latest AGESA dated October 13th from the Gigabyte website). The1866MHz DDR3 memory was recognized natively at its intended speed and Windows 7x64 Ultimate booted without any issues. What I was most interested in was howx264 encoding (2 pass) would benefit from this new processor. Since the firstpass is just analysis, I ignored the first pass numbers and measured the secondpass numbers for both the average fps value and the time it took for an encode.The source was a 30Mbps 720p MJPEG file in an AVI container and I encoded it toa 10Mbps 720p H.264in an MP4 container. Over 3 encodes, I got a performance boostranging from 8% to 11% on both the FPS and time-taken front. Not a small numberbut not the boost I was hoping for. Granted, that the x264 encoder I have doesnot have AVX enabled.As far as the games went (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY),I did not see a noticeable increase in frame rates (around 1-2% average frame rateincrease at best) but this was rather expected at 1920x1080 since these games arenot heavy on thread usage.I wasn't quite sure how to measure any gains in Photoshop CS / Lightroom 3 -so I skipped this part. At this point, I have mixed feelings about thisprocessor (considering my 1090xt is only 6 months old) and my conclusion wouldbe to wait for the second generation of Bulldozer scheduled to come out in Q1 2012.The problem as I see it is that this processor seems to be future-ready as far asapplications go but 6 months from now, there will be a better Bulldozer and a betterIntel processor or two out there. AMD has always been my favorite as they've alwaysdelivered on the price/performance front but that isn't quite true with Bulldozer.I hope AMD cleans up their act with their next release; the desktop/server computingmarket cannot afford to have Intel call the shots.I was split between a three star and a four star review and I realized that Iwas drifting towards three stars because of the expectations (and partly thehype) and how I wanted this processor to be a huge upgrade from my current AMDPhenom II X6 1090xt. In itself, this processor isn't that shabby. One might arguethat compared to the Intel I5-2500, this process lags in the price/performancecategory. That would be true but I am an AMD fan and I am willing to give them asecond chance before ditching them. Those of you who are on the fence might wantto wait a few months.

It is a hot power monster...The CPU is rated at 125Watt TDP when not overclocked. That coupled with the rest of my system would pull a total of 383Watts of energy from the wall when playing games, measured by Kill-A-Watt. Additionally the heat coming off of it would raise the temperature of my office from 75F to 82F. This was mostly because I used liquid cooling and vented the heat from the CPU directly out of the case to keep the video card inside the case from frying.I recently upgraded to the 3770K using all other components less the motherboard I now only pull 260 Watts when playing a game and my office only raises from 75F to 78F. The reason for this is the 3770K has much better power management and will when doing light tasks throttle down to only 9.7 Watts TDP. The AMD chip cannot claim such a feat. Additionally the 3770K clocked to 4.0 GHz blows the FX-8150 out of the water in nearly all benchmarks. I don't say this lightly as I was an AMD Fan for 12 years until just three months ago when I was getting annoyed by the heat from this CPU. The 3770K is rated at 77 Watts TDP. It's not always about whether or not the CPU is cheap or if you are a fan, do some research and you will come to the same conclusion I did.