AMD FX-9590 AM3+ Conclusion

IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested, which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.

AMD has long controlled the value portion of the sub-$200 processor market. Though the FX series is the latest iteration, the Phenom and Phenom-II processors before it also held down an excellent price to performance ratio, demonstrating the viability of AMD processors. The newest refresh of the FX series, the FX-8370E and FX-8370 CPUs show nothing different, especially in multi-threaded performance. The FX-9590 still sits at the top of it’s market, showing great performance beyond similarly priced processors. That being said, the FX-8370 does well competing with the FX-9590 and doesn’t cost as much.

The AMD FX-9590 didn’t overclock much for me. It ran at 5.0GHz on all cores, but that’s as high as I got it to go. Considering that 5.0GHz is the max turbo speed, I wasn’t really impressed. That was even running with a water cooler. I suppose that the FX-9590 is at the very top of the yields, so there probably isn’t much room for pushing the envelope. I’d have like to see something more, though.

The simply fact that AMD can continue to release new versions of the same CPUs with slightly higher clock speeds while lowering prices across the board is a testament to their high level of construction and the quality of materials used. The yields must continue to improve, because we are going on two years of Piledriver based FX chips at this point. The real question that this brings up, of course, is the value of the FX-9590 over the FX-8370. While the FX-9590 only has an MSRP $27 higher than the FX-8370, the two CPUs are very similar, and perform very closely. The FX-8370 may even have a little more headroom, meaning it might be able to overclock and perform just as well as the FX-9590

The FX series of processors represents a small part of the huge branding efforts of AMD. You can practically build an entire gaming PC out of parts from AMD or manufacturing partners. In our testbench, the Chipset on the motherboard is made by AMD, as is the CPU, the GPU, and the RAM. You can also get an AMD SSD to go along with the rest, leaving nothing but the PSU up to the another company. This is a testament of the functionality of the FX CPUs. AMD has the ability to fine tune performance together with every other component to ensure an excellent experience across the board. I’ve said the same about Samsung’s completely in-house manufactured SSDs recently. It is true for them, and it is true for AMD.

At the time of this publishing, the AMD FX-9590 processor is selling online for $234.99 (Amazon | B&H | Newegg). That’s actually closer to $50 or $55 more than the FX-8370. In this instance, I have to give the value to the FX-8370, and not so much to the FX-9590.

Pros:

Cons:

– The FX-8370 might be a better value
– Still using old cores

Ratings:

• Performance: 8.50
• Overclock: 7.00
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 7.50

Final Score: 8.20 out of 10.