We have a combo review for you today. We are bringing you a full review of AMD's new FX-8350 series CPU, a.k.a. the "Vishera." In order to do that, we wanted just the right motherboard, and Asus happens to have the new Crosshair V Formula-Z ROG ready to step in. This gives us a chance to test the mettle of two top of the line products at once. Will it be a match made in heaven? We shall soon see. AMD first released its FX series chips last year with the FX "Bulldozer" series. Some of us were not too happy with the chip, because the performance did not live up to expectations. Despite (and because of) that hiccup, we are very excited to see what their "new tech" can bring to the table. Today we are going to look at the new FX-8350 series chip, code-named "Vishera," to see what it can do. AMD has reported that the new line of FX series chips will bring a 15% increase in performance from the previous series. We look forward to putting this claim to the test. The new line of FX-8350 series chip is made to compete with its rival, the Intel Core i5 3570k. Our intention is to show you how it stacks up against just that, and who is still wearing the performance crown at the end.

It has been sometime since we have seen any big changes from the AMD Camp. Intel successfully released IvyBridge months ago, and AMD seemingly gave up the chase for the performance crown after Bulldozer didn't live up to expectations. These factors, plus industry conditions over the last few years, changed AMD's business strategy. Now they are instead focusing on their successful APU's (Accelerated Processing Units) as well as the mobile sector. For those not familiar with AMD's APU's, they developed the world's first processor that was coupled with an on-die graphics processing unit. They called it Fusion technology. Fusion started in 2011 with AMD's "E" series processors codenamed Zacate, which did not offer very high performance; however, it was AMD's first round with their new Fusion technology. Zacate did not make a huge impact in the desktop market, but it offered a low price in primarily the laptop market. It also offered a much better integrated graphics package than its rival Intel. Although Zacate was AMD's entry level product, it offered a better all around package than Intel's Atom processors at a lower price point. Next came the long awaited Llano platform that was based on the same Fusion technology. It included the same x86 cores as Zacate, and it had up to four cores using a 32nm die coupled with a Radeon 6550D on-die GPU (400 Radeon cores). We saw up to 90% of the performance of AMD's retired Phenom II series, and the icing on the cake was that this...

Speed bump for a strong mainstream APU contender.

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New APU breaks new ground in the mainstream market.