Originally Posted by
sdlvx
FX 8320e won't blow your CPU away by any means. But if you sell your 1100T for $100, it only costs $40 for an FX 8320e. I understand how you feel, you have that 1100T dialed in as far as you can get it to go and there's no tweaking left.
Just sell the 1100T for $100 and then spend the $40 on an FX. At least it'll keep you busy tweaking and stuff until Zen comes out.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/FX-8350-vs-Core-i5-3470-CPU-Review/1657
It's not going to be a huge upgrade, but I highly doubt that you're running into problems with that CPU anyways. I wasn't really having problems with my i7 920 when I went FX other than needing more rendering performance. But they are so cheap it's not a big deal.
If I were in your position, I'd invest in a nice water cooling kit, like an XSPC one that's not too expensive, and grab an FX 8320e and push it super far. FX chips love being water cooled, and then you can take your water cooling kit with you for your next upgrade.
That's just me though. I appreciate the fun in overclocking chips. I delidded my Opteron 165 and OCed it just because it was fun to do. $40 total for a side grade with a few decent performance perks and a brand new toy to play with would be worth it in my position. I've even contemplated buying another FX 8320e or something just to see how it clocks compared to what I have.
CPU is not as important as it was years ago. And 1100T is holding value very well. I'd make major upgrades to my cooling system and then spend a little extra on an FX chip to abuse for the next year or so. I run 1.62v 24/7 and there's another guy on here F3AR5 453s or something that has ran 1.7v under water on his FX for over a year and has no problems.
I'd say do it. And I do agree with you. I want to stay AMD as long as possible as long as they keep taking care of enthusiasts who like to overclock. Intel platform is no where near as fun, they took away a lot of the fun of balancing buses and stuff. I rather have a slightly slower chip that's fun to play around with than a set it and forget it benchmark winner. Though if I had a fun to play around with chip that won benchmarks I'd be happy too.
People are ravenous for Intel and I don't get it. I have noob friends who don't even overclock who used to give me **** for gaming on AMD because the benchmarks say it sucks. Well everything is overclocked pretty far and when we play games together, I have the highest FPS. So benchmarks are only really good for approximating things.