Good DX11 gaming and AMD don't mix, AMD doesn't have a CPU or APU that's DX11 worthy, read this and invest in a Intel powered rig,
Performance Analysis
With the addition of numbers for the Intel Core i3-2100 and Core i5-2400 in some of our benchmarks, it's plain to see that even with a price cut, the FX-8120 struggles in most of our tests. In very multi-threaded tests such as Cinebench and WPrime, it just about manages to hold its own against the similarly-priced Intel Core i5-2400 - slightly ahead in WPrime, a little behind in Cinebench and noticeably faster than the cheaper Core i3-2100. The Core i5-3570K is much faster in both tests, but then it costs around £30 more.
Our image editing test was a real let down with the FX-8120. It came bottom of the graph, being trounced by a staggering 500 points by the Core i3-2100 - a CPU that costs just £90. Even the ageing AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition was considerably faster while the similarly priced Intel Core i5-2400 was nearly twice as fast. Clearly, if you do any amount of photo editing, the AMD FX-8120 represents particularly poor value.
With eight cores at its disposal, you'd think the FX-8120 might stand a good chance in our video encoding test. Sadly this wasn't to be and its score of 2,150 was over 400 points short of the Core i5-2400. Thankfully for the FX-8120, the Core i3-2100 was noticeably slower, with its two physical and two virtual cores not able to keep up.
Everything started to fall away from the FX-8120 again in our multi-tasking test, where it was yet again at the bottom of the pile, coming 100 points short of the much cheaper Core i3-2100, while the Core i5-2400 was nearly 50% faster - pretty damning result. Overall, it was no surprise to see the FX-8120 rock bottom, bettered by the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition and Core i3-2100 and trounced by the Core i5-2400.
Our game test lacks data for the two Sandy Bridge CPUs as we tested these some time ago, however, with the Intel Core i5-3570K retailing for just £30-40 more, it's clear from our results that the FX-8120 isn't a great buy for games either. The Intel CPU was 60 per cent faster in Arma II while costing around 30 per cent more - not a bad rate of return if you can afford the extra layout.
Conclusion,
Sadly, its more of the same bad news for AMD or anyone with a Socket AM3+ motherboard looking for a decent CPU for around the £150 mark. The FX-8120 just isn't a good choice when it comes to the kind of applications we run on our PCs. It's regularly outpaced by far cheaper Intel dual-core CPUs, while the similarly-priced Intel Core i5-2400 is significantly faster in many of our tests. It's not all bad news for AMD - before we get accused of being biased towards Intel, we have no qualms recommending the A8-3870K for those looking to build a budget gaming PC, while we also recommend many of its graphics cards.
As it stands, the FX-8120 will have to be a lot cheaper for it to be worth considering over an equivalently-priced Intel setup, while owners of the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition can rest assured that there aren't any worthwhile upgrades yet.
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