AMD FX-4130 Black Edition Processor Review

Mid last year, AMD announced that they were going to be giving their FX line of CPUs a little boost of energy and a little face lift to rekindle their budget appeal and performance for the entry level markets. The FX line of CPUs, also known as Bulldozer, has always filled in the gap between entry level processing power and top performance with chips that are able to give performance on a budget.

As part of this regeneration, AMD have targeted their 4-core lineup of chips and one of these in particular is the FX-4100, a quad-core 3.6GHz chip that still retails for a wallet friendly ~£70-80, although we do have to take in consideration that this older model is now end-of-line. In order to keep this chip alive and to boost its energy, AMD have upped its core clock speed by 200MHz taking it up to 3.8GHz and boosting to 3.9GHz when it feels like doing so. Other changes to the package include a far improved stock cooler which AMD claim will allow for better overclocking from the totally unlocked Black Edition chip over its older brother.

On top of the higher clock and better cooler, AMD claim that users should see a gain in performance of 3-9% in general day to day computing which for a chip of roughly the same price is a welcome sight. Given the FX-4130 is here to replace the FX-4100 we have tested the older chip alongside this one to give up-to-date test results and a far better comparison to see how much of a difference there is to be had at stock clock speeds.