Gamers and creative professionals have a new processor to lust after: the 5GHz AMD FX-9590 chip that the company unveiled at E3 this morning.
According to AMD, this is “the world’s first commercially available 5GHz processor” that consumers can buy to as a standalone part to upgrade their desktop computers, or in a pre-built system, like the Maingear SHIFT gaming desktop. For those who deal with video editing and 3D modeling, or play modern AAA titles, this could be the chip to look for in your next machine.
Although this octo-core chip doesn’t stay running at 5GHz all day – its Turbo Core 3.0 technology means it will reduce the processing speed when you’re just checking email, for example – it is capable of automatically reaching its top speed whenever you’re stressing your computer. Since the new chip is based on the “Piledriver” architecture, the FX-9590 comes “unlocked for easy overclocking,” but you can also manually control its performance with AMD’s OverDrive software.
That said, if you fry your processor, AMD’s warranty won’t replace it, according to SlashGear – even if you use the included OverDrive software to tweak the chip’s performance.
In addition to launching the 5GHz FX-9590, AMD also added a slightly slower, 8-core 4.7GHz FX-9390 to its FX processor family today. The 4.7GHz chip shares the same architecture as its faster brother, but it will likely be a more affordable version of its more glamorous sibling. Unfortunately, we don’t have prices for either chip at the moment.
Until we get these chips in for testing, we won’t know how they compare with the new Intel Haswell processors in terms of real-world performance, rather than just their top clock speed. Both chips will be available worldwide by this summer so we have some time to see how they rank compared to the competition.
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