There have been some very mixed professional reviews of the AMD FX processors, and I would agree at the initial release price FX was not as appealing as it might be. However the price has fallen quite a bit since lauch, mix in quite a good AMD cashback offer and you are asking yourself one simple question.



I'm looking for a CPU that has a good performance and is well priced. Welcome to the FX6100 from AMD ;-)

You could of course buy an Intel i-3 CPU, but you want something that won't "run and hide" when things get a bit more demanding.

I upgraded from an AMD quad core Phenom II 840 CPU and it's been well worthwhile a very easy update for 2/3/4 core AMD users except owners of the x6 Phenom II where the performance is similar to the lower x6 processors. But you now pay a lot less for the CPU so it evens things out.

With video work there is a very strong performance really outstanding and a notable step up from the x4 processor. Photo/Video work this is a super choice for good performance, also speedy for software such as Winrar, 7zip



It might not have been a super appealing £150 CPU, but at it's current price it's an outstanding bargain.

May not score great on Itunes and some other benchmarks, but then with 6 cores/threads some of the review software simply won't run that well for this CPU. But I bet if I-tunes ran on more than a few threads this would score superbly. Let's put the blame on the software makers who should ensure they cater for multi threading properly.

My own tests showed it scored 5800 odd on passmark (going well above 6000 with a small bump to 3.5GHz) v 4000 from the old 840 CPU, and it shaved a good 6 minutes off of a video conversion (27mins v just over 20mins with the 6100) I even managed to undervolt it and overclock it! (hint a good choice for quiet pc enthusiasts too) Runs even cooler than the 840 and is unquestionably quicker.



Pros:

Runs very cool

Super bang per buck

Very good performance for multi threaded applications

Unlocked



Cons:

Performance mixed in low threaded applications, but still decent (ie it's in the heavy thread ones where you need the performance most)



Easy 5 star for this simply cannot find fault at this price. A much better choice for heavy lifting v an i-3 processor (and cheaper too!)