AMD is keenly aware that anyone serious about overclocking immediately chucks the stock cooler that ships with their processor and installs a third-party solution in its place. That's why AMD designed the Wraith, a high performance heatsink that, up until now, only came bundled with two processors.
In addition to the FX-8370 and A10-7890K, AMD is now including its Wraith cooler with its FX-8350 and FX-6350 CPUs. It only comes bundled with these processors—it's not available as a standalone cooler.
The Wraith has proven itself worthy of hanging around with high-performance aftermarket alternatives. It's noticeably bigger than AMD's standard stock cooler, boasting 24 percent more cooling fin surface area, and pushing 34 percent more fan airflow. It does this while being "practically inaudible," which translates to 39 decibels (compared to 51 dB on AMD's previous boxed cooler).
Both the FX-8350 and FX-6350 have unlocked multipliers (as do the FX-8370 and A10-7890K) to help with overclocking. Whether goosed or running at stock speeds, AMD points out that either one is suitable for VR gaming.
"HTC, manufacturer of the Vive VR headset, recommends the AMD FX 8350 as a VR-ready processor. In fact, both the AMD FX 6350 and AMD FX 8350 achieve the highest possible fidelity rating in Valve’s SteamVR benchmark when paired with a capable graphics card. Independent testing has also shown that the FX 6350 can deliver the performance needed for a great Oculus Rift VR experience in conjunction with a Geforce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 390 graphics card," AMD says.
AMD also plays the DirectX 12 angle in an attempt to lure gamers, noting that Microsoft's API scales much better than DX11 with higher core counts. The FX 6350 has six cores (three modules) while the FX 8350/8370/9370 all pack eight cores (four modules), though usefulness of the extra cores varies by application. And while the current number of DX12 games is small, the list is growing.
The suggested retail prices for the FX-8350 and FX-6350 with bundled Wraith cooler are $180 and $130, respectively.
