14 DAY TRIAL // The AMD FX-9370 and FX-9590 CPUs became available the other day, and now we get to see sales beginning for the first desktop personal computer equipped with one of those things.
More specifically, the G-Tune Masterpiece a1500BA1 desktop from Japanese company Mouse Computer is now up for order.
It's a confirmation, of sorts, that whatever hopes we may have held that AMD's latest FX processors would be available through retail, for DIY customers, have been dashed.
In the end, the 8-core 5 GHz X-9590 and 4.7 GHz FX-9370 are OEM parts, which means they will sell only as part of pre-configured computers from known brands.
That way, the processors will be sure to get cooling systems capable of coping with the TDP (thermal design power) of 220W.
Case in point, the Masterpiece a1500BA1 employs a Cooler Master Seidon 120XL cooler.
That said, the motherboard supporting everything is an MSI 990FXA-GD80 V2.
And by “everything,” we mean 16 GB of dual-channel random access memory (Kingston HyperX DDR3-1866 MHz RAM), a 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD (solid-state drive), a 3 TB HDD, and a Blu-ray writer.
Here's a Radeon HD 7990 graphics card as well (really a rebranded HD 8990).
Everything receives energy from an 80 Plus Gold-certified power supply unit (PSU) whose brand is unknown at this time. The output is of 1200W.
Mouse Computer is shipping the Masterpiece a1500BA1 for the sum of 449,800 JPY, which corresponds to $4,500 / €3,440 – 4,500. All in all, the specifications really aren't so bad, and the price is actually lower than we feared, given how expensive some other pre-built PCs can be.
Then again, Advanced Micro Devices does have a thing for good price-performance ratios, and has been using lower prices as a means to keep its market share unassailable by Intel for quite some time.