14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced Micro Devices will soon ship a certain central processing unit that some, us included, wondered if they would ever see the light of day, after missing their launch schedules.
What ShopBLT has put up for pre-order is a member of AMD's FX series of high-end central processing units.
The chip bears the name of FX-4130 and is one of seven processors that the Sunnyvale, California-based company was supposed to launch in the first half of the year (2012).
For whatever reason, the chips never made it to market, and AMD didn't offer any updates about them, focusing on the Trinity and FirePro CPUs/APUs/GPUs instead.
The six other processors were FX-4120, FX-4150, FX-6130, FX-8140 and FX-8170. We have yet to see them, and so is the case with others as well, but if FX-4130 is debuting, we are guessing they will too eventually.
At any rate, the central processor is a quad-core unit with a base clock speed of 3.8 GHz and a Turbo Core frequency of 3.9 GHz.
Not exactly a very big difference but, then again, four cores at 3.8 GHz can handle anything, and overclocking enthusiasts will play according to their own rules anyway (we will assume that FX-4310 has an unlocked multiplier until told otherwise).
Designed with the AM3+ socket, the newcomer should have no trouble in the compatible motherboard department.
Moving on, the FX processor has 8 MB of cache memory, which is at odds with previous reports about 4 MB L3 cache. Thus, the extra 4 MB may be L2 instead of L3.
Those who want to be among the first to receive one of the FX-4310 SKUs need only part with $120.42 / 97.61 Euro. Of course, chances are that mass production will be accompanied by a decrease in price, so people may want to consider holding off on placing an order, for now.