I highly doubt the platform of AM3+ will be in production for much longer, it likely is still being made now just to sell processors. And seeing as AMD seem to have no clue what to offer enthusiasts, cancelling their only enthusiast grade line would hurt them immensely.

I can't see how you'd see any incompatibility from software by just running another chipset, but i guess it could happen early days after a release with select programs but nothing mainstream i would imagine.

I believe both the 6300 and 8320 share the same instruction sets as they are part of the same family of processors released at roughly the same time. Regardless, instructions in processors are usually not all used, only a couple actually make it into common software like AES. If the OP think's he'd use the two extra cores in the things he uses the system for then sure its worth it.

To say a 6300 would bottleneck a mid end card is just wrong, and could pull two forum members into this thread who actually run FX6300's with Sapphire 270X Dual X and Vapor X respectively. Although the 6300 might not fair so well with a higher end card, it does have overclocking potential, and that itself is dependent on the quality of the silicon in the chip.

My point is just that for 20, you get far more potential, it's an extra two cores for a start, and more L3 cache. The instruction set is actually quite a lot greater.

I agree the 7870 is fine for this processor, i did say anything higher would bottleneck.

My point about the 2011 processors was just about the processors - not the chipset.

It just seems silly to me that you wouldn't spend 20 more just incase one day you decide to upgrade to a 280x etc.

Also, overclocking potential is not just about the silicon..where did you here that? It's negligible.

Fair enough, although if it was my money and was thinking of spending a tad more...i'd probably go for a newer Kaveri processor. Board choices are a lot nicer IMO and the promise of HSA and HUMA is appealing to me at least.