The New AMD Building Thread

Indeed, Bulldozer has been a complete failure. With AMD themselves having stated they're only after a 10% performance increase with the new version of it next year, I can't see AMD competing very well with Intel for years to come, other than selling dirt cheap CPUs (which Bulldozers are not, by the way)

 

An interesting review that gives Bulldozer high marks.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...sor-vs-core-i7-2600k-review-introduction.html

 

Thanks Griff88, Interesting results. I read about windows 8 supporting Bulldozer even further earlier. I'm curious just how much a performance gain we're talking. I imagine we'll see a review/benchmark in the near future

 

why build a CPU on promise? Especially one coming a year later?

also as for the gaming, they should have used a better gpu, clearly they are gpu limited.

 

Perhaps there will be Windows 7 updates addressing the Bulldozer CPU. Service pack 2 :S

 

hope so. Was really looking forward to nd, really disappointed

 

Not really high marks - the FX-8150 loses to the i7 2600K in every single test. With the i7 2700K coming next week at the same MSRP as the 2600K, the 2600K is likely to drop in price. Right now the 2600K and FX-8150 are already very similarly priced, at $310 vs. $280.

 

Or you can get the even cheaper 2500k which is the same CPU with a few less features and all the same performance and OCing. Think it was $219 when I last checked. Unless you have specific need of Hyper Threading the 2500k is the exact same product as the 2600k and 2700k with 2MB less cache. Correct me if I'm wrong here Sam but with OCing there is no difference except price. Any self-respecting gamer or power user who doesn't encode would be a fool to buy the i7s when you can have everything for $100 less. Possibly even less than that considering the impending price drops.

I mean, I understand this is an AMD centric thread. But being a long long time AMD user and being mostly disappointed towards Bulldozer has made me look for AMD's own special kind of value in other products. I happen to have found the price/performance sweet spot in the 2500k.

If you look at benchmarks, the 2500k is ALWAYS tailing the 2600k by a few points. So $100 difference for maybe 1-5% performance? I know what I'm buying. Also consider the 2500k is usually a faster CPU than Bulldozer at stock speeds, then throw OCing into the equation where both the 2500k and 2600k come out roughly equal. The performance gap is nil. When choosing between Bulldozer and the 2500k, the cheaper prices, better tech, better OCing, and higher performance were the clincher for me. I'd love to go Bulldozer seeing it still has merits in a lot of areas. But as it stands I can get a MUCH faster CPU for almost $100 cheaper. I'd like to see what they do in the next few weeks/months.

 

Newegg is already sold out of 8150. Guess they didn't buy enough. Guess they didn't anticipate the demand Now I eagerly await piledriver.

LOL!!! They're out of 8120's as well.

What's funny is, people see new technology, and automatically think it's the latest best thing. 8 Cores... it must be great! Little do they know

But who knows. A lot of people are talking about the architecture, and software not catering to it's needs. I firmly believe it Amd needs to work with Microsoft and other big name software companies. E.g. adobe, EA games, etc.

 

I don't think I'm going intel just yet. Amd must have something up their sleeves. They have 4 months to show me LOL!

Updated previous post.

 

Shaff,

All CPUs are built on promise. It's time for the software manufacturers to step up and make better use use of the hardware technologies available today. They've been dragging their feet for years, while raking in huge profits for those same years. Sam calls the Bulldozer a total failure, but I don't think he's quite right, because their concept does work. Bulldozer also has a more effective Turbo than the Sandy Bridge. Bulldozer is sort the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of CPUs. Isn't it about time the software people got their act together and start taking advantage of current technologies, rather than the customer's wallets?

Oh, Tom's hardware review of Bulldozer.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043.html

Best Regards,
Russ

 

while I agree, software needs to catch up and become more multi threaded, yet it isnt. But why make a CPU not in mind for both multi threaded apps and single threaded perfomance? They should have targeted both, nit 30% of apps

 

Well... we live in a world where quantity seems to come before quality! Somebody high up in the ranks probably wanted progress. They can only wait so long before they need to see some return. In my opinion, they should have waited a little longer, boosting the single thread potential. But I do see the benefits of Bulldozer. However, it seems too soon for the tech :S Basically, I see a processor ahead of its time. But I guess we'll see just how much potential is being wasted soon enough. There has to be a reason they're charging what they are. Just because it's new, and they can take advantage, does not explain it away. I don't buy that. If it were THAT bad, they wouldn't have released it at all. I think I may just buy the damn thing anyway. I may just have to see this for myself.

 

Shaff,

The main reason is that you have to compromise one or the other, as you can't have it both ways. In the long run, the way that Bulldozer does things is going to have overall better efficiency, even down to the actual wattage used. I'll wait and ride out the storm for the moment. I'm probably in the best position with a fast 6 core, if I just stay where I am until all the kinks get worked out.

3DMark11 1.0.2 was a real eye opener. In the Professional Suite Score, Bulldozer was right with the i5-2500K

In the graphics score Bulldozer beat everything except the i7-920

In the Physics Score beat the i5-2500K, but was beaten by the i7-2600K

In combined score, Bulldozer finished behind both the 2500K and the 2600K, but ahead of the i7-920

In Physics FPS Bulldozer finished tied for 2nd with the 2500K with the 2600K taking the win

Sandra 2011 was another surprise as well. Bulldozer did very well, including an outstanding Memory Bandwidth. By the narrowest possible margin bulldozer bested all of the Intels. Realistically it was tied with the i7-920 for first. LOL!! I'm guessing that there will probably be a bunch of bioses offered for a while that may take care of some problems, so we'll have to wait and see.

Russ

 

Well I've often voiced my pro-Intel thinkings in light of Bulldozer's release, but I am very interested to see what kind of performance they can squeeze out of it in the next few months. MFGs will get their boards sorted out, and new revisions are in the works.

I am aware of the victories Bulldozer has won, even in the face of stiff competition. In fact, it compares quite favorably with older i5s/i7s, but price and power consumption alone mean Sandy Bridge is a much better deal.

Even if it were a better chip than Sandy Bridge, the power consumption is still off-putting. If it were a little higher, that'd be one thing. But I'm seeing differences in the hundreds of watts. Now people say "It's not so bad if you don't OC." Well idiots, if you don't OC it, it's not competitive because the Intel can OC WITHOUT the huge power increase.

So either fix the power consumption, or I NEED to look elsewhere for my CPU.

 

Is it the heat that's vented into your room you're worried about, or the additional trivial amount of pocket change you have to spend per month? This is a serious question, I realize how this sounds. Sorry, I mean NOT to bash.

I suppose a penny saved, is a penny earned

 

There are also cheaper versions of the Intel CPUs for those who will never overclock. The i5 2300 for example.


Omega: When overclocked, the power usage is so high, even 120mm water coolers can't handle it. You will need a full custom loop setup with a 500W radiator to be able to take a fully overclocked Bulldozer system - never mind you'll melt the VRMs off the board in a few months tops. If your PC runs at max load often, say an average of 4 hours a day - over the course of a year that's an extra $60. It does make a fairly substantial difference if you keep the CPU for 2 years - you've spent an extra $120 in power consumption - and this isn't the total energy bill - it's only the difference between Bulldozer and an i7 2600K, which has also been clocked to the max (at which point it takes a colossal dump on the bulldozer's performance)

 

May just have to wait for somebody else to post to the thread.

 

hello?

 

Darnit shaff! I thought for sure that would fix it LOL!