My 8150 Bulldozer experience - so far!

[infoiltrator]

So at current prices:
Asus Sabretooth $190- $200 + AMD 8150 $190-$15 gift card is $175 = $365

Asus Sabretooth Z77 is $240 + Intel 2500K is $205 (week end offer) = $445
Though I could easily take $80 off the intel motherboard price
and $40 off the AMD and still have good choices.

I do think the AMD chip has extra hidden costs in requiring better cooling and prefers more expensive Ram

Looks like a reasonable match up. I still prefer 2500K on the power usage and architecture, but I still haven't recovered from the Bulldozer Hype or purchasing too many suddenly obsolete AMD CPUs.

Are there any noticeable motherboard advantages/disadvantages between the two builds?

And yes benchmarks are not always significant, every day.

 

[Yuriman]

So at current prices:
Asus Sabretooth $190- $200 + AMD 8150 $190-$15 gift card is $175 = $365

Asus Sabretooth Z77 is $240 + Intel 2500K is $205 (week end offer) = $445
Though I could easily take $80 off the intel motherboard price
and $40 off the AMD and still have good choices.

I do think the AMD chip has extra hidden costs in requiring better cooling and prefers more expensive Ram

Looks like a reasonable match up. I still prefer 2500K on the power usage and architecture, but I still haven't recovered from the Bulldozer Hype or purchasing too many suddenly obsolete AMD CPUs.

Are there any noticeable motherboard advantages/disadvantages between the two builds?

And yes benchmarks are not always significant, every day.

I opted for the ASRock Z77 Extreme4, which is $135 on newegg. It has everything you need to max out a 2500k or 3570k, and doesn't lack any major features.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157293

So in this case it's $340 for the Intel setup.

What's a good AMD board in the $130 range that will allow you to max out an FX-8150 that doesn't sacrifice too many features?

 

[AtenRa]

ASUS M5A97 R2.0 = $99,99
ASUS M5A99X EVO = $134,99 or $114,99 AMR

FX8120 = $159,99

$259,98 with the M5A97 R2.0

 

[guskline]

Ran prime95 over 9 hours without a problem:biggrin:

 

[Cespenar]

Hi,
Just been reading about Bulldozer. No, I wont buy one. But what you all have said is interesting and sad at the same time.
Just for comparisons:
I game. I don't work. I'm retired. Didn't work to well before, either.
My PII 965BE runs at 3.96ghz and 1.5V. Idle temp is 29 at ambient of 20C.
I game with BF3. ME 1,2 and 3. FEAR3, Rage. Skyrim. All of them maxed out at 60FPS and Temp might go up to 40degree C.
Last year my mobo died so I bought the Asus M4N98TDevo. $140 and the 965CPU $170.
The intel 2500K and a similar mob would have been $350 and about another $350.
The diff is ridiculous.
My son's 2600K and appropriate mobo both run at 60FPS and the total idle rates and gaming rates are approx 100watt and 350watt. The same as my Deneb rig.
For the short term A$310 is a lot better than A$700.
I used an Arlec wattage checker.
Just sayin' ........... seems a lot of arguing about which is better.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Hi,
Just been reading about Bulldozer. No, I wont buy one. But what you all have said is interesting and sad at the same time.
Just for comparisons:
I game. I don't work. I'm retired. Didn't work to well before, either.
My PII 965BE runs at 3.96ghz and 1.5V. Idle temp is 29 at ambient of 20C.
I game with BF3. ME 1,2 and 3. FEAR3, Rage. Skyrim. All of them maxed out at 60FPS and Temp might go up to 40degree C.
Last year my mobo died so I bought the Asus M4N98TDevo. $140 and the 965CPU $170.
The intel 2500K and a similar mob would have been $350 and about another $350.
The diff is ridiculous.
My son's 2600K and appropriate mobo both run at 60FPS and the total idle rates and gaming rates are approx 100watt and 350watt. The same as my Deneb rig.
For the short term A$310 is a lot better than A$700.
I used an Arlec wattage checker.
Just sayin' ........... seems a lot of arguing about which is better.

Like you, I also live in Australia, so do you want to tell me where one has to pay $700 for a 2500K and motherboard?

With the 2500K now being hard to find, I can get the slightly more expensive 3570k for $233

And a fully fledged motherboard(Asus P8Z77-V P8Z77-V.Z77) for $199

 

[Greenlepricon]

Well reading through this all sorta makes me sad for buying the AM3+ socket for bulldozer and having it fall so far behind Intels cpu's. I have to say though that it still runs extremely fast. I have a hard time telling the difference between it and a lot of Intel rigs. Don't get me wrong, I know there is a difference, but I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. I can still game and don't see stutter in anything I play with my 8120, and I don't really do much of anything else with my pc besides usual internet stuff and light programs. I guess for me it's more than good enough. Especially with my ssd, everything is extremely smooth and I don't see any problems with running this processor. Well I really hope piledriver and more importantly steamroller don't disappoint, or I'll just scrap the AMD build. It's about time I give Intel a good try anyway since I've never built with one of their cpu's.

 

[guskline]

Well reading through this all sorta makes me sad for buying the AM3+ socket for bulldozer and having it fall so far behind Intels cpu's. I have to say though that it still runs extremely fast. I have a hard time telling the difference between it and a lot of Intel rigs. Don't get me wrong, I know there is a difference, but I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. I can still game and don't see stutter in anything I play with my 8120, and I don't really do much of anything else with my pc besides usual internet stuff and light programs. I guess for me it's more than good enough. Especially with my ssd, everything is extremely smooth and I don't see any problems with running this processor. Well I really hope piledriver and more importantly steamroller don't disappoint, or I'll just scrap the AMD build. It's about time I give Intel a good try anyway since I've never built with one of their cpu's.

Greenlepricon: I know how you feel. To get my 8150 to where it is now cost more $$ (h100 water cooler) and more tweaking than just buying an Intel 2500k with a decent p/p aftermarket cooler and solid mb.

Having both is fun for comparison and now that I have identical GPUs in one of the 2500k's and the 8150 the gap has really narrowed. I switched my big monitor HannsG281 to the Bulldozer rig and honestly use it more than the 24" intel 2500k rig.

I said it before and it's worth repeating. IF you have a quality AM3+ mb and IF you can snag a 8150 for $170 or less you might want to give it a go. You'll need a strong PSU AND highend cooler to OC it enough to make it worthwhile.

However, if you are upgrading both a mb and cpu, the Ivy Bridge or even the SandyBridge gives you more bang for the buck. I really don't see the PileDriver release changing that unless the 8350 is released at @$200.

 

[Greenlepricon]

Greenlepricon: I know how you feel. To get my 8150 to where it is now cost more $$ (h100 water cooler) and more tweaking than just buying an Intel 2500k with a decent p/p aftermarket cooler and solid mb.

Having both is fun for comparison and now that I have identical GPUs in one of the 2500k's and the 8150 the gap has really narrowed. I switched my big monitor HannsG281 to the Bulldozer rig and honestly use it more than the 24" intel 2500k rig.

I said it before and it's worth repeating. IF you have a quality AM3+ mb and IF you can snag a 8150 for $170 or less you might want to give it a go. You'll need a strong PSU AND highend cooler to OC it enough to make it worthwhile.

However, if you are upgrading both a mb and cpu, the Ivy Bridge or even the SandyBridge gives you more bang for the buck. I really don't see the PileDriver release changing that unless the 8350 is released at @$200.

I have to agree with you that the 8350 is hopefully only $200 or so at launch. Either way, I think I'm going to end up skipping it for the next in line. I just put down $300 for this build earlier this year (cpu+mobo), and I don't want to see it kick the bucket just yet! I have the cooler to OC my 8120 into the 4+GHz range, but I keep it at stock, otherwise it likes to turn the room into a furnace when I'm playing games. Right now it's gonna stay at a nice 3.1GHz until winter finally hits.

I'm thinking of doing something similar to what you did, and going for an Intel build so I can run both and compare. I'll probably wait until steamroller like I said before, along with the next Intel chip (depending on whether Ivy Bridge by some miracle gets left on the side of the road or not).

Sorry if I missed it somewhere, but can I ask how the two builds feel side by side? Is it worth the extra cash just to get a little more from an Intel chip, or will I just end up with two computers that feel almost equally powerful? I don't care about getting 100+ fps in games, just around 40-60 so that I don't notice. Right now I don't feel like I have a bottleneck with this cpu, but with new games coming along I'm not sure if it's gonna stay that way for long.

 

[SPBHM]

well, I think it's pretty clear that for the "average user" (gaming, web browsing, basic a/v conversion...) the FX doesn't make much sense, you can get an i5 for the same money, have equal/higher (much higher in some cases) performance for gaming and lower power usage,

BUT as showed in this topic, with the updated prices ($250 for the 8150 was bad) the FX does deliver good performance for the money for some other programs, AND it's acceptable for gaming in most cases... so for someone using their CPUs for a huge amount of rendering or something, it can be a better option than the i5s for the same money (but again, power usage might be a factor)....

now about overclocking I think the FX can be a "trap", even the cheapest FXs can be easily overclocked, but I think overclocking with the Intel CPUs can be cheaper, I mean, the FX uses more power an requires better cooling and VRMs....

the K i5 can be more expensive, but you can get a decent overclock with a cheap cooler and $100 (or less) MB (and that's with a CPU which is already faster per clock).

still, I think the 6100 and 8120 can be good alternatives to have some fun with overclocking and general usage...

 

[Yuriman]

well, I think it's pretty clear that for the "average user" (gaming, web browsing, basic a/v conversion...) the FX doesn't make much sense, you can get an i5 for the same money, have equal/higher (much higher in some cases) performance for gaming and lower power usage,

BUT as showed in this topic, with the updated prices ($250 for the 8150 was bad) the FX does deliver good performance for the money for some other programs, AND it's acceptable for gaming in most cases... so for someone using their CPUs for a huge amount of rendering or something, it can be a better option than the i5s for the same money (but again, power usage might be a factor)....

now about overclocking I think the FX can be a "trap", even the cheapest FXs can be easily overclocked, but I think overclocking with the Intel CPUs can be cheaper, I mean, the FX uses more power an requires better cooling and VRMs....

the K i5 can be more expensive, but you can get a decent overclock with a cheap cooler and $100 (or less) MB (and that's with a CPU which is already faster per clock).

still, I think the 6100 and 8120 can be good alternatives to have some fun with overclocking and general usage...

Agreed on all points. With Piledriver bringing power consumption down it really does start to be a decent choice at its pricepoint.

 

[Mallibu]

I'll just leave this here.

 

[Durvelle27]

I'll just leave this here.

this really means nothing

 

[Yuriman]

this really means nothing

It means something if the CPUs in question bring the average down below 60 frames. CPU limits are meaningless if they're high enough that nobody cares, but in this case you can actually see and feel a difference between a system with a 3770K and an FX-4170 because it pulls the framerate into the 40's.

 

[Mallibu]

this really means nothing

It means a lot.
AMD has no processors capable of keeping acceptable frame rates (>=60) for gamers in 2 major games launched these days (Guild wars 2 & Borderlands). And in 1920x1200, Max Details that is.

 

[inf64]

I don't play neither of those. So to me it means nothing.

 

[Makaveli]

I'll just leave this here.

I would like to see that 920 in that test at 3.3ghz vs the 2500k at 3.3ghz it looks to me this game on the intel platform doesn't care to much for IPC just likes frequency + core count.

And i'm wondering if the lead the 3960x has is really just due to having more cache or if its the extra two cores?

 

[shady28]

I'll just leave this here.

So I really don't care about AMD vs intel etc, but this chart says something about this game.

Specifically, it doesn't scale well with more cores. It would be interesting to see a high clocked SB i3 dual core here. I bet it would be near the top.

Just saying, software hasn't caught up with hardware yet.

 

[Mallibu]

I don't play neither of those. So to me it means nothing.

I don't think anyone cares what it means to you, or what games you play . We're discussing about subpar AMD cpu performance on two new AA titles that people play. Your personal taste is off-topic.

 

[inf64]

I don't think anyone cares what it means to you, or what games you play . We're discussing about subpar AMD cpu performance on two new AA titles that people play. Your personal taste is off-topic.

Frankly I don't know anyone who plays those two games (and I know quite a few folks who game on their PCs). As for subpar,that lowly dual core is not that far off from other SB CPUs. To me it just shows how badly written some of those titles are.

 

[guskline]

So I really don't care about AMD vs intel etc, but this chart says something about this game.

Specifically, it doesn't scale well with more cores. It would be interesting to see a high clocked SB i3 dual core here. I bet it would be near the top.

Just saying, software hasn't caught up with hardware yet.

If that's true, how do you explain the 6 core 12 thread Intel I7-3960X leading the pack?

 

[bononos]

Frankly I don't know anyone who plays those two games (and I know quite a few folks who game on their PCs). As for subpar,that lowly dual core is not that far off from other SB CPUs. To me it just shows how badly written some of those titles are.

Borderlands 2's predecessor was well received and quite popular. Regardless of how games are (badly) coded, its pointless bellyaching. Until the gaming industry shifts into the next gear with new gen consoles, Intels are generally better for gaming.

 

[bononos]

If that's true, how do you explain the 6 core 12 thread Intel I7-3960X leading the pack?

Ivy has design improvements that give it better ipc and it probably ran the game at turbo speeds.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Ivy has design improvements that give it better ipc and it probably ran the game at turbo speeds.

The i7-3960X has the Sandy Bridge architecture...

What we're seeing here is one of the very few games than can take advantage of more than four cores.

 

[CHADBOGA]

What we're seeing here is one of the very few games than can take advantage of more than four cores.

What do you make of the closeness of the scores between AMD's 4, 6 & 8 core models?