OMG so terrible. This completely ruins what little hope I had for BD at least being a value overclocking option vs. the irritating 2100/2400.
I had a feeling about it from what few credible threads there were about it before this. I'm not happy. How could they possibly screw up SINGLE-THREADED performance so badly? If they had just kept that at a par with the previous generation they would have been significantly better off. They couldn't even manage that! The most basic requirement of a CPU core is that it at least match the previous generation while bringing other improvements to the table. Remember when Intel screwed up with the P4 and NetBurst and deservedly got hammered for it? Unfortunately, this is a screwup on that level. Nice job outsourcing the CPU fabs! But AMD could ill afford this, while Intel could get up, dust itself off (with some admittedly fortuitous monopolistic conniving with Dell and others) and reply with a much better technology.
It also looks like BD's thermals are just not acceptable for a 32nm process. Maybe the next fab spin will be better. But to me, having an underwhelming performance metric is acceptable if the new process dramatically reduces thermal issues and provides headroom for growth. But this isn't even in the same zip code as Sandy Bridge. To me this is a huge loss for AMD. They outsourced their fabs and now they're paying for it. This is not recoverable. They had to jack up the clock speed to even appear competitive and doing so crushed their thermals.
What a disaster. I don't usually like speaking strongly about things like this, but this really isn't good. This is the final nail in the coffin. Intel owns the high-performance CPU market lock stock and barrel. AMD has no chance of coming back, ever. Intel's lead is too great.
AMD doesn't even have a **mobile** platform to fall back on. This is a devastating blow for anyone who believes that America needs domestic competition in the CPU business.
Frankly, I'll be surprised if someone like IBM doesn't buy them within a year or so.