[OFFICIAL] Bulldozer Reviews Thread - AnandTech Review Posted

[Arkaign]

This guy just found out that BD sucks, and he already spent almost $200 on an AM3+ mobo!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a3R0YuUjQg

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[drizek]

If they priced the top fx as $99 this would have been awesome.

They're going to sell it for $99, whether they like it or not.

Who in their right minds would get this over a sandy bridge?

 

[MentalIlness]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fx-8150.html

 

[quest55720]

In addition to not being competitive on the high-end, I can definitely foresee AMD getting increasingly squeezed on the low-end by ARM-powered Windows 8 machines.

AMD might be able to hang in there if they put their resources behind Llano and Brazos and their respective successors until they can fix whatever ails Bulldozer (if that's even possible), but given their management situation, I don't have confidence that they can perform.

I honestly think the the next generation bobcats will be a huge winner next year with windows 8 tablets. Yeah the ARM windows 8 tablets might have the power edge but the bobcat tablets will have a full OS and desktop apps. The bobcat windows 8 tablets will be a whole new ball game IMO for tablets. Instead of being a surfing/watching video device tablets will be a legitimate computer with no compromises.

 

[skipsneeky2]

They're going to sell it for $99, whether they like it or not.

Who in their right minds would get this over a sandy bridge?

The ford pinto would make a comeback before they sell it for $99

 

[crisium]

If they have any sense they will take Thuban, do a die shrink, dump loads more cache on it, up the clocks, and call it Phenom III. It is their only hope.

 

[RussianSensation]

F@H performance, gaming performance, and load power consumption are the three biggest things I look for in new hardware.

For F@H you want an NV GPU. Also, I imagine that a $160 X6 1090T @ 4.0ghz would do well. In gaming and power consumption, BD is a huge disappointment. See many reviews for details.

 

[cebalrai]

I'll buy a Bulldozer if the price drops a bit.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Maybe this will be AMD's 'Netburst' moment. Maybe the architecture just needs to mature. Right guys..?

They can't afford it. AMD does not have the luxury of being able to sustain a 'Netburst' moment (funny I also pointed that out probably 30 secs. before your post). I think they're toast and it's only a matter of time. Sheesh. It took them six months to hire someone crazy enough to be their CEO!

And no, this does not make me happy.

 

[Arkaign]

I'll buy a Bulldozer if the price drops a bit.

What price could possibly make it attractive? Stock performance is poor at best, and overclocked it sucks epic huge power. It's also not like AM3+ mobos are priced humanly either.

 

[NostaSeronx]

What price could possibly make it attractive? Stock performance is poor at best, and overclocked it sucks epic huge power. It's also not like AM3+ mobos are priced humanly either.

Tree fiddy
$3.50

and monthly payments to pay for the power

 

[cebalrai]

I really wonder though whether BD's mediocre clock speeds have more to do with issues at Global Foundries than by design.

 

[krumme]

Man this is like P4, just worse - what a let down for competition and future development. Is the prefetcher working - damn. I have a hard time beliewing this is the thing for the server side, but looking forward for the Johan review.

 

[cebalrai]

What price could possibly make it attractive? Stock performance is poor at best, and overclocked it sucks epic huge power. It's also not like AM3+ mobos are priced humanly either.

I just told you what would make it attractive: lowering the price.

And I don't care about power. I have solar panels on the roof. My power meter runs backward during the day, so...

 

[NostaSeronx]

Man this is like P4, just worse - what a let down for competition and future development. Is the prefetcher working - damn. I have a hard time beliewing this is the thing for the server side, but looking forward for the Johan review.

It is simply borked, excessive and stupid

 

[drizek]

They can't afford it. AMD does not have the luxury of being able to sustain a 'Netburst' moment (funny I also pointed that out probably 30 secs. before your post). I think they're toast and it's only a matter of time. Sheesh. It took them six months to hire someone crazy enough to be their CEO!

And no, this does not make me happy.

Intel didn't have a net burst moment. It's not like they had a sudden onset of sanity. Banias was in the pipeline the whole time. Once net burst could no longer be sustained, they switched over.

AMD has no Banias to fall back on. They put all their eggs in the bulldozer basket.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Man this is like P4, just worse - what a let down for competition and future development. Is the prefetcher working - damn. I have a hard time beliewing this is the thing for the server side, but looking forward for the Johan review.

If they're smart, they'll pull back the server version and try to figure WTF is wrong. Otherwise it's Barcelona on steroids. Who the heck cares about 8+ real cores when their performance and thermals blow chunks?

 

[Ancalagon44]

Yeah I would pay maybe $50 for it.

I thought a die shrink would reduce power consumption, apparently not.

 

[alyarb]

I'm still thinking about it. It's definitely hard to believe that they saved any die area by duplicating only the integer cores. It simply resulted in too much out of control collateral growth in the front end. They could have done a shrink of Deneb to 32nm, doubled the cores and caches, ignoring everything else they learned from Deneb and still wind up with a chip 200M xtors lighter than Zambezi with substantially more resources overall. Such a device sounds far, far more achievable than their 30% targets for BD, and probably should have been pursued alongside BD as a "Plan B."

AMD has no Banias to fall back on. They put all their eggs in the bulldozer basket.

It's even harder to believe this didn't occur to anyone at AMD over the 5 year course of BD development. Particularly when the decline of netburst was such an influential time at AMD at the beginning of the 5-year gestation.

 

[NostaSeronx]

There goes AMD right out of the Bulldozer!!!

 

[OCGuy]

All I have to say is this...

If you want AMD to pull through and (hopefully) build better processors and compete with Intel, then you have to support them and purchase their CPUs even if they are are not the cat's meow next to Intel. AMD needs CASH MONEY to get BETTER Engineers for better R&D. Period. If everyone runs to Intel because they can't get the same faps per second or gigglehurts than they can with AMD, then Intel will continue to dominate, charge high prices, and only release competitive products when they have to. Does anyone remember the first company to 1GHz? Intel was incrementally upgrading their CPUs by 33MHz if I remember. With new chipsets. And RAM. Because they could. We all have AMD to thank right now for being as competitive as they are. Lets see, AMD market cap 5 billion, Intel 150 Billion. Who has more money for engineers? At least AMD is trying to stay relevant, and on a shoestring budget. Most engineers are probably like baseball players are go to where the bling is. So, if anything, buy AMD for charity to give them some cash so they can keep Intel on their toes and prices down.

Haha. You go ahead and fund crappy hardware. I will reward Intel's hard work and success by purchasing their products.

I really have never understood the love for AMD that is so prevelant on internet forums, yet rarely encountered in the real world...

 

[Dadofamunky]

Intel didn't have a net burst moment. It's not like they had a sudden onset of sanity. Banias was in the pipeline the whole time. Once net burst could no longer be sustained, they switched over.

AMD has no Banias to fall back on. They put all their eggs in the bulldozer basket.

Right. But they did cede the performance crown to AMD for two solid years till C2D came out. And *thermals* were key. When the Israeli team came out with the the Dothan, everybody at Intel knew it was a matter of time before Netburst was just a memory.

 

[quest55720]

I really wonder though whether BD's mediocre clock speeds have more to do with issues at Global Foundries than by design.

I am sure it is but the main issue is horrible IPC. Hell even if Intel fabbed this POS it would still suck. AMD failed to learn the "netburst" lesson from Intel plain and simple. At at minimum it should of had a higher IPC than its predecessor. I can understand not being able to match Intel in IPC and single threaded performance. But to get trounced by your predecessor in IPC and single threaded performance is embarrassing.

 

[Arkaign]

I just told you what would make it attractive: lowering the price.

And I don't care about power. I have solar panels on the roof. My power meter runs backward during the day, so...

Not talking about paying for the actual electricity, but rather the need to buy a considerably higher-output power supply vs. an equally-configured Intel box.

Really just a 2500k with a moderate air overclock hands BD it's ass in virtually everything, and spending an extra $30-$40 for a quality PSU that will handle the extra 200+w of load for an OC'd BD is just insane.

What does that mean? Just for parity, the 8150 would have to be priced around $130ish, or HALF the current price, just to break even with the 2500k value. And you still get more heat and some apps that just nosedive on BD.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Not talking about paying for the actual electricity, but rather the need to buy a considerably higher-output power supply vs. an equally-configured Intel box.

Really just a 2500k with a moderate air overclock hands BD it's ass in virtually everything, and spending an extra $30-$40 for a quality PSU that will handle the extra 200+w of load for an OC'd BD is just insane.

What does that mean? Just for parity, the 8150 would have to be priced around $130ish, or HALF the current price, just to break even with the 2500k value. And you still get more heat and some apps that just nosedive on BD.

There's no incentive to buy this thing. None. Sucks.