[OFFICIAL] Bulldozer Reviews Thread - AnandTech Review Posted

[Dominato3r]

I hope this doesn't [screw] up AMD. Anands last words were true, we need AMD to succeeded.

No profanity, please.
-ViRGE

 

[Rifter]

I hope this doesn't [screw] up AMD. Anands last words were true, we need AMD to succeeded.

dude how can this not [screw] up AMD? They are going to loose millions upon millions over this.

No profanity, please.
-ViRGE

 

[Ancalagon44]

I would have been much happier if they had saved themselves the marketing budget and not released this for the desktop at all. Its not a desktop processor. It doesnt belong there. They should have said sorry guys, not suitable for desktop use, but after Win8 comes out we will have Piledriver with enough IPC improvements to be a good desktop CPU.

 

[AtenRa]

I still believe the FX4xxx at $115 is the best performance/price when OCed for gamers and every day desktop jobs

 

[Deanodarlo]

OMG, Rage3D going against the flow in a fairly positive review. Read it if you need to lessen the pain:

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/cpu/amd_fx_8150/

 

[cebalrai]

Very true - I think we've all had the bump back down to earth and we realize the facts we thought were coming are now confirmed. Intel can't be beaten in the top line desktop, but the market is shifting towards portable low power machines anyway.

Who knows, it may pay off somewehere down the line as there will be a lot of optimizing to do, but as of now AMD and Intel are in very different markets as far as us desktop enthusiasts go and probably will be for a long time, perhaps forever!

I really suspect that Glo Fo's issues have a lot do do with the middling clock speeds on BD. If they get that straightened out I think there's some potential for single-thread improvement without added cost.

 

[liddabit]

Wow, I'm glad I went with Sandybridge last week(My very first intel chip, always used AMD starting with Thunderbird, not counting the 486s and pentium 1, those were prebuilt), I was a little worried.. but kinda sad because a weak competitor is not good to push intel

 

[Borealis7]

this reminds me of the Radeon HD2900 release. so perhaps PileDriver will be something like the HD3800 and Steamroller will be the 4870 AMD needs to get back on top. we'll know in 2 years.

 

[AdamK47]

Bulldozer? How about Bull-don't-zer.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week.

 

[Rifter]

Bulldozer? How about Bull-don't-zer.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week.

I still think Derpdozer is the best name so far.

 

[wonderbread57]

OMG, Rage3D going against the flow in a fairly positive review. Read it if you need to lessen the pain:

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/cpu/amd_fx_8150/

That helped a little bit, thanks.

 

[jmarti445]

this reminds me of the Radeon HD2900 release. so perhaps PileDriver will be something like the HD3800 and Steamroller will be the 4870 AMD needs to get back on top. we'll know in 2 years.

Totally agree, lets hope though that they can come out with this in 6 months and not beyond that timeframe like they did with the HD3800 series as anything beyond that would be extremely bad, I still think it would be wise for them to add another module or two to the current chip, it could show how scaleable these chips are and would make it seem like an upgrade. I have a Thuban chip, while it isn't the fastest chip for gaming the experience is really the best CPU I've ever used as it is really good for doing a lot of stuff without breaking a sweat.

I still think that the reason why they look so bad against the Thuban chip is cause they have 2 less floating point units on the CPU which really slows things down when doing scientific calculations.

 

[Ancalagon44]

They also have less integer units and less instruction fetch and decode units. In short, they have less of everything.

Which means if they added that stuff back, they would arrive at something like a Phenom II. Funny that.

 

[psolord]

This is a sad day for as PC enthusiasts.

Well, look at the bright side. There's always Intel. Thankfully I was preparing for an Intel system anyway, so my plans are not really botched, but I kinda wished they were.

AMD needs to bring out a marvelous Radeon 7000 series, if they want to get some of their good fame back. I mean, the chips should suck up air and shit out gold, that's how good it must be.

That being said, I hope ATI somehow becomes independent again, because I don't see them doing too good under AMD's wing. I never liked this merger damn it!

 

[StrangerGuy]

I still believe the FX4xxx at $115 is the best performance/price when OCed for gamers and every day desktop jobs

Huh?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/434?vs=289

FX-8150 is pretty much a FX-4170 in games anyway, add at most an 400MHz OC and it will still barely match an i3 2100 while drawing much more power.

 

[jmarti445]

They also have less integer units and less instruction fetch and decode units. In short, they have less of everything.

Which means if they added that stuff back, they would arrive at something like a Phenom II. Funny that.

Yeah, not disagreeing with you on that one. Its good that they added the new instructions for AVX and SSE 4 but to tell you the truth, I don't know why they didn't do that when they released the Thuban. It wasn't like Thuban was a Core 2 Quad with two dies on the CPU. It was a different cpu then denab and could have added those instructions to the CPU. I looked at the Design of Bulldozer months ago and was like, when is having less execution units on the CPU a good thing, when I remember with the original Athlon they were touting how they had 3 execution units to the Pentium 3's 2.

This CPU really hasn't made sense to why it is an advantage over what they currently have. Its like the Williamette vs the Coppermine. Yes it ramps up, but unless you have a big frequency difference and are using the enhanced instructions it is slower then then the existing archetecture.

 

[jmarti445]

Maybe a better analogy would be a northwood vs a coppermine-S chip(the server chip they released with 512kb of cache, I dunno know if this CPU is as bad as the Williamette but the coppermine-S chips were awesome and could easily beat the crap out of a northwood chip.

Northwood vs Prescott would also be an analogy cause they lost about 10% per clock and gained a lot of heat.

 

[DeeDot78]

Anyone seen any reviews with crossfire/sli comparisons?

 

[Meghan54]

Gotta love the PR/media/market spin being put on the Bulldozer release:

Unlock Your Record Setting AMD FX Series Processor Today

"AMD FX CPUs are back with a vengeance, as validated by the recent feat of setting a Guinness World Records® title for 'Highest Frequency of a Computer Processor,'" said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Group at AMD. "While overclockers will certainly enjoy the frequencies the AMD FX processors can achieve, PC enthusiasts and HD media aficionados will appreciate the remarkable experience that AMD FX processors can provide as part of a balanced, affordable desktop system."

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=MW&date=20111012&id=14375723

 

[Nemesis 1]

I got a feeling we won't see JF-AMD on message boards again. :/

Ya thats sad to . As he called alot of people out saying they were spreading misinformation when it was he spreading misinformation to sites.

 

[GaiaHunter]

What a big disaster.

 

[Rifter]

Ya thats sad to . As he called alot of people out saying they were spreading misinformation when it was he spreading misinformation to sites.

You hit the nail on the head there 100%. This is exactly why we will never see him again, or if we do it will be under a different name.

 

[Borealis7]

i think Monty Python can summarize whats happening at AMD right now:

We apologize for the fault in Bulldozer. The people responsible have
been sacked.

We apologise again for the fault in Bulldozer. Those
responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked
have been sacked.

The directors of AMD hired to continue Bulldozer after the other
people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been
sacked.
Bulldozer has been completed in an entirely different style at
great expense and at the last minute.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Anyway you look at it it's a disaster. The only strong point should have been the overclockability but... On air all reviewers barely reached stable 4.8 with a power consumption that needs to be sustained by a nucular plant.

Haven't seen a comparison yet between say 2500K at 4.5 and 8150 at 4.8. I'm pretty sure the 2500 is better in 90% of the benches with half the power draw and 20% less expensive. I think the worse part of this launch is that AMD is compromising its position as bang/buck CPU provider. The whole lineup of FX pricewise is a mess.

I can't even think about the performance compared to the competition - and I would include here also the Thubans and such - at lower level Zambezis, the 6000 and 4000 series.

 

[novasatori]

Does anyone know when we might see more on interlagos?