Why is the response to Bulldozer so overwhelmingly negative?

[Arkaign]

...and if we, the 1 percentile say that BD is a failure than it is, for everyone, everywhere!

It is when it's almost universally slower, hotter, and more expensive to buy and operate than the closest competition, being the X6 Thubans and 2500/2600k.

 

[mxnerd]

Really sad to see AMD goes down like this with Bulldozer.

I was a AMD user. However, my new Z68 with core i5 2400 runs snappy consuming ~100w, yet my AMD Athlon X4 635 runs a lot slow consuming ~170w with about the same no. of drives. That 70w difference cost quite a bit money & generate a lot more heat in the long run.

And it seems Bulldozer make it worse.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

I understand this. Now I want to know how, say, my Phenom II X3 720 will be doing in that new game at 1920x1080. Do I need to upgrade or what? From where can I get the info?

You get that info yourself. When you get that new game and the performance isn't what you want drop your resolution and if performance improves significantly you need a new GPU. If it doesn't change much you need a better CPU. And in some instances you may need to upgrade both.

 

[podspi]

I'd actually be interested in seeing a comparison between the i3-2100, i5-2500K and the FX-4000 in higher-res gaming. It would be interesting to see whether the $100 dollars saved by going with the i3 or FX-4 and dumping into the GPU would be better than buying the 2500K and a lower-end GPU. So far, I haven't seen any legit reviews of the FX-4 series, just "simulated" results.

 

[MisterMac]

I understand this. Now I want to know how, say, my Phenom II X3 720 will be doing in that new game at 1920x1080. Do I need to upgrade or what? From where can I get the info?

crickets

What I would like is this:

Take 50 CPUs and 50 video cards and test them at 1920x1080, every single CPU with every single video card in 10 games.

Make a page with dropdown "select CPU" (50 options)

Second dropdown "select video card" (50 options)

Click "result" button.

There you go: 10 games tested at 1080p on that particular CPU and video card.

A site like this would be like the Holy Grail of the gamers.

Uhh, there is, it's called GPU reviews.


Every gamer should know that, in these days it's mostly gpu.


If not follow the advice given to you above very simple.



When FPS turns too bad for you - in your favorite game do the following:

1. Lower Reso and Textures.

Does FPS improve?

If yes:

Buy new GPU

If No:

But new CPU

it's so simple, why do you need a review site for that?

 

[Patrick Wolf]

When FPS turns too bad for you - in your favorite game do the following:

1. Lower Reso and Textures.

Does FPS improve?

If yes: Buy new GPU

If No: But new CPU

it's so simple, why do you need a review site for that?

Hell, Civ 5's own benchmark does this for you. It gives a Full Render score to show GPU performance, then gives a No Render score which takes the load off the GPU to better show CPU performance. If the two scores are similar, guess what? You need a better CPU to improve peformance. And when you get that new CPU and it's still not good enough, guess what? Gotta upgrade the GPU too.

 

[Jacky60]

Because it's a turgid POS.

 

[Phynaz]

I understand this. Now I want to know how, say, my Phenom II X3 720 will be doing in that new game at 1920x1080. Do I need to upgrade or what? From where can I get the info?

crickets

What I would like is this:

Take 50 CPUs and 50 video cards and test them at 1920x1080, every single CPU with every single video card in 10 games.

Make a page with dropdown "select CPU" (50 options)

Second dropdown "select video card" (50 options)

Click "result" button.

There you go: 10 games tested at 1080p on that particular CPU and video card.

A site like this would be like the Holy Grail of the gamers.

You're asking for 25,000 benchmark runs.

Why don't you get started. We'll check in on you in a couple of years to see how it's going.

 

[Idontcare]

You're asking for 25,000 benchmark runs.

Why don't you get started. We'll check in on you in a couple of years to see how it's going.

Don't forget that he needs to update that matrix of results everytime a new beta driver rev hits 3dguru otherwise the comparisons will no longer be relevant.

 

[mosox]

You're asking for 25,000 benchmark runs.

Why don't you get started. We'll check in on you in a couple of years to see how it's going.

I remember seeing a Japanese forum with users scores for the FFXIV bench. I no time they put together a huge table with pretty much all the mainstream CPUs and video cards' performances. The game loved more cores from what I remember.

 

[bononos]

Really sad to see AMD goes down like this with Bulldozer.

I was a AMD user. However, my new Z68 with core i5 2400 runs snappy consuming ~100w, yet my AMD Athlon X4 635 runs a lot slow consuming ~170w with about the same no. of drives. That 70w difference cost quite a bit money & generate a lot more heat in the long run.

And it seems Bulldozer make it worse.

How does the AMD x4 635 PC consume 70W higher than a 2400 when both have the same tdp? Is it because AMD has much poorer energy saving features?

 

[Blitzvogel]

How does the AMD x4 635 PC consume 70W higher than a 2400 when both have the same tdp? Is it because AMD has much poorer energy saving features?

There is probably plenty of leakage into the disabled graphics cores, and Intel's 32 nm tech is just plain superior.

 

[cebalrai]

I was a AMD user. However, my new Z68 with core i5 2400 runs snappy consuming ~100w, yet my AMD Athlon X4 635 runs a lot slow consuming ~170w with about the same no. of drives. That 70w difference cost quite a bit money & generate a lot more heat in the long run.

70 watts difference is like having a medium-brightness light bub on for however many hours per day you're pushing your processor at full load. Don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like "quite a bit more money" to me.

This is what I find mystifying about some folks on these forums. They're willing to plop down $200+ for a single component on their computer then bemoan the intolerable expense of 47 cents more per month on their utility bill.

There is probably plenty of leakage into the disabled graphics cores, and Intel's 32 nm tech is just plain superior.

There's not a graphics core in the Athlon II 635. You're thinking of the 631.

Also... You're comparing a $200 cpu with a $100 one. Just sayin'.

 

[nemesismk2]

I'd actually be interested in seeing a comparison between the i3-2100, i5-2500K and the FX-4000 in higher-res gaming. It would be interesting to see whether the $100 dollars saved by going with the i3 or FX-4 and dumping into the GPU would be better than buying the 2500K and a lower-end GPU. So far, I haven't seen any legit reviews of the FX-4 series, just "simulated" results.

I am interested in this as well. how about adding a few phenom ii and athlon ii as well into the mix?

 

[Sunburn74]

Wow, so microcenter is saying right now with the purchase of any 2600k, you get 80 dollars off any z68 motherboard. Literally for 300 USD you can get a midrange gigayte or asus board and a 2600k. How can the bulldozer release be called anything but a complete disaster?

 

[bononos]

70 watts difference is like having a medium-brightness light bub on for however many hours per day you're pushing your processor at full load. Don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like "quite a bit more money" to me.

This is what I find mystifying about some folks on these forums. They're willing to plop down $200+ for a single component on their computer then bemoan the intolerable expense of 47 cents more per month on their utility bill.

47 cents too beaucoup! 47 cents no!
Yeah its odd also because they also mostly wouldn't even blink at the cost and wattage of heat dissipation of _any_ mid-high end gaming cards nowadays.

 

[slackingoff7]

70 watts difference is like having a medium-brightness light bub on for however many hours per day you're pushing your processor at full load. Don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like "quite a bit more money" to me.

This is what I find mystifying about some folks on these forums. They're willing to plop down $200+ for a single component on their computer then bemoan the intolerable expense of 47 cents more per month on their utility bill.




There's not a graphics core in the Athlon II 635. You're thinking of the 631.

Also... You're comparing a $200 cpu with a $100 one. Just sayin'.

The power consumption difference means it will likely be a failure in the server market where AMD should be aiming to drive the highest sales and profit from. Because of this, it looks like bulldozer won't be able to compete with Sandy Bridge's comparable offerings as Sandy Bridge will have a higher performance per watt.

In the long run, this means an AMD failure where it may become unsustainable as a company.

 

[nickb64]

I wouldn't consider buying it purely based on the power consumption. I also really don't need the improvement in multithreaded performance. I play games, screw around on the internet, occasionally encode/transcode videos, and run folding@home sometimes when I'm afk. Bulldozer would likely be better in folding and what little multithreaded stuff I do than if I get a 2600K, but the power consumption just isn't worth it to me.

Honestly, I'll probably end up with a 2500K when I get a new desktop, because I live near a MicroCenter and it's really well priced there. I've been looking at the 2600K because I've got a 2630QM in my laptop and kind of want a substantially higher clocked version of that.

For most things, the laptop is more than fast enough for me, obviously. I need to upgrade off the 5400rpm hard drive it came with, but the i7 with a 6770M and 8GB RAM is more than enough for most of my uses. It's good enough for some of the games I play, and obviously more than enough for browsing the internet.

 

[Chiropteran]

Honestly I don't see it being that bad, as a gamer. Existing games, browsing the web, working with MS office- it's fine. A $90 Athlon is fine also, for the most part.

Future games? It's hard to predict, but I did find the BF 3 Beta benchmark interesting. Here is finally an application where BD shines, and it is the future of games. Modern games must be designed to take advantage of multiple cores or they just can't evolve, as single core performance is not changing much at all.

On top of the respectable BF 3 performance, you have other benchmarks showing 5-15% improvements from revising the core usage or from using the windows 8 scheduler. While BD might not make so much sense now, it looks like a few years from now it could be one of the best performing "old" CPUs.

The power usage, it's a funny argument. I swear just a few months back posters were trying to say that the 100 extra watts consumed by nvidia cards was insignificant and shouldn't be considered as a factor when trying to decide on AMD or nvidia based video cards. Then BD comes out and those same posters deride it for consuming more power at idle than intel equivalents.

My 1090t is sufficient for my current needs, so I am not going to be rushing out to buy a BD. I may never buy one, I am just not in a position to upgrade yearly anymore and I probably won't need a new CPU until BD is obsolete anyway. I just can't agree that it is a totally worthless CPU. While it's a bit of a gamble, there is a lot of evidence that BD will handle future software as well as or better than those i7-2600 cpus. If I needed a new mid-high end computer I'd probably buy one just because I like to run ECC ram.

 

[frostedflakes]

Difference is that GF100's power consumption was at least somewhat justified by its performance. Whereas FX-8150 consumes quite a bit more power than the 2500K and is still outperformed by it more often than not. And it's also more expensive than the 2500K. Unless you do a lot of the handful of things that BD does exceptionally well, the 2500K is a far better buy for people who want great performance right now as opposed to maybe getting some decent performance a year from now when Windows 8 is released or something like that.

 

[aigomorla]

Shall i tell you why i was upset?

Im not upset AMD hasnt performed to what they said.. honestly, most of us already saw this coming.

Personally performance or the cpu itself isnt what pissed me off in general.


What pissed me off?

1. AMD Marketing... straight up, i hope everyone who drew those silly slides comparing a 250 dollar AMD cpu to a intel 1000 dollar CPU only on the pure aspect of price, needs to get fired.

2. After comparing it via price... then NOT putting it in the benchmarks so the public couldnt see how badly the 1000 dollar intel processor would slaughter bulldozer to hide that fact.

3. Telling all the reputable reviewers who had access to the cpu, that their results were WRONG, when final reviews point to be true.

4. Then trying to think of every last CORNER to hide Bulldozer behind covers so no one could validate anything.

This is why i am personally pissed off.

If AMD took a more professional route, and not some stupid child like comparison, i wouldn't of been so upset.


As i said, a lot of us already knew Bulldozer could not beat Sandy... and they didnt need to beat sandy to get our approval.

What they needed was a value cpu, which they would not try to tier up with cpu's that dont belong in its niche, and try to LIE about it saying its a better cpu.

This is about the nutshell why i am so pissed at AMD.

Bulldozer could of been handled much better... less BS slides and more accurate ones trying to put the cpu in where it actually belongs.

But because of all the lies.. no one has a clue still where this cpu belongs... and now the people who would even really consider the cpu have given up because AMD BS''d about the proper tier this cpu should be at.

AMD tried to get the wrong niche.. and now there paying for it.. its simple as that.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Q: Why is the response to Bulldozer so overwhelmingly negative?

A: It doesn't matter as much if its "just enough". Just enough is not what people clamor for. Especially on a CPU, with lot of people with significant knowledge and experience with computers, bettering computing is what we want to see. Things like "Will this innovation benefit us in the real world? Or merely end up being in the history books?"

Some parts of the changes in CPU is hard to understand for most of the enthusiasts. Like servers and to a much less degree, laptops. Things like RAS, what's the use for desktops? So maybe the complaint there is less justified. In desktops? No way, no hell.

 

[Ben90]

I get tired of seeing the "good enough" argument.

It really bothers me as well. So many people just assume that something good enough for themselves is good enough for someone else.

 

[Idontcare]

Shall i tell you why i was upset?

Im not upset AMD hasnt performed to what they said.. honestly, most of us already saw this coming.

Personally performance or the cpu itself isnt what pissed me off in general.


What pissed me off?

1. AMD Marketing... straight up, i hope everyone who drew those silly slides comparing a 250 dollar AMD cpu to a intel 1000 dollar CPU only on the pure aspect of price, needs to get fired.

2. After comparing it via price... then NOT putting it in the benchmarks so the public couldnt see how badly the 1000 dollar intel processor would slaughter bulldozer to hide that fact.

3. Telling all the reputable reviewers who had access to the cpu, that their results were WRONG, when final reviews point to be true.

4. Then trying to think of every last CORNER to hide Bulldozer behind covers so no one could validate anything.

This is why i am personally pissed off.

If AMD took a more professional route, and not some stupid child like comparison, i wouldn't of been so upset.


As i said, a lot of us already knew Bulldozer could not beat Sandy... and they didnt need to beat sandy to get our approval.

What they needed was a value cpu, which they would not try to tier up with cpu's that dont belong in its niche, and try to LIE about it saying its a better cpu.

This is about the nutshell why i am so pissed at AMD.

Bulldozer could of been handled much better... less BS slides and more accurate ones trying to put the cpu in where it actually belongs.

But because of all the lies.. no one has a clue still where this cpu belongs... and now the people who would even really consider the cpu have given up because AMD BS''d about the proper tier this cpu should be at.

AMD tried to get the wrong niche.. and now there paying for it.. its simple as that.

Yeah, they did do a lot of donkey BS, didn't they.

But is it really fair to blame marketing? Its not like they woke up every morning, put on their evil grin and jollied off to work happy as a lark to create a snow-job campaign to cover for the fact that the engineering team spent 4 yrs, under the direction of management, recreating something that was vilified for nearly the past 8 yrs and counting.

Imagine you are paying your mortgage, coming home to wife and kids every day, your daughter wants to play soccer, the wife says the car check engine light is coming on, the dog just crapped in the corner of your den (again), and if you want to keep your job to pay your mortgage next month you had better come up with something quick to kinda blur over the raw edges of bulldozer.

Life is messy, its not all about pure demons and liars. These are real people just like you and me, thrust into a situation in their jobs that just sucks, they just want Friday to come like the rest of us, they want their job to exist next year, and they have literally no control over what the design team has cooked up these past 4 yrs. Their job is to package it and sell it as best they can.

We all bitch and moan that AMD has no marketing presence, then they get handed a turd and told to sell it, then we all bitch and moan that they are trying to sell us a turd.

 

[Redshirt 24]

We all bitch and moan that AMD has no marketing presence, then they get handed a turd and told to sell it, then we all bitch and moan that they are trying to sell us a turd.

PR is kind of like tech support that way, isn't it--it's thankless when whatever you're supporting works right, and it's triply so when it doesn't work. Or, perhaps even more appropriately, when you're given a moving target that you have to stick with ("This is our new flagship product...well, it's still our flagship product, but it has issues...okay, a couple of issues, but they're kind of big ones"). In that respect I certainly don't blame them for any of this, except possibly the uncomfortable silence when the first leaks started coming out--and even then what were they going to do, actually say "Yes, we are having some difficulties with things, please stand by..." and officially tip off the competition? We'd respect them for it, but it's definitely not what the almighty shareholders--and let's be honest, they're God in this case--would want to hear.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.