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AMD Bulldozer Finally!

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2009
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3,023
Location
Sheffield
Hmmmmm choices choices! Was thinking of getting a 1100/1090t now the prices are dropping, but instead I could get shot of AM3 all together. But then again, my current motherboard is only a few months old and I really like it.

But then again on the other hand, my 965BE is meaty enough to shrug off anything I throw at it. I'm not CPU limited in anything I do, even with my Crossfire setup.

Maybe I'd be best off sticking to my original plan and waiting until DDR4 to do a motherboard, CPU and RAM upgrade. But then if I do that, I might as well get a 6 core to tie me over? Gah decisions!
 
Associate
Joined
19 Mar 2010
Posts
398
I really hope this lives up to the hype, it's been way to long since AMD had a potential Intel beater.

But as others have pointed out if they are bringing back the FX range don't expect them to be cheap if they are as fast or faster than Intel's high end offerings, I think if I reamber right the FX-57 and FX-60 where about £700/750 at luanch.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jun 2007
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8,737
Location
Ireland
ill wait till 2011 socket is out by then buldozer probably have a refresh doubt its going to catch 2011 but should be good value per performance
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Aug 2006
Posts
3,003
On the gaming benchmarks on Anand's bench the 50% boost to 1100T only puts it almost catching the 2600K, a 20% boost from the 2600K would put AMD out of touching distance.

Hmm, your only comparing the 8core BD to the not yet released Ivy. Wait till AMD bring out there 12-16core Interlagos and we can see what the performance stats will be :)
 
Soldato
Joined
13 May 2003
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11,865
Location
Hamilton
I know djkay... but if Bulldozer can barely touch, and not beat Sandybridge, then when Ivybridge comes out AMD will have made little or no progress. Intel will still be head and shoulders above... and it'll then come down to the 12-16 cores to pull it out of the bag... which seems unlikely.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
For the healthiness of competition, AMD need to bring out something which soundly beats Sandybridge, only to be edged out by Intels offerings later in the year.

From the little I've seen, I'm jumping to the conclusion that they're going to be able to compete with Sandybridge, but I do not think they'll be equal with it, not when you consider how much the 2600Ks are overclocking to.

AMD need to really pull it out of the bag here.

Keep in mind its likely that AMD will have EIGHT core Bulldozers for around or maybe even less than a 2600k, thats fully overclockable, on a vastly cheaper(and working :p ) mobo, that will have a 3.5-3.8Ghz stock clock speed, that can do turbo on ALL cores at 500Mhz, meaning most load will have the whole chip at 4-4.3Ghz without overclocking, and it can go significantly further still with less than all the cores loaded, potentially 4.5-4.8Ghz with 1-2 cores loaded, at stock.

Overclocking should be godly, gate first IS better than gate last, but gives lower yields, bad for AMD, the chips that work will be better though. Its got a slightly longer pipeline so the design lends itself to MUCH higher clockspeeds than Phenom's do.

But the main point here is, no one knows what Bulldozer bits will be seen at Cebit, so its not worth talking up into crazyness yet.

Firstly its VERY common for companies to show only reporters, or bigwigs in the industry new parts behind closed doors. Cebit has a public and a private side to it, some products are on show for everyone, some are behind closed doors NDA covered briefings only.

All we know is Bulldozer should be at Cebit, we have no clue if a single Bulldozer piece of information will end up shown to the general public. We have no idea if there will be benchmarks and we have no idea if anyone will get to use a system with one in.


As for the 50% stuff, its SO vague and we don't know really know what its in with a lot of fake slides about.

AFAIK the 50% thing was said AGES ago and was first mentioned in regard to the server space, where switching out a 8 core server chip would beat a server chip by 50% quite comftably as a drop in replacement. Server loads vs home use loads can be incredibly different.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
I know djkay... but if Bulldozer can barely touch, and not beat Sandybridge, then when Ivybridge comes out AMD will have made little or no progress. Intel will still be head and shoulders above... and it'll then come down to the 12-16 cores to pull it out of the bag... which seems unlikely.

Well, AMD shouldn't really care about £450+ chips, most of us don't, yes we've got 980x and 990x users on here, they are few and far between.

In the midrange sector we're talking about 4 core Sandy bridge sub £400, and 4 core Ivy bridge next Jan-march at the same price, vs 8 core Bulldozers.

Thats where the fight is, thats where 99% of sales and revenue are in, I couldn't care less if a 8 core £800 sandybridge beats a £200 8 core Bulldozer by 100%, if its bang on Sandybridge performance, thats frankly all I care about.

Haswell, end of 2012, is the first time we'll see 8 core Intel chips in the mainstream, that vs 2nd gen Bulldozer will be interesting, I don't think anyone knows at this point if 16 core Bulldozers will be on desktop by then(they'll be in servers early next year), or if 8 core Haswell's sub £400 will have the IGP, it will likely be 8 core Haswell with igp vs 8 core Bulldozer gen 2, with its own IGP, the IGP will simply wipe the floor with Intel's, we all know that, the question is, how well will both companies be leveraging the GPU's processing power by then, if well, it could be a very interesting fight.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
I'd be more than happy with 8 cores at 4GHz.

I was after a new case so I'm going to hold out for Bulldozer, could be a nice move from my Phenom Tri-core. :)

hehe, just a little upgrade :p It would seem we're looking at 3.5Ghz at least for the highest speed parts for stock, which means 4Ghz minimum for turbo on all cores, and probably closer to 4.5Ghz with 2 cores or less loaded, thats going to be silly fast.

I'm suggesting maybe higher as I wouldn't be surprised if the rumoured 3.5Ghz release speeds aren't overly conservative estimates.

A lot of the architecture is known, a lot of very educated guesses can be made, Bulldozer vs phenom 2 are firstly, not even remotely related to each other, but secondly clock speeds will be completley unrelated, its on an uber 32nm process, down from 45nm which would bump up speeds anyway, but its a completely different architecture that lends itself to higher speeds.

If we're talking about stock speeds of a 95W chip hitting 4.5Ghz under turbo, imagine top end air cooling overclocking speeds will be ;)

how much are these chips expected to run for?

I assume they are releasing chips that around <£200

Ultimately it will depend on die size, performance, etc. They shouldn't be "expensive", but I wouldn't be surprised to see the FX models(coming back with Bulldozer) to have one premium model, though I doubt that would break £350.

AFAIK there will be 4 module 8 core chips, 2 module 4 core chips, and almost certainly 3 module 6 core chips which you would expect to be failed 4 module chips. I would think there will be options from £125-300, hopefully the lowest octo core sub £200 but that might be wishful thinking. If they spank a quad core Sandybridge, maybe not.
 
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Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2008
Posts
3,450
Location
Chelmsford
In the midrange sector we're talking about 4 core Sandy bridge sub £400, and 4 core Ivy bridge next Jan-march at the same price, vs 8 core Bulldozers.

i agree but 99% of the sales are sub £150 not £400, AMD don't have to beat Intel at the high end, laptops now out sell desktops for home use by a big margin fast low power laptop CPUs are where the big money is, with the AMD/ATI cross bred CPUs coming for that market (if they get the big boys like Dell on board) they have a big chance to get on even ground with Intel.

As for the enthusiast i cant be 100% sure but Intel will have the fastest CPU for home use but it will cost you £1000, what AMD will do well is the sub £250 multicore (6 or 8).

I will get Bulldozer anyway for 2 reasons.

1. i have dealt directly with both company's and AMD are great where Intel are most definatly not.
2. Its been almost 8 months since i have upgraded and i like playing with new kit :)
 
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