AMD Bulldozer Finally!

[Martini1991]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/363?vs=434

It needs a massive price drop.

 

[mmj_uk]

But even at 150 quid, you can't make programs use the cores.
It's a niche product.

I agree £150 would be a more sensible price but like you say this CPU is still flawed due to the comparatively poor IPC.

Can AMD even afford to sell it for £150 though? given that it's 2billion transistor monster are they even making any profit at £200?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I agree £150 would be a more sensible price but like you say this CPU is still flawed due to the comparatively poor IPC.

Can AMD even afford to sell it for £150 though? given that it's 2billion transistor monster are they even making any profit at £200?

Bulldozer is actually smaller than Thuban and IIRC they are only buying usable chips from Global Foundries,meaning the latter is probably taking the hit.

The FX4100 uses the same die as the FX6100 and FX8100 series and is around £90 to £95. The FX8120 is around £160 to £170. I suspect they could make a profit even selling the FX8150 at £140.

 

[kitch9]

But even at 150 quid, you can't make programs use the cores.
It's a niche product.

No, but you can choose to use the programs that do make the best use of the cores and avoid the single threaded stuff. The single threaded stuff will be mostly older programs that even the crappest of CPU's shouldn't have a problem with anyway.

Cpu reviews are good for an idea but most don't really give an indication of real world use, I mean nobody would only use a single thread to encode videos unless they were mental for instance.

There's plenty of choice out there, games are becoming more multi threaded, drivers are becoming multi threaded, DX11 is now multi threaded, and there's plenty of multi threaded apps for most jobs.

BD would be a decent chip if it had less power draw, 10% more IPC and 10% more clocks, and sorting 2 out of those 3 as a minimum that should be fairly attainable over the next few months I would imagine.

 

[gareth170]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...on-8-core-review-with-gigabyte-990fxa-ud7/25/

hmmm this review shows the 8150 is in between a 2500k/2600k in some things and on per with a 2500k clock for clock in Cinebench R11.5

 

[chaotic_uk]

need one to keep my place warm this coming winter , lots of snow on it's way you know

 

[Martini1991]

Bulldozer is actually smaller than Thuban and IIRC they are only buying usable chips from Global Foundries,meaning the latter is probably taking the hit.

The FX4100 uses the same die as the FX6100 and FX8100 series and is around £90 to £95. The FX8120 is around £160 to £170. I suspect they could make a profit even selling the FX8150 at £140.

Bulldozer FX 8150 is two billion transistors...

SB 2500k is less than half of that.
The Phenom II 1100T is over 900 million transistors.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...on-8-core-review-with-gigabyte-990fxa-ud7/25/

hmmm this review shows the 8150 is in between a 2500k/2600k in some things and on per with a 2500k clock for clock in Cinebench R11.5

I think you're getting confused.
The FX8150 @ 3.6GHZ with 8 cores, manages to outmuscle the 2500k @ 3.3GHZ.
That's not impressive in the slightest. The 1100T outmuscles the 2500k in cinebench, it's interesting how pathetic the 8150 score is, in relation to the 1100T.

 

[manveruppd]

I agree £150 would be a more sensible price but like you say this CPU is still flawed due to the comparatively poor IPC.

Can AMD even afford to sell it for £150 though? given that it's 2billion transistor monster are they even making any profit at £200?

Smaller manufacturing process, so more chips per wafer, and as others have mentioned they're only paying per working chip. And remember, they only released a few thousand desktop chips, just for the diehard fans - there's about 10x more being shipped as server chips, which cost a lot more, so they could even afford to GIVE away the desktop chips if they wanted to.

 

[Martini1991]

Smaller manufacturing process, so more chips per wafer, and as others have mentioned they're only paying per working chip. And remember, they only released a few thousand desktop chips, just for the diehard fans - there's about 10x more being shipped as server chips, which cost a lot more, so they could even afford to GIVE away the desktop chips if they wanted to.

Except the yields are horrendous, they're not making enough to ship to retailers.

 

[Martini1991]

No, but you can choose to use the programs that do make the best use of the cores and avoid the single threaded stuff. The single threaded stuff will be mostly older programs that even the crappest of CPU's shouldn't have a problem with anyway.

Cpu reviews are good for an idea but most don't really give an indication of real world use, I mean nobody would only use a single thread to encode videos unless they were mental for instance.

There's plenty of choice out there, games are becoming more multi threaded, drivers are becoming multi threaded, DX11 is now multi threaded, and there's plenty of multi threaded apps for most jobs.

BD would be a decent chip if it had less power draw, 10% more IPC and 10% more clocks, and sorting 2 out of those 3 as a minimum that should be fairly attainable over the next few months I would imagine.

Single threaded performance inherently increases multithreaded performance.
BD has pathetic single threaded performance, and can barely outmatch the 1100T in multithreaded app's.

8 threaded app's aren't the norm, the 8150's a niche product.

Most app's aren't singled threaded, but that's irrelevant, multithreaded means more than 1, if they don't utilise the 8 threads of the 8150, it's frugal, the 2500k will trounce it.

Put it this way, if the 2500k beats the 8150 in single threaded app's, it's sure as hell going to kill it in app's upto 4 cores (At least), then comes into play BD's scaling etc for 5-8 threaded app's, which the 2500k still puts up a good fight.

 

[kitch9]

Single threaded performance inherently increases multithreaded performance.
BD has pathetic single threaded performance, and can barely outmatch the 1100T in multithreaded app's.

8 threaded app's aren't the norm, the 8150's a niche product.

Most app's aren't singled threaded, but that's irrelevant, multithreaded means more than 1, if they don't utilise the 8 threads of the 8150, it's frugal, the 2500k will trounce it.

Put it this way, if the 2500k beats the 8150 in single threaded app's, it's sure as hell going to kill it in app's upto 4 cores (At least), then comes into play BD's scaling etc for 5-8 threaded app's, which the 2500k still puts up a good fight.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't touch the current chip with a barge pole, but I do find your posts a touch hyperbolic.

With some reasonably minor improvement the chip could be decent. I hope the next one is, I'm bored to tears with intel. I'll make the decision around Ivybridge time.

 

[gareth170]

I think you're getting confused.
The FX8150 @ 3.6GHZ with 8 cores, manages to outmuscle the 2500k @ 3.3GHZ.
That's not impressive in the slightest. The 1100T outmuscles the 2500k in cinebench, it's interesting how pathetic the 8150 score is, in relation to the 1100T.

nope..

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/6

2500k slightly faster than a 1100t clock for clock, this review shows 2500k and 1100t @ 3.3ghz (stock)

 

[stulid]

So does anyone have any OCT-Cores in stock yet

 

[gareth170]

So does anyone have any OCT-Cores in stock yet

no...

 

[stulid]

no...

How long will you give it till you cancel the order?

 

[gareth170]

How long will you give it till you cancel the order?

most likely end of tomorrow.

 

[Martini1991]

nope..

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/6

2500k slightly faster than a 1100t clock for clock, this review shows 2500k and 1100t @ 3.3ghz (stock)

Clock for clock,. the 2500k obliterates the 1100T.
When 6 cores are involved, that doesn't make the 2500k any worse clock for clock, rather that the 1100T gains in the few situations it's utilised.

That was just an explanation of you saying "clock for clock slightly faster than a 2500k"

And I was going off the results you showed in the other review, if anything it just shows you how messy the results are for the kit guru review, compare the score in the two reviews you've linked to.

 

[aln]

Single threaded performance inherently increases multithreaded performance.
BD has pathetic single threaded performance, and can barely outmatch the 1100T in multithreaded app's.

8 threaded app's aren't the norm, the 8150's a niche product.

Could you give me a list ST apps that you run which aren't benchmarks, aren't games, and that require a bit of CPU grunt? By the way, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Martini1991]

Could you give me a list ST apps that you run which aren't benchmarks, aren't games, and that require a bit of CPU grunt? By the way, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested.

I honestly couldn't tell you, because I don't run ST app's that require grunt.
But higher IPC inherently improves multi-threaded app's. Bulldozer lacks this, more so than the Phenom II's before it.

A 4 threaded app is a multi-threaded app, but an 8150 isn't going to stand a chance against a 2500k in it.

The 8150 is a niche product for those who need the 8 threads, or for epeen or whatever.

 

[Biffa]

Problem is that apps that need that sort of threading will often need FP precision to match and BD lacks in that department, so other than web serving I can't see what good it is even in highly 6+ threaded apps.