AMD Bulldozer Finally!

wannabedamned · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:14

You're only hurting yourselves by having company bias when buying your hardware

As for Cyrix...pfft! Poor floating point performance!!! Quake 2 ran like poop on a cyrix 166

God knows why I bought one lol

Dandaman · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:24

personally I like AMD as its cheaper but that doesn't mean its the best, both have the ups and downs I would imagine with AMD having price hugely in its favour

I recently built my first intel comp using an old Q6600 I had going spare that I was gifted from a friend cos he was getting new comp built and wanted rid of that cpu so I thought I could get some experience throwing an intel rig together.I have no complaints whatsoever, handles everything just as well as my AMD cpu's and tbh I was tempted to go down the route of an i7 before I bought my 1100T but the budget wasnt allowing it and i got the x6 cheap lol

If bulldozer is as good as I hope it will be then I reckon I'd upgrade to that in a while but we'll see I guess

aln · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:24

MichaelM said:
As someone who has only built with AMD and currently has a Phenom II and two 6970's it still sounds a little foolish.

Individually that may be foolish, but collectivly if consumers let AMD die, we'll all be worse off. AMD fanboys allow those of us who are pragmatic have a choice, they do us a service.

pmc25 · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:26

Sin_Chase said:
Not just AMD issued benchmarks. (Do they even bother to issue any?)

No benchmarks. No reviews. No nothing till NDA is lifted.

That does not preclude persons with test chips releasing data 1 second after the NDA is lifted from their already performed benches/tests. Assuming ANYONE has any other than AMD.

Buying on Day 1 blind is foolish. Utterly foolish - Because as much as there is a chance it will be 128918291x faster than anything else in Scenario 1 it might be shockingly bad in Scenario 2. You are just hoping that scenario 2 is not your usage. It's an extreme point of view but it illustrates why waiting at least a few days for data is wise.

It'll be better than Phenom for gaming, and scenario 2 is video/audio capture, encoding and streaming, which will most likely be the best on the market. So I doubt I'll be disappointed.

Well he said he was commenting on reviews ... so if you think it applies to all benchmarks, then surely sites could release 'reviews' where they compare overclocks with various boards et al.

Re: above comments. A lot of people simply don't like Intel's rather murky business practices, so will buy AMD regardless. I'm pretty much of the same view in most cases, though I'm no huge fan of AMD. But on this note, I think Intel will have its plate full in terms of competition from next year onwards. ARM's continuing encroachment on their territory is only going to become faster and more brutal, particularly with the advent of Windows 8 and quad-core A9s and A15s.

namnoc · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:28

I've always been 100% loyal to whichever manufacturer had what I considered the best product at the time. I would probably vomit as I did it, but I'd even by a Mac if they brought out one that ran windows faster and for less money than anything I could build

aln · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:39

namnoc said:
I've always been 100% loyal to whichever manufacturer had what I considered the best product at the time. I would probably vomit as I did it, but I'd even by a Mac if they brought out one that ran windows faster and for less money than anything I could build

The value of a Mac generally goes hand in hand with what value you place of aesthetics. The premium is too much for me, but I'll happily admit I think their products look and feel better on average. I can fully understand why people want their kit.

Draw some parallels to AMD, Intel may make products which are technically better, however there is value in going with AMD despite having lesser single thread performance. I'm having problems with google at the moment, but I believe AMD doesn't put a premium on things like virtulisation tech, or ECC RAM support. Some people may place more value on these features than you or me, and thus that'll simply make AMD a better deal overall.

MichaelM · 29 Aug 2011 at 22:59

aln said:
Individually that may be foolish, but collectivly if consumers let AMD die, we'll all be worse off. AMD fanboys allow those of us who are pragmatic have a choice, they do us a service.

People who actually build their own computers are a vast minority, if we all disappeared over night it would barely effect Intel and AMD's market. Especially with Llano and other APU's in the pipeline, the risk of us doing anything negative by defecting from either brand is impossible.

Phil2008 · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:06

zoomee said:
I'm with Mollari on this one - I WILL NEVER BUY INTEL!!!! What other choice than AMD do we Intel haters have? Someone bring back cyrix lol

It depends which one is the fastest when I upgrade, ppl who always buy intel or amd, are missing out.

opethdisciple · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:41

Is BD actually going to get released on the 19th Sep?

aln · 30 Aug 2011 at 01:07

MichaelM said:
People who actually build their own computers are a vast minority, if we all disappeared over night it would barely effect Intel and AMD's market. Especially with Llano and other APU's in the pipeline, the risk of us doing anything negative by defecting from either brand is impossible.

As much as we're a minority, we cannot be insignificant otherwise there simply wouldn't be a market where we could buy seperate parts, and build our own machines. You don't think the retailers wouldn't prefer being able to charge us an arm and a leg in order to replace a faulty part because the average person was unable to build their own machine?

Most people probably refer to a geek friend when buying a computer, I'd believe the power from that specific group set far outweighs their own spending power. Somebody somewhere in a position of power understood that, and that's why we can do what we do.

Skeese · 30 Aug 2011 at 03:54

opethdisciple said:
Is BD actually going to get released on the 19th Sep?

As hinted by VK, It could be released a bit earliar...

Merlin5 · 30 Aug 2011 at 04:16

Mollari said:
What about me? I dont want to spend my money supporting (way too big) Intel. I know Im going to get the AMD on my next system and I don care if its loosing some battles. Hmm.. dont care if it loses all of the scenarios. Its still going to be AMD all the way for me. From this point of view, its not foolish. Not for me.

You're buying a processor that may be slower than Intel's just because you think Intel are too big? You are actually happy to upgrade to something that may not be as quick and efficient as an Intel, for no other reason than 'it has to be AMD'? You seem to be a couple of drivers short of a working chipset tbh.

gurusan · 30 Aug 2011 at 04:46

MichaelM said:
People who actually build their own computers are a vast minority, if we all disappeared over night it would barely effect Intel and AMD's market. Especially with Llano and other APU's in the pipeline, the risk of us doing anything negative by defecting from either brand is impossible.

People have been spouting this argument for a long time...it's just not true. Just look at 1 retailer, newegg.

Mollari · 30 Aug 2011 at 06:24

Merlin5 said:
You're buying a processor that may be slower than Intel's just because you think Intel are too big? You are actually happy to upgrade to something that may not be as quick and efficient as an Intel, for no other reason than 'it has to be AMD'? You seem to be a couple of drivers short of a working chipset tbh.

Yes. Not only that, Id buy AMD next even if it would be more expensive. As stated Im also making favor for all Intel buyers, keeping up the competition. This really isnt so serious. It doesnt have to be AMD but for now Im happy it wont be Intel= lack of choises here :rolleyes:

wannabedamned · 30 Aug 2011 at 07:32

Mollari said:
Yes. Not only that, Id buy AMD next even if it would be more expensive. As stated Im also making favor for all Intel buyers, keeping up the competition. This really isnt so serious. It doesnt have to be AMD but for now Im happy it wont be Intel= lack of choises here

Seems a strange thing to do, but each to their own

LeJosh · 30 Aug 2011 at 07:38

You would be better off buying shares in AMD Mollari.

Merlin5 · 30 Aug 2011 at 07:50

Mollari said:
We have Volvo V70 and Chevy Suburban ( srry ot..)

You should have bought an AMD 4 wheel drive.

Hagar · 30 Aug 2011 at 09:22

aln said:
.......otherwise there simply wouldn't be a market where we could buy seperate parts, and build our own machines.

Big credit to IBM for this, producing the open architecture computer with expansion slots for processor, ram and add in cards. Prior to this systems were largely not upgradeable.

IBM did not do themselves many favours with this, most machines were then described as IBM clones or IBM compatible systems overtaking the machines produced by IBM itself on price and quality. Computing for the masses took off from this point.

Computers largely used intels socket for all processor manufacturers until the pentium 1 arrived, all x86 cpus were Intel clones up to that time, then AMD and Intel started to diverge on the design of their cpu ranges. Since then we have had a choice of two very good designs and a huge increase in computing power driven by competition. Long may it continue.

I tend to favour AMD but am not totally blinkered. Will build Intel for customers if asked.

zoomee · 30 Aug 2011 at 10:11

Wheres the guy who admitted to wanting to buying a mac? /backhand slap!

I wouldn't say I'm an AMD fanboy - I just dislike Intel with a passion- not only for their monopolistic practices but also for their heavy investment in Israel - I refuse to give my money to apartheid assisting organisations, even if it means I get 2 FPS lower when I game, lol!

I loved my Q6600 (ONLY intel chip i've ever bought) - awesome chip, but I couldn't wait to get rid of it, as Intel's monopolistic practices became even more public. Hell, I gave it away and bought a Phenom II 965 (I know, A drop in performance!).

My passion is not for AMD, its my dislike for Intel that steers me (and others here by the looks of it!) to the only alternative available - AMD.

Also anyone who thinks that us 'enthusiasts' have little say in the market are wrong - Its US that the general public turn to when wanting advice about which CPU or PC is best

gareth170 · 30 Aug 2011 at 10:56

Orcvader said:
The AM3+ socket has 942 pins, but no one still knows how many pins a BD CPU will have. Remember, the AM3 CPUs don't use all 941 pins, they only use 938. It's been like this with past CPUs, so it's likely that BD will use maybe 941 or less pins. The extra pin holes in AM3+ will perhaps be for future generations of BD.

or the layout of the pins/holes as be changed slightly , i mean example maybe hole 78, 79, 80 as been changed/swaped with hole 82, 83, 84.

or even if am3 cpus as 938 pins as u say, and if am3+ BD CPU's as example 941 pins maybe the extra 3 pin holes on the am3 motherboards are not connected,

both ways may run in to issues such as stable / oc issues ect.