AMD Bulldozer Finally!

Merlin5 · 13 Sep 2011 at 15:38

" What can we take away from all this? Well, we're getting mixed feelings. AMD's top-end FX CPU, believed to be the 3.6GHz FX-8150, is appearing at US retailers priced at around $260 (roughly £195 including VAT). Sub-£200 pricing for a top-of-the-line part suggests that AMD's latest architecture won't be going toe-to-toe against Intel's heavyweight Sandy Bridge in the all-out performance stakes, but it should offer a generous amount of power for your pound - and that's arguably the metric that matters most to traditional overclockers."

Why couldn't it be going toe to toe? If the top of the line bulldozer is just under £200, where the i7 is around £245, those prices aren't that far apart. Sounds like AMD are being competitive enough on their pricing whilst saying roughly in the same ball park.

davieg · 13 Sep 2011 at 15:51

Merlin5 said:
" What can we take away from all this? Well, we're getting mixed feelings. AMD's top-end FX CPU, believed to be the 3.6GHz FX-8150, is appearing at US retailers priced at around $260 (roughly £195 including VAT). Sub-£200 pricing for a top-of-the-line part suggests that AMD's latest architecture won't be going toe-to-toe against Intel's heavyweight Sandy Bridge in the all-out performance stakes, but it should offer a generous amount of power for your pound - and that's arguably the metric that matters most to traditional overclockers."

Why couldn't it be going toe to toe? If the top of the line bulldozer is just under £200, where the i7 is around £245, those prices aren't that far apart. Sounds like AMD are being competitive enough on their pricing whilst saying roughly in the same ball park.

But we wont see it at sub 200 at launch, we will probably see the usual 1:1 conversion rate or there abouts :mad:

drunkenmaster · 13 Sep 2011 at 15:53

Most people ignore history and just assume if you have a better product the ONLY option is to price it higher than the competition. The 4870, 6950, 5850 shows, without question, completely without question that bringing products in under certain pricepoints significantly increases your sales.

The way people work, its actually insane how many more £199.99 chips you can sell than £209.99 chips even if the £10 chip was 5% faster. Dell will put £199.99 cpu's in say a £1000 computer, but they'd only put a £210 chip in a £1200 computer, because thats how weird pricing is. THey'll sell 10 times as many £999 computers as £1199 computers.

Intel has no need at all to fight for market share, so can have a chip at various prices and honestly not care what people choose, but Intel will also sell probably 1000 times as many 2500 i5's as 2600 i7's.

AMD has to fight for market share as they need volume, lower pricing is the single best method to increase volumes, if you have the better product or the worst product. Look at the price of a Thuban vs a 2600k, then a Bulldozer is going to be £50 more and likely smaller, meaning hugely higher margins anyway.

pmc25 · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:04

In other news, the same guys achieved clock frequencies well above 5 GHz using only air or sub-$100 water cooling solutions.

I think that's the most interesting snippet from the event. Perhaps a few dozen people (globally) fiddle around with LN2 or care about it.

davieg · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:05

pmc25 said:
I think that's the most interesting snippet from the event. Perhaps a few dozen people (globally) fiddle around with LN2 or care about it.

Yeah just looking at that,here. Agree thats about the most relevant thing to most of us here.

Link to a couple more vids etc..

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4770/...cking-record-with-8429ghz-bulldozer-processor

SeeKified · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:22

If it'd do 5GHz or thereabouts with a Corsair H-series or similar, perhaps Bulldozer might be interesting for emulation after all. I'm getting all hopeful now!

manveruppd · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:25

drunkenmaster said:
AMD has to fight for market share as they need volume, lower pricing is the single best method to increase volumes, if you have the better product or the worst product. Look at the price of a Thuban vs a 2600k, then a Bulldozer is going to be £50 more and likely smaller, meaning hugely higher margins anyway.

You're right of course, but you're ignoring the fact that AMD sell every single chip they can make and still can't meet demand, so dropping prices won't mean they sell more chips, it would just chip away at their margins. So it's reasonable to assume that these chips will perform roughly equivalently to similarly-priced Intel parts. Maybe slightly better, maybe slightly worse, but there's no basis to speculating that a £100 AMD chip will outperform a £200 Intel part.

CinderzFTW · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:42

Looks at what me has: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1980971

8.3ghz XD

VERIFIED! BY AMD AND CPUZ: Article: bit-tech.net: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/09/13/amd-overclocks-bulldozer-to-8-429ghz/1

VALID YOUTUBE VIDEO FROM AMD THEMSELVES!!!! http://bit.ly/q0VeIE

GET THIS CPU!

chaotic_uk · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:50

i want one

wannabedamned · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:53

CinderzFTW said:
GET THIS CPU!

I may do! But not based on an 8ghz short term overclock, I'll wait on real world performance benchmarks, with realistic voltages and cooling solutions

clocka · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:56

i'd rather see overclocks for a thermalright air cooler or something.

Martini1991 · 13 Sep 2011 at 16:58

I want to see what it does under water...........

gareth170 · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:00

Martini1991 said:
But every CPUZ shows it higher than 1.4v.
I can't win with you people...

just because every CPUZ we've seen shows it higher than 1.4v when oc'ed, doesn't mean they know the max safety voltage or even temp...

i've see some CPUZ for the 1090t @ 1.6v+ but it doesn't mean it's safe at that 24/7.

until amd states the max safe voltage and also temp, we can't say for sure...

thats what i'm getting at..

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:01

Interview with one of the chaps who was involved in the overclocking attempt:

http://translate.google.com/transla...ami-maekinen-och-det-nya-vaerldsrekordet.html

"NordicHardware: "It says you reached Frequencies" well above 5 GHz, "with only air and sub-$ 100 water cooling solutions. Mind Going Into more detail about your ventures on air and water?"
Sami Mäkinen: "In terms of CPUZ MHz I've seen VIRTUALLY every CPU reach over 5GHz When Using a good air / water cooler. I believe the highest result I saw with aircooling was around 5.5GHz CPUZ. This CPU hit around 7.8GHz on LN2 '.
"

Yaayuh! · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:01

They achieved that overclock with only 2 cores enabled? Seriously? I would disqualify that so hard.
But nevertheless, great scott 8GHz+?!?!

holy mother of god!

Martini1991 · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:09

gareth170 said:
just because every CPUZ we've seen shows it higher than 1.4v when oc'ed, doesn't mean they know the max safety voltage...

i've see some CPUZ for the 1090t @ 1.6v+ but it doesn't mean it's safe at that 24/7.

until amd states the max safe voltage and also temp, we can't say for sure...

thats what i'm getting at..

Who said anything about OC'ed?
The CPUZ's were at stock.

tommybhoy · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:11

Late to the party?
8.49 btw.

CinderzFTW said:
Looks at what me has: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1980971

8.3ghz XD

VERIFIED! BY AMD AND CPUZ: Article: bit-tech.net: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/09/13/amd-overclocks-bulldozer-to-8-429ghz/1

VALID YOUTUBE VIDEO FROM AMD THEMSELVES!!!! http://bit.ly/q0VeIE

GET THIS CPU!

tommybhoy said:
Mental!:

tommybhoy said:
Right we've seen the world record, now give us some numbers!

mjones1 · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:12

Rossi~ said:
They achieved that overclock with only 2 cores enabled? Seriously? I would disqualify that so hard.
But nevertheless, great scott 8GHz+?!?! holy mother of god!

They are trying to get the highest clock speed possible so I see no problem.

Martini1991 · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:13

mjones1 said:
They are trying to get the highest clock speed possible so I see no problem.

The P4's were there before weren't they? And they were single cores.

Martini1991 · 13 Sep 2011 at 17:14

Those RAM timings look whack.