AMD Bulldozer Finally!

[Vince]

...snip.... you can't polish a turd and I'm afraid ... snip....

You clearly haven't been watching mythbusters where they categorically proved that you can indeed polish a turd.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It looks like a B3 revision is in the works:

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=399157

Look at page 27 of the document.

 

[manveruppd]

if amd releases a new revision which fixs the performance i wonder if they would accept a rma of the buggy b2 chips?

personly i feel it's down to the software but just saying if.

Martini's right, they're not buggy, they're just not as good. They _might_ tweak the fetch/decode logic a little bit with the next revision, but what we're more likely to see is a refined manufacturing process that'll give them higher yields and maybe make them run a little bit cooler. Don't think we'll see higher-clocked chips, but maybe a larger percentage of them will hit 5GHz overclocks. And while Windows 8 and more efficiently-threaded applications (and chipset drivers, as we've seen with the Gigabyte vs Asus CFV comparison on extremeoverclocking) will make BD work more efficiently it won't increase their speed in terms of IPC. As far as gaming in particular goes I don't think ANY games will be coded specifically to use 8 integer threads until maybe after 2013, when the next console generation is due.

Dont understand this logic. You are tempted to buy because its terrible?

Underdog or not, you can't polish a turd and I'm afraid thats what AMD have tried to do with this.

Nope, I recognise it's terrible (well it's not REALLY terrible, it's nowhere near as good but hardly terrible!), I'm tempted to buy cause I don't think I should be supporting Intel, who have like 90% of the desktop market, and cause I like overclocking and it seems you can have more fun with the BDs than with the SBs, a lot more scope to tweak.

The performance considerations I mentioned were to do with the fact that the one real-life area where BD falls REALLY short of SB according to the reviews I've seen is gaming, and since I can only afford to spend £150ish on a graphics card I won't even hit BD's limit. The GPU will be holding me back in itself. I realize there's a "what if you add a second 6870 in there a year from now? then your 8120/8150 might be holding you back", and there's a point there, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. After all, I was originally planning to keep my s775 system and upgrade to a Q6600, but my motherboard started going. Spending extra money to futureproof hasn't often worked out well for me.

You'd need an AM3+ board.

An i5 2500k system and an AM3+ and 8120 are about the same price. I don't get where this cheaper stuff comes into it.

To be specific, the 2500k is 167, the 8120 is 167, and who knows when the 8120 will be in stock.

Well, AM3+ motherboards seem to be a bit cheaper on average. Not the top-end ones obviously. As I said though, that wasn't my main concern, I was just thinking: "since I personally won't notice the performance difference (given what I'll be doing with it and the graphics card I'll be using it with), why not support AMD and help maintain competition in the market?" The only compelling reason I can think of not to is that NOBODY HAS STOCK OF THE DAMNED THINGS YET!

 

[Martini1991]

People keep saying, the enthusiasts are only a tiny market, and if we disappeared, no one would really notice (While I'm not too sure on that), why as an enthusiast handicap yourself with the underdog? (We're not needed, so we may's well get the best we can).

EDIT : If you're after it for overclocking, X58's supposed to be very fun, and I still prefer Phenom II, as you can tweak the CPU-NB a fair bit further than the BD one.

 

[555BUK]

Don't wait up for software or BIOS fixes. Not many developers will tailor their software specifically for AMD, and if a simple BIOS fix was possible all of the guru's at AMD would have had it ready before launch. These chips are lame ducks and the Swans are not arriving anytime soon (atleast not any AMD branded swans that is).

 

[Cooper]

A poster over at Overclock.Net made a valid point i think about how AMD set themselves up for a fall with their branding of these faildozer CPU's....instead of trying to pass off fancy super duper hyperthreading as true cores, they should have gone down this route..

http://www.overclock.net/15285103-post40.html

"It's clear that bulldozer didn't fail, AMD's marketing hype failed. If they were listed like below everyone would say this is a step in the right direction.

FX 8150= Quad Core FX 4150
FX 6100= Tri Core FX 3100
FX 4100= Dual Core FX 2100
etc, etc..."

Whilst it doesnt excuse the lousy IPC and power usage, it would have led to less disapointment..slightly.

 

[Martini1991]

Yeah, they should have been marketed as ;

1 Core, 2 threads (Like Intel), but AMD's whole plan was that it was better than HT (scaling wise, it's clear the performance isn't better).

 

[kitch9]

When AMD first released Phenom they stank the place out too, but it didn't take them long to fix the bugs and power issues and it became a decent chip for decent money.

I predict in 6 months all this will be forgotten and they again will be offering a decent chip for the money.

But yeah, this first lot of chips is stinkin' the place out.

 

[manveruppd]

People keep saying, the enthusiasts are only a tiny market, and if we disappeared, no one would really notice (While I'm not too sure on that), why as an enthusiast handicap yourself with the underdog? (We're not needed, so we may's well get the best we can).

EDIT : If you're after it for overclocking, X58's supposed to be very fun, and I still prefer Phenom II, as you can tweak the CPU-NB a fair bit further than the BD one.

Well, that's why I haven't pulled the trigger and preordered yet, cause I'm thinking with so few desktop chips on the market, someone's gonna buy them anyway, doesn't have to be me so why not go for the top performance? But then it occurs to me that if I think like that, so will everyone else - that's the tragedy of the commons. And yes, I did consider getting a cheap X4 Phenom and eventually upgrade to the B3 stepping Zambezi chips, but I think an X4 would be £90 thrown down the drain in terms of resale value.

 

[Martini1991]

When AMD first released Phenom they stank the place out too, but it didn't take them long to fix the bugs and power issues and it became a decent chip for decent money.

I predict in 6 months all this will be forgotten and they again will be offering a decent chip for the money.

But yeah, this first lot of chips is stinkin' the place out.

Phenom always stank.
They brought out Phenom II, which was a decent upgrade over Phenom.

The "fix" for Zambezi is pile driver, much like Deneb was the fix of Agena.

Well, that's why I haven't pulled the trigger and preordered yet, cause I'm thinking with so few desktop chips on the market, someone's gonna buy them anyway, doesn't have to be me so why not go for the top performance? But then it occurs to me that if I think like that, so will everyone else - that's the tragedy of the commons. And yes, I did consider getting a cheap X4 Phenom and eventually upgrade to the B3 stepping Zambezi chips, but I think an X4 would be £90 thrown down the drain in terms of resale value.

I can't see the X4's losing value lol, the FX4 is pathetic and 100 quid.

 

[mmj_uk]

if amd releases a new revision which fixs the performance i wonder if they would accept a rma of the buggy b2 chips?

personly i feel it's down to the software but just saying if.

No chance I'm afraid, remember the original Phenom that was released with the performance degrading bug? no such replacement programme there.

 

[Martini1991]

No chance I'm afraid, remember the original Phenom that was released with the performance degrading bug? no such replacement programme there.

The performance decrease was AMD's fix wasn't it?

 

[gareth170]

If the chips were knackered which prevented them performing, they wouldn't go on sale, as they would be defective.

Saying software is the problem isn't going to make a difference, it could be the problem, but acknowledging it isn't going to do anything.

but phenom chip was defective but still went on sale.

also there are some benchmarks that bd is well ahead. i can't remember which benchmarks, hence why i think it's down to the software

 

[mmj_uk]

The performance decrease was AMD's fix wasn't it?

Yep, but after selling CPU's and then gimping performance to fix a bug you'd think they'd have a replacement programme.

 

[Martini1991]

but phenom chip was defective but still went on sale.

also there are some benchmarks that bd is well ahead. i can't remember which benchmarks, hence why i think it's down to the software

Yes, and they got a fix, which decreased the performance. If I recall, it was a problem with the cache which caused some programs to crash? AMD knew the figures on BD, it's just not very good performance wise.
And yes, 8 threaded app's are damn well going to show the 8150 in a good light, winning in a few benchmarks doesn't mean much. Even then, the FX6 and FX4 are still going to perform crappy.

It's lack of utilisation of the 8 threads, but that's not going to be fixed.

Yep, but after selling CPU's and then gimping performance to fix a bug you'd think they'd have a replacement programme.

Maybe there wasn't anything they could do? That fix may have been all they could have done.

 

[gareth170]

Yes, and they got a fix, which decreased the performance. If I recall, it was a problem with the cache which caused some programs to crash? AMD knew the figures on BD, it's just not very good performance wise.
And yes, 8 threaded app's are damn well going to show the 8150 in a good light, winning in a few benchmarks doesn't mean much.

It's lack of utilisation of the 8 threads, but that's not going to be fixed.

my point is it doesn't even win in most 8 threaded app's ( which it should) so even the 8 threaded app's needs to be optimized for BD, also the windows scheduler is a issue

 

[Martini1991]

my point is it doesn't even win in most 8 threaded app's ( which it should) so even the 8 threaded app's needs to be optimized for BD

I wish people would stop throwing optimized about.


Performance scaling with threads isn't an exact science, the other threads may only be doing small work loads, while others are doing the main work.
Which is why a 2500k stands its ground in those app's too in comparison to the 8150.

EDIT : The fact it doesn't win in most 8 threaded app's is a problem with the CPU (In that it doesn't perform), not the software. However, there could be some gain if Module's 1,2,3,4's first thread each deals with the bigger load, with the secondary thread on each module the smaller load (I suppose you could call that optimising, it's what the 2600k does in effect).

 

[gurusan]

wait for drivers!

 

[Martini1991]

wait for drivers!

 

[mmj_uk]

Maybe there wasn't anything they could do? That fix may have been all they could have done.

Well if I'd have bought a Phenom 1 (I did actually iirc ) and then had 10% performance taken away I'd have expected some sort of compensation, they could have had a step-up programme to Phenom II as it was released less than a year later iirc.

My point is if AMD didn't offer any kind of upgrade programme for a chip released with a fatal flaw (which they degraded performance to fix) they aren't going to give gareth a free upgrade when the new revision (Bulldozer II?) comes out just because the first one is a bit underwhelming.