AMD Bulldozer Finally!

Martini1991 · 29 Oct 2011 at 18:12

gareth170 said:
it performs worse than the phenom II clock for clock in gaming ect, and in encoding the BD 8x performs same to the phenom II 6x clock for clock even tho it as 2 cores less

how is that not bad?

Stop it

. That's not "clock for clock".
Clock for clock it is worse, the only reason it's the same as the same clock is the extra 2 cores.

If both were 6 cores, at 3.6GHZ, then you could say it

sunama said:
Like you stated, it performs at around the same level to AMDs current best CPU. In otherwords...its not a bad CPU. It just isn't any better.

It's worse though? Price/Performance wise it's worse than their previous CPU's. That is horrendous.

sunama · 29 Oct 2011 at 18:42

Guys, this CPU clocks higher than the Phenom. Once it has clocked higher, it will outperform the Phenom in pretty much everything.

I realise that a lot of you were expecting BD to be an Intel beater...but after the delay this was never going to happen. AMD weren't delaying the launch because the were all going on holiday - they delayed it because performance was really bad. The BD isn't as good as some of you were expecting (it is pretty much exactly what I expected), but it can run neck and neck with Phenom once it is clocked high.

With regards to people stating that core per core, it performs badly...well, that may well be the case, but it does have the extra cores...so what's the fuss? You wouldn't disable cores during a comparison...what you would do is run the CPU in its best form (or run both at stock).

This is almost exactly the same scenario as when P4 took over from P3. The highest clocked P3s outperformed the lowest clocked P4s, BUT the fact was that the P4 could be clocked higher and once this was done, it comfortably outperformed the P3.

Hopefully, once production ramps up, AMD should get some volume into the stores and prices should reduce.

As I said, AMD have not produced a bad CPU. This is version1 of a brand spanking new architecture and it would've been a miracle had the first version been an Intel beater.

gareth170 · 29 Oct 2011 at 19:01

sunama said:
Guys, this CPU clocks higher than the Phenom. Once it has clocked higher, it will outperform the Phenom in pretty much everything.

it as to be clocked to 4.5-4.6ghz to get to the same level of performance in everything except encoding , of a phenom ii 6x at 4ghz

gareth170 · 29 Oct 2011 at 19:13

sunama said:
As I said, AMD have not produced a bad CPU. This is version1 of a brand spanking new architecture and it would've been a miracle had the first version been an Intel beater.

but amd as been working on it for so many years tho, theres no reason for this

Martini1991 · 29 Oct 2011 at 19:28

sunama said:
Guys, this CPU clocks higher than the Phenom. Once it has clocked higher, it will outperform the Phenom in pretty much everything.

I realise that a lot of you were expecting BD to be an Intel beater...but after the delay this was never going to happen. AMD weren't delaying the launch because the were all going on holiday - they delayed it because performance was really bad. The BD isn't as good as some of you were expecting (it is pretty much exactly what I expected), but it can run neck and neck with Phenom once it is clocked high.

With regards to people stating that core per core, it performs badly...well, that may well be the case, but it does have the extra cores...so what's the fuss? You wouldn't disable cores during a comparison...what you would do is run the CPU in its best form (or run both at stock).

This is almost exactly the same scenario as when P4 took over from P3. The highest clocked P3s outperformed the lowest clocked P4s, BUT the fact was that the P4 could be clocked higher and once this was done, it comfortably outperformed the P3.

Hopefully, once production ramps up, AMD should get some volume into the stores and prices should reduce.

As I said, AMD have not produced a bad CPU. This is version1 of a brand spanking new architecture and it would've been a miracle had the first version been an Intel beater.

We don't care about it not beating Intel, but losing to the Phenom II's? The supposedly stop gap Thuban's?
The FX's don't overclock comfortably enough to outperform the Phenom II's.
At stock they come no where near.
Their out of the box performance is worse at the same price point.

You also can't force programs to use all the cores, so the "MOAR CORES" is pointless crap.
An E5400 is going to perform better at stock on rome total war, than an 8150 at stock (Without turbo, as that's just overclocking, and I'm talking just stock values), that's abysmal, and exactly the type of thing I've been banging on about, that it's just not consistent and needs its 8 cores to be used to "shine". (I'm pretty sure people said it won't..... Lol)
Seriously, my old 1055T at 3.2GHZ CPU NB and 4.375GHZ would thrash the 8150 all day long and that 8150 could be at 5GHZ.

My CPU-NB speed was massively faster than anything the FX's can do.
It's also not the same as P4 and P3, because Intel never had to make up the same ground that AMD do today.

Gashman · 29 Oct 2011 at 21:55

everyone is outright crucifying the architecture based on the weak performance (mostly lightly-threaded stuff) based on the first silicon, first available revisions, first everything, look at it this way it is a brand new architecture running on a very immature process with tons of niggles and issues. at the end of the day, all of the people crucifying aren't architectural designers or anything like that yet going on about what has been done wrong and the likes. I for one say give it a chance to reach its second revision before everyone outright claims it is the worse thing ever released in the whole universe, ever. :rolleyes:

Martini1991 · 29 Oct 2011 at 21:59

I think Zambezi is the worst thing, not Bulldozer. Terms are getting mixed about a lot, we're all guilty of it. We should be referring to Zambezi as bad lol
The FX8150 isn't going to become any better, even when Piledriver hits, what's wrong about crucifying what's out?
What are we supposed to judge it on? "Oh, that's a fantastic architecture, absolutely stellar, who cares that it doesn't perform?".

It launches with shocking yields, worse price/performance than Phenom II offerings (And screw the it's not real cores crap, the transistor count is massive, and the price isn't exactly "cheap")

gareth170 · 29 Oct 2011 at 22:10

Gashman said:
everyone is outright crucifying the architecture based on the weak performance (mostly lightly-threaded stuff) based on the first silicon, first available revisions, first everything, look at it this way it is a brand new architecture running on a very immature process with tons of niggles and issues. at the end of the day, all of the people crucifying aren't architectural designers or anything like that yet going on about what has been done wrong and the likes. I for one say give it a chance to reach its second revision before everyone outright claims it is the worse thing ever released in the whole universe, ever.

but as i said amd as been working on it for so many years tho, theres no reason for this ..... some people are trying to find reasons or something to make out it's fine for this crap

Martini1991 · 29 Oct 2011 at 22:12

gareth170 said:
but as i said amd as been working on it for so many years tho, theres no reason for this ..... some people are trying to find reasons or something to make out it's fine for this crap

The P4's blew IPC wise, but I don't think they had to make up the same gulf in performance.

For everyone saying a 50 quid price drop on the 8150 would make it more attractive, not really ;

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

slade · 29 Oct 2011 at 23:29

So does this all mean i shouldnt ditch my 955 any time soon....?

Martini1991 · 29 Oct 2011 at 23:45

slade said:
So does this all mean i shouldnt ditch my 955 any time soon....?

Indeed it does.
And your platform is a prime example of why Bulldozer fails the high end imo.
You've spent like 175 on a mobo, then 90 on an interim CPU for BD then Bulldozer, when you could have had an Intel at the same price and better.

sunama · 30 Oct 2011 at 00:02

I think that you guys were expecting way too much from this CPU. Unless this was an Intel killer, you guys probably would not have been happy.

This is version1 of a brand new architecture. Version1 was always going to be weak, especially when they had a 6 month delay (which would only have occurred if there were SEVERE problems). Why did you think AMD delayed the CPU by 6 months? Why do you think AMD didnt release any benchmarks in the run up to the release of BD? The answer: they were having serious problems.

Let AMD release BD2 (or whatever they want to call it) and then you can judge the new architecture on that. To use the first version, which has clearly been rushed out, to judge an entire architecture is just wrong.

BTW, when P4 released, the fastest P4 was slower than the fastest P3, at the time. What this meant is that if you owned a fast P3, "upgrading" to P4, meant you would lose performance. It was only when Northwood was released which allowed the P4 to really clock high, did it kill the P3. Take note that the P3 architecture was still being used by mobile CPUs, so there were some very fast P3 (mobile CPUs) around, but they were getting beaten by the P4s, purely due to clock speed.

The situation with AMD, BD and Phenom is exactly the same. IPC will improve, as will the highest attainable clock-speed and this will allow BD2 to out-pace all its other CPUs.

Oh and another thing: AMD fanboys are now getting their hopes up on performance improving once Windows8 is released - don't get your hopes up. BD, at this point in time just isn't great. Once BD2 is released, hoping for performance increases on Windows8, will be long forgotten.

sunama · 30 Oct 2011 at 00:07

Martini1991 said:
You've spent like 175 on a mobo, then 90 on an interim CPU for BD then Bulldozer, when you could have had an Intel at the same price and better.

This is not AMD's fault. This is the user's fault who didnt want to buy a 2500k (which in my opinion is one of the best CPU/platforms ever). The user who was hoping to upgrade to BD, was clearly expecting an Intel killer.

By delaying BD for 6 months, AMD made it pretty clear that BD1 was not going to be great. Remember, a 6 month launch delay means that things really are not working as planned. A 6 month delay is VERY serious. So much so, that one of the big wigs at AMD was fired for it.

Martini1991 · 30 Oct 2011 at 00:16

sunama said:
This is not AMD's fault. This is the user's fault who didnt want to buy a 2500k (which in my opinion is one of the best CPU/platforms ever). The user who was hoping to upgrade to BD, was clearly expecting an Intel killer.

By delaying BD for 6 months, AMD made it pretty clear that BD1 was not going to be great. Remember, a 6 month launch delay means that things really are not working as planned. A 6 month delay is VERY serious. So much so, that one of the big wigs at AMD was fired for it.

I never said it was AMD's fault...

You're playing the devils advocate card too hard.

Also, Piledriver (BD2) is being touted at 20% faster, which still isn't great, as that'll be a mix of IPC and Clocks, and who knows what it'll top out at. BD isn't massively outclocking Phenom II, let alone SB, will PileDriver be the same? Who knows.

However, if the 8150 was 20% faster in every situation, at stock, at 150 pound, it'd be a far better CPU.

sunama · 30 Oct 2011 at 01:18

The price needs to drop. No question about it. But the price won't drop while AMD are having problems producing enough CPUs to supply to the market. Once production ramps up and there are enough CPUs available in retail channels, AMD should aim to reduce prices...until then though, I can't see prices dropping (simple rule of supply and demand).

According to Drunkenmaster, BD was never supposed to be a volume part and if this is the case, AMD may never be able to get enough BD cpus to the market, in which case prices won't fall (significantly) and AMD supporters will have to wait for BD2, which will certainly be a volume part.

Martini1991 · 30 Oct 2011 at 01:31

sunama said:
The price needs to drop. No question about it. But the price won't drop while AMD are having problems producing enough CPUs to supply to the market. Once production ramps up and there are enough CPUs available in retail channels, AMD should aim to reduce prices...until then though, I can't see prices dropping (simple rule of supply and demand).

According to Drunkenmaster, BD was never supposed to be a volume part and if this is the case, AMD may never be able to get enough BD cpus to the market, in which case prices won't fall (significantly) and AMD supporters will have to wait for BD2, which will certainly be a volume part.

Don't put stock in what anyone says tbh.

bhavv · 30 Oct 2011 at 02:54

sunama said:
This is not AMD's fault. This is the user's fault who didnt want to buy a 2500k (which in my opinion is one of the best CPU/platforms ever). The user who was hoping to upgrade to BD, was clearly expecting an Intel killer.

By delaying BD for 6 months, AMD made it pretty clear that BD1 was not going to be great. Remember, a 6 month launch delay means that things really are not working as planned. A 6 month delay is VERY serious. So much so, that one of the big wigs at AMD was fired for it.

Or you could have bought an I7 920 2-3 years ago and had better than Bulldozer performance all the way until next year, and then upgrade to LGA 2011.

Why would anyone pick an AMD system?

I will keep my I7 920 until at least April 2012, as then it will be exactly 3 years old and have no more warranty.

Martini1991 · 30 Oct 2011 at 03:08

bhavv said:
Or you could have bought an I7 920 2-3 years ago and had better than Bulldozer performance all the way until next year, and then upgrade to LGA 2011.

Why would anyone pick an AMD system?

I will keep my I7 920 until at least April 2012, as then it will be exactly 3 years old and have no more warranty.

I'm starting to become fond of you

slade · 30 Oct 2011 at 07:28

sunama said:
This is not AMD's fault. This is the user's fault who didnt want to buy a 2500k (which in my opinion is one of the best CPU/platforms ever). The user who was hoping to upgrade to BD, was clearly expecting an Intel killer.

By delaying BD for 6 months, AMD made it pretty clear that BD1 was not going to be great. Remember, a 6 month launch delay means that things really are not working as planned. A 6 month delay is VERY serious. So much so, that one of the big wigs at AMD was fired for it.

Lol... how is this the end users fault for believing in a multi billion dollar company like AMD?! It's their fault!

I wasn’t expecting an Intel killer.... what i wanted was a Phenom II killer in an AMD platform.

Are they going to release a new stepping?

RizlaKing · 30 Oct 2011 at 08:42

Something has clearly gone very wrong with BD as i said before either in later design or as a result of manufactoring that has given us and AMD what we have got. There is no way they spent all this time and effort to design a chip that was worse then what they already had and zero competition for their rival. A new team will be going over this chip and working out what the hell happened and how it all went so bad hopefully in time for a rev 2 improvement.

At this point i also wouldn't hold AMD to piledriver being only 20% faster then this chip given this chip isn't performing as it should be but be significantly faster then 20%. There are questions to be answered and sooner or later people are going to have to start explaining things rather then hide behind a pretty lacklustre ad campaign.

But as others have said those of us who know this chip is not good are a tiny tiny minority and they will shift as many of these chips as they can make simply to people who don't bother reading up and researching ie. the vast majority.