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Bulldozer CPU's

Mckl84

Mckl84

Mckl84

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Joined
6 Aug 2012
Posts
8
Hi, are Bulldozer FX Cpu's any good? I like the sound of this bundle but I dont know if they are any good. I want to build a PC for gaming, FPS, Footie manager, Racing Games,and WoW, both online and offline gaming. Also surfing the web.

Is this a good processor and motherboard to start build a gaming PC with?
 
They're the worst gaming CPU's to be released in the last 5 years.

INB4 tools ; Lower IPC than Core Q6600 by a decent amount, when did that CPU come out? Q1 2007.

Much better off with a socket 1155 CPU.
 
I know WoW likes fast cores because it's an old engine with a lot of overheads so Bulldozer will probably be utterly fail at it, there was a fairly huge difference back in the day between Phenom @4ghz and i7 920 @4ghz... Bulldozer cores are slower than Phenom and the newer Intel's are MUCH faster than i7 920.

That's just one game though but the pattern will be the same in games that like fast cores.
 
Sorry chaps, I dont understand all the techy bits as yet.

So is Phenom II B/E quad better than a Bulldozer and would I be better off with a I3 than both?
 
Are I3 and I5's likley to be able to handle all the newest games for some years yet? Looking to put together a system that is somewhat future proof.
 
Mckl84 said:
Sorry chaps, I dont understand all the techy bits as yet.

So is Phenom II B/E quad better than a Bulldozer and would I be better off with a I3 than both?
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To put it simply Bulldozer has slightly slower cores than Phenom but more of them, this makes Bulldozer faster in stuff that use a lot of cores but slow in stuff that don't. Intel have really fast cores but the mainstream chips only have 4 cores maximum, Intel quad cores are about the same as 8 Bulldozer cores in stuff that use all the cores. Intel chips are much all-round (more consistent).
 
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mmj_uk said:
To put it simply Bulldozer has slightly slower cores than Phenom but more of them, this makes Bulldozer faster in stuff that use a lot of cores but slow in stuff that don't. Intel have really fast cores but the mainstream chips only have 4 cores maximum, 4 Intel cores are about the same as 8 Bulldozer cores in stuff that use all cores.
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What sort of things use different amounts of cores? When trying to understand CPU's, is there anything you could say to me to help me understand what to look for and how they work so I have a better understanding of them?
 
Combat squirrel said:
Long story short the correct choice is an i5.

Simple as that, ignore random other comments.
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Teach people how to fish, rather than giving them fish.

A i5 is most likely the best gaming CPU on the market and it would play most games for several years.

However, I recommend looking at review sites such as http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ and look at comparison between two CPU's:http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2

Doing so will get you the best CPU based on your needs.

anandtech is a handy website to compare GPU's or CPU's:)
 
Martini1991 said:
Phenom II is better than its successor (lol) yes.
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Not in all benchmarks.

E.g. Phenom II X4 975 @ 3.6 vs FX-8150 @ 3.6
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/435?vs=434

The 8150 is 52% faster in x264 (2nd pass). If I was buying a machine for multithreaded, high intensity progs (transcoding a good example), I wouldn't choose a Phenom II over BD.

Only in games is the difference small/worse for BD. If you just skim the charts it looks like BD is rubbish because of these games FPS, but in raw power it's far faster than an X4. It also consumes a lot more power though.
 
joeyjojo said:
Not in all benchmarks.

E.g. Phenom II X4 975 @ 3.6 vs FX-8150 @ 3.6
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/435?vs=434

The 8150 is 52% faster in x264 (2nd pass). If I was buying a machine for multithreaded, high intensity progs (transcoding a good example), I wouldn't choose a Phenom II over BD.

Only in games is the difference small/worse for BD. If you just skim the charts it looks like BD is rubbish because of these games FPS, but in raw power it's far faster than an X4. It also consumes a lot more power though.
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1.) You put the 4 core against the 8 core Bulldozer, why? It should be against the Phenom II 1100T, was it some attempt at making Bulldozer look like less of a fail?

2.) You can get X6's for sub 100, I mean I think my golden 1055T went for about 95 ish and that would do 4.375GHZ under water.

3.) I'm aware they're not poor in everything, for rendering they can be useful (The FX8 that is)

4.) I was more on about the architecture, Phenom II's much better IPC wise, and now a days can clock to about 4.2GHZ relatively easy with the latest silicon while also can be had cheaper than the FX's (FX4 included)
 
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don't bother with AMD at all unless you already have an AMD motherboard and don't wan to upgrade it.

If you can get a 2500K or 3550K there the best value for money out atm.

Don't bother with Bulldozer, phenom are better for everything other then the occasional Rendering that can use 8 cores and Intel are better for everything
 
Mckl84 said:
What sort of things use different amounts of cores? When trying to understand CPU's, is there anything you could say to me to help me understand what to look for and how they work so I have a better understanding of them?
Click to expand...

It's impossible to say every piece of software uses the processor differently.

The only areas that BD seems to excel at (and by that I mean compete well with Intel) is things like audio/video encoding and heavy processing, when every inch of every core is being used. Bulldozer performance fluctuates heavily depending on what you run whereas Intel's quads are consistently fast regardless of the software (hence their popularity).

IMO AMD/Intel have to balance core speed with the number of cores and I think Intel are spot on with their quads, whereas AMD went too far towards number of cores and neglected/sacrificed core speed which makes a lot of software that run off fewer cores run poorly.
 
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Martini1991 said:
1.) You put the 4 core against the 8 core Bulldozer, why? It should be against the Phenom II 1100T, was it some attempt at making Bulldozer look like less of a fail?

2.) You can get X6's for sub 100, I mean I think my golden 1055T went for about 95 ish and that would do 4.375GHZ under water.

3.) I'm aware they're not poor in everything, for rendering they can be useful (The FX8 that is)

4.) I was more on about the architecture, Phenom II's much better IPC wise, and now a days can clock to about 4.2GHZ relatively easy with the latest silicon while also can be had cheaper than the FX's (FX4 included)
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All good points. I'm not familiar with the AMD lines so didn't know which phenom to compare against. For the same test (x264 pass2) and the 1100T it's actually 28% faster at stock.

An 8120 for £110 overclocked to 4.8 would surely demolish a 1055T, for only £15 more than your one sold for? It would consume a LOT more power though so I agree the Phenom 2 and Intel offerings are better all-rounders.
 
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joeyjojo said:
All good points. I'm not familiar with the AMD lines so didn't know which phenom to compare against. For the same test (x264 pass2) and the 1100T it's actually 28% faster at stock.

An 8120 for £110 overclocked to 4.8 would surely demolish a 1055T, for only £15 more than your one sold for? It would consume a LOT more power though so I agree the Phenom 2 and Intel offerings are better all-rounders.
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yeh but then you can overclock a 1055t to 4ghz as well
 
joeyjojo said:
All good points. I'm not familiar with the AMD lines so didn't know which phenom to compare against. For the same test (x264 pass2) and the 1100T it's actually 28% faster at stock.

An 8120 for £110 overclocked to 4.8 would surely demolish a 1055T, for only £15 more than your one sold for? It would consume a LOT more power though so I agree the Phenom 2 and Intel offerings are better all-rounders.
Click to expand...

My 4.375GHZ cherry picked 1055T which also ran a 3.2GHZ CPU NB, the FX8 would only barely win in 8 threaded apps, everything else would go to the 1055T which came out in April 2010 IIRC
 
thanks people. i think im going to go with an i5. any suggestions for mobo's? and should i go dual or quad core?
 
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