Bulldozer is out and it sucks

[1foxracing]

Thank you Gentlemen, The 560 it will be then.

 

[UberlegenKlient]

I'm very dissapointed, but I'm still building, I already have all the parts. I like the fact that it's a forward looking design. AMD gave up a lot of die area for these new instruction sets, which very few apps are using yet. Also it's worth noting that Windows 8 does a much better job with scheduling. With Win7 the OS has no idea each module is two cores sharing resources.

Honestly the only thing that has me concerned is the outragous power consumption when overclocked, though I don't intend to.

Anyway I'm still building, but the chip will be on sale the moment Piledriver comes. If AMD doesn't get its act together, or if nobody other than Microsoft winds up supporting the architecture more in the future, I'll move on.

The chip does very well in modern threaded apps, which is what I wanted.

 

[omegaman7]

A few sites (Like hardwareheaven) have suggested that coding will benefit the bulldozer further. E.g. windows 8 will address what windows 7 does not. I wonder just how much of a performance gain it will be though. Remember, Bulldozer is a new architecture. And it's limited to outdated coding, eh?
While I'm disappointed at the reviews I'm reading(2600K is tempting), I must wait a few months and see what happens. I will not judge Bulldozer so soon. After all, bios updates may effect the bulldozer as well

Hardwareheaven review

Basically, windows 8 handles multithreaded tasks better.

 

[Phone Man]

Here is a price comparison from Newegg. I am building a new rig so the wife can have my old one. I am sticking with AMD with an ASUS AM3+ MB and may just go with the PII X6 1100T with discount price of $175. I then can see what will happen down the road so I am leaving my upgrade options open for the next couple years. Was really hoping Bulldozer was better then it is, but the thermals are way out of whack. I guess that is why AMD is offering a water cooler ($100).

View attachment 178910

Jim

Rest of my parts arrive today. I went with an ASUS AM3+ board with the 990x chip set. (M5A99x EVO) and the PHII X6 1100T which was $175. The BD FX-8150 was $100 more and not worth the price. I can still upgrade to the BD if they get them running right or the Piledriver when it comes out. I got the new Corsair 400R case and it is really nice. Got it from Newegg for $89.99 (after $10 rebate) and free shipping.

Jim

 

[Beta]

AMD Bulldozer FX 8150 chip benchmarked

Asus Crosshair IV Formula works with AM3+. This is the first report that I have been able to see that shows that the AM3+ chip works in a AM3 socket.

 

[omegaman7]

I would be concerned that an AM3 socket may not fully support the AM3+ potential. As it were...

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I was pleased to find out my MSI 890 mobo will take the bulldozer without issue. So I will wait and bid my time as I'm not about first adoption.

 

[Beta]

I was pleased to find out my MSI 890 mobo will take the bulldozer without issue. So I will wait and bid my time as I'm not about first adoption.

I never said that the MSI MB would work. This is the only report of it working. Many other MB's have been tested to no luck.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Beta,
Not sure if you think I was rebuking your statement, I wasn't. I'm just saying I was pleased to find out that the MSI 890 mobo will support the FX cpu's as up that point I understood that an upgrade to 990 series was needed.

 

[Layback Bear]

The Bulldozer became a budget cpu because it works like a budget cpu. In some cases not even that good. Hang around the price will drop even more unless their is fix. The question in my mine is why buy the Big Dog in town when it can't growl only whimper.

 

[omegaman7]

There certainly should be a fix. It's a new architecture. Windows doesn't know how to handle the Bulldozer yet

 

[pparks1]

There certainly should be a fix. It's a new architecture. Windows doesn't know how to handle the Bulldozer yet

Typically though, you don't build a processor and then expect that all software vendors and OS vendors are going to sit down and retool their product to work better with your product.

While I expect that advances in Windows 8 will increase performance on these new processors, I also think that these improvements will also benefit Intel CPU's as well. So, I'm not convinced this is a sure fire win for AMD.

Not to mention, we are at least a year away from a Windows 8 release. Why would you want to sit back on something for a year in hopes that it performs better when you can invest in something today that does perform better? Build for the present, not the future....that's always been my opinion.

 

[omegaman7]

I agree that release was premature. But technology/software needs to advance, or we'll be on the same architecture til the end of time :S
It's in everybody's best interest, to redesign coding/OS's for new hardware.
Besides, 8 Cores in X264, with a healthy overclock is rather tempting(Unless you already have 1090t/1100t). E.g. I'm sure they had their sites on a particular market with these CPU's. Perhaps not encoders, but certainly people that can make use of 8 threads. If I were a software engineer, I'd be looking very closely at this CPU.

Applications need to start supporting more than 2 cores. I can only think of a handful that support 4 let alone 8. That's not right when you think about it eh?

 

[pparks1]

At the end of the day, i don't think the Bulldozer is a terrible chip. However, with all of the fanfare and promises and everything else....it didn't even come close to expectations. AMD fans can back peddle all they want, but this isn't the chip that they have been preaching to us as the Intel killer.

As far as 8 cores in X264 with a healthy overclock, if you have seen the power consumption numbers...I'm not sure I would even want that rig.

True multi-core apps are not over abundant. no doubt about that. Hence reason I think Intel has been wise to stick to making the most of quad core CPU's for the most part.

The last AMD cpu I owned was an Athlon 64 x2 4400+. This chip was far superior in it's day to anything Intel had. Since the release of the Core 2 Duo, I haven't even looked at or considered an AMD setup. The Bulldozer has not changed my opinion whatsoever on this topic.

 

[omegaman7]

I've seen the power consumption reports. I don't factor stuff like that, provided it isn't TOO extreme. The electrical bill will be negligible at the end of the month. And the heat, that can be dealt with with proper cooling.
I'm a neutral party by the way. I just like two companies that compete with each other. The consumer wins

I believe people are certainly into the higher number of cores. Looks like places are selling out quickly. Perhaps they don't read review sites. Their loss for sure

 

[pparks1]

I've seen the power consumption reports. I don't factor stuff like that, provided it isn't TOO extreme. The electrical bill will be negligible at the end of the month.

Well, considering that the overclocked AMD is chewing up 452 watts and the overclocked Intel 2600K is 275 watts, I'd call that pretty extreme. It's almost 2x the power. If the CPU's perform roughly the same..(and they do...if not the Intel being faster)...why would I want the one that will cost me 2x as much to run. It just doesn't make sense.

I believe people are certainly into the higher number of cores. Looks like places are selling out quickly. Perhaps they don't read review sites. Their loss for sure

Yeah, people always buy into the more is better philosophy. Lots of people had high hopes for this CPU, and they are simply going forward with it. That would explain alot of the sales, I'm sure. Lots of people "Think" they multitask a ton and really need all of these cores. Sadly, they don't...but they don't realize it.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
Apart from inveterate gamers I can't think of ANY app that a normal user would be running that would even need a FRACTION of some of the compute power we are talking about here.

I'm quite a large user of COMPLEX Engineering type spreadsheets and usually even a relatively modest netbook will suffice.

Enough RAM to run sufficient concurrent applications and enough compute power to run a few VM's is all I need and I'm sure that goes for about 99% of typical users.

I'm struggling to find an application (excluding gaming) that a HOME user would need an 8 Core CPU for!!!

Scientific / Laboratory / Military uses are different so compute power will continue to increase -- and I suppose eventually when we have decent holographic projection which will replace the rather anaemic 3D Video we are currently saddled with then I agree a MASSIVE increase in compute power will be needed but I suspect this type of component will be built in to a dedicated device rather than a "Laptop".

Cheers
jimbo

 

[omegaman7]

I believe Apophysis supports 8 cores. X264 I'm uncertain what it's limits are. But I believe it'll bring even bulldozer to its knees. And then there are of course benchmark suites that will no doubt utilize the cores. But of course benchmarking is only a select number of people
I have a lot of patience, but I sure am seriously curious just how much Windows 8 will address this new cpu. And surely Microsoft will update windows 7 in this area.
I'll be building in february. Tax return time The next 4 months I'll be researching a great deal. Perhaps a revised chip will be out by then.

 

[pparks1]

I'm struggling to find an application (excluding gaming) that a HOME user would need an 8 Core CPU for!!!

Games don't need 8 cores. The overwhelming majority of games don't even use 4 cores. It's usually best to go with a higher clock speed dual core over a slower clock speed quad core.

 

[Wishmaster]

Well, x264 can be quite demanding.
Especially if you use higher settings to obtain higher quality results, slows it down a lot. Dowsizing 1080 --> 720P, De-Interlacing etc all add into that as well.


From the tests Ive seen, it doesnt look like Bulldozer fairs all that well with a conversion of Bluray/DTS --> x264 AC3.
It still struggles to keep up with a i2600k.
In fact, from the ones Ive seen, the Phenom x6 actually beats it by a few FPS.

I would think, in a multithereaded application like this, the Bulldozers 8 cores should make the Intel Quads look silly. But that doesnt seem to be the case.
Not sure why exactly.