Bulldozer is out and it sucks

[Solarstarshines]

965 Black still out performs BD

 

[profdlp]

The biggest advantage to this new CPU is that a lot of people won't have to upgrade their old MB to use it. So far, it doesn't look like a "Oh, wow - time to build a new computer" type of deal.

The second-to-last computer I built was on a Socket 939 board with regular DDR RAM and an AGP slot. I couldn't find any upgrade CPUs worth going for even a year later, couldn't upgrade the RAM, and we know how much everybody wanted to make decent AGP video cards after PCIe became available...

My latest build is an X58 system. Unless I suddenly find $1,000 in my mattress for the Core i7 990 there are no worthwhile processor upgrades in my future without a MB upgrade. By the time I'm ready to do that I'll probably be needing DDR4 RAM and a PCIe-II video card to go in it.

I'll give AMD credit for learning their lesson with the Socket 939 debacle and at least making a chip which won't require everybody who is already in the AMD camp to buy a whole new system to use it. If I were already running a compatible board I'd be tempted to toss a Bulldozer in it.

 

[pparks1]

I may have to get linux going if its gonna perform better than Windows ...

I'd think long and hard before making that decision. A few more processing cycles for a steep learning curve and very few games.

It's not about routing for AMD. It's simple logic here. It's not about faith. It's about design. We knew it was a completely unique design. Isn't it logical to assume, that coding isn't ready for the bulldozer?

AMD wasn't saying expect a chip that doesn't perform that great. The AMD fans weren't saying when Bulldozer comes out, it's going to be just "meh" for a couple of years before it really gets any traction. This is not what anybody was expecting. I think it's simply hoping for the best from AMD fans at this point. Otherwise, I think AMD would be pumping out lots of videos and statements to support their "design" over performance at the present time.

 

[smarteyeball]

I've created the best vehicle in the world. It's completely new and vastly superior. It's just a pity I didn't design a drivers seat for it. It really hurts performance not being able to control it properly.

Not my problem though, it's up to someone else to make my mistake work. And when they do... it will be awesome. Maybe.

 

[omegaman7]

unsubscribed...

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Smartyeyeball,
You're on to something but misguided with your analogy. Take the use of automatic sequential shifters in all forms of auto racing. At first they were horrible but held great promise. Only by the advent of paddle shifters, software refinement and electronics to take full use of all the dynamics involved and tens of thousands of man hours do we have a system that bests the manual transmission for control by a large margin. I see this AMD chip's topography in a very similar light and I do believe it will get better utilization and exploitation of it's performance envelope in very sort order. Again these Intel versus AMD discussions always take on a unique life of their own. There are going to be very few Intel users willing to switch and one could argue that some AMD users who were going to jump on board will get wrapped up in the debate and shy away or wait. But I think as we speak extremely smart minds are working to exploit this designs full potential and I for one think we all enjoy better computing by the existence of these two competitive chip makers.

 

[Layback Bear]

Paddle shifting were on race cars, tested tweaked and finally when they were working the way they should were put on cars for the street. In four years AMD did not do their testing and tweaking. They just put it on the street so hopefully some one else will figure it out.

 

[ionbasa]

Video review:
AMD FX Bulldozer 8150 8 Core Review - YouTube

AMD is going to suffer...

 

[Layback Bear]

Thanks ionbasa for that video. I have over time watch many videos from 3d on many things and I believe they are fair bunch of people. They tried to get the BD to do its job and just couldn't.

 

[BES]

The Idea Behind AMD

"
But this does force us to address the relationship between AMD’s hardware and the software that’ll invariably run on it. In Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel’s Mainstream Magnum Opus, I brought up specific optimizations in Windows 7 that were the product of collaboration between Intel and Microsoft—notably, core parking. Windows 7 intelligently schedules to physical cores before utilizing logical (Hyper-Threaded) cores.
In theory, AMD could benefit from the same thing. If Windows were able to utilize an FX-8150’s four modules first, and then backfill each module’s second core, it’d maximize performance with up to four threads running concurrently. This isn’t the case, though. According to Arun Kishan, software design engineer at Microsoft, each module is currently detected as two cores that are scheduled equally. So, in a dual-threaded application, you might see one active module and three idle modules—great for optimizing power, but theoretically less ideal from a performance standpoint. This also plays havoc with AMD’s claim that, when only one thread is active, it has full access to shared resources. Adding just one additional thread could tie up those shared resources, even as multiple other modules sit idle.
Microsoft is looking to change that behavior moving forward, though. Arun says that the dual-core modules have performance characteristics more similar to SMT than physical cores, so the company is looking to detect and treat them the same as Hyper-Threading in the future. The implications there would be significant. Performance would unquestionably improve, while AMD’s efforts to spin down idle modules would be made less effective."

 

[UberlegenKlient]

The Idea Behind AMD

"
But this does force us to address the relationship between AMD’s hardware and the software that’ll invariably run on it. In Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel’s Mainstream Magnum Opus, I brought up specific optimizations in Windows 7 that were the product of collaboration between Intel and Microsoft—notably, core parking. Windows 7 intelligently schedules to physical cores before utilizing logical (Hyper-Threaded) cores.
In theory, AMD could benefit from the same thing. If Windows were able to utilize an FX-8150’s four modules first, and then backfill each module’s second core, it’d maximize performance with up to four threads running concurrently. This isn’t the case, though. According to Arun Kishan, software design engineer at Microsoft, each module is currently detected as two cores that are scheduled equally. So, in a dual-threaded application, you might see one active module and three idle modules—great for optimizing power, but theoretically less ideal from a performance standpoint. This also plays havoc with AMD’s claim that, when only one thread is active, it has full access to shared resources. Adding just one additional thread could tie up those shared resources, even as multiple other modules sit idle.
Microsoft is looking to change that behavior moving forward, though. Arun says that the dual-core modules have performance characteristics more similar to SMT than physical cores, so the company is looking to detect and treat them the same as Hyper-Threading in the future. The implications there would be significant. Performance would unquestionably improve, while AMD’s efforts to spin down idle modules would be made less effective."

I just finished reading this and was on my way here to post it

There's much more to BD than people realize, most of which has been utterly lost on most ppl commenting.

Time will tell. Anyway, it's sad, again, to see this Intel v AMD (brand loyalty and fanboism). Very, very frustrating thread to read through.

 

[pparks1]

There's much more to BD than people realize, most of which has been utterly lost on most ppl commenting.

Ok, so it has "potential", if and when the software is redesigned. Most people that I know, don't ultimately buy a new computer for what's coming out down the road, but rather for the performance that they get here and now. I think this is where people are ultimately unimpressed. Because the uber-powerful CPU that was going to decimate any and all Intel CPU's simply didn't do that upon release. But rather it became the "good enough" CPU that can be had for a good price.

Trust me, I've owned AMD over the years. I wanted to see this chip just wipe the floor clean. I wanted it to be the cats pajamas and send Intel into emergency meetings to determine how to deal with the fact they were getting manhandled. Unfortunately though, it came out flat. In fact, it's competing with middle of the road Intel and looses to top of the line Intel already. What incentive does this give Intel to continue to improve upon things. They are only competing with themselves....and this is bad for the consumer.

 

[whs]

In the German computer mags, I have just read a couple of real live performance comparisons with the Intels. The Bulldozer really does not do very well. Only in games it did appr. as well as Intel due to the powerful GPUs they used. That is sad because I am an AMD fan and was looking forward to those devices.

 

[UberlegenKlient]

There's much more to BD than people realize, most of which has been utterly lost on most ppl commenting.

Ok, so it has "potential", if and when the software is redesigned. Most people that I know, don't ultimately buy a new computer for what's coming out down the road, but rather for the performance that they get here and now. I think this is where people are ultimately unimpressed. Because the uber-powerful CPU that was going to decimate any and all Intel CPU's simply didn't do that upon release. But rather it became the "good enough" CPU that can be had for a good price.

Trust me, I've owned AMD over the years. I wanted to see this chip just wipe the floor clean. I wanted it to be the cats pajamas and send Intel into emergency meetings to determine how to deal with the fact they were getting manhandled. Unfortunately though, it came out flat. In fact, it's competing with middle of the road Intel and looses to top of the line Intel already. What incentive does this give Intel to continue to improve upon things. They are only competing with themselves....and this is bad for the consumer.

I couldn't agree more.

AMD should not have hyped it as they did, they could have gone another route, while still engaging their market demographic. This is clear.

This architecture is extremely forward looking, they admit it, but they sing a different song when it comes to marketing. People will be dissapointed, I'm one of them, although I did get one.

At this point, I can't decide quite how I feel, not until we get something more concrete from Microsoft concerning Windows 7 (and more detail on Win8) and what may be possible with some type of update.

Looking over benchmarks, it's obvious something's extremely wrong on a per-core basis, it doesn't add up. Either they're working in silence with Microsoft (at least quietly) or they've realized there's nothing that can be done until Windows 8, if anything at all; beyond what they've already outlined. Numorous improvements have been seen on the Win8 Preview, but this may not have anything to do with what AMD claims is needed for the OS's to properly address threads. Maybe someone hear has a link, what I've seen has been extremely vague.

The bottom line is AMD missed their opportunity a year ago, when the Cpu's would have been extremely competitive with Intel, and would have had all of this time to work with Microsoft (and developers) to get things moving, which perhaps could have been enough by now to address these shortcummings due to the OS's simply not scheduling as efficiently for Bulldozer as they now do for HyperThreading.

Again, only time will tell. Extremely frustrating for AMD I bet. I must admit I find it absolutely amazing that in all this time, AMD could not have helped Microsoft to address this; unless perhaps it's something that simply cannot be done with this iteration of WIndows. I'll need to do quite a bit more research of my own to see if there's any real discussion about this, from more than just a few statements from AMD and Microsoft so far, which again have been vague and useless.

 

[BES]

Well this part I hope is true:

"Microsoft is looking to change that behavior moving forward, though. Arun says that the dual-core modules have performance characteristics more similar to SMT than physical cores, so the company is looking to detect and treat them the same as Hyper-Threading in the future. The implications there would be significant. Performance would unquestionably improve, while AMD’s efforts to spin down idle modules would be made less effective."

Im just wondering if they are adding it to Windows 8 AND providing an update for Windows 7 or what... Windows 7 update would be nice..

Or else im gonna have to run Windows 8 pre-view and after that the BETA ...then eventually buy it to get any sort of extra performance from my purchase..

Right now though it seems AMD is having a problem with their foundry's:

"AMD is rumored to be seeking ties with TSMC, Taiwan's premier semiconductor manufacturing foundry, for future manufacturing of its "Bulldozer" architecture processors, according to a report by DonanimHaber. This has two very distinct implications: first, AMD could be facing issues with GlobalFoundries 32 nm HKMG node, its de facto foundry for CPU manufacturing, and second, this could just be an obvious development of future low-power APUs based on the new x86 architecture being manufactured at TSMC, much like how current E-series and C-series APUs are.

Then again, AMD doesn't exactly have any APUs in works that use "Bulldozer" architecture for the x86 cores, rather, its successor codenamed "Piledriver". Another couple of important things to note here are that TSMC does not have a 32 nm bulk node (it was scrapped with the transition to 28 nm bulk), and its HKMG (high-K metal gate transistor) manufacturing technology is deployed rather recently. It would be interesting to follow this development."
http://www.techpowerup.com/153567/AMD-to-Turn-to-TSMC-for-Bulldozer-Manufacturing.html

Right now that seems to be the case since everywhere I look the FX-8150 is on 30-45 DAY back order..

 

[Solarstarshines]

I was reading a couple NEWegg reviews most of them were full five across and happy about the Oc and Multi tasking

I might have to pick one up soon to see for myself

 

[pparks1]

I was reading a couple NEWegg reviews most of them were full five across and happy about the Oc and Multi tasking

I might have to pick one up soon to see for myself

I don't think the average joe is going to get a BD and say, "Wow, my computer is so freaking slow, what's going on". But if the average joe benchmarks a lot, he/she may notice that things don't seem to be as good as what they figured they would be.

Also, a lot of folks on NewEgg (no offense intended), are going to just fall for the placebo effect (now I have 8 cores versus the 4 cores that I had before and it's just so much faster). When in reality they probably have not timed out the tests to just see for certain how it really stacks up, but have rather gone with their "gut feel" that "it certainly feels fast".

At the end of the day, I'm sure it's a fine CPU. But if I were building a performance box tomorrow, there is absolutely no question which direction I would go. Unless of course, I already had an AM3+ mobo...which I do not.

 

[UberlegenKlient]

Yeah, at this point it's either pick one up, or wait, possibly a long time for confirmation from AMD or Microsoft concerning performance enhancements that may or may not be coming down the line.

I got mine, and I can see how skewed a number of reviews have been, not with regard to performance, but a lack of vision. I can't wait to find out how it will perform in the future. Though I am happy with it, it's defeated my 4Ghz 1100t at stock(albeit only two small tests and certainly far from a complete picture, very far from it), I've yet to OC the 8150. I was going to drop the 8150 directly into this rig, but wound up building an entirely new rig, which is incomplete. Soon as it's finished and online I plan some benchmarking.

At this point I ran two benches, first, it at stock did beat the 1100t @ 4Ghz, in rendering a 4:36 mp3 @ 32 bit float/ 512-point sinc @ 450kbps by 18.41%. The second was a wav file, again highest quality render, this time only 11% quicker. This operation isn't heavily threaded (FL Studio) so it's impressive.

Once the rig is complete and online I'll grab some real benchmark apps and see how it stacks up to the Thuban. These audio tests don't give a complete picture, at all, take them with a grain..

 

[linnemeyerhere]

UberlegenKlient,
Please post some pictures of your rig and place them in "Show Us Your Rig" thread !

 

[UberlegenKlient]

I'll be home from work around 2am, unless someone destroys something... That'll be 10hrs from now, if not tonight tomorrow afternoon.