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AMD 'Bulldozer' FX CPU Reviews Arrive
I.M.O.G. writes "Today AMD lifted the embargo on their most recent desktop AMD FX architecture, code named Bulldozer, whose CPU frequency record Slashdot recently covered. The fruition of 6 years of AMD R&D, this new chip architecture is the most significant news out of AMD since the Phenom II made its debut. The chips are available now in all major retail outlets, and top tier hardware sites have published the first Bulldozer reviews already."
Here are reviews from a few different sites — pick your favorite: Tom's Hardware, PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, [H]ardOCP, or TechSpot. They don't agree on everything, but the consensus seems to be that the new chips aren't blowing anyone's socks off, and that they struggle to compete with Intel's comparable offerings. The architecture shows promise, but performance gains will take time to materialize, making it difficult to leapfrog Intel to any significant degree.
And the comparisons seemed pretty much benchmarked performance based, with a side of price comparison. Fair enough, as these are pitched as 'enthusiast' parts; but left me wondering about one thing:
Of late, intel's somewhat confusing set of model numbers has been distinguished, in addition to differences in speed, by various features being lasered off of certain parts, but not others, mostly virtualization-related stuff. AMD generally left those on at all times and distinguished primarily by speed.
Does anybody have an idea how the price/performance comparisons change(if in fact they do) from the pure-benchmark ones given in TFAs, if the buyer requires that all the relevant virtualization features be enabled?
buy a 6 core Phenom II, overclock it, and pray that AMD can stay around long enough to fix this mess.
Go check the techreport review and look at the price/performance chart: The 2500K has slightly higher performance, lower price, and *much* better energy efficiency.
Go look at the LKML where you'll see Linus & Ingo Molnar calling out AMD for design flaws in Bulldozer's cache that AMD wants to paper-over with kludgy software workarounds in the kernel: http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/patch-x86-amd-correct-f15h-ic-aliasing-issue-help-204200361.html
I feel bad for AMD's engineers. I *don't* feel bad for the marketing hype machine that has been relying on "geek-cred" from sites like Slashdot and the usual David vs. Goliath myth to get unearned praise. If Intel had come out with Bulldozer instead of AMD, we'd be calling this Prescott version 2.0.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
You have to hope that whatever sacrifice AMD made in this design was made to better enable the CPU and GPU to be fabricated on the same process in Trinity and beyond.
Well now I know for sure why SB-E (sandybridge-e) is not arriving until Q1 2012... Intel is just going to continue to milk SB parts for the time being. Sad because I really wanted to get an Ivy Xeon rig to replace my current dual proc mobo, but I'm not sure I can wait until 2013!
I buy AMD, mostly when I build myself and when I'm on a budget. Not because I like weak chips. I love CPU speed, but I also love to keep my wallet as full as possible. This is what AMD offers: "bang for your buck". AMD is interesting for anyone who wants to balance between spending money and reasonable performance. Want pure performance and it doesn't matter what it costs? Go Intel... No questions asked. (This wasn't so in the Athlon XP/64 days)
Also keep in mind that we are now really on a computing-power plateau. At least from the point of view of the average user. I've got a frigging Atom D525 as my primary desktop, which isn't exactly a powerhouse. It has some quirks, notably because Firefox sometimes seems to slow down (Installing the 64-bit Linux flash player made the situation better, for some odd reason... It still is not really ok though) Most of the time it works just perfectly fine. I'd wager that adding 50% more power to that chip would nullify my troubles.
I can't say much about these new Bulldozer machines, but I just ordered an AMD A6-3560 + Gigabyte motherboard + 16GB RAM for less than 250€. That's a lot of power for not much money. (Moms computer died, building a new one for her... She doesn't need much, this should be more than overkill) I'm very keen on trying it out.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
- First, there is the huge delay intel caused by engaging in fraud by paying pc makers to not use amd chips, right at the time amd was at an advantage.
- Then there is the fact that these synthetic benchmarks use intel's proprietary libraries, which were proven to work ineffectively when 'non genuine intel' architecture was detected.
- Then there is the fact that this is a new platform, and its just out, and the main deal with this is being easily increasable in cores. so amd will just add more cores without any research being needed. expect 32 core cpus in a year or so. 16 cores already out.
- As you can understand these cpus are geared more for server environment, and will take that environment over.
- Amd is moving to trinity in one year or so. Trinity is the APU format that all amd cpus will take from then on. Llano apus have been quite successful in gaming fro example 50-80 fps in starcraft 2 (crossfired and not) -> you dont need to buy an external card anymore, and if you do you can crossfire it with the cpu contained one. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6 http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8 intel is worlds behind in this one.
and then there is the ultimate question of what the fuck i am going to do if i grab a powerful processor. really. i bought an overclockable board, and an unlocked cpu. and when i played games, i found out that it was mostly the video card i added that did most of the thing. the cpu i had was way, way over any potential requirements and needs of these games. i didnt need to buy a powerful one at all.
i went about hardware/software forums asking what i could do with a powerful computer. answers have been 'video encoding', 'benchmark', 'seti'. as it seems, any daily usage for cpus are WAY behind the power of modern cpus. to utilize your cpu power at all, you need to do unorthodox, unnecessary shit, or be in a profession that works on these.
so i think all this performance talk is bullshit. there is no way in hell you will use that performance, even in hardcore gaming with an eyefinity 3 monitor setup in 5000x resolution, with 2x antialiasing and full detial. (and i just have 2x 5670 cards).
future is in the heterogeneous chips i think. llano already has been a success, and its possible to save 30% on the cost of cpu + mobo + graphics card if you go the llano way over anything intel, and gaming performance is incomparable. when trinity comes, i think there will be a big change in computing. especially when amd puts out a computing platform like cuda.
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Couple of 10 bucks, more likely. I've recently bought parts for an AMD-based PC upgrade (in Germany) and the price differences were
- about 7 euros more for 2x2GB ECC Ram, compared to the same amount of non-ECC. Both Kingston Value RAM BTW.
- maybe 10-20 euros more for a board that supports ECC. That one is not as clear-cut BTW, it is more a case of having less choices if you want ECC, and the cheapest boards tend to not support ECC.
In dollars, that's maybe 40 bucks difference total. Or 50 bucks if you want 2x4GB and assume a similar price difference.
Of course, if you buy Intel, it will be a couple of hundred bucks because their desktop CPUs don't support ECC at all. That means getting a Xeon, and those are expensive.
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