AMD FX-8150 Review: From Bulldozer To Zambezi To FX

[brizzelsprout]

Makes me sad, I use to use AMD exclusively. I really wish AMD would come up with something competitive. I guess I'll stick with my i7 930.

 

[sylar365]

I am gathering from the benchmarks that the people who need blurry photos in a hurry should take a very close look at this new AMD offering at it's current price point. Also, why would AMD put their newest product up against a 2 and half year old Intel chip in it's own promotional publications? Seriously ... should I just file that under a "lack of confidence" or "self-defeatism"?

 

[-Fran-]

Great review as usual, Mr. Chris!

Well, then the FX8150 looks more of a sidegrade to the PhII965 @4Ghz than an upgrade, huh...

AMD, I AM DISAPPOINT.

Oh well, let's wait for Piledriver to be a FXII-8150 or some name like that, lol.

What about some OC testing, Mr. Chris? I'm curious as to the FX making up for it's incompetence to beat steadily the 2500k with more Hertz under the hood.

Cheers!

 

[tacoslave]

i waited almost 3 years to upgrade guess i'll upgrade my phenom ii 940 one of these days. Ivy bridge it is i guess.

 

[soky602]

WOW~ Its like constipation, stress for it to come out and right before you are relieved of it, it stinks.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]phatbuddha79[/nom]Why bring back the FX brand for something like this?[/citation]

Thats a very good question. The last FX whomped the Pentium 4 EE series. This just is not FX. Its barley even BE worthy.

[citation][nom]Tamz_msc[/nom]So Bulldozer is AMD's version of NetBurst?[/citation]

I thought that was Phenom I.

[citation][nom]homeboy2[/nom]Everyone should cry, even the Intel fanboys, this is bad news for everyone, now Intel has absolutely no incentive to lower prices or accelerate Ivy Bridge.[/citation]

Thats what i have been saying. Intel needs the competition, BUT they have been doing well for 5 years without any true competition, releasing new CPUs every year with betetr performance and decent prices. I hope Intel keeps going even with this let down.

In order for BD to be a success, it had to meet or beat the 2600K. Thats the only way.

 

[leon2006]

This is a sad day for users... No real competition for Intel...

May be these models will do better....
http://www.cat.com/equipment
cheers

 

[thesnappyfingers]

I feel sad, I was really hoping AMD could compete with the i5 2500k and the i7-2600k, Alas I must make an intel build.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]jimmysmitty[/nom]Thats what i have been saying. Intel needs the competition, BUT they have been doing well for 5 years without any true competition, releasing new CPUs every year with betetr performance and decent prices.[/citation]Right now Intel has competition near the top, itself. They're pushing people to keep upgrading on a continuous three-year cycle just like the old days. When Intel slows down, people hold onto their old machine longer and Intel loses sales to its own older equipment.

 

[Guest]

Oh amd you disappoint me so...

didn't you learn anything from intels crappy ht crap years ago..

 

[moonshell]

not worth for the premium price and very long waiting times....sorry amd i have to switch to intel side now....

 

[darkguset]

Disappointed, but not giving up... Intel was in a similar position a few years back. I hope things will change again some time sooner rather than later. Perhaps the engineers should focus on making the chip a good performer in one specific area, like they did with their K7 back in the days (great FPU). That would at least throw them back in the game and they would excel in some areas and make their product attractive to at least part of the market. I think they tried too much getting a chip that would do everything and... it does something... but nothing particularly well.

 

[aniklues]

ok... now show me the review about Bulldozer!! I can't believe that this review is about Bulldozer...

 

[jprahman]

Bulldozer is more like man with a shovel. I'm completely underwhelmed at the performance of Bulldozer. You know it's pretty bad when even a 4-core, ~3 year old Phenom is beating a 8-core Bulldozer processor in some of the tests. The performance of Bulldozer is so erratic. It'll beat most of the others in some tests, but end up at the back of the pack in others. I was seriously considering getting a Bulldozer processor at some point so I would have a machine with a high core count, well, I've decided that I probably won't go that route now. I had a lot of enthusiasm for Bulldozer, but I'm completely disappointed. Another poster commented that Bulldozer is AMD's Netburst, and I have to agree.

 

[hmp_goose]

[thinks handbrake/ media server]

 

[valu3hunt3r]

Only winner from the BD release is Intel, especially if they release the rumored i7 2700K and lower the prices of the rest of the Sandy Bridge lineup of chips (and basically slam the door on a huge chunk of sales from AMD).

In saying that; I almost thought AMD were never going to release these chips =/

[citation][nom]phatbuddha79[/nom]Why bring back the FX brand for something like this?[/citation]

Marketing, and AMD are going to need a lot of it now for Bulldozer (their Llano and in future Trinity chips might help them weather the storm for the CPU division though, well until Piledriver comes along).

 

[Zero_]

I wanna see the FX-4100 review.

Edit: 18?

 

[Soma42]

::facepalm::

I was all ready to get a new CPU and this, heart-breaking utterly disappointing piece of silicon, will not be it. Ivy Bridge I'm waiting for you.

I want a kick ass CPU deserving of the "FX" moniker , not some server oriented chip that performs worse than the last generation in half of the benchmarks.

AMD: you need to compete to keep the market alive!!!!! Please do better!!!!

EDIT: Good review, thanks!

 

[intersteller]

Man, what a disappointing turn of events. Why bother with the FX branding AMD? I have ♥ AMD for a long time, but I feel that they are simply not a large enough company to compete with Intel, Intel has about 5x the number of employees.

THIS IS BAD FOR EVERYONE. Intel has no competition and is 5x larger, sad days. Intel can charge $1,000 for a processor and people will buy it simply b/c there is no competition for processors at that level.

I would like to say, that the 4xxx processor looks promising to me, may be worth an upgrade from my 955BE.

Another thing to note, WHY does AMD stress the importance of extra cores? We are not at a point where anything is optimized to use these cores, so whats the point. If I were to get an Intel K process, I could disable HT.

Man I have been searching the web for BD news and rumors for the last 3 months, and this is what I get? Yes, its an improvement, but not much.

 

[psyxix]

Ya I agree, seems like intel is gaining more and more ground in the processor market. Soon, they'll have the monopol of the chip industry =/ Bad bad thing, even for intel fans. There is nothing better than competition to push technologies forward.

 

[Quaddro]

well..back to phenom classic era..
there's must be bug inside the prossesor..

So..anyone know when bulldozer 2 will release..?
___________

Ok..for the first time in 12 years, i'll build intel pc..

 

[compton]

I know Mr. Angelini's review is a rollercoaster ride, but AMD faithful shouldn't be losing their lunches. Overall, it's not as bad as it seems, but I know that those who've been waiting month after agonizing month were hoping for more. Still, there's some good stuff here and who knows how it will perform in another metric: fun. Last year I bought 3 AMD processors. I truly hoped that Bulldozer would drop in the spring, and it didn't, but I whiled away the time by tweaking Phenoms, unlocking cores, undervolting them and overvolting them. It's a lot of fun, an important measure. Only two Sandy Bridge processors are any fun at all. Given the fact that the other 8 "core" Bulldozer will be more like $200 and could probably be as fast as the flagship with a multiplier bump, you get more value there. So they'll still be fun when paired with a great motherboard, and still pretty reasonable in price. Better power management helps efficiency, and while the best case performance scenario is good, the worst case isn't that bad either. It's not as fast as SB much of the time, but don't take that to mean BD is bunk; rather SB is just really, really good. Throughout all of the leaked slides and rumors and delays, I and many others said if it could come close to SB it would be a win, and I still think that's a case. AMD is still more flexible in some ways and still believes catering to the enthusiast is important. I still think I'll buy into BD even though I upgraded to a SB system this spring when BD was nowhere in sight. I don't think I'll be disappointed either. There are many other metrics that aren't covered in Mr. Angelini's thorough article anyway. Those will come out, and then we can see the whole platform as a package. It's still a net win.

 

[falchard]

I think AMD succeeded for only 1 reason. AMD chipsets. If AMD can touch Sandy Bridge then thats good enough to make it a good bargain. The chipsets on AMDs are just way better then on Intels. Much more support for new tech, and more PCI-e lanes.

 

[WR2]

Good review;
thanks for pulling it together for us.

 

[Guest]

AMD should really take what they have now and work on making a standard clock of 5GHz. The architecture is great, AMD has always had great ideas, but they haven't been able to follow through with the performance this time.

I think if Bulldozer had a clock of 5GHz, within the 125W, then it would be good enough.

What a shame though ... looks like I will be getting an i5 at the end of the month.