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

[iamtheking123]

[citation][nom]abheekg[/nom]It surely did not perform as good as we expected it to[/citation]
WHAT?! I was predicting BD would suck ass for the past year. It was obvious when they had delay after delay and problem after problem when Intel was churning out kick ass achitectures like clockwork. But AMD fanboys were silly enough to believe AMD could not only get their act together but close a 3 year R&D gap with BD...nope.

 

[Scotty99]

My question here is, how much does AMD care that WE the gamers want to buy their CPU's? What % of the CPU's that AMD is going to sell (even if they were a hit) would be to guys like us who read these forum boards and buy stuff off of newegg?

CPU manufacturers do not cater to us gamers, we are far too small a % of the market for us to have a voice. How else could you possibly explain how these CPU's perform in games?

 

[scallywanker]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Welcome to the site! Glad to have you,Chris[/citation]

I lurked but never felt compelled to add to the discussion. As a calculated and discerning (as opposed to, blank-check) supporter of AMD, I'm disappointed. The frustration I feel over the initial reviews compelled me to post. Where is the AMD that offered the average consumer a deal; and the more educated consumer, something they could brag about?

 

[peroludiarom]

Hi all,
I’m writing first comment here (reading this site from 4-5years), because I want to share my opinion - Bulldozer can’t be a disappointment to me, because the situation was expected to from very long ago. It is like when Nvidia was lating his first Fermi (s**t), and the internet was full from benches that say “Nvidia will dominate” … Same picture here. AMD was lating, new CPU architecture, big expectations – but the reality is different. From what I see, always new architectures are a little hot-air balloons, and we cannot expect Bulldozer to compete with SB. We have to wait for Q1 2012 to see next gen of Bulldozer, with all improvements and corrections to architecture, in order to see real performance gain over Phenoms and SBs. Last month I was before upgrade of MB/CPU/RAM – and I decided to go on 990fx chipset with good MoBo, fast RAM, and cheapest BE processor. Now I see that what I choose was the best. I get Phenom II b55 x4 3,8ghz (with all tweeks – 16gb/s ram mem bandwith), with close to BD performance for only 90$. So my conclusion is – go for 99xxx chipset, with cheapest possible BE processor, and wait for second gen BD. Intel as always can’t attract me with high prices for good MoBo (something missed in most cases) and good processor – if somebody thinks I’m wrong, my case can prove it (I save around 200$).

 

[nerrawg]

[citation][nom]scotty99[/nom] What % of the CPU's that AMD is going to sell (even if they were a hit) would be to guys like us who read these forum boards and buy stuff off of newegg?[/citation]

AMD and Intel, along with mainstream PC builders would be fools not take us seriously. Sure, sales to enthusiasts are low volume total, but critically:

Who do family and friends go to when they are going to buy a new PC, laptop or phone:

US! Enthusiast influence isn't about their purchase power at all, its about are market influence. There is not a family member or friend who buys a PC without asking us for advice first, because we are free (and for the most part unbiased). Also most normal members of the public don't understand all the techno jargon, but have been done over by PC world and the likes so many times that they know they need to come to us first before they buy.

Bottomline: We enthusiasts might only buy a products each, but each of us influences the purchases of 10s-100s of consumers. Only the most foolish of marketing divisions would ignore this.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]scallywanker[/nom]I lurked but never felt compelled to add to the discussion. As a calculated and discerning (as opposed to, blank-check) supporter of AMD, I'm disappointed. The frustration I feel over the initial reviews compelled me to post. Where is the AMD that offered the average consumer a deal; and the more educated consumer, something they could brag about?[/citation]

I feel you. I was reviewing processors back when AMD and Intel traded blows with FX and Extreme Edition launches. I'm 31, so I don't want to sound too old here, but those were truly glory days.

 

[Scotty99]

That is not true for me personally, nerrawg. Nearly all of my relatives know me as a tech geek yet they go and buy 300 dollar laptops because....well that is all they need. Gamers seek advice through boards like this, or friends that are also gamers. Most people are not gamers, all most people want is a computer that will go on facebook that does not crash or break down.

 

[nerrawg]

[citation][nom]scotty99[/nom] Nearly all of my relatives know me as a tech geek yet they go and buy 300 dollar laptops because....well that is all they need. [/citation]

Definitely right on that, but they still ask what $300 laptop to buy, and in that case even though the CPUs are cheap, technology has a trickle down effect. If AMD enthusiast CPUS are inefficient and sap power that tends to trickle down to the consumer level as well.

Recent example: a friend asks me whether to get a Phenom II X3 or X4 based laptop or a dual core i3, I tell them to get the Intel because it uses less power which means more battery time and they don't need the extra cores.

So if AMD marketing thought they could simply add more cores and fool consumers into buying them buying making it sound better, they are following themselves, because guys/gals like us are the ones who are giving the advice and we know the full story.

 

[Scotty99]

I am not going to concede, but of course you have a point. I just find it funny when people think we as gamers actually have a net effect on how manufacturers are going to design products. We obviously don't in the case of the bulldozer chip. (if we did, the chip would game 10-25% better than sandy bridge, the technology is there and AMD does not have "stupid engineers")they simply choose to go a different route.

Bottom lines drive products, and gamers do not have enough of an effect there.

 

[kartu]

So, let’s say someone puts Core i5-2500K and FX-8150 in front of you. The Core i5 costs $220 bucks, and the FX runs $245. Which one do you buy?

What about motherboard prices?

 

[ronch79]

So this is AMD's version of Netburst. 11 years late, I might add.

 

[Maziar]

I was expecting way much more from Buldozer,after delays and delays it doesn't offer the performance I expected.
It's good but I think everyone were expecting more

 

[leper84]

Guess I'm buying a 2600k.

-Typed from my Fusion powered netbook.

Seriously, I really want to support AMD as the underdog and do my part to keep competition alive; but the capitalist in me just can't shell out cash for WORSE performance than Phenom most of the time. Oh well....

 

[The_Trutherizer]

I am not so surprised. At least this proves the bulldozer core is a contender. Windows 8 looks promising at least in respect to the efficiency and scale-ability of the the CPU under multitasking workloads. The one I am still waiting for is Trinity. I want to see what and APU with bulldozer cores do when coupled with an integrated GPU core or two.

 

[kfc902]

Very Very Very Disappointed (performance to price to Everything, I see a dark 2012 for AMD)

 

[The_Trutherizer]

All in all not bad for a core architecture that is so very different. Its so different that its a wonder that it can operate stable. I respect that. I believe AMD needed to get this CPU out just to test the bulldozer core.

 

[Sud099]

Aah Bummer..!! Had high hopes for bulldozer..

 

[Guest]

Dear Tomshardware. Please learn how to properly configure Visual Studio before performing any tests. Go to Options->Project and Solutions->Build and Run and set proper value in "maximum number of parallel project builds" box. I've manage to achieve compilation time of 37 sec on 1090T. And even I've got down to 25 sec after turning on /MP option in each project. So please if you're doing some tests - do it right.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

[citation][nom]nerrawg[/nom]AMD and Intel, along with mainstream PC builders would be fools not take us seriously. Sure, sales to enthusiasts are low volume total, but critically:Who do family and friends go to when they are going to buy a new PC, laptop or phone: US! Enthusiast influence isn't about their purchase power at all, its about are market influence. There is not a family member or friend who buys a PC without asking us for advice first, because we are free (and for the most part unbiased). Also most normal members of the public don't understand all the techno jargon, but have been done over by PC world and the likes so many times that they know they need to come to us first before they buy. Bottomline: We enthusiasts might only buy a products each, but each of us influences the purchases of 10s-100s of consumers. Only the most foolish of marketing divisions would ignore this.[/citation]
Yep!

 

[lunyone]

WOW! What a disappointment! I was hoping for 2600k numbers at the $250 price range, but I was WRONG! The only thing I can see coming out of this is possibly the 4 core versions being competitive. This is really a sad day for consumers I hope things will get better, but 10-15% increase per year isn't going to go well for AMD. They needed to be competitive now and not 12-18 months from now. I'm sorry, but this is just bad for AMD.

 

[techpops]

I know this won't help many or change any minds but after a lot of searching on all the new reviews I found out that at least in Cinebench, a great benchmark for looking at all cores being used efficiently at 100%. Well the results are that the FX8150 is just a tiny bit faster than a 1100T, and when both are overclocked, again, the FX8150 is just a few percent faster. There is one silver lining, the server processors are going to be able to slot right into the C32 and G34 boards, what's interesting to me there is you can get a crossover C32 server board that takes any DDR3, not just expensive ECC etc. use a standard PSU and put it in a normal case because of the ATX form factor. So now you have two CPU sockets and 8 memory sockets which is very appealing to graphics heads needing lots of cores for rendering and needing a lot of memory for Photoshop, video and 3D. So while the FX8150 doesn't compete well with the 1100T on the server side, the C32 Opterons are only 2.6ghz and a very expensive 2.8ghz on six cores. So the price point of those replacement bulldozer server CPU's and how fast they run could make for a great rendering box. I guess we'll just have to see later on how that plays out. For me, I'm putting money into 1090T boxes with newly sourced 8GB dimms that are finally cheap enough to go beyond 16Gb on a motherboard (4x4gb) My only problem now is finding the right motherboard that supports 32gb memory at the cheapest possible price, but that's for another comment thread.
I'm still just really sad here that AMD have performed so bad. Their share prices have recovered recently so the market seems to see things differently than us techies.

 

[Guest]

Intel's got plenty of competition. It's just not AMD. Remember they're looking for a piece of the pie in the tablet/smartphone market, that will keep them busy, looking for ways to decrease power consumption while improving performance.

 

[Rizlla]

This is sad. Looks like my current build will be my last AMD build. The next one will be an Intel build. R.I.P. AMD

 

[Martell77]

I wonder how this chip stacks up in AutoCad. I had a client that wanted to wait for me to build his new machine to see how BD would compete. Seeing that BD seems more productivity inclined, maybe it'll shine more there?

I'm going to hold off on judging BD too much as the benchmarks here are limited. Being a new launch its mainly focused on tech aspects (understandably). I'm hoping to see a article with a broader set of games to get a better picture. Really hoping that these 3 weren't the best of the overall bunch.

Note: I am not a AMD fanboy by any stretch, my last 3 systems have been Intel based. I just like the benefits of competition.

 

[catchercradle]

Please, don't just test under Micr0$0ft. tell us how things perform under linux.

Dave