AMD's FX-8150 After Two Windows 7 Hotfixes And UEFI Updates

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[citation][nom]clownbaby[/nom]Like putting lipstick on a pig. I don't understand the method behind AMD's madness with these chips. They're basically relying on software to take advantage of optimization instead of developing a truly fast and efficient architecture. More cores may be the way of the future, but AMD can't compete with intel if it's using twice as much silicon (or more) to achieve similar results. They're reputation as a value alternative can only hang around so long before consumers wake up. I sure hope their next chip takes a large step forward, if for no other reason than to keep intel CPUs affordable.[/citation]

AMD dont care what you or I think, they are selling these chips by the tons and makign a killing, the enthusiest market is a very small market
 
The worst part of this review is the cost of the CPU.
i5 2500K is $230 on newegg
FX8150 is $270 on newegg
i7 2600K is $320 on newegg (though I paid $250 for my 2600, which puts it cheaper than the FX chip)

the FX8K chips are more similar to the i7 than the i5, and while the i5 smokes the FX, the i7 is even further ahead (except in some specific situations on some specific pieces of software that use all 8 cores as true cores).

But to the article, if the option is going AMD or something $40 less, uses just over 1/2 the power, stays cold even when OC'd (the FX gets hotter a lot faster than SB chips), and gives ~15% more performance, then the choice becomes clear very quickly!

For those hoping that win8 will be the savior of this chip, you are dead wrong. Win8 will run faster, but it runs faster than win7 on any hardware, so the improvement is not due to the processor being 'ahead of it's time', it is simply that the software is lighter. Now I do agree with the general chip design philosophy, and I think this 'mini/many-core' route is the way of the future, but the current FX chips are simply a failed product. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes and fix things in Trinity and other future products

And to think that some moron earlier today on another article was whining about how 'Intel chips are so expensive' lol. Intel chips (at least today) are cheaper to buy, and cheaper to run than anything put out by AMD, with the exception of their mobile/low power line-up, but even that is a close race, and the game may change before years end.

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]general multi tasking apposed to speed of the 4 working as one...i currently have 11 explorer windows open, task manager, dragon naturally speaking 11, 5 firefox windows with 500+ tabs across them all, foobar 2000, 2 win rar, 2 acdsee 8 instances, 1 acdsee pro 5, zoom player 8, cheome with about 70 tabs, and mircall useing 6.4gb of ram on a 120gb ssd boot (intel 320), and a phenom 955 be no overclock, and a hd5770sense i went to an ssd and 8gb of ram (was at 3gb before and pushed my computer harder than i am now) i have noticed a massive improvement in speed, i don't know what to attribute it to, as my brother has win 7 64bit and his still feals sluggish as hell. in all honesty, even if my processor was 10X faster than it is now, im not sure i would see much of a difference.the real people you are talking about may fall under the placebo effect, or may have come off a significant upgrade. they may even be lieing to themselves because they spent 300$ on a cpu... i know if i am given a game for free my opinion on its allot different than if i buy the game myself.[/citation]
You are absolutely right on this point (even if you are a crazy multi-tasker... I feel ADD when I have more than 20tabs open at once lol). So many people pay so much extra for the K version instead of a similar slower version, or 1600mhz ram instead of 1333, or a GTX580 when a 560 would have been fine for their monitor, or a x68 mobo instead of a better quality but cheaper p67 or h67 when they don't need the extra features. All that money down the drain to have 'the best' equipment, when they would't know the difference between it and a good quality core2quad build with a decent GPU. What is the point of having a GPU that plays every game at 150fps when your monitor will only do 60? Or buying a super GPU or CPU and skimping out with a crap mobo, too little RAM, a case with no airflow, PSU that will fry everything, or junk HDDs? Reality is that for the best experience and performance you need a well balanced PC without bottlenecks rather than having the best of one part, and skimping out on the rest so that you never get to enjoy what that good part could do in the first place. In the end it will run faster and cheaper than the unbalanced monsters that many people build.
 
The article still failed to address a point brought up in the original Faildozer article comments: the RAM. Match the FX-8xxx with the AMD MINIMUM recommended 1866MHz RAM or better yet, the 2166MHz suggested RAM and see what happens. Do the same for Intel to keep it balanced. Tossing 1600MHz RAM at a new chip that has been shown to be RAM throttled in other site's benchmarks is just silly. I'd like Toms to put it to rest if they can see any improvements on higher-clocked RAM over crap-market 1366/1600MHz RAM.
 
Note to AMD's CEO: go to Intel on bended knee and promise not to sue them again if they fab your GPUs. You can make tons of money with a good fab to give you some yields on those beautiful shiny new 79XX GPUs, and what follows, if you only had more than a half-assed yield.

You have got to look at Fab 42 and wish you had some production from that starting in 2013 instead of those lame boys that you use. Solid GPU production would make you enough cash to limp along in CPUs until Intel stumbles again.

Intel, do it for America, do it for, well, not getting sued by AMD again for a while. Just do it, I need a new graphic card and I want it to be cheaper, so just do it for me.

We need you AMD, start thinking outside the box.
 
[citation][nom]ivyanev[/nom]I hope it would turn out like phenom: first was a bit disappointing ,the second solid performer with low price. What test fail to show us is multitasking, witch this processor is made for.I know not many people would do 2 heavy things at the same time , but not many people need an 8 core processor.[/citation]It still might. You're right, the original Phenoms had some issues and it was a very weak launch. A lot of AMD fans skipped them. I hope for AMD's sake that they can produce an "FX II".
 
Ohim,

You hit one nail on the head, I'm running the BD 8120 (I think that's the number, it's the next one down from the top of the line 8 core lineup because I can very easy run it at or higher freq. than the stock numbers on their top of the line 8 core with ease) I can go a lot farther with my water cooler but why take chances of killing it and It doesn't need to go any faster with current software and a good video card.
Anyway, on the the important stuff, I can run a lot of programs at the same time I could never come close to with my older 6 core or 4 core AMD cpus.
And I've seen at least 2 reviews that were running these cpu's on beta win 8 and they showed a def. improvement of 5 to 10% in a good number of tests they ran.
This cpu has one good thing going for it. When it's patched right and used right the people that run these will see performance increased like getting a next gen cpu only they won't have to. Kind of neat.
There has been growing pains with all sorts of cpus that were different enough. Even Intel blew a big one with that one rad. design. I can't spell it but I think it was close to itanium or something close to that.
In a way AMD came out on top of that weirdness.
The cpu will take time, it needs better software from the OS and from game and other developers to optimize this sucker. Because when you really look at most software today it's had it's programming optimized for Intel chips the whole time.
So while you'll never see any more speed boosts running Intel cpus not counting overclocking of corse, you will see it with AMD's and it will not cost much to get it.
But right now it's a great platform for a home media entertainment setup. I hope AMD can do better with their next releases but we should at the time see more software fixed to work better with current AMD cpus. I can't even overload it much (a little) running 2 HD movies and play games that I can leave running in the background at the same time or do other stuff like unzipping files while doing other progs and not more real glitches when Nortons anti virus start a check on my system. It used to really get erratic but not with this cpu and so on ect.. ect..
What I'm getting at that while it's def. not the fastest for the cost and the speed you still have more than a fast enough cpu to use it on anything.
I like to call this cpu future proof because it will keep getting faster with time and won't need to be replaced for the same reasons.
It will get better as time goes on.
One problem with those hot fix files, Microsoft pulled them off. They must know by the time that they needed more work so they removed them.
I hope it's to do a better fix.
But knowing them they would rather have the folks that got AMD's new cpu to HAVE to buy the next gen windows 8. It makes more marketing sense. Because if they fix the Win 7 issue I would not buy WIN8 at all because WIN7 is a great OS and could last for 10 years down the road if they would let it.

But we all know how Microsoft really is very greedy and would rather sabotage Win7 AMD users if they could than play nice and get some real good fixes out for a older OS. Makes sense to me anyway. It's what I'd do.
It's like the movie industry when they put out first one movie, then sell it again as dig. enhanced and then again as a HD blue ray and then again as a 3D movie. Fun to buy the same movie 5 times. How many star ways movies are out there redone every which way they can think of and suckers like we all kind of are we go get the enhanced movie.
And they wonder why people go online and get a torrent of it and call them criminals when that title should go to the movie industry when you really take a look at what they are doing.
I've taken the stand that I will only buy one and find a way to get the others because I'm very tired of buying the same movies more times than I like to count.
Anyway, I'm still going to support AMD because I know what the world of computing will be without it. It will become very expensive again. Or it will stagnate because there will be no incentive for Intel to come out with newer cpus and they sure won't be coming out with newer radical designs, there won't be a valid reason for them to spend money like that anymore if we do loose AMD, That would be a green light to not go as fast as they are doing it now while raising the price of them so they can afford to sell less in the long run. Very scary but I'd bet anyone that will be the case if AMD bows out of the cpu market.
I really wish people would give this more thought but I've yet to see more than a few that see's this chain of events very clearly
or posted it. The future is just to fluid to be able to know for sure which way this will go.
Oh well, early to bed, early to rise makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes... lol..
 
Still feel the same about this cpu line that I did prior at launch, it was released too damn early. This product should have been sat on right until Windows 8. During that time it should have had more money spent on development to get maximum performance. As is, in Windows 7 its not a very useful cpu line over anything currently out. Until Windows 8, on the retail and oem side AMD should have just kept focusing on improving Phenom and Athlon II, and Socket FM1 lines. That could have easily sustained them until Windows 8. Oh well, maybe next time. Till then, I'll stick to my Phenom II.
 
Still feel the same about this cpu line that I did prior at launch, it was released too early. This product should have been sat on right until Windows 8. During that time it should have had more money spent on development to get maximum performance. As is, in Windows 7 its not a very useful cpu line over anything currently out. Until Windows 8, on the retail and oem side AMD should have just kept focusing on improving Phenom and Athlon II, and Socket FM1 lines. That could have easily sustained them until Windows 8. Oh well, maybe next time. Till then, I'll stick to my Phenom II.
 
"It is simply embarrassing for an eight core processor to be beaten by a quad core, even considering some apps don't support more then two or four cores. "

Fail comment of the century, you even pointed out your own flaw in your logic. I'm personally not bothered by having extra cores that sleep 90% of the time, because I know 10% of the time they actually do me a lot of good.

That's like telling the waitress you want your pizza cut into 4 slices instead of 8 because you don't think you're hungry enough to eat 8. I guess you're ecstatic that Intel refuses to give developers a reason to make desktop apps more parallel, let's continue buying Intel's very incremental upgrades in single-threaded performance instead of actually trying to push the limits of computing.

*Posted from my FX8150*
 
Thanks Thomas for the great review. I feel like I would be going backwards in regards to performance per watt and efficiency since we all know the software updates don't do much to improve anything for Amd. I run a good sized lan and using my Sandy 2600k OR even my old Intel Q9650 as a host is plenty for most situations. (Sandy Bridge for sure) I've built many systems from amd64/fx60/185's, And since then I have always focused on is best power/performance ratio as I phase out my older power sucking rigs for newer more efficient performing solutions. Hell!?, Even a Intel I3 (3.3 ghz) would probably fit the bill for most situations when lanning with the guys. Unless "Amd" pulls a rabbit out of its hat with updated silicon I'm going to build An Ivy Bridge system in a few months.(I've got some duel cores to phase out) I Built an I3 2130 with 8 gigs of ram and gtx560 ti for my friend and I was amazed how good it ran and cool it was.(18 c Idle) (extreme gamer/multi tasker) I asked him a couple months later And he still loves it and doesn't seem to have a want or need for an upgrade. With electricity skyrocketing and heat also being an issue I see no benefits going back to power sucking "Amd" fx60/phenom/8150 power profiles anymore. Efficiency/performance is the name of the game for me. But I Hope for the best for "Amd".
 
[citation][nom]Obie327[/nom]I Built an I3 2130 with 8 gigs of ram and gtx560 ti for my friend and I was amazed how good it ran and cool it was.(18 c Idle) (extreme gamer/multi tasker) I asked him a couple months later And he still loves it and doesn't seem to have a want or need for an upgrade. With electricity skyrocketing and heat also being an issue I see no benefits going back to power sucking "Amd" fx60/phenom/8150 power profiles anymore. Efficiency/performance is the name of the game for me. But I Hope for the best for "Amd".[/citation]Nice post but wait a minute, let me guess, 18C in a 20C room right?
 
... when i got my fx-8120, the power and heat went up like it these tests, but then i got the latest BIOS and the picture changed dramatically... in idle the fx-6100 and fx-8120 eats the same... and when clocked to 4ghz, the fx-8120 eats 15watt more then fx-6100... that's according to readings from my APC ups...
 
"Nice post but wait a minute, let me guess, 18C in a 20C room right?"

Crashman, The Intel Cpu ran at room temp..Yes.. (Kinda cold that day) Amazing isn't it!? :)
 
For Crashman continued... He also has this this Intel I3 setup in a Half 932 full tower case with all the fans.
 
[citation][nom]ohim[/nom] And seriously TOM ... start pushing multicore CPU to their intended use ... multi tasking .. i`ve read a lot of user reviews from the ones who actually bought this CPU and they were delighted on how it handles multitasking compared to intel, put 2 -3 workloads on the CPU and get some scores ...there are many ppl out there that are actually interested in this kind of performance.[/citation]

Dead right. If my x58 system would fail tomorrow, I'm more likely to go with bulldozer than sandy bridge. For a simple console replacement gaming rig, sandy bridge wins hands down. But I seem to often have tons of stuff running at once. A minecraft window, a documentry from an online video library, synctoy, browsers and other stuff like winamp etc along with leage of legends or magic or what the beep else I'd happen to be playing. To that end my i7 920 is doing fine, but amd can provide the performance I need for the same money.

And when all else is equal, I'll buy from the company that needs my money the most.

My last builds from most to least recent:
Phenom 2 X3, Phenom 2 X4, i5, i7, i5, i7
 
Bulldozer's perforamnce while multitasking once again is rooted in what kind of processing your multitaskign does. My multitasking is likely to involve FPU usage... my multithreaded procesor usage is almost all FPU.
 
Im not sure why no one else has put this together, and maybe im wrong. Everyone seems so quick to just call it a bad cpu and move on. But what i see just thinking about the announcements is a Int heavy, FPU weak cpu. They just announced that the 7000 series gpus were redesigned to be much easier to program for general computing. And AMD has been talking for years about how Fusion is the future. In my mind a Int heavy cpu and a GPU to do FPU ops on the same chip would be pretty killer if the software gets there to take advantage of it. Now, this really is beyond my knowledge so im not sure if it is the case. But thats what im coming up with...
 
so..... Now that windows can finally take advantage of FX series, there is no dicernible difference... 0_0
No surprise here. Another broken promise by amd..

 
OK is it me or why would AMD design a chip not optimized for a current OS? Are they stupid? I just dumped a Phenom x4 and threw in a AMD low powered duel core 270u. The difference was noticeable and considering the Phenom was a 1.8ghz quad and the 270u a low powered duel core at 2.0 ghz. Why does it show a significant speed improvement. Its as if AMD has known for some time that only certain times does multi cores beyond 2 make any real difference. Not many home users or even enterprise need anymore cores then two and with hyper threading options I think you would be hard pressed to see any difference by adding more cores.
 
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