Opnion: Did We Expect Too Much of AMD Bulldozer?

[Guest]

After reading Chris Angelini's thorough review of AMD's first Bulldozer CPU, the FX-8150, I have to admit that I was somewhat confused. Didn't AMD claim a few weeks ago that the FX would be the world's fastest CPU?

Opnion: Did We Expect Too Much of AMD Bulldozer? : Read more

 

[Inferno1217]

No we didn't expect too much from AMD. This might explain the change in CEO's as they knew Bulldozer was not going to be competitive. In some cases the Phenom II series out performs Bulldozer. I hope the rebound with 2nd gen of this cpu. Looking at benchmarks I also wonder if the 990FX chipset is utilizing Bulldozer's full potential although I may be wrong.

 

[Lyden]

No. AMD damaged themselves. Nuff said.

 

[billybobser]

the flagship is horrendous at the moment (it may be more applicable on multithreaded real world scenario's in the future.)

But windows 7 cannot even address the cores properly, it's like reverse hyper threading.

Being crap and future proof in electronics don't mix.

 

[batman4u]

i can explain you why AMD looks like another company from which we fell in love, ever since the stupid Hector ruiz crusade became and did all that stupid things like buying ATI and firing everyone within and focusing on the Fusion technology and not bothering to keep ahead on the CPU market , like they say in my language... the bigger the grasp the weaker you hold (spanish)

AMD was not up for a ATI buyout and they bought ATI cause Nvidia broke their relationship of joining

 

[beenthere]

As people are starting to understand today Zambezi is a perfectly fine CPU for most people and most applications. It's current optimization is for heavy work loads where it does well. It's weal point is single threaded worlk loads. It's fine in games and most other apps. It is not the fastest CPU for those apps but it works just fine for most everything and is a building block for the next piledriver cores.

Did some folks expect too much? Absolutely. Does Zamabezi OC better than Deneb or Thurban? Yes it most definitely does. Does anyone think that the FX-8150 is the fastest Zambezi that will be released? Not likely. Is Zambezi a decent performing/value CPU for the majority of consumers? Most definitely.

While we would all have liked more from Zambezi, what AMD delivered is still a significant step forward on many fronts - especially for heavy processing loads, i.e server use - where Opteron 6200/4200's are selling VERY well. Let's not forget that AMD also has great demand for Llano APUs and trinity is not too far off, so consumers most definitely have more CPU/APU choices now than ever.

 

[cryptz]

i dont think you expected to much. the previous generation of amd cpu's beat the bulldozer in many of the benchmarks. that is illogical and unacceptable. i wouldnt fault marketing though, no one markets their chips with the slogan: "this is going to suck" im sure any attempt marketing made to be realistic was overturned by management.

 

[wintermint]

To be honest, I had high hopes for Bulldozer. However, I know that AMD was and still far behind Intel. Because of that, I was hoping for Bulldozer challenge Intel Nehalem but at a competitive price point. It's kind of near that..

 

[Mastervivi10]

AMD marketing go too far, Simple and Efficient.

 

[torque79]

The internet is loaded with conversations right now on if there's some bug or a bad combination of particular motherboards/video cards, but more and more of that seems to be getting eliminated, showing consistent disappointment for the AMD product. I have been a proud AMD fanboy for a long time, but after waiting for so long for a (delayed) disappointing product, I've already jumped ship and ordered my i5-2500k build. It's a sad day when AMD can't even provide what has always been their strong point, high performance/$.

I DO think software is holding it back, that there's not enough multithreading in use. This will probably change in the next couple of years, but I want to play games out there right now unfortunately.

 

[krinkles619]

a bit of both, really. i think amd marketing really pushed the idea that bulldozer was going to dominate sandybridge in anything that required good virtual processing (i.e. graphics). and i think that, while it may have been partly amd's fault, we the userbase thought that this totally new processor and processor design would be able to at the very least compete with sandybridge, if not beat it in gaming at the least.

 

[Guest]

I think the marketing did give us high expectation, however I feel that especially if you check out the reviews if you compare things to the previous generation of the Phenom II a lot of us expected things to be somewhat better considering where the X6 and X4 could reach. If in some of the test it hadnt appeared that the previous architecture could nearly keep you there we may not have been so upset. This is where I feel a lot of expectation came from. Who knows, maybe the next generation will be better and give us the performance per dollar and better like the Phenom II chips did. I'm still a fan of AMD but getting an Intel does seem to look like a better purchase for a high performance cpu.

 

[Guest]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/315805-28-bought-bulldozer-inside

this tells a different picture.. and i would agree, why not pair an amd proccesor with an amd top of the line gfx card...

 

[batman4u]

i can go along with this architecture as you most say that its "enough" but Enough doesnt go for 250 bucks, come on!! 130 maybe

 

[Guest]

I have been waiting eagerly and been disappointed. AMD should have done something to temper the claims circulating the web. I would not have minded if expectations had been set at the start, but after so much build up I doubt there are many fans happy with the outcome (other than Intel ones).

 

[Guest]

I think AMD and the community share the blame equally. AMD's engineers had released enough details in architectural talks to hint that the per-thread performance would not be much better than Phenom II. These details were subtle, but they were there. AMD's marketing and the community's desire for an Intel-killer got the best of us all. AMD should have been stressing that this is a server processor which may not improve desktop performance very much. With everyone hoping/expecting it to compete with the i7 2600K, there's no doubt why all the reviews are so unfavorable. When looking at the reviews, the FX-8150 isn't great, but it is decent. It should probably be a little cheaper than the i5 2500K, not more expensive.

 

[Guest]

Is Zambezi a decent performing/value CPU for the majority of consumers? Most definitely

NOT.

When you look at the performance in applications the majority of consumers would use its lagging quite a bit behind the Core i5 and i7 chips, even last generation. iTunes, Excel, Photoshop all vastly favor Intel architecture. The most popular PC games like WoW or Star Craft 2 also perform far greater with the Intel architecture.

Its only in a few situations where the FX chips pulls ahead, and none of them are what a mainstream user would likely be doing.

 

[geekapproved]

The problem is it's not really a 8core and should never have been marketed as one. Really it's more like a 4 core with hyperthrading. Windows and other apps don't recognize it's cores and jumble the threads out of order which is why it performs slow in bencharks that rely on "in order" threading. It seems more of a software issue than a cpu issue. Even Microsoft said Windows said it's not optimized for those kind of cores.
I really don't get what AMD was thinking. I would rather they had just cancelled BD than release a dissapointing product.

 

[beenthere]

Opinions vary. That's why people should learn what performs best for their use and then buy AMD instead of supporting the convicted crinals at Intel.

 

[spentshells]

It was exactly what I said it would be, just below the first gen I7's
Some other reviews showed it being a lot better than I thought,
I have to see a review using all amd CPU and GPU's Im sure it will fair better as it did in reviews that did not use the release motherboard.

 

[captaincharisma]

LOL the fanbois expected too much from bulldozer. they were hyping it up so much it was like there own 2nd coming of Christ

 

[beenthere]

Can't edit typos...

 

[cocogorilla]

AMD has been over-promising for years... a decade even. The only thing I've seen them really 'win' at recently is the gains they've made in GPU scaling for crossfire against NVIDIA. They need to be more nimble as a company.

Intel plants use 'tools', basically resulting in modular fabrication facilities that allow them to bring new technology to consumer level products quickly. This is probably a 'somewhat standard' approach, but AMD has not demonstrated the same ability, instead twittering away nearly a half-decade NOT keeping up with Tick-Tock.

Someone needs to look at AMD strategy as a whole and identify ways new technology can become products quickly. Stop 'positioning' against Intel and compete!

 

[bucknutty]

I dont think we expected to much, I think the price leads us to expect to much. When I saw the price at $250 or $280 I assumed it would crush a $210 i5 2500. In reality its about on par. Why would I pay 50 or 70 more for a chip that is about the same on heavily threaded apps and much worse on single threaded apps?

 

[memadmax]

The only ones that are disappointed are the AMD fanboys that want AMD to take over the high end market.

Unfortunately, AMD has never been meant to take over the high end spectrum since its creation...

Sorry guys.

But however, this appears to be a fine chip and is typical of AMD's products.