Who is buying Bulldozer and WHY?

[thebski]

Today is a pretty big day as many people have been waiting a long, long time for Bulldozer to arrive. There seems to be a lot of disappointment with what Bulldozer has to offer. I, for one, am not too terribly disappointed because I can't say I expected much more. I pretty much lost all confidence in AMD as a competent competitor to Intel a long time ago. With that said, some people will obviously buy Bulldozer. As a PhD student in applied economics, drivers behind decisions that people make are something that I deal with everyday. I'm very curious as to the drivers behind people making the decision to purchase Bulldozer.

With all that said, I bring you the question that this post is about. What reasons are you going to purchase Bulldozer for? Even though the reaction has been largely negative, I know you future Bulldozer owners are out there. Tell me what draws you to it.

Edit: This is NOT intended to be an AMD vs. Intel or bash on Bulldozer thread. This thread is simply to poll the drivers behind the decision to purchase Bulldozer. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[AdrianPerry]

We need a Moderator to look into the issue, a lot of people here are commenting on the BD in a very negative way, on other threads, we have reached a conclusion that the Benches may not be genuine or may not be what they actually are.
Is there a possibility of stopping this, the sites are doing a bad job as it is of dissing the processor and people here who aren't participating in the debate are really going a little over board by telling OPs new to the forum to switch to Intel.....
This is bad, let us first get the whole thing right and then it'd ok to tell people but not when we are faced with such contradictions ourselves.

I think it's impossible for people to "wait" a few days rather than jumping all over the first review they see 🙁

AnAndTech's review makes a good point of noting how Bull Dozer is optimized for Windows 8 architecture. Worth the read for those willing to educate themselves.

 

[alyoshka]

Yup, I could expect all the negativity after reading the reviews from a Novice but from regulars at Tom's it's really disheartening. We really ought to make a wall here to scrawl on warning all the people who come to the site not to get prejudiced against any hardware until the full and final verdict is out. 'Cos most of them just seem to be jumping to the conclusion that the BD is a flop by reading the one line titles of threads. They really seem not to want to go any the further than the one liners.

 

[Jyle]

I won't be buying the eight core cpu, but I will more than likely be buying either the 6-core or 4-core cpu. I think it's stupid that people are saying how much of a disappointment the Bulldozer cpus are when only the eight core one was tested. I didn't expect much from the eight core cpu since it had 8 mbs of cache spread out on 8 cores...

 

[AdrianPerry]

I won't be buying the eight core cpu, but I will more than likely be buying either the 6-core or 4-core cpu. I think it's stupid that people are saying how much of a disappointment the Bulldozer cpus are when only the eight core one was tested. I didn't expect much from the eight core cpu since it had 8 mbs of cache spread out on 8 cores...

I look forward to seeing what the FX-4170 can do (I think it's called 4170 - all these new number make my head spin) haha! 4.2GHz stock 4.3GHz Turbo, 4 cores, seem's like it will be more of a competition for i5-2500k than what AMD has so far released with the FX 8150.

 

[leon2006]

I don't patronize company. I purchase products that will work or fit my need. I'm very particular about performance and efficiency.

The difference in cost is not important to me.... After the purchase and when its time to use the spent money is done and gone. It is more important to get the high performance product.

I run programs that have run time between 4 hours to 2 weeks (all cores @ 100%).

Buildozer is not an option... Its a DUD

 

[AdrianPerry]

I don't patronize company. I purchase products that will work or fit my need. I'm very particular about performance and efficiency.

The difference in cost is not important to me.... After the purchase and when its time to use the spent money is done and gone. It is more important to get the high performance product.

I run programs that have run time between 4 hours to 2 weeks (all cores @ 100%).

Buildozer is not an option... Its a DUD

Then in your case surely having 8 cores is going to be an advantage? No?

 

[leon2006]

You look at it different ways up or down its a DUD... The range of its performance there is product called i5...

Why bother...

If a user is upgrading from an existing AMD socket then a CPU upgrade will be an option

 

[need4speeds]

-Intel's i5 and i7 are faster on average. But that is mostly because software still only uses 1 to 4 cores or threads.

With a intel system, you are stuck with intel's chipsets, more expensive boards, confusing chipset features. And a h61/h67 chipset that totally sucks. Then the video card is either amd or nvidia.

-With the phenomII or BD, you can build a all AMD system. cpu, chipset, gpu.
True it's a bit slower than the intel system. But even the budget 760g chipset lets you overclock unlike the h61/h67. You have to admit that intel's chipsets are not as good as amd's. The big advantage here is when you want to build a fast but trouble free system. Something like a gaming/htpc.
The software works better since it's mostly from amd.

-intel still gets the win for the fastest cpu.

-amd gets a win for the best total platform.

I would say for a top end gaming computer the intel/nvidia combo would be the best. 2500k/560ti sli, 2600k/570sli or 580sli.

For a higher end but still budget gaming computer the all amd system is better, so i would go with the BD here. BD/6950 or 6870 crossfire. Tri-fire might prove to work well with BD. Maybe three hd-6870's would work well?

 

[icracked]

The reason why I bought is because it is competitive and will probably get better with age as OS's mature and develop better support for more cores.

#18 All time
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html


Also some other stuff.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-FX-8150-vs-Core-i5-2500K-and-Core-i7-2600K-CPU-Review/1402/1

 

[Chainzsaw]

Well i'm building a zembezi/BD system. I know Zembezi is the desktop user platform and BD is the server side....but I just like to call it BD anyways.

ANyways, im planning on building a BD system. The reason I want it is currently I own a DTR notebook - it's been good to me so far. But it just can't muster the strength of an actual desktop with a graphics card.

I know Bullddozer is horrible at single core performance, but apparently the multi core performance is outstanding. It's a decent trade off - plus I could care less about single core performance, since most programs/games these days are starting to take more advantage of multi core systems (and the ones that only use a single core - well the 8xxx series starts at 3Ghz, so thats a moot point).

I haven't built my own computer in a while, so I look forward to using and building some heavy equipment

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

We need a Moderator to look into the issue, a lot of people here are commenting on the BD in a very negative way, on other threads, we have reached a conclusion that the Benches may not be genuine or may not be what they actually are.
Is there a possibility of stopping this, the sites are doing a bad job as it is of dissing the processor and people here who aren't participating in the debate are really going a little over board by telling OPs new to the forum to switch to Intel.....
This is bad, let us first get the whole thing right and then it'd ok to tell people but not when we are faced with such contradictions ourselves.

SSome people are dissin it but we are in other words not recommending it.Have you seen the benches?Please you and your amdfanboyism has to stop.We cant recommend it.
Some people have been rude yes i admit it but on the other hand its not about being rude its about our recommendations.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

Yes its strange many people have been posting useless things.Maybe the mods should look into this.

 

[icracked]

p67 and z68 boards are cheaper than the vast majority of am3+ boards FYI.

I think his point was pertaining to AM3 boards, as the 760G isn't an official FX-compatible chipset, or AM3+ processors if your getting a phenom ii an AM3 is just as good as an AM3+, and AM3 boards are dirt cheap.

 

[need4speeds]

-AM3 is a dead socket.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131728
$64.99 ASUS M5A78L-M LX AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131767
$94.99 ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS CrossfireX

I was not talking just about the price, maybe some p67 or z68 boards are cheaper.
The confusion is just stupid. What if someone bought a upgrade kit with a h61 board/i3 cpu then later wanted to upgrade to a i5 or i7 and found out they needed a new board if they wanted to overclock it? Even the cheapest am3+ board lets you overclock and try and unlock cores.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262
$139.99 ASRock 970 EXTREME4 AM3+ SLI CrossFireX, XFast USB, On/ Off Play THX
3-Way CrossFireX

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131736
$184.99 ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+

As you can see there are some really nice boards for am3+.

 

[ern88]

It's still a power pig though. I am getting a i5 2500K. Especially the price of power!!!!

 

[leon2006]

Then in your case surely having 8 cores is going to be an advantage? No?

Did you read the review? Whatever structure that 8 core is, the best it can do it an i5 performance.

 

[leon2006]

People just need to accept it as it is.... The darn thing is a DUD!

You can look at it upside down, left right, inside out... It is big letdown.

The industry need competition for Intel. This situation is not good at all.

My last AMD CPU is the dual core 64 bit kick ass product....I was very happy with it.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Did you read the review? Whatever structure that 8 core is, the best it can do it an i5 performance.

Benchmarks are currently all over the place. Some are in favour of 8150, others seem to favour SandyBridge. It's all coming down to Hardware configurations (such as which motherboard is being used). There's some big anomalies on certain hardware set-ups so until that's sorted out, I don't think any conclusive decision can be made.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/315805-10-bought-bulldozer-inside

 

[alyoshka]

Exactly my point..... Since there is no conclusive decision, people really need not recommend it nor diss it.
It's best that we really get our hands on one of these things ASAP.

Yup, and I ought to apologize for being rude too. But the whole web is being plastered with this hogwash which is really driving me bats.

 

[unity100]

i wont buy it yet. but not because i wont.

the reason is, the situation is a bit complicated right now.

aside from this :

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/315775-10-asus-crosshair-giving-biased-results-bulldozer

there is the issue of what will happen with the future of cpus when trinity comes.

i got a 990fx board, but im thinking maybe i should have gotten the FM1 board, so that i could shove in a trinity.

but in case trinity wasnt compatible with fm1 at all, the board would remain pointless.

and in another respect, i put in a phenom ii 4x 965 be in my board, and im very happy with the chip. this chip itself seems to be way too powerful for my needs, so im questioning the necessity of a stronger cpu.

 

[leon2006]

wishful thinking... get over it

For those who want to purchase bd cpu go on. There's nothing wrong buying that CPU. Its your money and you decide what to do with it. Its not a matter of write or wrong.

Don't look for the justification or excuse in this forum to purchase it.

 

[leon2006]

ROFL
This is why Tom's is here to give advice.....
DUHHHHH

Go and buy BD... May be after a few prayers it will get faster. Visit a few holy places. Try the different religions... May be the results of the performance review will change... Have faith you can never tell. You got to have faith... BD will get faster yes

 

[halcyon]

We need a Moderator to look into the issue, a lot of people here are commenting on the BD in a very negative way, on other threads, we have reached a conclusion that the Benches may not be genuine or may not be what they actually are.
Is there a possibility of stopping this, the sites are doing a bad job as it is of dissing the processor and people here who aren't participating in the debate are really going a little over board by telling OPs new to the forum to switch to Intel.....
This is bad, let us first get the whole thing right and then it'd ok to tell people but not when we are faced with such contradictions ourselves.

Is anyone really taking it that seriously?

 

[1mic]

SUPPORTING a convicted criminal corporation such as Intel is NOT an option for any ethical person as Intel has tried to and continues to try to eliminate consumer choice!

Don't tell me you run a microsoft OS, that would blow your ethical excuse out of the water!!!



I understand we need AMD for competition so that no ONE cpu company will have the market cornered, but you AMD loyalists are pathetic!

Have fun spending more on a product that barely edges out its predecessor (Phenom II), oh yea and since winter is coming enjoy your space heaters!! Not to mention an increase in your electricity bill!!

 

[Whomastadon]

I am planning a fresh bulldozer build but i have patience
on my side. I think i can holdout till June next year
as my current build does everything I need it to.

I always wait a couple of months before buying a new product.
Hopefully by then the radeon 7000s will be out in force and the new chipset will be impending. Should be able to compare it to IB by then and the new windows will be close.

It's a while off but it's something to look forward to.