FRONTPAGE AMD FX-8150 - Bulldozer - Processor Review

Nice review.

Looks like I'll grab a BD and other stuff (case, PS, etc) by the end of the month.

Nice review there men, overall I view it as a disappointment for all of the hype people have created for it (although I never heard much hype by the way of AMD to be honest)

I think that if they made the chip at the $200 mark it would be a sure-fire winner, but at $245-$250 and putting it right between the $200 2500k and $300 2600k, I'm safe to recommend anyone that asks me to spend the extra $50 and get the 2600k, especially as the stock 2600k beat out the overlocked 8150 in a lot of benchmarks. I guess BD for the most part is an improvement over Thuban (which looked to be more of its competitor, rather than Intel), so if you are already invested in an AMD setup and are looking for an upgrade (and to sell off your old CPU) then it wouldn't be a bad choice.

Would love to see more benchmarks from the gaming side, there are a lot more than can be done Somebody send Earthdog an HD6970 for him to 'review' so that you can update those graphs with those numbers. It is hard to compare with the graphs when we don't have numbers against what it is supposed to compete against (according to AMD)

Would have also liked to see some benchmarks of the 2600k @ 4.5-4.7ghz to compare against the BD overclocked chip.

meh....

Nice review though.

So as of now is there any updates planned for release that could increase performance?

what is newegg waiting on ._.

doz said:

So much for my hope of AMD's repeat of the Athlon XP 1700+ cpu.

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I wouldn't be down about what you see. In a lot of ways this is an improvement, in some ways it is not. An explanation of the Architecture itself will come shortly.

Nice review Hookie,

What about Bulldozer vs i5/i7 performance in crossfire?

maybe they need to release a bulldozer II? Im almost angry with my dissappointment in AMD.

@Djak777: None announced. AMD hasn't said anything about microcode updates planned for performance increases.

Sammich said:

what is newegg waiting on ._.

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The i7 2700K! Lol! Newegg hasn't put up any BD CPU's yet. Wonder why?

Nice review as always. It's good value CPU, but I'll stick to my i5 2500K!

terran2k said:

maybe they need to release a bulldozer II? Im almost angry with my dissappointment in AMD.

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Kind of shocked they would go to the extent of mocking Intel, but not really disappointed.

Djak777 said:

So as of now is there any updates planned for release that could increase performance?

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Increase performance will come with the next generation of the architecture, and steppings. Piledriver is due to come out soon after Bulldozer. From what we do know it will be next year for Piledriver, but could be sooner.

Silicon production for these new chips is more advanced and more difficult.

Dolk said:

I wouldn't be down about what you see. In a lot of ways this is an improvement, in some ways it is not. An explanation of the Architecture itself will come shortly.

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If you or hokie could do some DC testing that would be great. I mean what is the point of having 8 cores if they are not all used? Show me some BOINC 8 thread work, some CD conversions and some real encoding with these things. Those should be pointed out guys.

Stop fighting with the normal tests and pull some work on these things damnit.

good to know thank you both

Archer0915 said:

If you or hokie could do some DC testing that would be great. I mean what is the point of having 8 cores if they are not all used? Show me some BOINC 8 thread work, some CD conversions and some real encoding with these things. Those should be pointed out guys.

Stop fighting with the normal tests and pull some work on these things damnit.

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Its a true quad core rather than an oct core, with that in mind, positive waves mannnn!

Xterra said:

Its a true quad core rather than an oct core.

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Has 8 threads don't it? Have you examined what the module is by any chance?

Janus67 said:

...Somebody send Earthdog an HD6970 for him to 'review' so that you can update those graphs with those numbers. It is hard to compare with the graphs when we don't have numbers against what it is supposed to compete against (according to AMD)

Would have also liked to see some benchmarks of the 2600k @ 4.5-4.7ghz to compare against the BD overclocked chip.

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Id be happy to do that and return the card. The 2600k is on the GD65... Hell I'll even pound on it at 5.5Ghz and play.......

Unless that thing has another gear, I dont think the results would be any different.

AS far as games go, I dont think anything would be different there either. It may not have the clock for clock ummph, but more clockspeed and cores are not hurting this thing it seems.

<- = for technical knowledge on this thing. Looking forward to hearing more about it with Dolk's architecture breakdown though!

Archer0915 said:

Has 8 threads don't it? Have you examined what the module is by any chance?

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so does a 2600k but nobody calls it an octo core.

Archer0915 said:

Has 8 threads don't it?

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Yeah but from the sounds of it, we won't know how everything works out under the hood until 1) we get a chip of our own or 2) Dolk publishes his architecture article.

You have to remember that this is not exactly an 8 core CPU, its actually a 4 core CPU with 4 threads.

I've only had my Thuban about 6 months now, so no reason to change. REALLY excited to see what Ivy Bridge and Piledriver bring to the table, though.

Still, I'm pretty happy with the performance of BD, especially given the price point.