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FRONTPAGE AMD FX-8150 - Bulldozer - Processor Review

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How happy are you with AMD FX-8150 price/performance?

  • Total voters
    205
  • Poll closed .
MattNo5ss said:
It looks like FX is on the fence of our Meh and Approved rating. I highlighted what I think is related to Bulldozer.

I'm disappointed in performance after all the hype, as many other people. Performance is okay, but the power consumption to get that "okay" performance is huge... I will not be buying one... with the 2500K $50 cheaper for about the same performance, the 2600K only $50-65 more for better performance, and the MUCH better performance per watt of Intel, it would be hard for me to suggest a FX CPU to someone too.
Click to expand...

In all honesty, it is AMDs flagship product, clocks VERY well has a strong IMC, and outperforms the Thubans.

If it has Phenom/Thuban desktop snap thats a thumbs up as well.



It is not better than SandyB, uses too much power and the price is a little high compared to the competition. (not much though...)

Also remember people are saying that there is no price difference on boards, but there still is. granted 990FX is carrying a bit of a price premium at the minute which which brings them closer (possibly SLI licensing?), but generally speaking, same feature sets, AMD boards are still cheaper.

newegg listing excluding 890FX and P67 (because we are excluding last gen AMD exclude last gen Intel)

990FX $139-239
Z68 $80-360

990FX does not have the ultra low end boards available ATM, but Z68 wins with more than a dozen boards that cost more than the most expensive AMD. Hell even an ASROCK board costs more than the top of the line AMD.
 
manu2b said:
Exactly, and PPL are told to buy Intel.
I had quite a few laugh since this morning, but inside I am sorry.
Sorry because why would OEM builders put AMD in their "mainstream" rigs as Intel does better? PhII is sooner than later EOL. i3 and i5 are cheap and perfectly match most of the people needs and have Intel branding.
Pro users will go to Intel for real multi core.
Big companies will go Intel servers: have you seen the power consumption of these 8150? I doubt that server versions of the chip will be much better and when you go to TCO, that counts A LOT.
So yes, I am sorry to see no competition.
Somehow, I hope PPL will be fooled by AMD commercials and buy FX chips, but as you stated, PPL buy what they are told...
Click to expand...

Man it is a state of the art CPU and has 8 cores. Intel only has four cores in the same price range. The 8150 automatically clocks up to higher speeds than the competition as well.

Do you think they will let you install PCMark on their floor model PC? No! More core + more Speed equals a Phat system in the eyes of the consumer. And now they can Facebook and Check email at light speed. Oh they can also brag to their friens because they have 8 cores.
 
ratbuddy said:
That kinda bummed me out about this review.. Two highly OCable chips and only one was benched OC'd.
Click to expand...
I.M.O.G. said:
Time constraints, and clock for clock with nothing else changed is going to be virtually equivalent to stock comparison. Hokie's sleeping, but he could comment directly on that, and probably will tomorrow when he has a chance. Only had the chip for a bit over a week, he's got a full time job and family, had a mother in law in town, and was laid out sick for a couple days. Not making excuses, but with the number of runs and tests, these things do take time - wish we had him as a full time reviewer so he could drop his day job.
Click to expand...
Yep, IMOG summed it up nicely. It sucks, but that's how it is. We had this chip for 12 days before the review had to be published. Inside that time all that happened, plus this isn't my actual job, which of course takes up most of every day. If this were a full time gig, these could have more content but we do the best with the time we have. Don't forget that in addition to benchmarking, we have to graph the results (which is more time consuming than you might think!) and write these things - this one was ~4,500 words. Hopefully it still made for a well-rounded review.

That said, I also think stock comparisons still have plenty of value. Stock clocks are actually pretty close between the chips, with all of them between 3.3 and 3.6 GHz. IMHO it's fair to say that clock-for-clock dead-on comparisons aren't really necessary because the variation in closing those 300 MHz wouldn't be all that great.

As far as benchmarks, I tried to come up with a comprehensive test suite accounting as best I could with quantitative results in three (and a half) categories: The Benchmarks, The Real World and The Games, with the half being AIDA 64. Because graphs are condensed it might not look as though there are very many benchmarks, but here are the numbers:

Benchmarks: 9
SuperPi 1M & 32M, WPrime 32M & 1024M, 3DMark 06, Vantage & 11, HWBot Heaven DX9 & DX11​
Real World: 5
Cinebench R10 & R11.5, 7zip, PoV Ray, x264​
Games: 4
Stalker, AvP, HAWX 2, Dirt 2​
AIDA: 1, but really 13. They're fast but all have to be run three times; as do all 2D benchmarks.

Folding@Home results were also obtained and posted in the first comment post in case anyone missed it. I didn't take the time to editorialize when that was posted (I sleep too!), but my $.02 on DC performance with these - no one is going to touch them with a ten foot pole unless they have free electricity.

We're always open to adding more and/or changing around benchmarks. They have to be benchmarks though. Archer has an interesting take on testing with lots of stuff going on, but that's not a repeatable, quantitative, single test. You could never get that process precisely repeatable down to the second so any value would be lost except for a subjective 'this feels faster when multitasking'. We need quantitative results.

Re: PCMark 7, I did run it and will post a screenshot up when I'm able. The result was not included because of all the storage tests - I had neither the time nor motivation to format the exact SSD used in this review and to reinstall windows on the Intel system and see how it performed there. PCMark is great and all, but it looses a lot of value because of practical considerations. That said, I'm happy to post up the result for what it's worth, give me a little bit of time to pull it and post it.

There are always those that will disagree with the logo we put on. Ratbuddy & doz (and I'm sure others), I completely see your points and your views are understandable. Looking at our ratings explanations, this is what "Approved" means:

The product performs well at stock and at overclocking, for modding, etc. where relevant. It isn’t necessarily the best of its type, but it performs well enough that we could recommend it with a clear conscience.
Click to expand...

I would recommend this chip with a clear conscience for the reasons I went through in the conclusion to the article. Approved is very broad. A product has to pretty much screw the pooch not to get it, which it is always imperative that people read the reviews. Everything is in there, good, bad and ugly. I even implored people to read the conclusion through rather than just looking at the logo. We can only open the door, the readers must walk through it. Only through reading will true enlightenment be obtained. Like that? A little Matrix with a little Ghandi'esque-speak. :D

Thanks to all for the kind words and all of the feedback too, much appreciated. We wouldn't be here writing these things if it weren't for you reading them!
 
Neuromancer said:
In all honesty, it is AMDs flagship product, clocks VERY well has a strong IMC, and Sometimes outperforms the Thubans.
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you.

Neuromancer said:
Also remember people are saying that there is no price difference on boards, but there still is. granted 990FX is carrying a bit of a price premium at the minute which which brings them closer (possibly SLI licensing?), but generally speaking, same feature sets, AMD boards are still cheaper.

newegg listing excluding 890FX and P67 (because we are excluding last gen AMD exclude last gen Intel)

990FX $139-239
Z68 $80-360

990FX does not have the ultra low end boards available ATM, but Z68 wins with more than a dozen boards that cost more than the most expensive AMD. Hell even an ASROCK board costs more than the top of the line AMD.
Click to expand...

I guess the question comes down to, how well does a lower-end Z68 board overclock in comparison to a similarly priced/marketed lower-end 990FX board. I have to say that one nice part about SB is the ease of overclocking, to do so you have to change 2 things: vcore and multiplier [until you get into pll override zone]. Even that is easy to explain/walk someone through, instead of dealing with random other ratios, bclk, and multiplier (I don't have a problem with it, but joe-newbie would get confused, especially in comparison to SB)



Edit: ^ @ Hokie, thanks for going into the explanation, I think it is weird to have a binary rating system (Meh vs Approved, I remember talking with Matt about it on the way back from the Philly benching party), as you said, it has to be a total screw-up to not get an 'approval' rating, meaning that it would probably have to not work or be ultimately the slowest chip of this generation and downclock instead of overclock.
 
Last edited:
Archer0915 said:
Man it is a state of the art CPU and has 8 cores. Intel only has four cores in the same price range. The 8150 automatically clocks up to higher speeds than the competition as well.

Do you think they will let you install PCMark on their floor model PC? No! More core + more Speed equals a Phat system in the eyes of the consumer. And now they can Facebook and Check email at light speed. Oh they can also brag to their friens because they have 8 cores.
Click to expand...

Future will tell us, and I hope you're right.
If so, Intel prices will drop and SB-E/IB will be launched on time. Plus the fact that it will bring money to AMD and allow them to invest more in R&D.

David and Goliath myth again.
 
Neuromancer said:
They have 8 core laptops now? :shrug:
Click to expand...

No I actually know PPL that will spend over 1G on a desktop to do that.

It is about feeling good man. Why do PPL drive a car with 3000+ in rims and tires? they do not need it but it makes them feel good.
 
Neuromancer said:
In all honesty, it is AMDs flagship product, clocks VERY well has a strong IMC, and outperforms the Thubans.

If it has Phenom/Thuban desktop snap thats a thumbs up as well.



It is not better than SandyB, uses too much power and the price is a little high compared to the competition. (not much though...)

Also remember people are saying that there is no price difference on boards, but there still is. granted 990FX is carrying a bit of a price premium at the minute which which brings them closer (possibly SLI licensing?), but generally speaking, same feature sets, AMD boards are still cheaper.

newegg listing excluding 890FX and P67 (because we are excluding last gen AMD exclude last gen Intel)

990FX $139-239
Z68 $80-360

990FX does not have the ultra low end boards available ATM, but Z68 wins with more than a dozen boards that cost more than the most expensive AMD. Hell even an ASROCK board costs more than the top of the line AMD.
Click to expand...

Yeah, FX performance is good when only considering AMD products, it's an upgrade, but not a huge upgrade. The power consumtion would still come into play too though. Boards prices really aren't that much different; good OCing, CFX/SLI capable SB boards can be had for ~$180, which isn't bad at all.

I still think FX is on the fence leaning toward Meh based on the rating definitions and what I highlighted in my previous post.
 
It reaches 2500K folding performance at a higher price point. This isn't too bad as it overclocks decently. Power draw under load is crap. We can likely blame Global Foundries for that. All-in-all it isn't a total loss, but it sure isn't good.

Let's hope server performance, which it was made for, doesn't fail miserably.
 
wingless said:
It reaches 2500K folding performance at a higher price point. This isn't too bad as it overclocks decently. Power draw under load is crap. We can likely blame Global Foundries for that. All-in-all it isn't a total loss, but it sure isn't good.

Let's hope server performance, which it was made for, doesn't fail miserably.
Click to expand...

That's what I am afraid of: servers need low power consumption.
 
wingless said:
It reaches 2500K folding performance at a higher price point. This isn't too bad as it overclocks decently. Power draw under load is crap. We can likely blame Global Foundries for that. All-in-all it isn't a total loss, but it sure isn't good.

Let's hope server performance, which it was made for, doesn't fail miserably.
Click to expand...
Can you explain how a smaller process, that usually uses less power, can be blamed on the fab plant? :shrug:
 
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