AMD bets on Bulldozer to take back the desktop

AMD can say whatever they want to media outlets, the proof will be in what they release.

The day it drops there will be either a giant yes or no posted here and all over the gaming circles if it's a dud or not, and there are a lot of IF's.

In my mind for it not to be a dud it has to overclock well and:

- Performance must be at 2500k/2600k levels if pricing is remaining similar
- If it's slightly slower, pricing must be much better

They have a fine line to walk, because the 2500k is already only $200, and for that price you have ~$60 of wiggle room before you start running into fusion / core2 performance territory (~$140). And quite frankly the performance requirements the competition is putting up are scary.

Non-overclock chips have an even tougher battle because some of those 'low end' dual core sandybridge chips are still stomping the best AMD has to offer currently. Hopefully we see a return to some real competition that we haven't seen since before Core2 came around, it's been a one horse race since.
 
Non-overclock chips have an even tougher battle because some of those 'low end' dual core sandybridge chips are still stomping the best AMD has to offer currently. Hopefully we see a return to some real competition that we haven't seen since before Core2 came around, it's been a one horse race since.
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not entirely, are far as the crown is concerned yes. But before Sandy bridge Amd was doing pretty well at certain price points and to certain crowds. Amd does do remarkably well in folding and encoding/decoding vs intel. For the price anyways, before sandy bridge. Gulftown wasn't really worth the extra cash. 1000$ vs 250$ for very similar performance in those benchmarks. There are other examples.

overall though Intel has AMD beat in just about every segment atm, minus the HTPC, netbook, notebook, and entry level desktops. The desktops are more a trade off between cpu power and gpu power, but overall the entry level Amd systems offer a better experience for main stream users.LLano is a success for Amd, at least for now. We will wait for bulldozer and yes there will be mutiple threads on forums the day of lanuch full of the intel trolls and the amd trolls, surely debating its strong and weak points.

Bulldozer will overclock well, seeing as it does have such a large turbo boost. Will it hit 4.5ghz on air cooling like most of the 2500k/2600k's do who knows, but odds are yes. Figuring that the bulldozer cpu is a TDP of 125 watts with 8 cores, at 3ghz+ means they are going to be pretty power efficient. Power efficiency usually leads to good overclocking. I would be willing to bet, you will see bulldozer systems past 4.5ghz from a number of people who purchase these cpus and overclock them.
 
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Let's not forget the motherboards either. With AMD you get more of a motherboard for your money.
 
Michaelius said:
99,9% chance this is fake.

Lost planet is good at using many cores so no way 8 core BD is almost as slow as X6 despite 300 Mhz advantage + whatever turbo it has.
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More cores doesnt always equal better if the software sucks at being threaded.
 
Wildace said:
yeah, but lost planet doesnt suck at being threaded.
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Exactly. Lost Planet has always been a prime example of a multi-threaded game engine done well. I say game engine because the gameplay itself wasn't all that spectacular. IIRC, Intel used it several times as a promotional material to show off the power of their multi core processors.
 
ebduncan said:
I think its time to pick up a sata 3 sdd, instead of the classic spinner driver, and some ddr3 that alone will be worth the upgrade.
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Rather a lot of wasted cash

DDR3 alone hardly makes a diffrence and sata 3 speed ssd apart from looking good in synthetic benchmarks provide little gain over sata 2 ones
 
lol wasted cash? going from a 1tb 7.2k rpm spinners in raid, to sata 3 SSDs in raid + spinners for storage

i know the ddr 3 front isn't much improvement, actually at my ddr2 clocks would likely be a slight downgrade, unless i can overclock them like i have my ddr2.

The hard drive speed alone is worth the uprade. Yes i could get sata 2 ssd's and call it a day, but if i am going to buy something now it will be sata 3.
 
Can't wait to see actual review sites get their hands on BD and test'em. If it doesn't blow my X6 out of the water than I'll wait or an INTEL upgrade maybe IB.
 
ebduncan said:
not entirely, are far as the crown is concerned yes. But before Sandy bridge Amd was doing pretty well at certain price points and to certain crowds. Amd does do remarkably well in folding and encoding/decoding vs intel. For the price anyways, before sandy bridge. Gulftown wasn't really worth the extra cash. 1000$ vs 250$ for very similar performance in those benchmarks. There are other examples.

overall though Intel has AMD beat in just about every segment atm, minus the HTPC, netbook, notebook, and entry level desktops. The desktops are more a trade off between cpu power and gpu power, but overall the entry level Amd systems offer a better experience for main stream users.LLano is a success for Amd, at least for now. We will wait for bulldozer and yes there will be mutiple threads on forums the day of lanuch full of the intel trolls and the amd trolls, surely debating its strong and weak points.

Bulldozer will overclock well, seeing as it does have such a large turbo boost. Will it hit 4.5ghz on air cooling like most of the 2500k/2600k's do who knows, but odds are yes. Figuring that the bulldozer cpu is a TDP of 125 watts with 8 cores, at 3ghz+ means they are going to be pretty power efficient. Power efficiency usually leads to good overclocking. I would be willing to bet, you will see bulldozer systems past 4.5ghz from a number of people who purchase these cpus and overclock them.
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Perfect post right here. Completely agree with it.

Bulldozer has a pretty big fight on its hands for trying to get past Sandy Bridge in the performance-crown area. AMD has always been a pretty solid bang-for-the-buck setup, but SB came and took that away with the 2500k and even the 2600k in the $300 realm. It will be a test of if the chip OCs well at a retail level (who cares about ES chips), and if the performance is good enough to get some cups in the various HWBot benchmarks.
 
ebduncan said:
lol wasted cash? going from a 1tb 7.2k rpm spinners in raid, to sata 3 SSDs in raid + spinners for storage

i know the ddr 3 front isn't much improvement, actually at my ddr2 clocks would likely be a slight downgrade, unless i can overclock them like i have my ddr2.

The hard drive speed alone is worth the uprade. Yes i could get sata 2 ssd's and call it a day, but if i am going to buy something now it will be sata 3.
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Going for sata 3 drives in raid is even more pointless - intel raid saturates around 650 Mb/s Amd sb850 raid 0 controler slightly below that.

You could just get those sata 3 drivers stick them into current mobo and wait for more meaningfull update (trinity/ivy bridge) if you are fine with X6 speeds.
 
Yes i am fine with my current pc's speed, it runs everything i throw at it and runs it well. Considering the speed of current raid setup, sata 3 raid with ssd's would double my read speed and some. I would call that a major improvement.

I already have a gigabyte ud7 am3+ motherboard in the closet, so bulldozer is in my upgrade future, along with 8gb ddr3 2100 memory , and a OCZ sata3 vertex 3 120gb ssd.

My current system will be passed down to the girl friend who needs a new computer. Otherwise i wouldn't bother upgrading. Since since she needs a new pc, i figured might as well get myself a new system and give her my current one.

I could be less greedy and give her the new system, but honestly that would be a perfect waste of good hardware. Seeing as she just surfs the web, coverts mp3's, and uses Microsoft office, and lets not forget those dreaded Facebook games.
 
I dunno you could do that stuff with a Sempron a 6 core Ph II seems massive overkill ;-)
 
I don't think that BD will be replacing my 2600K in my gaming rig but I do think it'll be replacing my 1090T in my server. Best of both worlds if you ask me. If it ends up leaps and bounds better then SB, I'll end up with BD in both.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
I don't think that BD will be replacing my 2600K in my gaming rig but I do think it'll be replacing my 1090T in my server. Best of both worlds if you ask me. If it ends up leaps and bounds better then SB, I'll end up with BD in both.
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I'd really be surprised if BD lays the smack on SB. Really be surprised. Really. It'd more than make up for the lengthy wait.

Plus, it'd be amusing to see Intel flustered for a change.
 
heflys20 said:
I'd really be surprised if BD lays the smack on SB. Really be surprised. Really. It'd more than make up for the lengthy wait.

Plus, it'd be amusing to see Intel flustered for a change.
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why ? i7 2600s hit 4-4.4 ghz on air . All intel would have to do is put out an i7 2700 at 3.8ghz and take back the lead. If the 8 core bulldozer was that much faster than an i7 2600 amd would have priced it at 400.

I really want bulldozer to be good but the lack of information and the delays make me think it will end up being a turd and i will just end up with another intel chip.

I had amd chips up to the pentium 2 300mhz i bought and then i had amd all through the athlon era but when the phenoms were coming out it was smarter to go with a q6600 instead.
 
eastmen said:
why ? i7 2600s hit 4-4.4 ghz on air . All intel would have to do is put out an i7 2700 at 3.8ghz and take back the lead.
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Couldn't AMD just do the same, particularly if BD beats it soundly (which is a pipe dream for some)? Unless that corei7 2700 CPU improves more than clock speed. As far as current pricing (what ever that is), it could be AMD trying to undercut Intel at the jump in the anticipation of price drops. Who knows?

Also, if I were a betting man, I'd guess that BD will likely surpass SB in overclocking capabilities.
 
heflys20 said:
Couldn't AMD just do the same, particularly if BD beats it soundly (which is a pipe dream for some)? Unless that corei7 2700 CPU improves more than clock speed. As far as current pricing (what ever that is), it could be AMD trying to undercut Intel at the jump in the anticipation of price drops. Who knows?

Also, if I were a betting man, I'd guess that BD will likely surpass SB in overclocking capabilities.
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bulldozer has been delayed a bunch of times already and we still don't know when its coming out , its at $320 from leaks for its highest part which turbos to 4.2ghz i believe. Sandybridge on the other hand has been out quite awhile. I have no doubt that intel can't out bin amd.

Bulldozer would have to be alot faster than a i7 2600 for intel to have to worry about and even then intel can simply drop the price of the 6 core i7s down in price and they also have ivy bridge in the future.


I really hope bulldozer is fast , heck i'd love for it to beat a 4ghz i7 2600 at its stock speeds however i doubt that will be the case and its the constant delays that worry me
 
AMD_Gamer said:
Pretty good article here for people that have not been following all the Bulldozer hype. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/amd-bets-on-bulldozer-to-take-back-the-desktop/6480
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We can only hope AMD can bring back the Athlon XP days. It was a great CPU and I loved it. Intel has a few successful CPUs then they enter stagnation. I was hoping to see more 4GHz intel CPUs this year. But it's the same old 3.0-3.4 GHz default CPUs. Hell I can easily overclock to 4GHz stable. I just don't see why intel doesn't push their CPUs to the max when they see a good competition coming. I love AMD overclocking options in their CPUs.
 
heflys20 said:
Also, if I were a betting man, I'd guess that BD will likely surpass SB in overclocking capabilities.
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I would expect the 8 core BD to not be able to match SB in overclocking abilities (at least initially). To me this is asking quite a lot from GF's brand new 32nm process. Also remember SOI on the 45nm process was not the advantage to AMD as it was on the 130nm process. The return seems to diminish each die shrink. However the good thing is with AM3+ motherboards will have better power circuitry.
 
Mr Mean said:
I was hoping to see more 4GHz intel CPUs this year. But it's the same old 3.0-3.4 GHz default CPUs. Hell I can easily overclock to 4GHz stable. I just don't see why intel doesn't push their CPUs to the max when they see a good competition coming. I love AMD overclocking options in their CPUs.
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I believe the main reason for not having these is market segmentation. I mean Intel does not want lga1155 to compete with lga2011 at all. The second reason is lack of competition. Intel can do what it wants when AMD is not competitive.
 
eastmen said:
bulldozer has been delayed a bunch of times already and we still don't know when its coming out , its at $320 from leaks for its highest part which turbos to 4.2ghz i believe. Sandybridge on the other hand has been out quite awhile. I have no doubt that intel can't out bin amd.

Bulldozer would have to be alot faster than a i7 2600 for intel to have to worry about and even then intel can simply drop the price of the 6 core i7s down in price and they also have ivy bridge in the future.


I really hope bulldozer is fast , heck i'd love for it to beat a 4ghz i7 2600 at its stock speeds however i doubt that will be the case and its the constant delays that worry me
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It was merely fun speculation, I'm not really sure if BD can surpass SB.
 
drescherjm said:
I believe the main reason for not having these is market segmentation. I mean Intel does not want lga1155 to compete with lga2011 at all. The second reason is lack of competition. Intel can do what it wants when AMD is not competitive.
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Yeah same reason why Intel didn't ever realease gulftown 4 core cpus for mass market (there were some 32nm 4 core xeons) - they didn't need it and could use time to increase return of investment on all those 45nm production lines they built thanks to lack of competition.

IMHO Intel has every means necessary to open price war front that would kill AMD but they won't ever do it because AMD is usefull for them as a semi harmless competitor whose inferior product can be used to justify high prices and who shields them against all those monopoly watchdogs.

AMD is also good at introducing risky architectures so then intel can mimick them generation later if market shows interest :)
 
unfortunately we heard this before with the phenom hype and we learned quick it was a bunch of bs. i would love to see how the new bulldozers fold, unfortunately they don't have onboard video so that adds a little to the cost for the mobo to me.

nothing i have read leads me to believe it will be faster than the mainstream sandy bridge or enthusiast sandy bridge-e. only real benchmark we have seen was the four cpu interlago's folding and it was a complete monster compared to the current magny cours cpu's.
 
xBanzai89 said:
I was all gun ho back during the June release, but I just do not care anymore due to the delay. I do want to see how it performs of course though I am not hitting the refresh button anymore hoping for leaks.
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Pretty much same situation as me. My previous rig was the original A64 3000+, so definitely long in the tooth but served me well over the years. I had $3000 in hand to build my complete system, pretty much decided on Bulldozer waiting for the June, then July, launch time, but when it became clear that we were getting yanked around, I went for a Sandy Bridge rig and I couldn't be more satisfied. I will surely read with interest all the Bulldozer performance info when it finally arrives, but as a customer, unfortunately AMD missed out on my support; too bad because I really wanted to give them my money.
 
eapleitez said:
Pretty much same situation as me. My previous rig was the original A64 3000+, so definitely long in the tooth but served me well over the years. I had $3000 in hand to build my complete system, pretty much decided on Bulldozer waiting for the June, then July, launch time, but when it became clear that we were getting yanked around, I went for a Sandy Bridge rig and I couldn't be more satisfied. I will surely read with interest all the Bulldozer performance info when it finally arrives, but as a customer, unfortunately AMD missed out on my support; too bad because I really wanted to give them my money.
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Great your happy with it, Could have just grabbed Crosshair V and put in cheap cpu and waited. But you gotta have patience... All good things take time.
 
Shata said:
Great your happy with it, Could have just grabbed Crosshair V and put in cheap cpu and waited. But you gotta have patience... All good things take time.
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Replacing the CPU is more of a pain than anything else. Slapping in a video card or a few sticks of ram takes 5 minutes. Replacing the CPU isnt something a lot of people feel like doing once we've got the rig built.

And why build a rig based on pure speculation? Sure, he could have bought an AM3+ mobo and gone with a current AMD cpu. But of course, now he's just paid a serious premium for the "budget" option since he has to buy TWO cpus. And who really knows if the BD is going to be anything special? I'm an AMD fan, but at this point in time there is zero reason to hold out hope for them to be a serious contender in the enthusiast' market. 2500k/2600k is proven performance.


They really screwed the pooch on this one. I wish AMD well but I too have lost my enthusiasm, simply because I no longer believe them.
 
AMD bets on Bulldozer to take back the desktop
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Really? No way! You mean they aren't betting on Phenom II to take back the desktop? I wish I would have had the insight to see that one coming for myself.
 
phenom II is faster than the c4q, and c2d it just failed to take on the Core architecture. Bulldozer is Amd's Answer to Core architecture. It will at least be faster than the 1st gen core. Will it be faster than the 2nd gen? pricing alone would put it aimed to take on the 2nd gen processors. So it will be comparable, will it be faster We will have to wait and see.
 
canna said:
Really? No way! You mean they aren't betting on Phenom II to take back the desktop? I wish I would have had the insight to see that one coming for myself.
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I was actually expecting AMD to bet on Intel to retain the desktop crown
 
I WANT IT NOW, I want it Yesterday, and I want plenty more Tomorrow.!!!!!!!

I am tired of hitting refresh.

And besides... wtf is this I hear about SB-E comming out in Q4!!!! NOW WHAT @?@)#@&$*(#&

So BD comes out, it is great, but SO WHAT!?!?! SB-E is only a month away now too, so might as well wait and see wtf that thing does!!!!!

The truth is Intel is just better! And I'I should just buy the mfikng 2600K. But I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to go AMD!.

In the mean time I game with a 680i with a Q6600...yes I am pissed!
 
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Chihlidog said:
Replacing the CPU is more of a pain than anything else. Slapping in a video card or a few sticks of ram takes 5 minutes. Replacing the CPU isnt something a lot of people feel like doing once we've got the rig built.

And why build a rig based on pure speculation? Sure, he could have bought an AM3+ mobo and gone with a current AMD cpu. But of course, now he's just paid a serious premium for the "budget" option since he has to buy TWO cpus. And who really knows if the BD is going to be anything special? I'm an AMD fan, but at this point in time there is zero reason to hold out hope for them to be a serious contender in the enthusiast' market. 2500k/2600k is proven performance.


They really screwed the pooch on this one. I wish AMD well but I too have lost my enthusiasm, simply because I no longer believe them.
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Basically what I did... bought the Crosshair V Formula to replace my Crosshair IV Formula... waiting patiently for the bulldozer to roll through... swapping cpu's suck ass..
 
i don't see how swapping the cpu is any different than swapping a video card, or ram. Takes me all of 30 seconds to remove the heatsink.

Now if you have one of those complicated heatsinks/water blocks i could see it being more of a pain, but still its not all that involved.
 
cracknub said:
Basically what I did... bought the Crosshair V Formula to replace my Crosshair IV Formula... waiting patiently for the bulldozer to roll through... swapping cpu's suck ass..
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I hope BD is really kick-ass for you man. My i5-750 is the first intel CPU I've ever owned, I've always been an AMD guy and I wanted to be excited for BD. I put off buying a 2500k for one. And put it off. And put it off.

In a way, Im glad, since I no longer have the desire for a 2500k, it simply isnt worth it next to my current CPU. But I feel like AMD is just really blundering here and it has sapped all my excitement for what BD might have brought. Seems like for the foreseeable future, the intel cpu/amd gpu combo is the winner.
 
ebduncan said:
i don't see how swapping the cpu is any different than swapping a video card, or ram. Takes me all of 30 seconds to remove the heatsink.

Now if you have one of those complicated heatsinks/water blocks i could see it being more of a pain, but still its not all that involved.
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Depends on your cooling solution, motherboard, and case. At the very least, thermal compound isnt something I wanna piss with all that often. And in my experience, aftermarket coolers for AMD cpus are a pain in general. That, and a lot of people have to remove the motherboard to install a new CPU, reload Windows or risk issues, etc, it just isnt fun and nowhere near as simple as installing other components. Can most of us here do it? I sure hope so. Doesnt mean I want to, and that combined with the fact that one must buy TWO amd cpus to follow this strategy, and the future upgrade is based on speculation, makes the hassle, IMO, totally not worth it. At that point, why not just buy the 2500k/2600k and be done with it?
 
SpeedyVV said:
I WANT IT NOW, I want it Yesterday, and I want plenty more Tomorrow.!!!!!!!
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I think most would rather wait while AMD fixes the problems with BD instead of AMD releasing BD before its ready like they did with Phenom I.

So BD comes out, it is great, but SO WHAT!?!?! SB-E is only a month away now too, so might as well wait and see wtf that thing does!!!!!
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SB-E will be significantly more expensive than even the 8 core BD. I would expect the lowest end 4 core / 8 thread SB-E to be slightly above the highest end BD (released this year) but it will most likely cost 2 times the price of BD and the price of the 6/12 will be even higher.
 
drescherjm said:
I think most would rather wait while AMD fixes the problems with BD instead of AMD releasing BD before its ready like they did with Phenom I.
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Makes sense, but geez, arent you tired of waiting already?

EDIT: I guess that is the price for cheering for the underdog... lots of heartbreak, but very HIGH wins when it happens.
 
Makes sense, but geez, arent you tired of waiting already?
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I gave up on this round and sunk $356.02 into a 6 core 12 threaded i7 970. My next home CPU purchase will most likely be a 22nm chip unless it is to replace my Q9550 @ 3.2GHz 1.18V master backend for my htpc which does not need any more CPU power but I could improve energy efficiency.
 
SpeedyVV said:
And besides... wtf is this I hear about SB-E comming out in Q4!!!! NOW WHAT @?@)#@&$*(#&

So BD comes out, it is great, but SO WHAT!?!?! SB-E is only a month away now too, so might as well wait and see wtf that thing does!!!!!
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Guess I haven't been watching the other CPU forum that much. Is anyone really expecting that much out of SB-E? I thought it was more of a Epeen platform. Of course Intel is going to clock it higher, but really I thought it was more about adding more cores for server stuff, and pretending that a 4th memory channel is going conquer games.

For a side that is sold that Single core performance is the end all be all. What does 2011 and SB-E bring that a good 2600k setup doesn't?
 
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