Ditching for or adding a Bulldozer? Anyone?

I don't run Linux myself, but I can see how that could be a problem. Though as I understand it, AMD is no better in that regard either. NVIDIA rules in that arena last I checked.
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Intel has by far the worst graphics drivers on linux. Although AMD/ATI drivers are problematic as well if you need to use wine.
 
Dan_D said:
This is total nonsense and I think you've got that backwards. Intel's chipsets are and have always been the absolute BEST in the industry. At no point in the last 17 years or so has that not been the case. This is not to say that every chipset they've had is a winner. i820, i840 etc. were shit. Overpriced motherboards? Last time I looked the LGA1155 boards were fairly reasonably priced with excellent models to be had for around or less than $200.00. And those motherboards offer a better layout and better drivers, storage performance, etc. than anything AMD has. I won't argue with VT-d pricing structures. I've never looked at it that seriously because every chip I've purchased was high end enough to have every feature I could need or want. Bad support for integrated graphics in Linux? Well I can't argue with that either. I don't run Linux myself, but I can see how that could be a problem. Though as I understand it, AMD is no better in that regard either. NVIDIA rules in that arena last I checked.
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No. $200.00 for an LGA1155 board? For that price you can get a top tier AM3 board which has an actual 6gbps SATA controller and you won't have to eat up one of your few PCIE lanes on the 1155. This gets to be a big deal if you want an actual NIC and run a multichannel audio interface plus a decent video card.

I've had multiple P35 boards fail due to chipset issues, my i850 chipset was useless, my Gigabyte P45-UD3R board is a very highly regarded piece of crap for doing anything outside of gaming and watching youtube. In fact that board is so bad I barely use that machine. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-chipset,1961-26.html P45 was crap even when it was released, but I wasn't chancing another P35 fiasco. The ICH10R and ICH9R were fast sure, but they were also not what I'd call stable when stressed hard or RAIDed. 1156 is dead, they dropped that like it was hot which is a shame for anyone who bought one of the few chips that ran on that. It's anecdotal but I've had constant issues with everything Intel I buy outside of NICs. Why would I continue buying their products if I continue running into hardware issues due to their chipset choices?

AMD's/ATI's binary blobs generally work fine in linux. They are definitely better than Intel, but not quite up to Nvidia's support levels.
 
I've been rocking a 939 X2 4400+ since mid 2006. I used to upgrade every year or so, but this machine has lasted me longer than any other. This July though is my upgrade and I'm hoping to go Bulldozer 8 core, but I am considering an i7 as well. I do lean more toward AMD though so as long as it's somewhat in line with the i7, I have no problem picking it up.
 
I have a q9650 and i'm looking to replace it . I got a little upset at how quickly the socket 754 (or was it 755) was replaced by intel. So i'm hoping bulldozer is competetive . I don't need single thread performance as much as i need more threads in flight at once. I'm doing more and more video editing and encoding and for 1080p my q9650 isn't competetive
 
InternationalHat said:
No. $200.00 for an LGA1155 board? For that price you can get a top tier AM3 board which has an actual 6gbps SATA controller and you won't have to eat up one of your few PCIE lanes on the 1155. This gets to be a big deal if you want an actual NIC and run a multichannel audio interface plus a decent video card.

I've had multiple P35 boards fail due to chipset issues, my i850 chipset was useless, my Gigabyte P45-UD3R board is a very highly regarded piece of crap for doing anything outside of gaming and watching youtube. In fact that board is so bad I barely use that machine. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-chipset,1961-26.html P45 was crap even when it was released, but I wasn't chancing another P35 fiasco. The ICH10R and ICH9R were fast sure, but they were also not what I'd call stable when stressed hard or RAIDed. 1156 is dead, they dropped that like it was hot which is a shame for anyone who bought one of the few chips that ran on that. It's anecdotal but I've had constant issues with everything Intel I buy outside of NICs. Why would I continue buying their products if I continue running into hardware issues due to their chipset choices?

AMD's/ATI's binary blobs generally work fine in linux. They are definitely better than Intel, but not quite up to Nvidia's support levels.
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I've never issues with the chipsets on any Intel chipset based boards. I've never had problems with actual network cards, audio cards, and high end graphics cards. I'll put Intel's storage controllers up against AMD's any day of the week. In any RAID mode.
 
Depending on the performance, I am thinking of buying one for a virtualization/cert rig.
 
Dan_D said:
I will consider Bulldozer only once it's released and we have some real numbers to look at. From that point I will evaluate it and decide whether or not I'll be interested in purchasing any CPUs based on that design.



This is total nonsense and I think you've got that backwards. Intel's chipsets are and have always been the absolute BEST in the industry. At no point in the last 17 years or so has that not been the case. This is not to say that every chipset they've had is a winner. i820, i840 etc. were shit. Overpriced motherboards? Last time I looked the LGA1155 boards were fairly reasonably priced with excellent models to be had for around or less than $200.00. And those motherboards offer a better layout and better drivers, storage performance, etc. than anything AMD has. I won't argue with VT-d pricing structures. I've never looked at it that seriously because every chip I've purchased was high end enough to have every feature I could need or want. Bad support for integrated graphics in Linux? Well I can't argue with that either. I don't run Linux myself, but I can see how that could be a problem. Though as I understand it, AMD is no better in that regard either. NVIDIA rules in that arena last I checked.
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It's cheaper to get a featureful AMD board with vt-d than intel. The entry level setup for vt-d is better. Both i-xxxx and the GMA500 graphics on intel are absolutely horrible. I have both....and both have given me major issues. The graphics vendor to beat for business graphics (can't speak for 3d...I don't do 3d on linux) is AMD. Native 4-6 monitor support on a single card w/o xinerama needed. Fast, reliable, etc. That is using the OSS radeon graphics not the fglrx disaster. On desktop linux/virtualization AMD is the better bang/buck.

Even better you can have 8-12 cores fairly cheap with cheap-o desktop ram on dual socket C32 or not-too-expensive 16 core box with ddr3 ecc reg ram on G34.

the i7-9xx+6 ram slots is good if you need > 16G and < 32G ram....perfect for that. Other than that, I think AMD brings more value to the table in a linux/desktop/virtualization environment.

NOTICE I DIDNT SAY AMD WAS FASTER (I don't think they are) but they are a better value for the money.
 
so for those who are thinking of a new system or a cpu upgrade ( be it amd or intel ), is it best to wait until bulldozer because of the likelihood of price cuts for Phenom II and Sandy Bridge cpus?
 
There isn't much reason to upgrade from a PII at 4.0GHz right now. I'll wait until Skyrim comes out and see what needs to be upgraded.
 
smith94672 said:
so for those who are thinking of a new system or a cpu upgrade ( be it amd or intel ), is it best to wait until bulldozer because of the likelihood of price cuts for Phenom II and Sandy Bridge cpus?
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No doubt about that. Unless you just like to spend money. :D

Phenom II prices will fall drastically when Bulldozer comes out and Sandy Bridge will also if Bulldozer turns out as expected.
 
I think I might go with Bulldozer if it is fast enough, cheap enough and so on. I'm currently on an 1156 Socket i7-860 w/ 8GB of DDR-1600 and I honestly think this would be a nice change, considering AMD likes to support their chipsets longer and also the mobos and CPUs are generally cheaper.
 
I have no problems with giving AMD my money (from here it's either BD or Sandy Bridge-E), but come on...there's not nearly enough data to go on yet in order to make that choice. Thus, the refrain of

information.jpg
 
If it beats sandy bridge by a decent margin, ill be back on the AMD bandwagon to relive my first rig (an a62 x2) Otherwise ill just stick to i7 and upgrade my gpu.
 
Well given that 1155 is a mainstream performance item, im hoping that the 8core dozer will really be a gamers paradise platform with all the extra lanes and the really fast 1866 ram controller. I think if the benches are even or better with the 2600K I will be selling my 2600K gear and grabbing the tracked vehicle instead.
 
Redshirt #24 said:
I have no problems with giving AMD my money (from here it's either BD or Sandy Bridge-E), but come on...there's not nearly enough data to go on yet in order to make that choice. Thus, the refrain of

information.jpg
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We didnt know too overly much about the 2600K/2500K performance until a few weeks pre-launch other than some initial leaks with Quicksync etc....

I think AMD is doing the right thing. If its awesome they can claim it was a secret weapon and they delivered, if it bombs out to be garbage then they can say we never said it was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. Im also thinking that the recent (this week) launch of Sandy pentiums is a market reaction to a potential fear of AMD totally taking over the mainstream market.

Its all speculative and opinion and I could be totally wrong in the end.
 
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I'm curious, would AMD still follow their own trend of cheaper motherboards than Intel for Bulldozer? If so, and it has more performance, consider the value to be way up there.
 
Roberty said:
No doubt about that. Unless you just like to spend money. :D

Phenom II prices will fall drastically when Bulldozer comes out and Sandy Bridge will also if Bulldozer turns out as expected.
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hmmff. so this is another one of those moment where people should try not to upgrade until the release of newer technology, with the difference here being that most people don't appear all that excited or impressed.

any word as to when exactly Bulldozer would be released, and how much of a price drop is expected for existing processors from both amd and intel? I mean, if we're only talking of something like $10-$20 in price drop, I don't know if it's worth the wait if anyone wants to purchase a cpu that is already released.
 
smith94672 said:
hmmff. so this is another one of those moment where people should try not to upgrade until the release of newer technology, with the difference here being that most people don't appear all that excited or impressed.

any word as to when exactly Bulldozer would be released, and how much of a price drop is expected for existing processors from both amd and intel? I mean, if we're only talking of something like $10-$20 in price drop, I don't know if it's worth the wait if anyone wants to purchase a cpu that is already released.
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I look at it this way, Buy an AM3+ board now, run current AM3 chip on it and either:
1. If Zambezi is hot, buy one
2. If Zambezi is lukewarm, buy a x6, since the prices will drop.

I'm thinking about either keeping the board I have and going x6 when the prices drop, or getting an AM3+ board and going either #1 or #2.
 
Im just excited about having 8 full power cores to encode video with that doesnt cost 999 like intels hex core.
 
tangoseal said:
Im just excited about having 8 full power cores to encode video with that doesnt cost 999 like intels hex core.
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Intel has the Core i7 970 for $600 or less. They go closer to the $500 range on Ebay. You occasionally see other deals for their server variants go for even less or around the same once in awhile. More importantly, if the Phenom II X6 was more competitive from a performance standpoint you'd either see them go for more or you'd see Intel with 6 core parts costing less than they do today.
 
I have an i5 750.

Whoever has the best sub-$350 processor upon BDs release gets my money.
 
My 990FX-UD7 is on the way... Gonna run it with a 1090T until i can get a dozer....
 
Robstar said:
No reason to buy any new pc, really....

I have the following boxes @ my disposal:

E5800/4G ram/vertex 60GB/Quadro NVS 285 = main linux desktop
Thinkpad T61p with 2G ram, 100G sata disk = work laptop
S10-2 Atom netbook w/ 2G + 640GB sata = on the go laptop for dumping photos & videos
1090T, 8G ram/6850 win7/64 Mint/64 = Gaming desktop (~ 6 hours/mo) + linux desktop (~ 40 hours/mo) for the heavy crunching.

I have off: phen2 940 (8G ram)Q6600 (8G ram) as I simply don't need them on
VM Server: Phen 2 965, 16G ram, linux. Sits idle most of the time running about 20 VM's.
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Yes we all can read your sig LOL
 
Robstar said:
No reason to buy any new pc, really....

I have the following boxes @ my disposal:

E5800/4G ram/vertex 60GB/Quadro NVS 285 = main linux desktop
Thinkpad T61p with 2G ram, 100G sata disk = work laptop
S10-2 Atom netbook w/ 2G + 640GB sata = on the go laptop for dumping photos & videos
1090T, 8G ram/6850 win7/64 Mint/64 = Gaming desktop (~ 6 hours/mo) + linux desktop (~ 40 hours/mo) for the heavy crunching.

I have off: phen2 940 (8G ram)Q6600 (8G ram) as I simply don't need them on
VM Server: Phen 2 965, 16G ram, linux. Sits idle most of the time running about 20 VM's.
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I really wanna know, what was the point of this post? We understand that you have a bunch of systems, but what does "No reason to buy any new pc, really" have to do with this thread?
 
JMccovery said:
I really wanna know, what was the point of this post? We understand that you have a bunch of systems, but what does "No reason to buy any new pc, really" have to do with this thread?
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Guys, I TOTALLY FORGOT I had my rigs in my sig. I haven't read it in so long :D
 
Would 1866 be the official speed for the 990fx chipset ?
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Hmm. I am not sure the chipset has anything to do with the memory support since the IMC is on the processor.
 
drescherjm said:
Hmm. I am not sure the chipset has anything to do with the memory support since the IMC is on the processor.
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In theory the pathways are still located on the board and therefore would be limited by design and noise issues. They have to make it to a certain spec, and motherboard Bios's end up controlling what speed the CPU decides to communicate to the memory, so really the only thing the CPU does is talk directly to the memory everything else is set by and controlled by the motherboard.
 
from the MSI 990FXA-GD80 specs pics i saw that they support 2133 but list every other over 1333 as overclock.

pic
 
I believe the reason for this is on AM3 that will be the official support. On AM3+ the limit was raised to 1866. Putting a CPU that only officially supports 1333 MHz memory in a new motherboard will not give it official support for 1866 MHz ram.
 
CorruptedDragon said:
I've been rocking a 939 X2 4400+ since mid 2006. I used to upgrade every year or so, but this machine has lasted me longer than any other. This July though is my upgrade and I'm hoping to go Bulldozer 8 core, but I am considering an i7 as well. I do lean more toward AMD though so as long as it's somewhat in line with the i7, I have no problem picking it up.
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I'm rocking the same CPU and it works very well but I'm in upgrade mode. Bulldozer 8 core is just too big not to wait for. Too much possibility. I'm an AMD fan but I won't pay a premium if it can't stack up. It will have to be price/performance competitive with Intel's products.

I'm waiting for real benchmarks and real reviews. I'm just as eager as everyone else but unless it's real news and facts it's just mental clutter. I won't be an early adopter either. I'll wait a few months after the release to let the pricing settle out. BD may fall flat but either way I'll be glad I waited.
 
tangoseal said:
We didnt know too overly much about the 2600K/2500K performance until a few weeks pre-launch other than some initial leaks with Quicksync etc...
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Pretty in depth review of Sandy Bridge from Anand almost 4 months before the official release.

kirbster said:
My 990FX-UD7 is on the way... Gonna run it with a 1090T until i can get a dozer....
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Are these for sale now? Ive been watching Newegg for the last week or so trying to catch a 900 series board but all theyve still got is 800 and 700 stuff.
 
Yeah but its about 10 times more information than we have on Bulldozer.
 
MacLeod said:
Yeah but its about 10 times more information than we have on Bulldozer.
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AMD is smart thats all I can say.

If they release a bombshell then they can say our secret paid off and now we destory Intel.

If they release a total bum bomb of a chip then they can say we never hyped it in the first place.

The chips are going to be released on 6 June to my understanding, or was it 11 June?

Either way I guarantee Kyle, and Anand, and some others out there will have a preview with benches and everything on the day before or the day of release. We dont know if these sites already have chips or not and might have a NDA right now and are just NOT saying anything. Somehow how I feel like Hard has a chip but will NOT say a word right now in order to keep their reputation with AMD.

And lastly a little trolling for humor........ BULLDOZER WILL DESTROY INTEL!!!!! okay just kidding. Who knows? LOL
 
tangoseal said:
AMD is smart thats all I can say.

If they release a bombshell then they can say our secret paid off and now we destory Intel.

If they release a total bum bomb of a chip then they can say we never hyped it in the first place.

The chips are going to be released on 6 June to my understanding, or was it 11 June?

Either way I guarantee Kyle, and Anand, and some others out there will have a preview with benches and everything on the day before or the day of release. We dont know if these sites already have chips or not and might have a NDA right now and are just NOT saying anything. Somehow how I feel like Hard has a chip but will NOT say a word right now in order to keep their reputation with AMD.

And lastly a little trolling for humor........ BULLDOZER WILL DESTROY INTEL!!!!! okay just kidding. Who knows? LOL
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June 13th is when they will be in stores and those stores will get that stock at June 9th

If it is releasing early june
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I honestly think all the sane people are waiting for solid numbers and reviews before they consider it. Too many people remember how AMD hyped up the original Phenom only for it to be a complete letdown. Some people see how much financial trouble AMD has been in since the ATI buyout and don't think they have the resources to come from behind again.
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I've moved over to AMD since the Athlong 64s were released. I've been very disappointed in the Phenom and Phenom II series chips. I'm also holding out to see some benchmarks compared to sandy bridge. If the Bulldozer line falls far behind intel this time I'll be done with AMD being in my main rig.
 
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