Here comes the spin machine! (Our Take on AMD FX)

[Elixer]

In our design considerations, AMD focused on applications and environments that we believe our customers use – and which we expect them to use in the future. The architecture focuses on high-frequency and resource sharing to achieve optimal throughput and speed in next generation applications and high-resolution gaming.

Here’s some example scenarios where the AMD FX processor shines:

Playing the Latest Games

A perfect example is Battlefield 3. Take a look at how our test of AMD FX CPU compared to the Core i7 2600K and AMD Phenom™ II X6 1100T processors at full settings:
Map Resolution AMD FX-8150 Sandy Bridge i7 2600k AMD Phenom™ II X6 1100T
MP_011 1650x1080x32 max settings 39.3 37.5 36.3
MP_011 1920x1200x32 max settings 33.2 31.8 30.6
MP_011 2560x1600x32 max settings 21.4 20.4 19.9

Benchmarking done with a single AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 graphics card

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2011/10/13/our-take-on-amd-fx/

 

[Idontcare]

What, you weren't expecting them to go "netflix" on you and dump qwikster (bulldozer) just because it's off to a rocky start, did ya?

AMD has to address the performance of their product - be that its pricing, its computational capabilities, or its power-consumption - any company will do that after releasing a product.

What I want to see are more apps that showcase and take advantage the CMT architecture of BD. They had four years to get everything lined up, where are the apps?

This has AMD and GPGPU written all over it, which makes me sad. AMD can't just rely on a "once we build it, they might come" philosophy to software development

I really expected them to coordinate the release of Zambezi with that of patch updates to key productivity software like Photoshop, TMPGEnc transcoders, etc.

This is AMD's way though, always has been, but it is to their own detriment because the competition doesn't use the same playbook. (neither Nvidia nor Intel)

 

[SHAQ]

Those numbers are before overclocking right? I haven't seen BD OC numbers yet, but we all know 2600K's can do 4.5 without breaking a sweat. That 20% lead would be gone with an almost 30% overclock. And all the other gaming benchmarks were 20-30% slower at default clocks.

 

[nanaki333]

maybe we'll start seeing a required CPU Driver to make it work better

 

[theevilsharpie]

It wouldn't be the first time AMD has needed software to fix a hardware performance issue.

 

[GaiaHunter]

What, you weren't expecting them to go "netflix" on you and dump qwikster (bulldozer) just because it's off to a rocky start, did ya?

AMD has to address the performance of their product - be that its pricing, its computational capabilities, or its power-consumption - any company will do that after releasing a product.

What I want to see are more apps that showcase and take advantage the CMT architecture of BD. They had four years to get everything lined up, where are the apps?

This has AMD and GPGPU written all over it, which makes me sad. AMD can't just rely on a "once we build it, they might come" philosophy to software development

I really expected them to coordinate the release of Zambezi with that of patch updates to key productivity software like Photoshop, TMPGEnc transcoders, etc.

This is AMD's way though, always has been, but it is to their own detriment because the competition doesn't use the same playbook. (neither Nvidia nor Intel)

To be fair AMD is a bit resource depleted and NVIDIA can't really direct the industry on a certain way that easily if it is an already established market (look for example at physX) like Intel can. Even Intel can't sometimes push their ideas.

On the other hand AMD should know this by now and not create products that need special software support to shine (if this is actually the case and not just a combination of problems that created a perfect storm).

 

[Lonbjerg]

It wouldn't be the first time AMD has needed software to fix a hardware performance issue.

The excuses/false hopes will be many.

New OS patch will save Dulldozer!!!
New stepping will save Dulldozer!!!
New BIOS will save Dulldozer!!!

Or they could grab a page from Apple's "handbook":

You are benchmarking it wrong...*bom-tiiiisch*

Seriously, they had YEARS to prepare...no excuse is going to alter that fact.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

What's next? Randomly showing pics of sexy half-naked chicks holding their CPU's?

 

[nanaki333]

What's next? Randomly showing pics of sexy half-naked chicks holding their CPU's?

with results like dozer has, they would have to be fully naked.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

What's next? Randomly showing pics of sexy half-naked chicks holding their CPU's?

Yes. The chicks would be saying "Be my first 8**** Bulldozer".

They will sell like hotcakes. :whiste:

 

[Idontcare]

What's next? Randomly showing pics of sexy half-naked chicks holding their CPU's?

:hmm: I'm failing to see the downside here, regardless the performance of whatever is being held...nothing but profit

 

[Rifter]

:hmm: I'm failing to see the downside here, regardless the performance of whatever is being held...nothing but profit

yeah no kidding.

Naked girl AMD marketing could be nothing but pure win.

 

[sandorski]

Clearly Expectations have exceeded Reality. Will BD ever be "Competitive"? Hard to say, but part of the answer to that depends on what "Competitive" means. For most of us that means Gaming Performance, however that might not be what's important for the overall Market.

I have said it many times before, the CPU doesn't matter much for gaming anymore. The system in my Sig runs every Game fine and that's at Stock speeds on all Hardware. Certainly Overclocking or an Intel CPU will produce Higher FPS, but there's a point where that no longer matters. We have been at that point for years now and until there is a significant change in Gaming, we will continue to be past the days when Gaming is significantly ahead of available CPU Performance.

 

[Elixer]

:hmm: I'm failing to see the downside here, regardless the performance of whatever is being held...nothing but profit

Does that mean we can start a Bulldozer babe thread here now ?

 

[Remobz]

Does that mean we can start a Bulldozer babe thread here now ?

Good one!!

haha!

 

[SickBeast]

AMD has lost me as a customer on this one.

The straw the broke the camel's back was their alteration of the AM3 motherboard bioses to disallow Bulldozer as a drop in upgrade.

The part that really gets me, though, is that even if I were to drop a Bulldozer into my AM3 board, I would only see a benefit in applications that I don't even use.

I can't even see this chip being useful in the server market. Intel's chips are essentially twice as efficient per watt compared with Bulldozer.

 

[notty22]

Good read.
And there is a car analogy in there !
Opinion: Did We Expect Too Much of AMD Bulldozer?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Spin #2:

"Winter is coming, we generate an extra 100 watts of pure heat to keep you warm!"

 

[GaiaHunter]

Clearly Expectations have exceeded Reality.

The minimum everyone had the right to ask of BD was to clearly be a better option than Phenom II, either by sheer performance, bang/buck, performance/watt, a combination of the mentioned characteristics or others.

For the desktop user, overall, it isn't.

And the baffling part is that this processor is a monster in die size and transistor count. If the performance was at least in-line with it (when compared at a minimum with Deneb/Thuban) while power consumption and/or cost were high, it could be understandable - the manufacturing process simply wasn't adequate like (and to break the mold of car analogies) the jet fighters developed/produced during the WWII that were inferior to propeller aircrafts mostly due to the manufacturing not be advanced enough to build jet engines.

Or if it was a tiny chip with a low transistor count that had this performance but dirty cheap, that would make sense as well.

Some expectations were surely crazy, although it is always good when human imagination and ingenuity can create something out of spit and wire, but expecting BD to be an overall better buy than Phenom II cannot be deemed as unrealistic.

To the question "why didn't AMD shrunk Deneb/Thuban instead" the answer seems to be "they did" (the "they don't have enough resources argument" can't be used since Llano is a shrink of Deneb+GPU), but Llano doesn't seem to be that good OC (power draw doesn't seem to be that good either when OC) nor does the performance of Deneb/Thuban/Llano seems to scale that great with higher clocks.

The only good things (might be an exaggeration but please read it as a figure of speech) out of BD is that the performance seems to scale better with higher clocks than Phenom II and the architecture is performing so bad in so many ways that it seems to be ample room to improve (this doesn't turn BD in a good buy however).

 

[Ferzerp]

That's just asking for a game of thrones graphic.

"Winter is coming. Buy amd. Stay alive"

Edit: meant to quote davesimmons

 

[sandorski]

The minimum everyone had the right to ask of BD was to clearly be a better option than Phenom II, either by sheer performance, bang/buck, performance/watt, a combination of the mentioned characteristics or others.

For the desktop user, overall, it isn't.

And the baffling part is that this processor is a monster in die size and transistor count. If the performance was at least in-line with it (when compared at a minimum with Deneb/Thuban) while power consumption and/or cost were high, it could be understandable - the manufacturing process simply wasn't adequate like (and to break the mold of car analogies) the jet fighters developed/produced during the WWII that were inferior to propeller aircrafts mostly due to the manufacturing not be advanced enough to build jet engines.

Or if it was a tiny chip with a low transistor count that had this performance but dirty cheap, that would make sense as well.

Some expectations were surely crazy, although it is always good when human imagination and ingenuity can create something out of spit and wire, but expecting BD to be an overall better buy than Phenom II cannot be deemed as unrealistic.

To the question "why didn't AMD shrunk Deneb/Thuban instead" the answer seems to be "they did", but Llano doesn't seem to be that good OC (power draw doesn't seem to be that good either when OC) nor does the performance of Deneb/Thuban/Llano seems to scale that great with higher.

The only good things (might be an exaggeration but please read it as a figure of speech) out of BD is that the performance seems to scale better with higher clocks than Phenom II and the architecture is performing so bad in so many ways that it seems to be ample room to improve (this doesn't turn BD in a good buy however).

The Process can be Improved/Fixed. That might be where BD eventually becomes more competitive for us Gamers, at least those looking for Best results.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Good read.
And there is a car analogy in there !
Opinion: Did We Expect Too Much of AMD Bulldozer?

A really good read...spot on I think.

I wonder if that is why AMD's PR mouthpiece JF-AMD got all quiet after the launch? :whiste:

I would like for him to explain his last post:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32339565&postcount=1938

Seems like he was right about one thing though...AMD will now have to cherrypick benchmarks...

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Time to put my spin on it:

Phenom I all over again.

 

[blackened23]

Meh. Its AMD's version of the Pentium 4. Maybe the next iteration will be better....

 

[SlowSpyder]

Meh, looked like marketing in the quote in the OP. I don't expect AMD to suggest you buy a 2600K because it is better.

For me, I just ordered a Phenom 1090T ($159.99 shipped, will work in my AM2+ board). It's going to be hard to beat that performance for $160, Intel or AMD. But, AMD can't be too happy, they just canniblized themselves, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has done this. Sure, they still got another processor out there, but I cannot see Piledriver toching how Ivy Bridge will be able to perform. At that point this AM2+ board will probably have run it's course.