Why is the response to Bulldozer so overwhelmingly negative?

[Caza]

AMD should have kept with the "we'll release when it's ready," as opposed to shipping a hot chip. Clearly the design was meant to perform much better with the sheer number of Int/Fp pipelines. The transistor count is comparable to Intel's 8-Core Xeon Nehalem-EX.

AMD trying to do too much with too little resources. Intel had a HUGE error with a chipset this year which cost them a Billion to fix, and they didn't hide from it. AMD could have reallocated the wafers to Llano which is doing well right now, until Intel catches up with their graphics.

 

[frostedflakes]

You know people would have been complaining just as much about additional delays, though.

 

[soccerballtux]

You know people would have been complaining just as much about additional delays, though.

only because they had made us think it was going to have the single threading performance of Sandy Bridge.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

only because they had made us think it was going to have the single threading performance of Sandy Bridge.

This. Too much hype surrounding it, plus them giving us too many expectations made it even worse. All of it built up for four years. Also, no official benchmarks, and all that were unofficially released, one after one, painted a bleak picture that turned out to be true. AMD's CPU department would give us preview benchmarks if they knew a chip is gonna perform very well.

 

[Caza]

You know people would have been complaining just as much about additional delays, though.

Yes they would have but complaints from the "enthusiasts" doesn't translate into huge dollars. Llano/Brazos is making a profit, actually the only reason AMD made a profit last 1/2 year. They had to severely cut the price of Zambezi and they could end up having stockpiles of them.

Intel's chips with 2 billion transistors cost well over $1000. AMD selling them for 1/3 to 1/5th that.

 

[chaosdsm]

please show me how a comparable Intel system costs 400 bucks more and your X6. a 2500 only costs about 20 bucks more than an 1100t. a 2600 costs about 110 bucks more than an 1100t.

mobos are all over the place but you can find comparable features for within 50 bucks. so in the end you could have a much faster and much more efficient 2600 build for only around 150 bucks more.

If I were refering to right now, sure, but in June 2010 when I built my current system it wasn't. At that time to get an Intel motherboard with 8xSATAII ports was about $120 more, and the i5 2500K wasn't even on the horizon, the only similar priced Intel processors were dual cores and even the best of those is pathetic compared to my 1055t when it comes to video encoding. No, I was looking Quad-core or better with Hyperthreading, plus a motherboard with 8 SATA connectors:
two data storage drives (2TB total)
two video storage drives (2TB total)
two program drives (in RAID-0 750GB)
One Blu-Ray burner
One spare for future expansion as needed

And for that with about 3% better video encoding performance an Intel system was about $400 more in June 2010.

Right now, all I need is a processor & I've got a Bulldozer system so it's definitely cheaper than going the Intel route right now.

 

[ocre]

If i were AMD i wouldve waited to break the Overclocked world speed record *after* the BD launch. hyping it up before as the worlds fastest cpu only contributed to the lackluster. If they had waited it wouldve been much better. Once BD was reviewed and ppl were meh they couldve dropped the bomb:

"Check out the BD breaking the overclock world record, and we will soon be offering custom liquid coolers for the masses!"

This wouldve hit the communities very different. Then they would think maybe its not such a terrible product, maybe its got potential with water cooling.

To me timing is everything, and the overclock record wouldve been better used as damage control rather than pre-release hype up. For the BD launch, the latter was a set up for doom.

 

[nyker96]

Now i know why they kept everything so secretive months preceding this launch. If it's something good, they'd be already 'leaking' benches everywhere way before its launch. I hope this chip will do well in server space seems to be something suited for server market not desktop at all.

 

[Ferzerp]

If i were AMD i wouldve waited to break the Overclocked world speed record *after* the BD launch. hyping it up before as the worlds fastest cpu only contributed to the lackluster. If they had waited it wouldve been much better. Once BD was reviewed and ppl were meh they couldve dropped the bomb:

"Check out the BD breaking the overclock world record, and we will soon be offering custom liquid coolers for the masses!"

This wouldve hit the communities very different. Then they would think maybe its not such a terrible product, maybe its got potential with water cooling.

To me timing is everything, and the overclock record wouldve been better used as damage control rather than pre-release hype up. For the BD launch, the latter was a set up for doom.

Except it doesn't overclock particularly well in the real world.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Now i know why they kept everything so secretive months preceding this launch. If it's something good, they'd be already 'leaking' benches everywhere way before its launch.

This myth just won't die. AMD has been very secretive about non-released products since the introduction of the 48xx Radeon line. That is their policy.

 

[Keysplayr]

This myth just won't die. AMD has been very secretive about non-released products since the introduction of the 48xx Radeon line. That is their policy.

So secretive apparently, that they'd lie to their own Director of PR and Marketing. And then let him take the heat for it.

 

[Idontcare]

So secretive apparently, that they'd lie to their own Director of PR and Marketing. And then let him take the heat for it.

I don't think this can be over-stated. It is extremely telling that AMD internally would keep someone as high up as John in the dark about the realities of bulldozer for as long as they did.

They either don't value his division, or his specific position within it, etc, to an extent that would have included him in the "circle of trust" such that he was informed of the "truth"...or they really are a business that embodies the sort of chaotic fiefdom territorial false reporting that is known to occur within some businesses that pits internal divisions against one another, working against each other rather than as a team.

Either way it is telling and not confidence building.

 

[ocre]

Except it doesn't overclock particularly well in the real world.

it still wouldve been a better tactic. the absolute only thing holding back the real world overclocks is the heat dissipation thins time. These 32nm 2billion transistor chips are freakn hard to cool.

It makes no since to hype up BD as the worlds fastest CPU before the launch. It wouldve been much much better to drop that information after ppl were let down. That would be one good thing to show up after the bad light. Breaking the world record is an accomplishment in the extreme OCing community, one that has been there for so so many yrs! And bringing the info before was false hope, let down, and quickly forgot. After wouldve been much more productive damage control, more ppl would think, "well its got potential" .

AMD needs clever marketing, their chip is functions just fine. The way they marketed this is crazy! look at the order that they gave us:

1) "Bulldozer!"
2) bring back the FX name??? a name from when AMD was crushing intel
2) worlds fastest CPU
4) bla bla bla

Hyped to the moon way before launch. Why would they do that? how would anyone not be crushed once they seen the chip in action. They planted these expectations.

Come to think of it, it seems their bad as names for their CPU lines have turned out a joke.

Phenom>enal
bulldozer

and prolly all these new ones like piledriver, etc are gonna suck. They use names to try to make it sound amassing. Why? no one else does this. Why use a name like bulldozer and phenomenal in the first place? Especially when they turn out to be so lame! Their marketing reminds me of children! I am bulldozer, i am powerful and great cause i am like a bulldozer. I am phenom cause i am great like phenomenally great. I am pile-driver cause i am great a have powerful powers of the piledriver! Who are they trying to sell chips to? 10 year olds? Its just idiotic lame as names in the first place but the irony is that they are nothing like the CPUs they represent. Why? Why AMD?

Marketing is in many ways just as much or more important than the product these days. AMD marketing needs a complete overhaul. Well i guess AMD itself needs a complete overhaul!

 

[apoppin]

are there any reivews with a 68xx or 69xx video card and bulldozer?

i thought there was susposed to be a gpu boost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Fusion

FX-8150 does OK with a single HD 6970 at stock clocks. It hits a wall with HD 6970 CrossFire until it is overclocked to 4.4GHz.

i ran 20 game benches with HD 6970-X3 Tri-Fire and got some interesting results:

Next up, i am going to water cool FX-8150 and try for 4.8GHz and test it with HD-6970-X4 Quad-Fire and GTX 580 SLI
--i won't need a space heater this winter - just game more
:whiste:

 

[RussianSensation]

Shall i tell you why i was upset?
.....
Bulldozer could of been handled much better... less BS slides and more accurate ones trying to put the cpu in where it actually belongs.

But because of all the lies..

Exactly. I mean even weeks before launch, in interviews with AMD, their execs were saying their CPU will "revolutionary the price performance landscape" etc. etc. Ya, they sure revolutionized it alright. They gave us a $280 FX-8150 that's out of stock and gets slaughtered by a $220 2500k. :hmm:

If FX-8150 cost $169-179, it would have been an OK replacement for an 1100T. But with 1090T selling for $160-170, you just have to shake your head at the $279 FX-8150 chip.

 

[Vesku]

AMD is taking a PR hit but from a financial perspective it makes some sense. Sell the dies that fail or are marginal during server validation as desktop chips.

 

[nyker96]

This myth just won't die. AMD has been very secretive about non-released products since the introduction of the 48xx Radeon line. That is their policy.

trust me, you wouldn't be able to keep their mouth taped w/ superglu if BD is half as capable as their marketing suggested. everyone from top to bottom would be accidentally leaking something here and there. I remember back in the A64 days, every new iteration is preceded w/ some type of bench leaks that wet your appetite.

They trying to direct people into thinking Dirk Meyer's departure is related to him having differences w/ board for not wanting to enter into mobile market. Now everything is quite clear, they musta fired him when the board saw a working demo of the final BD product and realized Dirk's been burning thru billions of research cash w/ little to show for.

But on a positive note, BD isn't as disastrous as P4 I would say, but the problem is after so much invested into this architecture it's very hard to back away from it now. amd just have to keep going and improve it from year to year, hoping that they can tweak it enough to hit the sweet spot. Hopefully that may be the case, cause we can really use some competition in the $200+ range.

 

[StrangerGuy]

This myth just won't die. AMD has been very secretive about non-released products since the introduction of the 48xx Radeon line. That is their policy.

This is not a myth. They were secretive for similiar reasons as BD : price/performance wise 5xxx/6xxx was lackluster compared to their previous gen. If you are AMD, you really don't want people to know how a $120 4870 beats a $170 5770, or a 5850 is barely faster than a 4890.

At least their GPU side are much more competitive than the CPU side. It makes absolutely no sense not to preview BD if it was actually a 2500/2600 killer when they are losing for 5 years straight. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain at that point.

 

[Olikan]

This is not a myth. They were secretive for similiar reasons as BD : price/performance wise 5xxx/6xxx was lackluster compared to their previous gen. If you are AMD, you really don't want people to know how a $120 4870 beats a $170 5770, or a 5850 is barely faster than a 4890.

fine...now explain why bobcat didn't had previews

oh yes, because it had only 11 times better gpu than atom, and a mere 50% single threaded performance advantage.

 

[busydude]

fine...now explain why bobcat didn't had previews

oh yes, because it had only 11 times better gpu than atom, and a mere 50% single threaded performance advantage.

Well, AMD did preview it..

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4023/the-brazos-performance-preview-amd-e350-benchmarked

More than 2 months before release.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah AMD was really eager to show off Brazos, probably because it just wiped the floor with Atom and Atom/ION, Intel has really let Atom stagnate. They also released some early info on Llano, although not as much as Brazos from what I remember.

 

[ed29a]

and prolly all these new ones like piledriver, etc are gonna suck. They use names to try to make it sound amassing. Why? no one else does this. Why use a name like bulldozer and phenomenal in the first place? Especially when they turn out to be so lame! Their marketing reminds me of children! I am bulldozer, i am powerful and great cause i am like a bulldozer. I am phenom cause i am great like phenomenally great. I am pile-driver cause i am great a have powerful powers of the piledriver! Who are they trying to sell chips to? 10 year olds? Its just idiotic lame as names in the first place but the irony is that they are nothing like the CPUs they represent. Why? Why AMD?

Marketing is in many ways just as much or more important than the product these days. AMD marketing needs a complete overhaul. Well i guess AMD itself needs a complete overhaul!

Cool story bro.

 

[Ferzerp]

Yeah AMD was really eager to show off Brazos, probably because it just wiped the floor with Atom and Atom/ION, Intel has really let Atom stagnate. They also released some early info on Llano, although not as much as Brazos from what I remember.

Yeah, I get the impression that intel really doesn't care about atom. It seems their goal is incremental improvements in power usage on ULV versions of the mainstream parts until they fit the bill.

 

[Olikan]

Well, AMD did preview it..

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4023/the-brazos-performance-preview-amd-e350-benchmarked

More than 2 months before release.

damm... didn't saw that.

 

[Arg Clin]

Why is the response to Bulldozer so overwhelmingly negative?

People got their hopes set way high. With all the hype, nothing short of a miracle that would blow Intel out of the water would have been good enough.

Disappointment seems to have taken overhand a bit, and it does get blown out of proportions. I think it'll be interesting to see how the BD architechture fares on the longer run.