Wednesday, October 12th 2011
Review Consensus: AMD FX Processor 8150 Underwhelming
It's been in the works for over three years now. That's right, the first we heard of "Bulldozer" as a processor architecture under development was shortly after the launch of "Barcelona" K10 architecture. Granted, it wasn't possible to load close to 2 billion transistors on the silicon fab technology AMD had at the time, but AMD had a clear window over the last year to at least paper-launch the AMD FX. Delays and bad marketing may have cost AMD dearly in shaping up the product for the market.
After drawing a consensus from about 25 reviews (links in Today's Reviews on the front page), it emerges that:
After drawing a consensus from about 25 reviews (links in Today's Reviews on the front page), it emerges that:
- AMD FX-8150 is missing its performance expectations by a fair margin. Not to mention performance gains in its own presentation, these expectations were built up by how AMD was shaping the product to be a full-fledged enthusiast product with significant performance gains over the previous generation
- AMD ill-marketed the FX-8150. Hype is a double-edged sword, and should not be used if you're not confident your offering will live up to at least most of the hype. AMD marketed at least the top-tier FX-8000 series eight-core processors as the second coming of Athlon64 FX.
- FX-8150 launch isn't backed up by launch of other AMD FX processors. This could go on to become a blunder. The presence of other FX series processors such as the FX-8120, six-core and four-core FX processors could have at least made the price performance charts look better, given that all FX processors are unlocked, buyers could see the value in buying them to overclock. TweakTown took a closer look into this.
- There are no significant clock-for-clock improvements over even AMD's own previous generation. The FX-8150 drags its feet behind the Phenom II X6 1100T in single-threaded math benchmarks such as Super/HyperPi, the picture isn't any better with Cinebench single-threaded, either.
- Multi-threaded data streaming applications such as data compression (WINRAR, 7-ZIP) reveal the FX-8150 to catch up with competition from even the Core i7-2600K. This trend keeps up with popular video encoding benchmarks such as Handbrake and x264 HD.
- Load power draw is bad, by today's standards. It's not like AMD is lagging behind in silicon fabrication technologies, or the engineering potential that turned around AMD Radeon power consumption figures over generations.
- Price could be a major saving grace. In the end, AMD FX 8150 has an acceptable price-performance figure. At just $25 over the Core i5-2500K, the FX-8150 offers a good performance lead.
- Impressive overclocking potential. We weren't exactly in awe when AMD announced its Guinness Record-breaking overclocking feat, but reviewers across the board have noticed fairly good overclocking potential and performance scaling.
450 Comments on Review Consensus: AMD FX Processor 8150 Underwhelming
So I have the ASUS Crosshair V Formula, bought it for real cheap, on sale. After seeing all the reviews, I plan on waiting until FX prices hit super low for it to be worth an upgrade from my system right now.
Is there any reviews where they JACK UP the NB clock speed super high? Can Bulldozer benefit from this, seeing how the CPU increase does nothing :shadedshu
Until then im just gonna grab a GTX 570 and keep my X6 1055T.
. It's no longer a question of whether AMD will return to the days of the Athlon 64, it simply must. Otherwise you can kiss choice goodbye.
O.K. I heard AMD is having a problem with the Scheduler and/or the Crossbar via Bulldozer, it needs more time to tweak the design. How much time I don't know. Can we get confirmation about this new info?
Such a waste of money :laugh: £120 for a board that for now does nothing more than my £35 Asrock board.
(Having said that, I have been able to enable turbo boost with my core already at 3.64 so I can 3.9 for single threaded apps and the like)
Turbo core crashed the other board ( only 4+1 phase so couldn't hack it)
It was cheap (only $150), Bulldozer ready/AM3+, 990FX chipset, Supports both SLI and Crossfire X which your board doesn't do, your board only has a single PCI-e slot that provides full bandwidth, and the other is only x4. Ive got SATA III you've got SATA II only, ive got multiple USB 3.0 ports and USB 2.0 ports, you have only have 4 full USB 2.0 ports and the list goes on.
And the best part is that it doesn't look like your board lol:
Not to be rude, just saying their different in many aspects.
I wouldn't cling on to the notion that the ES are total shit and the retail chips will magically be way more powerful. AMD would have held off on sending chips if that were the case I would think. Especially with all the hype surrounding this. Irrelevant to topic?
I have NOTHING that takes advantage of the new features :roll:
My computer is a little bit prettier but aside from that it's the same speed as before etc.
LINK:
hardocp.com/article/2011/10/11/amd_bulldozer_fx8150_gameplay_performance_review/1
benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=831&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=16
I am not an AMD fanboy, I am just pointing out some facts.
This product did suffer from a killer overdose of Hype. The fanbois were responsible for that.
And, it's not as bad as everyone thinks when you take a step back and look at the big picture. Sure, it's dissapointing that they didn't perform better. Even LOL-worthy in a morbid way how they actually lost IPC compared to their older product.
This CPU was built for heavilly multithreaded apps. Windows 7 and most consumer software and games are not optimized for heavy multithreading. Right now multi-core support is still in its infancy for consumers. That's not being an apologist or fanboy defending their sacred cow. That's a fact.
We likely won't see any improvements until they ditch XP, 32-bit, Xbox360 compatability and all other legacy garbage.
If you weren't so emotionally attached to one companies product, you would see that many of the users here have been pretty objective.
Hopefully the Bulldozer architecture will be more mature and supported in software by then.
and I now consider myself a reformed ex AMD FANBOI....not saying I wont buy their products cause I will.....but I'll never wait for em again.
*meanwhile, searches for some AMD Athlon64 FX vs Pentium 4 Extreme Edition tests >_>