Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150-processor-review/1 ""Final words and conclusion Alright, conclusion time, and this is not going to be easy to explain -- a tough one really. The Octacore AMD FX 8150 processor surprised me positively in some ways, yet bewilders me in others. AMD has set the strategy to pursue processors with as many CPU cores as possible. The Bulldozer design is scalable, very scalable, meaning they are focusing on more CPU cores. The benefit here is that massively threaded applications really like that very much. Look at the Handbrake (multi-threaded video transcoding application) results and content creation with MAXON's animation software CINEMA 4D. It's there where the processor really flexes its muscles. To put it very simple, the hardware needs the software in order to shine. However, the problem remains that most software anno 2011 certainly doesn't multi-thread as well as we all would have hoped. Most applications go for two, maybe four cores. It's already hard to utilize six threads simultaneously, let alone eight. As such, per-core performance is much more important than more processor cores. That is a matter of time though, I mean we had the single core to dual-core revolution, quickly followed by four, six and thus now eight cores. So where multithreaded applications are programmed right AMD really starts to shine with the FX So the opposite effect is that with applications that prefer say two CPU threads and thus utilize only two cores... well that's where the FX series has a really hard time as the per core performance starts to lack significantly opposed to the competition. You have been able to see that the FX 8150 mostly is competing with the Core i5 2500 (which costs 180 EUR by the way). Once multithreading kicks in well, performance quickly rises and you'll see Core i7 2600 (260 EUR) performance. Surprisingly enough, even the Phenom II X6 1100T (170 EUR) stands ground and is mostly on par with the FX 8150 a lot of the time, that complicates things even more. So where do we need to position the FX 8150 then? I mean, this is supposed to be AMD's fastest processor. In games we see exactly the same thing. We specifically took two titles to show you that difference. The older title, Far Cry 2, is where we can see a performance hit, in fact CPU limitation kicks in as the per core performance of the FX 8150 can't keep up with the graphics card (CPU bottleneck). A Core i7 2500 or 2600, though with four cores, have better per core performance, hence you'll see better overall performance. In the extremely high resolutions the AMD platform will gain a little ground thanks to a better PCIe lane infrastructure. Intel offers 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes, AMD 16 PCIe Gen 2 lanes. We had hoped for PCIe Gen 3 support on the 900 / FX series as well, but that again is future stuff apparently. So the other game title we used is Crysis 2, it's multi-threaded and more GPU limited than CPU limited. We did lower the image quality settings a little too loosen up things and give the CPUs a better delta to perform visibly in. It scales very nicely with several threads but here again the per core performance of AMD's rival really flexes its muscles. Gaming performance differences remain trivial though, if you play at 1920x1080 the GPU matters so much more than the CPU. For the guys that use their PC for content creation and video transcoding, well this processor kicks in very nicely, and for a reasonable price you get impressive multi-threaded performance. Combined with the 900 series AMD motherboard chipset the overall picture seems a little better from AMD compared to Intel. At lower prices you'll get an extensive feature set with embedded SATA3 (6G) supported right out of the chipset combined with a proper number of PCIe lanes available to you. Power consumption wise we are a little tempered in judgement, the processor uses just over 100W in idle yet when we stress the CPU cores all at once, we peak well over 200W. That's not bad, but it certainly isn't excellent either. Overclocking wise we think the FX series will offer a lot of fun but power consumption there rises quickly when you apply CPU voltage tweaks. With a decent air cooler, 4.5~4.6 GHz should be a viable target to achieve, 5 GHz on proper liquid cooling should be achievable as well. The LCS kit we have shown you on page 9 is lovely by the way, great looks, very nice performance and to be honest, just what a processor like shown today needs. Good cooling and some overclocking do make this a fun processor to tweak and fool around with. A small update on pricing has just arrived from AMD (prices incl VAT): FX-8150 costs around 244 euros FX-8120 costs around 204 euros FX-6100 costs around 159 euros FX-4100 costs around 114 euros Concluding then. The reality remains that for me personally I would have preferred a faster per core performing AMD quad-core processor rather then an eight-core processor with just 'nice' per core performance. Who knows, for you, that just might not be the case. It's going to be interesting to see what you as an end-user will prefer. Overall though, the AMD FX 8150 is a processor we can recommend for the upper segment of mid-range computers at best. It is nice and fast in your desktop environment with the many threads you can fire off at it, and if you love to compress, transcode or use your PC as a workstation, well it will offer heaps of performance and features for a fair price. The AMD FX 8150 can be purchased for 244 USD or cheaper for all that 8-core lovin'."" Ouch! 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Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 (edited) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-24.html """So, let’s say someone puts Core i5-2500K and FX-8150 in front of you. The Core i5 costs $220 bucks, and the FX runs $245. Which one do you buy? If it’s me, I’m going with the Core i5. I gave the -2500K a Tom’s Hardware Recommended Buy award back in January, and I stick by that recommendation almost a year later."" this thing is a failure. Edited October 12, 2011 by Wabbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 sorry wabbit but fuck reading all that, wanna give a conclusionary paragragh to some it up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 """So, let’s say someone puts Core i5-2500K and FX-8150 in front of you. The Core i5 costs $220 bucks, and the FX runs $245. Which one do you buy? If it’s me, I’m going with the Core i5. I gave the -2500K a Tom’s Hardware Recommended Buy award back in January, and I stick by that recommendation almost a year later."" AMD fail with this CPU. Even AMD fans that were waiting for Bulldozer are going to Intel after this Reviews. Guru3d, tomshardware they all say this is a bad CPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.jiggles Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Disappointing kinda sad im not really that much of an i3, i5, and i7 fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RetiredTacos Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 The bulldozer is a great CPU if you're on an AM3+ chipset and are seeking more oomph. It's not a bad chip, not sure what the fuss is all about. More cores does not = better performance though (4 is plenty right now) With that said, from purely a gaming perspective, an i5 2500k will be the better buy if you're building from scratch. It's nice to have options, I'd like to have one just to play with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 The bulldozer is a great CPU if you're on an AM3+ chipset and are seeking more oomph. It's not a bad chip, not sure what the fuss is all about. More cores does not = better performance though (4 is plenty right now) With that said, from purely a gaming perspective, an i5 2500k will be the better buy if you're building from scratch. It's nice to have options, I'd like to have one just to play with. I think the issue at hand is here , technology is too far ahead of its time. By the time we really need 8 physical cores (at least at the rate people are optimizing for this many) there will be a strong more refined version of AMDs/Intels offerings, which is really the issue here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyHorse Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 I'm dissapointed with these new cpus to say the least. I was hoping if anything they would be able to match the gaming performance of the 2500k. Oh well, guess i'll be rethinking my choices now. Hopefully AMD will realize that the majority of support for their products is from gaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 I'm dissapointed with these new cpus to say the least. I was hoping if anything they would be able to match the gaming performance of the 2500k. Oh well, guess i'll be rethinking my choices now. Hopefully AMD will realize that the majority of support for their products is from gaming. i think AMD made this chips for Servers, instead of gaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F34rTheV3n0m Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 So, which combination would be better? The new Bulldozer 8150 + nvidia GTX 580 vs intel i5-2500k + nvidia GTX 570 Combo's price are equal to each other In gaming, which would be better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wabbit Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 2500k and 570, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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