In defense of "Bulldozer"

[Rifter]

You know what, im pulling a IDC here, im done with this discussion. If you want to live in fantasy land and ignore 90% of the reviews posted on the net and get in battles over semantics and misrepresent infomation go ahead but i can actually read the benchmarks and will not be participating.

 

[Edrick]

The only reason I picked the x264 2nd pass benchmark is because that is where the power figures are derived from.

No. You picked that benchmark because that is one of the very few where BD actually doesn't look as bad as it is.

 

[RussianSensation]

HAHAHHA! It's always hilarious when people say the pc's day is over. I've been hearing it for about 10 years now. Sure a ipad is cool, but who wants to sit and type alot on one, how many files will it store? Will it run a game that requires any horsepower? Will it do hardcore photo editing? Will it run proprietary business software or databases? The answer to ALL of these is pretty obvious.

:thumbsup:

The "analysts" first presented the argument that netbooks will soon cannibalize laptops because they were far cheaper and yet fast enough. Fast forward 3-4 years later and no one cares about netbooks. It was a fad that thankfully died quickly.

The same "analysts" now claim that smartphones and tablets are cannibalizing PC sales. But take a look at Apple's revenue:

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/21852

While iPad and iPhone sales are growing much faster than the Macs, the Mac line-up continues to see increasing sales. In most cases, smartphones and tablets are complimentary to a desktop/laptop. They may have substituted a desktop or laptop for some users, but the majority of people do not view them as completely replacements for desktops/laptops. Perhaps the "analysts" will get it right one day.

I'd love to see the same analysts throw their desktops and laptops into the trash and just build their forecast models in Excel and write research reports on an iPad and their smartphones. I want to see how long it will take before they get frustrated at the lack of usability of these devices for real life work!

 

[drizek]

There was nothing good said about it, to be sure.

The point is that there's nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade, and any exaggerations therein, especially in a CPU enthusiast forum, are almost always recognized as such without someone defending against them.

But Prescott had no redeeming qualities. There are a couple of good reasons to cut AMD some slack.

First, Prescott was just a northwood with a longer pipeline and worse performance. AMD did not mess up Thuban, they went back to square one and released a whole new architecture. Bulldozer has a lot more in common with Willamette than with Prescott.

Second, Prescott was a cynical marketing-driven insult to consumers. Bulldozer actually represents AMD's best effort, and the design seems to be sound. Nobody had anything bad to say about Bulldozer when all we had to go on were hotchips presentations.

Oh, and third, Bulldozer has excellent idle power consumption. Prescott... well, Intel had to invent BTX to prevent it from overheating.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'd just personally wait until revision 2 or 3 to start throwing 'flop' around. People gave Intel a decent amount of time to work on P4. By my recollection the Intel hating didn't get this bad until Athlon 64s showed up. Again, I partly blame AMD marketing for abusing the FX name and hyping the "eight" cores but really not that different than Intel's hyping of the GIGAHERTZ.

Yes, but AMD didn't have a great cpu out that made the original p4 look like the absolute turd that it really was. BD probably has potential, but while AMD is turning it into the cpu that they wanted it to be, intel will continue with incremental improvements to SB/IB/Haswell/etc etc.

I have a feeling that pretty soon this will be a moot point as AMD announces their new ceo...Larry Ellison.

 

[bryanW1995]

Anand's testing reveals FX-8150 beating Phenom II 1100T most of the time.

Yes, but it runs at higher clock speeds, and even then it only beats it "most of the time". Also, it puts out more heat than a G type star (estimate).

 

[Vesku]

Yes, but AMD didn't have a great cpu out that made the original p4 look like the absolute turd that it really was. BD probably has potential, but while AMD is turning it into the cpu that they wanted it to be, intel will continue with incremental improvements to SB/IB/Haswell/etc etc.

I have a feeling that pretty soon this will be a moot point as AMD announces their new ceo...Larry Ellison.

Original Athlon is part of the reason people were skeptical of P4 to begin with. Did many tasks better.

 

[exar333]

Yes, but AMD didn't have a great cpu out that made the original p4 look like the absolute turd that it really was. BD probably has potential, but while AMD is turning it into the cpu that they wanted it to be, intel will continue with incremental improvements to SB/IB/Haswell/etc etc.

I have a feeling that pretty soon this will be a moot point as AMD announces their new ceo...Larry Ellison.

How is Haswel incremental? It may be the most ambitious Intel CPU in many years.

 

[jhu]

How is Haswel incremental? It may be the most ambitious Intel CPU in many years.

No, I think that title goes to Itanium.

 

[dx11101]

Bad economy and good competition is good for cheap CPU's. AMD's aggressive pricing got me a i5 2500k for $200 and you can have a 8 core cpu that can run anything imaginable for 250 big ones. Even if its not a clear slice between the i5 and the i7.

Even if AMD launches mid-range non-enthusiast flagship products we still need them to keep trying and competing in the market.

If bulldozer was an Intel killer like the Athlon x2 it would be launching above $300 dollars anyways. After all, the lowest end Athlon x2 (when AMD had intel cornered) launched at $450...or was it $500?

 

[Dresdenboy]

Yes, but it runs at higher clock speeds, and even then it only beats it "most of the time". Also, it puts out more heat than a G type star (estimate).

Just a comment on the comment on the wording: In the past it was enough for a K8 to beat its competitor only most of the time?

 

[Dresdenboy]

How is Haswel incremental? It may be the most ambitious Intel CPU in many years.

Yep. Be prepared...

 

[Tazmonian]

Just a comment on the comment on the wording: In the past it was enough for a K8 to beat its competitor only most of the time?

Except the 1100T isn't a competitor, it's a predecessor.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Except the 1100T isn't a competitor, it's a predecessor.

Hi, welcome to the forum. Thank you for your insightful response.

The wording implied a comparison. This is fulfilled by using two different microarchitectures of the same or of different vendors.

 

[Keysplayr]

All hail the new sport. Extreme Semantics covered live by ESPN!

Seriously though. Speak plainly.

 

[bononos]

.......

The chart in the andandtech article where FX-8150 uses more power than the 1100T is one of the few tests which actually stress all 8 cores. It's also a test where the FX-8150 solidly beats the 1100T.

Then there are tests where the FX-8150 is limited to a single thread in which it loses to the 1100T.

The point is you can't take a worst case power situation and assume the power usage will be the same across all tests, as this is easily proven false. I challenge anyone to produce a benchmark in which the FX-8150 uses more power and also loses against the 1100T in performance. Such a benchmark doesn't exist.

Here is what actually occurs-
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,3043-22.html
and
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,3043-12.html
FX-8150 wins, uses same power.

I was the one who posted bulldozer runs slower and hotter than its predecessors earlier. After more checking I have a more nuanced interpretation of bulldozer's performance. It's definitely not significantly slower than Thuban/Deneb but also not consistently faster, and not quite as much faster than I was hoping for in multithreaded apps and on rare occasions even slower (multithreaded)!

In terms of power consumption vs 1100T, techreport says peak power consumption in cinebench 11.5 for bulldozer is higher (209W v 198W), xbitlabs tests using LinX says bulldozer's power consumption is lower(120.4 v 132.1), lostcircuits loading with truespace shows bulldozer is slower (110 vs 135) and also runs hotter (115.2W vs 92W).

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...sk=view&id=102&Itemid=42&limit=1&limitstart=9

 

[bononos]

....

 

[zsdersw]

But Prescott had no redeeming qualities.

Neither does Bulldozer.

There are a couple of good reasons to cut AMD some slack.

No there aren't.

First, Prescott was just a northwood with a longer pipeline and worse performance. AMD did not mess up Thuban, they went back to square one and released a whole new architecture. Bulldozer has a lot more in common with Willamette than with Prescott.

That doesn't help your case. Williamette had no redeeming qualities either.

Second, Prescott was a cynical marketing-driven insult to consumers. Bulldozer actually represents AMD's best effort, and the design seems to be sound. Nobody had anything bad to say about Bulldozer when all we had to go on were hotchips presentations.

Wrong. Prescott didn't live up to the marketing hype, and neither does Bulldozer.

Oh, and third, Bulldozer has excellent idle power consumption. Prescott... well, Intel had to invent BTX to prevent it from overheating.

Wrong. They didn't have to invent BTX... Prescott lived on and thrived almost exclusively in ATX and even many SFF designs.

Wrong. Bulldozer's power consumption, either at idle or load, is not "excellent" compared to both its Intel and existing AMD competition.

 

[Chiropteran]

Yes, but it runs at higher clock speeds, and even then it only beats it "most of the time". Also, it puts out more heat than a G type star (estimate).

The i5-2500k performs better than my old 386 most of the time, but it runs at higher clock speeds, and puts out about 100X more heat. Progress sucks

No. You picked that benchmark because that is one of the very few where BD actually doesn't look as bad as it is.

Yeah okay, I'll just pick one of the other benchmarks Anandtech measured power on... oh wait, there aren't any.

In terms of power consumption vs 1100T, techreport says peak power consumption in cinebench 11.5 for bulldozer is higher (209W v 198W), xbitlabs tests using LinX says bulldozer's power consumption is lower(120.4 v 132.1), lostcircuits loading with truespace shows bulldozer is slower (110 vs 135) and also runs hotter (115.2W vs 92W).

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...sk=view&id=102&Itemid=42&limit=1&limitstart=9

I'm not sure what I am supposed to see here. I see higher power consumption, but I don't see the worse performance- I don't see any performance figures for this test. I am not about to read through the entire review to find it either.

 

[Edrick]

How is Haswel incremental? It may be the most ambitious Intel CPU in many years.

I also think this will be the case. 2013 can not get here soon enough for me

 

[Edrick]

Oh, and third, Bulldozer has excellent idle power consumption. Prescott... well, Intel had to invent BTX to prevent it from overheating

I think it would be very hard, even for AMD, to make a CPU on 32nm process that does not have good idle power consumption. Especially when comparing to Prescott.

 

[TemjinGold]

I'm not sure what I am supposed to see here. I see higher power consumption, but I don't see the worse performance- I don't see any performance figures for this test. I am not about to read through the entire review to find it either.

You were linked to page 10. Look at the charts on pages 11-12.

 

[bryanW1995]

Just a comment on the comment on the wording: In the past it was enough for a K8 to beat its competitor only most of the time?

BD wouldn't be a failure if it beat i7 2600k "most of the time", or if it wasn't just too power hungry to compare to 2500k, but I was comparing it to x6. If BD isn't "better enough" to convince me to upgrade even my 1055t, what are people with an 1100t going to do?

edit: So you're saying that 1100t is the intended competitor instead of Sandy Bridge? That just doesn't make sense. 1100t is EOL, it's only reason for existing at all is that AMD wasn't able to get BD out in a timely manner. That's like saying that gtx 480's competition was gtx 280.

 

[bryanW1995]

The i5-2500k performs better than my old 386 most of the time, but it runs at higher clock speeds, and puts out about 100X more heat. Progress sucks

Very insightful. If BD was being compared to your old 386 then it probably wouldn't be considered quite as much of a failure.

 

[TemjinGold]

Something tells me if AMD would've called the 4-module BD a quad core instead of an 8-core, a lot of this wouldn't have been an issue. For one thing, we wouldn't be comparing it to Thuban, which it is clearly inferior to given the price points.