Official AMD FX Bulldozer review thread!

[Bah!]

Originally Posted by Dazz

(1)When you think about it, it is a leap forward and gives the opportunity for software developers to work with it but when it does become more stream line their competitor will jump on the bandwagon and don’t need to worry about these problems.

(2)As now everyone thinks it’s a 8 core their expectations are off. If you consider it as a Quad core with 8 treads does it look so bad?

1) Unfortunately for AMD, it won't become mainstream unless Intel wants it to. AMD doesn't have enough market share to say what will and won't catch on without having an amazing performing chip, which this isn't.

2) It doesn't matter what you consider it, it looks bad. People weren't expecting more from it because of the extra cores, they were expecting more because it's supposed to be better than what is already available, and it's not.

[Shamrock]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...-Threaded-Perf

DGLee is onto something. Asus has even given him a new BIOS to try out. Disabling 4 core modules, in some cases, gives +20% performance.

He also thinks that if you have Windows recognize the cores in odd and even order(cores 0,2,4,6, then 1,3,5,7) it will be faster, but in current form, the cores are read in order. 1-8.

[K007]

Originally Posted by Shamrock

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...-Threaded-Perf

DGLee is onto something. Asus has even given him a new BIOS to try out. Disabling 4 core modules, in some cases, gives +20% performance.

He also thinks that if you have Windows recognize the cores in odd and even order(cores 0,2,4,6, then 1,3,5,7) it will be faster, but in current form, the cores are read in order. 1-8.

nice

[Dazz]

I think it is quite interesting currently windows assigns treads to each core preventing turbo from kicking in properly and windows 8 will load the first cores then parking the others to allow turbo to kick in. So there are two ways. 20% single treaded performance increase does put it well past a Phenom II and into the Bloomfield performance range, still no Sandy. It does give an option for gamers however and means overclocking and tweaking is there but a lot more difficult compared to Intel’s brute force way. I think i might get a 8120 and play with it. By disabling the 4 cores power consumption should drop dramatically. From what Toms hardware with Windows 8 now parking cores idle power consumption is only slightly higher than a Sandy bridge.

[Rollo]

We should all thank AMD for showing us the way, disabling half the cores and running a software patch is clearly the way to go.

They are visionaries.

[Viral]

Nothing unexpected there, only the performance loss/gain is more than it should be due to the cache issues causing thrashing. Dedicate the caches to just one core and suddenly the cache thrashing isn't so bad.

[Dazz]

It may be possible, people have tested thus far by disabling core, 2,4,6,8 this way they are not sharing the work load and in turn performance suffering. Now in windows 8 it will be entirely possible as it will be forcing as my treads into the first cores and deactivate the other ones, so in games it will play great then when using high treaded programs the last cores could be turned on when needed. It’s interesting but at the same time complicated and clearly not ideal for people who have technophobia.

Thinking about it, it could be possible, games typically have two very large treads, so allowing the first 2 cores to run at their full speed and the others can help out when needed, so disabling core 2 & 4 would help games as they no longer saturate the two primary cores while the others could help out in heavily multi treaded applications and the remaining treads from games. In doing this you won't have 6 core treaded performance but 5 core but games performance will be up.

Originally Posted by Rollo

We should all thank AMD for showing us the way, disabling half the cores and running a software patch is clearly the way to go.

They are visionaries.

Sometimes you need to take a step back before you can take one forward. Sooner or later Intel will need to go down this route, it's just AMD took it sooner then expected.

On the plus side dispite disabling some of the cores you are not loosing the cache so there is more cache available to the CPU's.

[Johnny C]

Originally Posted by Shamrock

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...-Threaded-Perf

DGLee is onto something. Asus has even given him a new BIOS to try out. Disabling 4 core modules, in some cases, gives +20% performance.

He also thinks that if you have Windows recognize the cores in odd and even order(cores 0,2,4,6, then 1,3,5,7) it will be faster, but in current form, the cores are read in order. 1-8.

Wait for a couple months and see what takes place. The I had a Phenom 9850 o/c it to 3.0ghz and I was very happy with it. I then upgraded to a 965BE o/c'd to 3.9 and I'm also very happy with it.

3 months down the road when the 8170 is out and they have had some time to update some config settting, we may see these cpu's as a viable alternative.

I can't help by thinking AMD's slogan right now is "The future is Fusion" maybe that's the basket in which they've placed their eggs....and these multi module processors are strictly a server product adapted to desktop usage in a half assed manner.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Johnny C

Wait for a couple months and see what takes place. The I had a Phenom 9850 o/c it to 3.0ghz and I was very happy with it. I then upgraded to a 965BE o/c'd to 3.9 and I'm also very happy with it.

3 months down the road when the 8170 is out and they have had some time to update some config settting, we may see these cpu's as a viable alternative.

I can't help by thinking AMD's slogan right now is "The future is Fusion" maybe that's the basket in which they've placed their eggs....and these multi module processors are strictly a server product adapted to desktop usage in a half assed manner.

Aren't heat and power consumption always a concern with servers?

These chips are fail on all fronts.

No supporting them has been able to put forth a reason to buy one other than "AMD makes them!" or "With the magic patch, they might get better!".

My prediction is AMD loses desktop and server market share over the next six months based on these stinkers.

[Dazz]

The server parts will be far more energy efficent as their clock speeds are not as high so less voltage. As servers they may not be allways at 100% load so the ability to turn modules off will help too and they can specifiy what TDP they use so THEY can control the heat and power consumption.

[Shamrock]

Originally Posted by slaWter

Yeah real nice! Disabling "cores" is definitely the way to go after buying a new CPU!
This gets better by the day, good job AMD

Just poking in your fanboi shot before even reading I see? You should actually be rooting this guy on, because if AMD does go bankrupt, how much you think you will pay for ONE Intel CPU?

Now, just to let you know WHY it works.

You disable the modules, and you can share their cache among the other 4 cores. This only works in single threads.

Furthermore, you totally missed my comment about DGLee saying if you just re-arrange the cores to 0,2,4,6 and 1,3,5,7 you can manage the same performance. Windows 7 can't currently do this (it can for hyperthreading, though), and assigns affinity in succession. It will be known soon whether it works or not, Asus gave him the new bios to test.

[Ninja Prime]

Originally Posted by Rollo

Aren't heat and power consumption always a concern with servers?

These chips are fail on all fronts.

No supporting them has been able to put forth a reason to buy one other than "AMD makes them!" or "With the magic patch, they might get better!".

My prediction is AMD loses desktop and server market share over the next six months based on these stinkers.

You're way off rollo. These will be fine in the server market, probably they might even increase share. Desktop looks like its gonna suck until they release a new revision. The thing about clock speed is it isn't linear with power/heat. Going from 75% max clock to peak clock usually is a 50% increase in power useage. No one with a brain really buys top end clocked processors for a server, you buy a ton of lower clocked cores.

I would guess, server/HPC wise, AMD does fine, which is where all their money comes from anyway. They don't make crap off the desktop market.