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AMD FX-8150, FX Series Review - Bulldozer makes debut

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On October 11, 2011, 11:00 PM Breaking News

AMD has continued to improve the Phenom II range to this day, with the Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition leading the charge for the quad-cores, and the six-core Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition remaining as the flagship offering. The Phenom II has had to deal with the Intel Core i7 on multiple platforms, as well as the Core i5 and Core i3 processors, for almost 3 years now.

After all this time, is the pain finally coming to an end for AMD? A code-name has been tossed around for years now that is meant to do exactly that, that name is Bulldozer. Today AMD is launching its new FX processor lineup comprised of the flagship FX-8150 along with the FX-8120, FX-6100 and FX-4170 processors.

The fastest of the bunch, the FX-8150 will retail for $245, making it 20+% cheaper than the popular Sandy Bridge-based Core i7-2600K. Keep reading as we explore the inner details of AMD's new FX series and we benchmark all four new processors being launched today.

Read the complete review.

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User Comments: 172

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  1. Uh huh. quadfire helps Photoshop performance ? Secret bitcoin miner ? looking for E.T. ?

    :P I mean that if I get one, it wont be for gaming gains....Hmmm I think four 6970's may be able to power the the [link]

    Hey!, You should have said something- I'd never had guessed

    Good...your paying attention

    Unless you're planning of using TrueCrypt and a handful of other favourable apps., a 2600K will get you there faster and cooler -As would a FirePro card or two. Just sayin'.

    Indeed!, but very difficult to game @ 5400 x 1920 on a fire pro...it's a multi purpose machine ya know.

    I'm thinking you aren't the only one in that particular boat. Cutting and running (esp. with a pricey mobo) would be rather expensive.

    It is , but this thing with an 1100T at 4.3Ghz moves along very nicely and with the threaded stuff i use and Gaming, it holds its own (see your last point for the rest)

    It's an upgrade from the 1100T

    Yup.....barely

    Its a bit better than that, but not enough.

    Originally Posted by red1776

    *****you don't strike as the kind of guy to use "rockin"****

    I'm not. But don't forget that I have an eidetic memory

    I know

    Anyone else I would not expect that level of recall from from, but I actually wondered if you were off finding the SKYSTAR quote! ROFL

    Point 4 I see as the main reason for going BD...and that's less a choice than being backed into a course of action by some less than scupulous "leaks", forum posts, "white papers", slide decks and AMD presentations...and that is the crux of matter as far as I'm concerned. BD in of itself is not a complete fail by any means -although it fails in every reasonable metric I would value as an "upgrade"- it's the manipulation and deceit that has boxed a fairly sizeable percentage of enthusiasts into either 1. No upgrade path, or 2. An upgrade path which is barely worthy of the name....unless you of the opinion that AMD only just very suddenly realized that the CPU's weren't where they should be performance wise.

    How long exactly have AMD known that the CPU wasn't going to meet performance estimates- six months? a year ? AMD have had BD in house for at least a year, and I've never seen any financial conference call, blog, post or announcement from AMD guiding performance down, if anything they've been talking the performance up - a large chunk of their review slide deck has it beating an Intel hexcore ffs.

    This is what pisses me off. with your recall abilities you probably remember that I said I like cutting edge tech and will take the gamble...or something very close to that, so shame on me. however they knew a very long time ago that this thing was going to be a generation behind in it's first offering if not 'unfix-able' period. I have hung in there long after the now mythical PP ratio was gone, all the time having the means and ability to plug in an Intel platform in hopes of competition, performance, and specifically this core.Only to get 4 years of bullshit slides and benchmarks. I do contend that this thing will probably fit me specifically very well, but i have a unique machine and unique uses (Hi-res gaming and mostly heavily threaded applications) and that at best is just a happy coincidence. I will most likely plug a 8150/8120 in this thing and OC the living hell out of it in the interest of not having a $300 MB collect dust, but that is about it for me and AMD CPU's.

    ...one more time, shame on me.

  2. ...one more time, shame on me.

    Not really, or at least, not totally.

    AMD are well aware that brand allegience is close to being hardwired into some people- all they did was cash in their good-will chips with the enthusiast community. AMD will be banking on a percentage of their followers having very short memories and will seed forums with the underdog mentality and 99% will buy into the Piledriver message. I give it two weeks before gossip sites start seeding the net with feelgood stories about Globalfoundries "improved yields" and some snippets on how great Trinity is looking.

    The only ones who have burnt their bridges are the forum plants/shills -but it's a relatively easy task to reinvent yourself on the net.

    Good luck with the BD upgrade - you can offset me, as I won't be recommending AMD CPU's to anyone for the foreseeable future - I'll leave the green camp to work their Business psychology 101 implementation on others.

  3. Good luck with the BD upgrade - you can offset me, as I won't be recommending AMD CPU's to anyone for the foreseeable future - I'll leave the green camp to work their Business psychology 101 implementation on others.

    but that is about it for me and AMD CPU's.

    I will offset you on this chip only, I see all blue in my shop for a while.

    It certainly hasn't been painful from a business standpoint. Unless you need a machine that is carrying out 'mostly 'integer' based operations as it were, you can build great high performing machine with AMD. It is probably closer to the truth that AMD cant...or won't be put out of business. Intel would be getting sued to high heaven over collusion based lawsuits on a weekly basis. It seems AMD's R&D dept knows this, and operating in this manner. It has been the case that I 'buy Intel' and I 'support' AMD when I purchase CPU's. That is the end of that philosophy. Unfortunately, I think I am among very few changing their purchasing ideal. The stories i am reading point to these things flying of the shelves. KitGuru had a story that hailed Bulldozer as a "PR Victory' , so they really don't have to compete it seems.

    I started thinking this was maybe going sideways in earnest when the last month or so had more PR about Piledriver/vishera/trinity than for the eminent release. Now I have to curb my gag reflex and get to Micro-center for a cookie tin with a CPU in it.

  4. AMD should make a 32nm of the 4 core Phenom 980 BE it would be twice as fast as this crap.

  5. holy bias batman and fanboi heaven?!

    Look at the all the game minimum frame rates. Look at the mutlithreaded performance. Look at the Cinebench CPU [NOTE-->CPU] scores - not the openGL scores - were testing a CPU here folks! And the OC? Go to Legit reviews and see their 4.9 on ALC. After you rinse all the bullshit and bias out of this review and clean the crap off everything you guys shat all over it doesn't look too bad. A tad overpriced maybe, but that 4170 looks like it stomped pretty good - not sure what you all were looking at ... it's no Intel killer but it works not too bad once you look at it through unbiased eyes.

  6. holy bias batman and fanboi heaven?!

    Look at the all the game minimum frame rates. Look at the mutlithreaded performance. Look at the Cinebench CPU [NOTE-->CPU] scores - not the openGL scores - were testing a CPU here folks! And the OC? Go to Legit reviews and see their 4.9 on ALC. After you rinse all the bullshit and bias out of this review and clean the crap off everything you guys shat all over it doesn't look too bad. A tad overpriced maybe, but that 4170 looks like it stomped pretty good - not sure what you all were looking at ... it's no Intel killer but it works not too bad once you look at it through unbiased eyes.

    From Hardware Canucks:

    [link]

    [image link]

    ...maybe I read this wrong. The red numbers are AMD right?

  7. AMD, "our eight cores can equal Intel's four." Well not really--not clock for clock. And it's not really eight cores, it's four 'modules.' Priced too high and uses too much power. Some reviewers must have got all two billion of those transmitter (not resisters--an error in the review here) switched on. Power consumption has dethroned netburst.

  8. Like someone said, the real looser here is the consumer. Too bad.

  9. Ha hahahahaaa

    Intel guy's u r sick...None of u even used AMD & probably not. The truth is u guy's r really became angry for the FX's new challenge & that's why u r commenting like this.

    And this site posted their so called performance measurements actually goes for Intel..It is intentionally... Guy's have a life, don't pissed of yourself

  10. Ha hahahahaaa

    Intel guy's u r sick...None of u even used AMD & probably not. The truth is u guy's r really became angry for the FX's new challenge & that's why u r commenting like this.

    And this site posted their so called performance measurements actually goes for Intel..It is intentionally... Guy's have a life, don't pissed of yourself

    ....Meanwhile, after giggling and babbling incoherently, Grandpa falls unconscious in a ditch near the edge of town...

  11. He looks too young to be a Grandpa...

    [image link]

    Meanwhile...idiocy seems to communicable...

    [image link]

    Bulldozer and X58 - gonna be fun trying to get that to POST

  12. ...maybe I read this wrong. The red numbers are AMD right?

    Unfortunately yes, after reading this review depression started setting in. The review over on guru3d shows the FX-8150 benchmarked at 4.6GHz which casts it in a bit better light. The overclocked performance is more or less what I expected at stock speeds.

    Appears to be a paper launch at this point, newegg had it listed yesterday but they were gone in a heartbeat.

  13. this is EPIC FAIL for amd, there was so much hype about bulldozer. They shud stop making cpu's and only focus on gpu's.

  14. There's really no reason to spaz over the fact that AMD couldn't beat the i7-2600k. We all know they're a bit behind Intel, but that doesn't really matter to most people. All the money is in the mainstream market, and AMD only needs to be competitive in pricing to get it's slice of that cake. Still, if you pair AMD's best new CPU and GPU, you got one hell of a gaming rig!

  15. AMD fu<ked up due to this horrible performance in overall and Especially in gaming, so rest in peace amd, nobody wants to buy this piece of shit ,

    excellent architecture = excellent performance = ( intel i5 and i7 and sandy bridge series)

    bad architecture = bad performance = (AMD bulldozer )

    see this link it is really very funny Comparison :

    [link]

  16. Unfortunately yes, after reading this review depression started setting in. The review over on guru3d shows the FX-8150 benchmarked at 4.6GHz which casts it in a bit better light. The overclocked performance is more or less what I expected at stock speeds.

    Appears to be a paper launch at this point, newegg had it listed yesterday but they were gone in a heartbeat.

    You know I was kidding right?

    You would be surprised, Check out the reviews @ KitGuru, Legitimate, Hardware Heaven etc

    [image link]

    ...I mean is it just me?

    Appears to be a paper launch at this point, newegg had it listed yesterday but they were gone in a heartbeat

    Maybe not, KG says that it is selling hand over fist.

    [link]

  17. this is really an EPIC failure for amd after a long wait , rest in peace amd , nobody wants to buy this piece of shit.

    nothing to say than :

    excellent architecture = excellent performance = ( intel i5 and i7 and sandy bridge series)

    bad architecture = bad performance = (AMD bulldozer )

  18. Perhaps I've over reacted to the initial volley of reviews, but was expecting a bit more. Granted, when overclocked to 4.6GHz or above the numbers look a lot better. What I've seen so far ranges from 4.4GHz up to 5GHz with 4.6~7GHz being fairly typical. Will keep checking reviews to see if 4.6GHz and above is the norm in which case I'll likely reconsider. As you know, I just built a new system specifically for Bulldozer and it would be a 5 minute job to pop one in so it's still tempting.

  19. Perhaps I've over reacted to the initial volley of reviews, but was expecting a bit more. Granted, when overclocked to 4.6GHz or above the numbers look a lot better. What I've seen so far ranges from 4.4GHz up to 5GHz with 4.6~7GHz being fairly typical. Will keep checking reviews to see if 4.6GHz and above is the norm in which case I'll likely reconsider. As you know, I just built a new system specifically for Bulldozer and it would be a 5 minute job to pop one in so it's still tempting.

    Oh I wasn't propping them up mind you. I was just surprised to see all the favorable reviews myself. Yeah you and I are in the same boat P. i am going to hold my nose and get a 8150P nd OC the hell out of it, but only because i don't want my $300 mb purchase to sit in the corner.

  20. I think if I was you Mizzou I'd throw one in, and enjoy the performance your H100 will hopefully give you.

  21. 51 mins ago SKYSTAR said;

    AMD fu<ked up due to this horrible performance in overall and Especially in gaming, so rest in peace amd, nobody wants to buy this piece of **** ,

    excellent architecture = excellent performance = ( intel i5 and i7 and sandy bridge series)

    bad architecture = bad performance = (AMD bulldozer )

    see this link it is really very funny Comparison :

    [link]

    33 Minutes ago SKYSTAR said:

    this is really an EPIC failure for amd after a long wait , rest in peace amd , nobody wants to buy this piece of ****.

    nothing to say than :

    excellent architecture = excellent performance = ( intel i5 and i7 and sandy bridge series)

    bad architecture = bad performance = (AMD bulldozer )

    Geezus SKY, we get it. Care to say something original or useful?

    BTW, of all the reasons to ***** about CPU, you Picked exactly the one reason not to

    horrible performance in overall and Especially in gaming,

    WTF are you babbling about? the gaming numbers are ...

    1) the same as the intels

    2) The CPU is much less relevant at any decent resolution.

    [link]

    [link]

    [link]

    [link]

    [link]

    http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1741/14/

  22. I think Skystar is trying to suggest BD is crap. He's being very subtle though, so not sure if I'm wrong in my assumption of his comments.......

  23. I think Skystar is trying to suggest BD is crap. He's being very subtle though, so not sure if I'm wrong in my assumption of his comments.......

    I think your stealth powers of perception are spot on fireman

  24. Well that's just toasty then - clearly not losing my touch!

  25. I think if I was you Mizzou I'd throw one in, and enjoy the performance your H100 will hopefully give you.

    Sounds like a plan ... 5GHz or flames

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