Three AMD FX-Series CPUs get listed for pre-order

[Jos]

We're still waiting an official launch date for AMD's FX-Series processors, but over the weekend the first three models went up for pre-order at online retailer Shopblt.com. The chips in question include the six-core FX-6100 and two eight-core models, the FX-8120 and FX-8150, priced at $189, $222, and $269 respectively. That's lower than the previously rumored $300-$320 for AMD's top FX processor, and that price might even drop a bit more as pre-order prices are normally higher than launch prices.

By comparison, the Intel Core i7 2600 and 2600K are currently selling for $300 and $315. The FX-8150 is meant to compete with Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processors on the upper end of the market, but if the significantly lower price is any indication it's unlikely that AMD is going to beat Intel's chip in many situations.

In terms of specs the two eight-core processors feature 8MB of L2, 8MB of L3 cache and same 125W TDP. The faster FX-8150 is clocked at 3.6GHz, going up to 4.2GHz when Turbo Core kicks in, while the FX-8120 ticks at 3.1GHz with a Turbo Core frequency of up to 4GHz. As for the FX-6100, the six-core chip offers speeds between 3.3GHz and 3.9GHz, has 6MB of L2 cache, 8MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 95W.

Last week the company announced it had begun shipping Bulldozer-based Opteron processors for servers, including a 16-core variant, and that the first systems carrying the new chips would arrive next quarter. Their desktop counterparts were supposed to launch in Q3 2011 with the FX Series but the company is now saying these will launch in Q4.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/45431-three-amd-fx-series-cpus-get-listed-for-pre-order.html

 

[Guest]

FX8120 vs. 2500k. 4 Core vs. 8 Core. So basically AMD is a no show on a per core basis trying to market more slow cores. What happened since A64 days when IPC was prioritized? Sad, sad day for me as an AMD fan.

 

[SKYSTAR]

finally we will see the power of the AMD FX-Series

 

[Guest]

Well, 8 cores and 16 mb of cache for $222 is pretty impressive to me.

 

[Vrmithrax]

Guest said:
FX8120 vs. 2500k. 4 Core vs. 8 Core. So basically AMD is a no show on a per core basis trying to market more slow cores. What happened since A64 days when IPC was prioritized? Sad, sad day for me as an AMD fan.

It's not that black and white. The FX8120 has 4 of AMD's dual core modules, making for 8 logical cores in practice. So, in that respect, it's 8 core vs 8 core. But, we'll have to see just how well AMD's philosophy on those dual-core modules (with their shared resources) translates into actual raw processing power. Once the benchmarks start flowing, we'll see if data bottlenecks keep the performance specs too low to be real competition to Intel's proven high performance.

 

[1977TA]

Guest said:
FX8120 vs. 2500k. 4 Core vs. 8 Core. So basically AMD is a no show on a per core basis trying to market more slow cores. What happened since A64 days when IPC was prioritized? Sad, sad day for me as an AMD fan.

Well that's being very negative mister. I'm pretty positive AMD and Intel don't develop CPU's to match each others hardware specs, just to see who has the better CPU. You're making it sound like the ole' MHZ battle from the old days.

We have so many options in regards to CPU's today. Now a days it comes down to a price/performance battle, the biggest bang for your buck. I'm being optimistic here, without any solid benchmarks it's hard to tell, but I think these new chips are going to be a much needed influx from AMD.

Pretty exciting! Show me the benchmarks!!

 

[Puiu]

Guest said:
FX8120 vs. 2500k. 4 Core vs. 8 Core. So basically AMD is a no show on a per core basis trying to market more slow cores. What happened since A64 days when IPC was prioritized? Sad, sad day for me as an AMD fan.

It's called SMT (simultaneous multithreading). It's AMD's response to Intel's multithreading: 4 cores/8threads; AMD has 8cores/8threads. Which one do you thinks is better (on paper at least, until we get some benchmarks)? Just research Bulldozer's architecture to see what they did.

 

[Guest]

I did research BD architecture many times.

2500k = 4 core / 4 threaded CPU, not 4C/8T as you put it. And HT for Intel barely adds much more than 10% performance on average.

As I see it, 2500k = 4 cores is being positioned against an 8-threaded FX8000 series from AMD. That only tells me 1 thing: AMD cannot compete unless they sell more cores at the same price. This means they will be slower in most modern applications since most apps outside of workstation/encoding/rendering apps do not at all support more than 4 threads.

If you revisit 1st generation i5/i7 processors, X6 was not all competitive in those outside of users who need more slow cores (very few people given AMD's market share). So throwing more slow cores isn't going to solve anything for AMD.

I guess I am going to have to buy an Intel system after 9 months of waiting. I hope the benchmarks prove me wrong.

 

[codefeenix]

FX-8150 will be closer to $250
FX-8120 " " $210
FX-6100 " " $180

 

[dividebyzero]

Never heard of Bottom Line Technologies before today. Judging by the amount of stock they carry (check desktop CPU's/boards), this seems more like a viral ad campaign and trawling for page views.

 

[captainawesome]

two things - anyone know how that opteron from the Bulldozer series benchmarks? and will I need to buy a new mobo for the BD FX series?

 

[stan4]

Bottom line? wtf

 

[Sarcasm]

Guest said:
I did research BD architecture many times.

2500k = 4 core / 4 threaded CPU, not 4C/8T as you put it. And HT for Intel barely adds much more than 10% performance on average.

As I see it, 2500k = 4 cores is being positioned against an 8-threaded FX8000 series from AMD. That only tells me 1 thing: AMD cannot compete unless they sell more cores at the same price. This means they will be slower in most modern applications since most apps outside of workstation/encoding/rendering apps do not at all support more than 4 threads.

If you revisit 1st generation i5/i7 processors, X6 was not all competitive in those outside of users who need more slow cores (very few people given AMD's market share). So throwing more slow cores isn't going to solve anything for AMD.

I guess I am going to have to buy an Intel system after 9 months of waiting. I hope the benchmarks prove me wrong.

You clearly already have your mind made up. Go ahead and spring up for an i7 2600k since it's so great.

As for Bulldozer, pricing will determine where it will be positioned. All we know is that no matter what, it will be faster than the Phenom II's core per core. And who honestly cares about number of cores when it really boils down to overall performance.

 

[Guest]

"You clearly already have your mind made up. Go ahead and spring up for an i7 2600k since it's so great."

Nah, I think I'll grab the faster clocked FX-4170. I want to support AMD. I'll probably spend another $100 for an SSD. I think this is better for the overall system speed than getting a $320 2600k + mechical drive.

 

[Sarcasm]

Guest said:
"You clearly already have your mind made up. Go ahead and spring up for an i7 2600k since it's so great."

Nah, I think I'll grab the faster clocked FX-4170. I want to support AMD. I'll probably spend another $100 for an SSD. I think this is better for the overall system speed than getting a $320 2600k + mechical drive.

I think that's probably the best thing to do at this point is to wait for the 8170 in Q1 2012. That's probably going to be my route since I already have an AM3+ board.

I almost pulled the trigger on an i7 2600K last month, but I figured I'd just upgrade my AM3 board to AM3+ and use my old Phenom 965BE and then upgrade to Bulldozer so I'm stuck on that path now.

But if I can do it all over again, I'd probably end up waiting for Ivy Bridge whenever that is.

 

[Sarcasm]

This caught my attention.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Bulldozer-Processor-hits-8429-GHz-New-World-Record

"We achieved clock frequencies well above 5GHz using only air or sub-$100 water cooling solutions."

Sure it might not end up competing with sandy bridge, but i'll take an almost 5ghz 8-core processor over my 3.75ghz 965BE anyday.

 

[Guest]

You can also overclock SB to 5.0-5.2ghz if you bump the voltage to 1.5V-1.6V. However, such overclocking is not realistic for 24/7 operation. Without knowing what voltage it took for them to reach 5.0ghz, we still don't know if that's anything special.

Also, since SB is around 40% faster per clock than Phenom II is, a 4.8-5.0ghz Bulldozer will still lose badly to the overclocked SB CPU. And that's not even taking into account the unbelievably low power consumption that SB CPUs have even when overclocked to 4.7-4.8ghz.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/11

Based on all the info swirling around, it looks me like Bulldozer is more of a workstation/rendering/encoding processor. But most people I know who encode video do so for a smartphone or tablet (something QuickSync is perfect for). So really, AMD once again will compete on price selling to niche consumers that care for 6-8 cores. I think their focus on such a heavily multi-core processor is way way too early in this generation. Personally, I think they should have focused on a fast 4-6 core CPU instead.

 

[Guest]

Just because the price is lower then SB does not mean it's not as good as SB. AMD could be under cutting the price so they can make up some ground that Intel has taken.

 

[SeiveD]

Guest said:
Also, since SB is around 40% faster per clock than Phenom II is, a 4.8-5.0ghz Bulldozer will still lose badly to the overclocked SB CPU.

Whose to say that a Bulldozer core isn't 40%+ faster per clock than a Phenom II? You sure as hell don't. How do I know this? You will find that the Dark Brotherhood knows a great many things. Er.. I mean.. Yes, it is _extremely_ unlikely that you have a Bulldozer sample to compare it with. Nor do you have any concrete benchmarks which to base this opinion on.

 

[Guest]

SeiveD,

What are you smoking? I want some of that.

If Bulldozer was to be 40% faster in performance per clock vs. Phenom II (i.e., ~ SB), than an 8 core variant with 3.6ghz clocks and 4.2ghz Turbo Boost would be MORE than 2x faster than a 2500k/2600k series. You expect AMD to bring out a CPU 2x faster than SB for <sub $300 pricing?

But the debate on this is already over anyway:

http://translate.google.com.my/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcoolaler.com%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D273646

FX-8120 can't even beat the Core i5-2400 at the same clocks.

 

[SeiveD]

I'm smoking facts. The analysis you linked to was a narrowly targeted, single sample. I'll wait until more places, ones that I know, come up with wider detailed analyses to make my determination. Also, each bulldozer "core" is not really a whole core, and until you can come here and tell me why, I don't care about anything you say. And last but not least, I never actually made claims of Bulldozer's performance. You did, and I called you out on it.