AMD - Bulldozer Chitchat

[watercooled]

If they're moving to a new socket it would make sense to add the 'pending' improvements like this. Integrated PCI-e would be nice to see too.

[Bagnaj97]

So quad channel just for servers, or AM4 on the horizon? Or both?

[DanceswithUnix]

AMD have had quad channel server sockets for quite a while for their dual die 12 core packages. The question there is if they are going to move to 8 channel 16 core socket.

As Intel now have a 4 channel socket, I think AMD have no choice but to follow in that arms race. Might only get them a few percent performance, but they need every drop they can get.

[DanceswithUnix]

Another statement of Trinity being "+25% CPU, +50% GPU" compared to Llano, but this time with more details. Apparently that is PC Mark & 3D mark at 35W.

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/i...-trinity-cores

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This made me chuckle:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1838/1/

[watercooled]

That really is something, and proves a lot TBH. Small differences in benchmark number are all well and good but do they really represent what the user will experience. It's the same for multi-GPU setups giving high FPS but micro-stutter can make the experience much less enjoyable in some scenarios.

[Pete301]

That article does make me lean towards Bulldozer for my next upgrade tbh . I would have loved to have tested out both and seen if I could tell any difference. I suppose benchmarks don't paint the whole picture.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What I find annoying is the distinct lack of reviews of the FX4100 and FX6100. Only one has bothered to try overclocking it(on both stock and aftermarket cooling) and it does not even look at power consumption or even overall overclocked performance. Only one! None of these reviews have bothered to go into any depth into overclocking and power consumption of the cheaper FX CPUs. Even the A6-3670K and A8-3870K did not get much of a look too and neither has the Phenom II X4 960T.

Amazon have the FX6100 at £105 and if the AMD £15 cashback is applicable it would be only £92! On OcUK it is applicable and I get the CPU for £93!! The FX4100 can be had had for just under £80 from many places with the £10 cashback.

But since there is dearth of overclocking reviews we cannot gauge overclocking performance and power consumption. The FX8100 series need decent cooling and have high power consumption but the same may not be true of the cheaper CPUs(they have lower 95W TDPs).

OTH,if you look at many forums the FX4100 seems to even overclock very well on the stock cooler(confirmed by the one review). However,since all the review websites seem obssessed with the FX8100 series,not many would know this.

All these websites seem obssessed by £125+ CPUs for some reason.

I have managed to find 4 detailed reviews for the FX4100 and FX6100:
http://forums.hexus.net/2266525-post3.html

When you look through the reviews and consider the new pricing the performance looks OK.

Of course,it would be nice to know if the Windows 7 improvements have helped with performance,but alas, none of the websites will be bothered with the higher volume parts.

[scaryjim]

I want to meet the 5 people who, in a blind test, said they prefered the i3 system over the A8 for gaming...

[watercooled]

Maybe some Intel fanboys intentionally voted for the system that didn't perform as well if they knew it was Llano vs i3? Besides that I can't see any reason it would be picked over 'don't know' if they really didn't see a difference?

[Biscuit]

maybe they didnt understand the question

[shaithis]

Or they were the kind of person who says "BF3 Runs perfect on my Ti4400"

Some people seem to have no perception of framerate.....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I want to meet the 5 people who, in a blind test, said they prefered the i3 system over the A8 for gaming...

They noticed the image "quality" and POWER of Intel IGPs.

[watercooled]

Not read it yet so not sure how relevant it is, but http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/t...patch-tested/1

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Not read it yet so not sure how relevant it is, but http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/t...patch-tested/1

Some more:

http://ht4u.net/news/24987_neue_patc...e_sind_durchw/

According to Anandtech,Windows 8 will be the step forward although by then Piledriver and Trinity should be out:

"Note that neither hotfix enables the most optimal scheduling on Bulldozer. Rather than being thread aware and scheduling dependent threads on the same module and independent threads across separate modules, the updates simply move to a better default cause of scheduling on modules first. This should improve performance in most cases but there's a chance that some workloads will see a performance reduction. AMD tells me that it's still working with OS vendors (read: Microsoft) to better optimize for Bulldozer. If I had to guess I'd say that we may see the next big step forward with Windows 8."

It would be nice if review sites tested the FX4100 and FX6100 too!

[watercooled]

I just hope that horrid 'Start' screen on 8 is optional.