AMD - Bulldozer Chitchat

[Biscuit]

I just had a look at scan to see about getting sandybridge and the the 2500K is out of stock. Co-incidence or has everyone who was waiting for bulldozer just gone for sandybridge instead?

[kalniel]

I just had a look at scan to see about getting sandybridge and the the 2500K is out of stock. Co-incidence or has everyone who was waiting for bulldozer just gone for sandybridge instead?

634 retail version in stock at ebuyer

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I just had a look at scan to see about getting sandybridge and the the 2500K is out of stock. Co-incidence or has everyone who was waiting for bulldozer just gone for sandybridge instead?

Probably and a few retailers have put both the Sandy Bridge and Phenom II processors on special offer too.

BTW,Scan have the Core i5 2500K in stock:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-95w-retail

Aria is cheaper though even with postage it seems:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=43216

[Biscuit]

634 retail version in stock at ebuyer

Coincidence it is then

Probably and a few retailers have put both the Sandy Bridge and Phenom II processors on special offer too.

BTW,Scan have the Core i5 2500K in stock:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-95w-retail

Aria is cheaper though even with postage it seems:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=43216

I SWEAR that has changed in the last 5 minutes!

After the polavar with my AM3+ stuff *spits* i think il just get it all from the same place and i will stick with scan.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Coincidence it is then



I SWEAR that has changed in the last 5 minutes!

After the polavar with my AM3+ stuff *spits* i think il just get it all from the same place and i will stick with scan.

TBH,I still don't understand why you got an AM3+ motherboard before the reviews. I could understand if you did what some of my mates have done and got a cheap Athlon II X3 and unlocked and/or clocked the nuts off them.

[Biscuit]

TBH,I still don't understand why you got an AM3+ motherboard before the reviews. I could understand if you did what some of my mates have done and got a cheap Athlon II X3 and unlocked and/or clocked the nuts off them.

I got my raise and bonus so i bought a load of bits including a new cooler, SSD and stuff like that. My existing motherboard didn't have any spare SATA slots, Phenoms are dirt cheap (wasnt THAT much more than an athlon X3) and i never expected bulldozer to be that pants. The actual 990FX motherboards are good, you get a lot of bang for your buck so i thought, even if BD was a bit pants i could skip it and go for the next thing. Problem is its SOO pants i don't even see the next things being worthwhile and after that its on to a new socket (apparently).

It was a bad call i will admit but i don't think any of us genuinely thought it would be quite so disappointing.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I got my raise and bonus so i bought a load of bits including a new cooler, SSD and stuff like that. My existing motherboard didn't have any spare SATA slots, Phenoms are dirt cheap (wasnt THAT much more than an athlon X3) and i never expected bulldozer to be that pants. The actual 990FX motherboards are good, you get a lot of bang for your buck so i thought, even if BD was a bit pants i could skip it and go for the next thing. Problem is its SOO pants i don't even see the next things being worthwhile and after that its on to a new socket (apparently).

It was a bad call i will admit but i don't think any of us genuinely thought it would be quite so disappointing.

Can you DSR your existing motherboard?? If not how much of a loss are you going to make on selling your 990FX motherboard?? The other alternative is try and get hold of a cheap Phenom II X6 and overclock it. I was looking at the results for the newer idTech 5 and Frostbite 2.0 engines and it seems pretty decent for these.

[Biscuit]

Can you DSR your existing motherboard??

Nope i bought it in store at nova tech

If not how much of a loss are you going to make on selling your 990FX motherboard??

No idea really, its going to be quite wounding though given i haven't even had windows properly running on it yet!

The other alternative is try and get hold of a cheap Phenom II X6 and overclock it. I was looking at the results for the newer idTech 5 and Frostbite 2.0 engines and it seems pretty decent for these.

Still not as good a 2500K though...? i think i have committed in my mind to just take the hit and learn my lesson to be a bit more patient in future.

I will probably not do this till my next paycheque in a few weeks but there should be a good selling thread on hexus when i do... cleaned out my cupboard recently and the amount of stockpiled crap i have is stupid!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Still not as good a 2500K though...? i think i have committed in my mind to just take the hit and learn my lesson to be a bit more patient in future.

In the BF3 BETA which uses the new Frostbite 2.0 and Rage which uses the new id Tech 5 engine a Phenom II X6 1090T was ahead of a Core i5 2500k:

http://www.techspot.com/review/448-b...nce/page7.html

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4955/41704.png

First bench is with a GTX580 and the second with I think the second is with an HD5870. OTH,the Core i5 2500K will be ahead in games which use legacy engines which are more lightly threaded. If you were starting from scratch I would probably say the Core i5 2500K would be better due to its performance with legacy engines,but if other newer engines being released in the next year show simliar improvements,the Phenom II X6 will not be a slouch either. In games using legacy engines it will still be as good or better than your overclocked Q6600.

On top of this even look at this article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3877/a...ance-scaling/7

The main thing is that the price of Phenom II X6 processors is dropping,so a Phenom II X6 1090T at around £120 to £125 would be good value.

It really depends on what sort of games you are intending to play.

[Biscuit]

hmmm perhaps i am going a bit overboard. I have a few days away from my disaster of computers i call a home (although i will have to take my borked HTC desire with me), aswell as escaping from work maybe i can calm down and come to my senses...

[Noxvayl]

Great points there CAT, I have a CPU that plays current generation games perfectly fine, it's the next generation I should be interested in and those results are promising. Perhaps I'll wait until Skyrim comes out to see how Bethesda's new engine runs on the various CPU's.

I hope to do an upgrade where I don't need to change my Motherboard, CPU and RAM for the next 3-4 years and the 990FX platform is far more future friendly in terms of GPU upgrades and 16x/16x crossfire/sli support.

That throws a spanner in the works... If the rumours about a possible fix are true for some of the problems Bulldozer has a new version could be a different prospect all-together.

[EvanJackPenn]

Indeed. The single threaded power wins today, but I'm not planning on upgrading every 2 years - multi threaded games may come more prevalent...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Great points there CAT, I have a CPU that plays current generation games perfectly fine, it's the next generation I should be interested in and those results are promising. Perhaps I'll wait until Skyrim comes out to see how Bethesda's new engine runs on the various CPU's.

I hope to do an upgrade where I don't need to change my Motherboard, CPU and RAM for the next 3-4 years and the 990FX platform is far more future friendly in terms of GPU upgrades and 16x/16x crossfire/sli support.

That throws a spanner in the works... If the rumours about a possible fix are true for some of the problems Bulldozer has a new version could be a different prospect all-together.

Your Q9550 at 3.8GHZ is still a stonking CPU for gaming IMHO. Unless, you could sell your current parts for a decent price and get some newer parts for an additional small outlay, I would stick with what you have. I suspect it will be fine until 2013.

[prehensile]

Gerbildozer! woooo
intel has the luxury of researching 2 3 chip architectures every tock cycle and chosing the best one

[Noxvayl]

Your Q9550 at 3.8GHZ is still a stonking CPU for gaming IMHO. Unless, you could sell your current parts for a decent price and get some newer parts for an additional small outlay, I would stick with what you have. I suspect it will be fine until 2013.

I know, my initial plan was an upgrade at the end of next year. Circumstances have changed and it may be better for me to spread my upgrade over the year.

The plan was to sell my CPU and Motherboard to a friend for £100, upgrade the family PC's memory to 4Gb as well as my work PC and get a Motherboard/CPU/RAM for ~£350. I also have a PSU and old GFX to lend my friend so he would have a small amount to pay to get him a new desktop PC(He's been on a laptop for gaming the last year due to immigrating) so works out well for us both, sort of. Would of been much better if Bulldozer was a massive success.

[kalniel]

Gerbildozer! woooo
intel has the luxury of researching 2 3 chip architectures every tock cycle and chosing the best one

They do? Their core architecture hasn't changed for about five years.