Bulldozer?

[SVPD]

So.. AMD released it's new Bulldozer processor.

I'm in the market for a new gaming computer, and I want as much power as I can get for gaming on a reasonable price (by reasonable I mean less than $2800 USD; I realize that may be a lot for a lot of people and it's a lot for me, but not stratospheric).

So far, I'm a bit underwhelmed by the AMD processors available; it's basically either the 1100t or the Bulldozer 8150. I admit I am not a computer guru; I can make my shit run, but I don't understand the first thing about the internal architecture.

I can, however, read a review, and it looks like the Sandy Bridge processors from Intel are the way to go; I can get about the same amount of other features for the same overall price with a 2600K or 2700K, oth of which seem to outperform the AMD processors for gaming and are less expensive than the six-core X58 Core i7s, like the 980 or 990.

So, what are the general opinions on processors in general and Bulldozer in particular. I have to admit, my lack of technical knowledge almost had me going with it because "ZOMG!! 8 CORE PROCESSOR!"

[lukexcom]

If you don't care about building your own, then I'd say get either this for $1500:
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/compl ... ?id=571777

...or this for $2000:
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/compl ... ?id=597328

The only significant differences between the two are:
-Power supply: 600W vs. 800W PSU - if you don't care about fancy things like SLI or CrossFire (a technique where two or more cards share the task of rendering frames for the monitor) and won't care about having the absolute fastest single-card monster that money can buy, then 600W is enough.
-Hard drive: no SSD vs. 120GB SSD - this is more of a luxury in that the computer will definitely feel "snappier" when you use it, but is not a must-have for gaming. Both systems come with a 1TB drive anyway.
-Graphics card: Nvidia 570GTX vs. 580GTX - they're both pretty fast, and while the 580 is a tad bit faster, it's significantly more expensive.

Both should be good for gaming at a resolution of 1680x1050, and even 1920x1080 (although with some games you may have to tweak down the fancy Depth-of-Field or other advanced dx11 stuff down a bit - e.g. Metro 2033).

Then, just set another $300 or so for a replacement graphics card about 18 months from now.


If you really do need two graphics cards (e.g. you are planning to do 3d gaming or three-monitor gaming at high resolutions), you can get this for $2400 (but plan on another $400-$800 on top of that for the 3d monitor or three monitors):
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/compl ... ?id=566405
...but if you're not doing 3d gaming or three-monitor gaming at high resolutions with that setup, you're pretty much wasting money as two cards will push the framerates so high that you won't really notice the difference.


Edit: All in all, yes, the Bulldozer certainly isn't giving the 2600k or 2700k a run for its money, so just stick with Intel. But either way, for games you'll probably find that it's not so much about having the absolute fastest processor as it is about having a decent graphics card. A 2500k matched with an Nvidia GTX 560Ti or GTX 570 (or AMD Radeon 6950 or 6970) should easily suffice for most gaming needs. You certainly don't need to spend more than $2,000 unless you're trying to go for a multi-monitor or 3d gaming setup.

[SVPD]

I'm going for the Radeon 6990 right now, or the Crossfire 6970. This is mainly in order to make the computer as future-proff as.. well, reasonably possible. I'm sure in 7 or 8 years my phone will outclass this thing but for right now, I want it to last.

[lukexcom]

Before you decide to do so, just be aware that the price premium is $300-$450 for a second high-end card (or 2-gpu card) and a beefier PSU (800W, give or take, for two single-GPU cards). Assuming that 18 months from now the performance of your two cards is the same as spending $300-$500 for a high-end single-GPU card 18 months from now, you're still missing out on things like newer programmable shader design or compatibility with newer DirectX/OpenGL versions. If you care about having fancy graphics in games, then you lose out. As an example, the two Nvidia GTX 285 in SLI from two years ago misses out on tessellation and DirectX 11, which are available across Nvidia's 5xx series today. The same applies for the Radeon cards.

If you're ok with that and are planning to replace the two cards anyway in 18 months, then here's a sample cost scenario:
-spend $2400 now (if you get the SLI system in my previous post instead of building your own SLI/Crossfire solution).
-plan on spending $600-$800 about 18 months from now for two new cards, if you want similar performance on future games 18 months from now compared to the performance you'll be getting now. Otherwise, plan on $300-$400 for a single-high end card 18 months from now.

[Starglider]

Unfortunately Bulldozer was a pretty miserable failure. It is completely uncompetitive with Intel chips in almost every way. The thing has a giant die with eight cores on it and can't beat Intel chips with half the cores, cache and power usage. I sincerely hope the 28 nm refresh fixes it or we will no longer have significant competition in the x86 CPU space.

[DaveJB]

The real baffling part is the way people are springing to Bulldozer's defence and saying stuff like "oh, it'll be fine when Windows 8 comes out, and when everyone recompiles their software to make use of Bulldozer's features" (and likewise, that Llano is a better option than Core i3 because it'll kick ass when everyone starts writing GPGPU apps) - it's almost like AMD has forgotten that the reason why the Athlon 64 was such a success was because it didn't require everything to be recompiled for 64-bit code; it outperformed the Pentium 4 in just about everything that was already out, and any extra gain from the 64-bitness was really just the icing on the cake.

[SVPD]

Before you decide to do so, just be aware that the price premium is $300-$450 for a second high-end card (or 2-gpu card) and a beefier PSU (800W, give or take, for two single-GPU cards). Assuming that 18 months from now the performance of your two cards is the same as spending $300-$500 for a high-end single-GPU card 18 months from now, you're still missing out on things like newer programmable shader design or compatibility with newer DirectX/OpenGL versions. If you care about having fancy graphics in games, then you lose out. As an example, the two Nvidia GTX 285 in SLI from two years ago misses out on tessellation and DirectX 11, which are available across Nvidia's 5xx series today. The same applies for the Radeon cards.

If you're ok with that and are planning to replace the two cards anyway in 18 months, then here's a sample cost scenario:
-spend $2400 now (if you get the SLI system in my previous post instead of building your own SLI/Crossfire solution).
-plan on spending $600-$800 about 18 months from now for two new cards, if you want similar performance on future games 18 months from now compared to the performance you'll be getting now. Otherwise, plan on $300-$400 for a single-high end card 18 months from now.

Well, for one thing, I appreciate the website link, but I already have another website picked out that offers far lower prices. I can get the same custom configuration I want for around $1000 less (including a monitor, on both sites) from cyberpowerpc.

Second, the reason for wanting the most powerful card out there (a dual-core GPU like the 6990 or Crossfire 6970s) is so that I don't need to replace it in 18 months. Sure, it might not still do absolutely everything the newest cards available will then, but it should overperform enough now that it will still perform decently at that time.

Mostly what I was hoping to hear about are the CPUs themselves, how people here feel they stack up in comparison to each other.

[phongn]

it's almost like AMD has forgotten that the reason why the Athlon 64 was such a success was because it didn't require everything to be recompiled for 64-bit code; it outperformed the Pentium 4 in just about everything that was already out, and any extra gain from the 64-bitness was really just the icing on the cake.

Not quite. Bulldozer was support to ship with base clock speeds starting at 4.4GHz - it would make up for lack of IPC with high clock speeds. They couldn't execute, though, so now we have a severely constrained design.

Unfortunately Bulldozer was a pretty miserable failure. It is completely uncompetitive with Intel chips in almost every way. The thing has a giant die with eight cores on it and can't beat Intel chips with half the cores, cache and power usage. I sincerely hope the 28 nm refresh fixes it or we will no longer have significant competition in the x86 CPU space.

AMD's "clock fast" design requires that Global Foundaries gets their house in order, alas.

So, what are the general opinions on processors in general and Bulldozer in particular. I have to admit, my lack of technical knowledge almost had me going with it because "ZOMG!! 8 CORE PROCESSOR!"

i5-2500K is pretty damn good.

[White Haven]

The K is a waste of 20-30 dollars unless you plan to overclock, and given the overall tone of his post I doubt SVPD should be tinkering much.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the I7-2600, if it's in your price range (about a hundred dollars over the I5-2500). It's a beast of a chip for a fairly reasonable increase in price, not like previous generations where the high-end chip was five hundred dollars over the number two chip. That said, the 2500 is solid, so you won't be getting a bad system if you go that way, far from it.

[SVPD]

I'm not going to be tinkering with overclocking myself, but they do offer factory overclocking up to 30% from the company. 10% is free; 20% is $30 and 30% is $80. I have not decided what to order, if any, yet, but I most likely will at least take the 10% since its free. They don't offer either the i5 or the i7 without the 'k'.

I also have a close friend who has a degree in computer science or computer engineering (don't recall which off the top of my head) and a lot of experience overclocking his own machines; I wouldn't be averse to letting him work on it. Unfortunately he's out of town right now so I can't ask him these questions, but I'm not planning on ordering this machine until around Christmas/New Years, so he will be back by then.

[lukexcom]

I'm not going to be tinkering with overclocking myself, but they do offer factory overclocking up to 30% from the company. 10% is free; 20% is $30 and 30% is $80. I have not decided what to order, if any, yet, but I most likely will at least take the 10% since its free. They don't offer either the i5 or the i7 without the 'k'.

I also have a close friend who has a degree in computer science or computer engineering (don't recall which off the top of my head) and a lot of experience overclocking his own machines; I wouldn't be averse to letting him work on it. Unfortunately he's out of town right now so I can't ask him these questions, but I'm not planning on ordering this machine until around Christmas/New Years, so he will be back by then.

Well, the good news about the k series is two-fold: the marginal cost from the regular 2500/2600 to their respective k versions is minimal, and they are ridiculously easy to overclock to 130% of their stock clocks.

4.3-4.5GHz on the 2700k, 2600k, and 2500k should be easily achievable by nearly every unit out there, assuming a decent air cooler kit. Just follow any one of the many overclocking guides out there for these chips, stay at or below 1.4V on the Vcore if you can, and you'll be fine.

So stick with the "k" chips, and enjoy.