AMD 'Bulldozer' FX CPU Reviews Arrive 271
I.M.O.G. writes "Today AMD lifted the embargo on their most recent desktop AMD FX architecture, code named Bulldozer, whose CPU frequency record Slashdot recently covered. The fruition of 6 years of AMD R&D, this new chip architecture is the most significant news out of AMD since the Phenom II made its debut. The chips are available now in all major retail outlets, and top tier hardware sites have published the first Bulldozer reviews already."
Here are reviews from a few different sites — pick your favorite: Tom's Hardware, PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, [H]ardOCP, or TechSpot. They don't agree on everything, but the consensus seems to be that the new chips aren't blowing anyone's socks off, and that they struggle to compete with Intel's comparable offerings. The architecture shows promise, but performance gains will take time to materialize, making it difficult to leapfrog Intel to any significant degree.
Re:I skimmed a few... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If you are an AMD fan.... (Score:5, Informative)
We've benchmarked the 10-core 2.0GHz E7 Xeons against the 8-core 2.0GHz Opteron 6128. The Opteron CPUs deliver about 70% of the performance on our workload for about 12% of the price.
The AMD motherboards are much cheaper too.
Bulldozer is underwhelming on the desktop, but it could still deliver great price/performance in the server market. We'll soon see.
Couple of hundred bucks it costs to go ECC ? (Score:3, Informative)
Couple of 10 bucks, more likely. I've recently bought parts for an AMD-based PC upgrade (in Germany) and the price differences were
- about 7 euros more for 2x2GB ECC Ram, compared to the same amount of non-ECC. Both Kingston Value RAM BTW.
- maybe 10-20 euros more for a board that supports ECC. That one is not as clear-cut BTW, it is more a case of having less choices if you want ECC, and the cheapest boards tend to not support ECC.
In dollars, that's maybe 40 bucks difference total. Or 50 bucks if you want 2x4GB and assume a similar price difference.
Of course, if you buy Intel, it will be a couple of hundred bucks because their desktop CPUs don't support ECC at all. That means getting a Xeon, and those are expensive.