# AMD Bulldozer, Llano Pricing Surface



## btarunr (May 23, 2011)

Here are the first figures made public of the market prices of AMD's upcoming two lines of desktop processors. AMD will approach the desktop PC market with two platforms, the A-Series "Llano" accelerated processing units (APUs), and the FX-series "Zambezi" processors (CPUs). APUs are functionally similar to Intel's Sandy Bridge processors, in having processor cores, a graphics processor, memory controller, and PCI-Express switch packed into a single piece of silicon. AMD is apparently relying on its powerful GPU architecture to make Llano a more wholesome product. Zambezi functionally resembles Intel Westmere/Bloomfield, in having a number of processing cores, a high-bandwidth memory controller, and a large cache packed into a single die, making up for a performance part. 

By mid-June, AMD will launch the FX-Series with two a 4-core, a 6-core, and two 8-core parts. The series will be led by eight-core AMD FX-8130P priced at US $320, trailed by FX-8130 at US $290. The former probably is a "unlocked" part. Next up is the six-core FX-6110, priced at $240. Lastly there's the quad-core FX-4110, going for $220. You will notice that the price per core isn't as linear as it was in the previous generation.



Around the same time as the FX-Series, AMD will launch its A-Series APUs, based on the brand new FM1 socket and single-chip chipset. The series is capped off by A8-3550P, which is an unlocked quad-core part priced at $170. Its "locked" variant, the A8-3550, will be priced $20 less, at $150. The A*8* sub-series consists of quad-core parts with 400 stream processors enabled in the iGPU. Next up is the unlocked A6-3450P quad-core priced at $130, its locked counterpart, the A6-3450, is priced at $110. With A*6* sub-series, the iGPU has 320 stream processors. At the bottom of the pile are dual-core parts, A4-3350P priced at $80, and E2-3350 at $70. The E2 sub-series has 240 stream processors on the iGPU. All prices in 1000-unit tray quantities.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Franjul08 (May 23, 2011)

Cant wait for Benchmarks....


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## Damn_Smooth (May 23, 2011)

I guess the "leak" I posted was right.


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## WhiteLotus (May 23, 2011)

I am really looking forward to what the APUs can do.


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## Strider (May 23, 2011)

*FX-series "Zambezi" Prices*

The list price on the FX-series "Zambezi" processors look great. I am currently running the Phenom II X6 1090T 4.0GHz OC and this ASUS Crosshair Formula IV is one of the boards that has support for it. So needless to say, I have been really considering upgrading to an octo-core. 

At a cost of about $300, there is a good chance I may jump on the Zambezi bandwagon pretty early on and give the processors a spin. That's highly affordable considering what you are getting. Can't wait to see how one of these will run in my system.

I really don't care about synthetic online benchmarks, they never tell the whole story. I am a gamer at heart, and I configure my main rig accordingly. Simply put, I don't play synthetic benchmarks, I play games. Gameplay performance is far more important to me. So I really want to put this puppy to the test for myself.


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## Jonap_1st (May 23, 2011)

can't wait to see these octo-cores running side by side with 2600k


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## WarraWarra (May 23, 2011)

Jonap_1st said:


> can't wait to see these octo-cores running side by side with 2600k



Same here, so tired of Intel only cpu option. 
And Intel asking Apple for tech leadership / guidance on future products in another topic is so freaking scary.


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## suraswami (May 23, 2011)

Strider said:


> The list price on the FX-series "Zambezi" processors look great. I am currently running the Phenom II X6 1090T 4.0GHz OC and this ASUS Crosshair Formula IV is one of the boards that has support for it. So needless to say, I have been really considering upgrading to an octo-core.
> 
> At a cost of about $300, there is a good chance I may jump on the Zambezi bandwagon pretty early on and give the processors a spin. That's highly affordable considering what you are getting. Can't wait to see how one of these will run in my system.
> 
> I really don't care about synthetic online benchmarks, they never tell the whole story. I am a gamer at heart, and I configure my main rig accordingly. Simply put, I don't play synthetic benchmarks, I play games. Gameplay performance is far more important to me. So I really want to put this puppy to the test for myself.



hmm I thought they are not compatible with existing AM3 socket.  Anyway if compatible well and good and if I am lucky with any of the AM3 board I have I might pick something just for the fun.

Good to see decent prices for a Octa-core.  Hopefully the performance is really good to justify the upgrade.


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## R_1 (May 23, 2011)

Well, at $215 there is a Core i5 2500K CPU and at $317 - Core i7 2600K, those parts have integrated GPU too.  AMD - better be brilliant, else the choice is pretty simple for me. Why should I even consider FX-8130, if it fells badly from Core i5 2500K - a $75 cheaper CPU.


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## happita (May 23, 2011)

R_1 said:


> Well, at $215 there is a Core i5 2500K CPU and at $317 - Core i7 2600K, those parts have integrated GPU too.  AMD - better be brilliant, else the choice is pretty simple for me. Why should I even consider FX-8130, if it fells badly from Core i5 2500K - a $75 cheaper CPU.



The cream of the crop is never going to be the cheapest. With that said, octo-cores will shine especially with people who do a decent amount of CAD, video editing, and maybe even photoshop. With all these advantages because of the core count, it also couples with being the performance enthusiast for gamers who are willing to spend the amount that AMD is asking which I don't think is unreasonable. I just hope that retailers don't bump up the price too much further past $290/$320.
And to see that the octo cores are going to be competing against the 2600/2600k makes me feel a lot better in regards to Bulldozer's performance. However, like most other smart people I think I will wait for benchmarks before I make a quick spendthrifty decision.


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## R_1 (May 23, 2011)

BD architecture is like hardware Hyper-threading - all resources (except a single  integer unit) are shared per module, so no real 8 cores on board, only 8 integer units.


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## HalfAHertz (May 23, 2011)

The prices seem high IMO. Even if they perform equally, you'd still get an IGP and QuickSync video decoding with intel's CPUs so if AMD want to get noticed by the OEMs they have to put up one hell of a fight


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## Strider (May 23, 2011)

suraswami said:


> hmm I thought they are not compatible with existing AM3 socket.  Anyway if compatible well and good and if I am lucky with any of the AM3 board I have I might pick something just for the fun.
> 
> Good to see decent prices for a Octa-core.  Hopefully the performance is really good to justify the upgrade.



Yeah, there are many current high-end AM3 based boards that are compatible with a BIOS update. 
*
ASUS:* http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/AM3_PLUS_Ready/ (I own the Crosshair Formula IV)

*MSI:* http://event.msi.com/mb/am3+/

I believe other manufacturers are also doing this, but I do not have other links on hand at the moment.


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## devguy (May 23, 2011)

R_1 said:


> BD architecture is like hardware Hyper-threading - all resources (except a single  integer unit) are shared per module, so no real 8 cores on board, only 8 integer units.



Implying Intel's HyperThreading is like software multi-threading?  HTT and Zambezi's module design are two completely different beasts, built for different reasons, and with a large difference in performance benefits.

The cores within a Bulldozer module do share a lot, but they also have a considerable amount of things they don't share (not just the integer unit).


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## R_1 (May 23, 2011)

It will be another Windows Vista Ready fiasco, lots of BD features won't be supported on pre 9xx chipsets.
PS. 
Everybody implies that 4 module BD is a rightful 8 core CPU and deserves premium price for 8 core CPU?


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## mdm-adph (May 23, 2011)

Come to me, octo-core 32nm chip, come... I don't care if you're not faster.  I've been waiting for an 8-core 32nm chip from AMD for years.


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## devguy (May 23, 2011)

R_1 said:


> It will be another Windows Vista Ready fiasco, lots of BD features won't be supported on pre 9xx chipsets.



Doubt it.  AMD has gone out of its way to tell everyone and their mother that it won't support AM3+ CPUs in AM3 sockets.  I'll admit AMD themselves haven't said anything about whether they themselves will support AM3+ CPUs using pre 9xx chipsets, though.  A lot of motherboard manufacturers imply that Zambezi will work with 8xx series chipsets, as well as (oddly) the 760g chipset.  Either way, I can guarantee AMD isn't going to put into effect some marketing campaign about Zambezi working with those chipsets, like Microsoft announced that Intel motherboards with worthless graphics could handle some subset of the Aero 1.0 experience.



R_1 said:


> PS.
> Everybody implies that 4 module BD is a rightful 8 core CPU and deserves premium price for 8 core CPU?



Premium price?  I see a $20 difference to move from a quad core to a hex core, and a $50 difference to move from a hex core to an octal core.  That makes a cumulative $70 "premium" to go from a quad core to an octal core.

If anything, all that does is confirm the suspicion that AMD is going to be selling quads as gimped octal cores (same with hex cores).  In fact, it looks like MSI is going to be hopping once again on the unlocking train.


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## CDdude55 (May 23, 2011)

Octo-Core is to expensive, so looks like no Bulldozer for me. (unless the Bulldozer 6 core performs a significant amount better then my current 6 core) 

1055T is good enough for me when it comes to gaming (especially considering all these non hardware intensive games coming out)


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## Melvis (May 23, 2011)

HalfAHertz said:


> The prices seem high IMO. Even if they perform equally, you'd still get an IGP and QuickSync video decoding with intel's CPUs so if AMD want to get noticed by the OEMs they have to put up one hell of a fight



High prices?? From where i stand i find these prices dirt cheap. If and i do mean if the 8 core bulldozer beats every intel cpu in performance and only just then we are lucky they dont price it at $1000 like another company i know does?


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## TheLaughingMan (May 23, 2011)

devguy said:


> If anything, all that does is confirm the suspicion that AMD is going to be selling quads as gimped octal cores (same with hex cores).  In fact, it looks like MSI is going to be hopping once again on the unlocking train.



Of course they are.  That has proven to be a tried and true method of salvaging chips that do not pass final inspection. Why would they not sell a chip with 2 functioning modules as a quad core. The difference this time is you are not guaranteed to get the whole chip back. Say 1 core on module A and module D are defective. You have to shut down the whole module because they share hardware so it becomes a quad-core. If you try to "unlock" those cores you could end up with a 6-core processor instead of the 8 it physically has. Not to mention if that will be possible with the shared parts. If it is, those cores obviously will be lacking in situations when the AVX is needed (because that is optimized to combine the 2 128-bit floating point cal into 1 256-bit....which may not work if one core is defective).

Bulldozer on any level is a new architecture for AMD and a lot more complex than current AMD CPU's. The whole "unlockable" cores thing stands to either not work or give much lower unlocked numbers than we are seeing now.


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## Steevo (May 23, 2011)

Might be a good way to get a system upgrade and give the wife my board, CPU and other stuff, less the watercooling.


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## CDdude55 (May 23, 2011)

Melvis said:


> High prices?? From where i stand i find these prices dirt cheap. If and i do mean if the 8 core bulldozer beats every intel cpu in performance and only just then we are lucky they dont price it at $1000 like another company i know does?



From my view both the Octo-Core chips are much to expensive, but as said, if it performs well then it can easily compensate for the price.

The 4 and 6 core Bulldozer chips are pretty well priced, but im still eager to know whether or not the performance will be worth it.


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## Undead46 (May 23, 2011)

I honestly don't understand why there hasn't been any _true_ leaked benchmarks yet.

Usually you see numerous of benches over a month before a product is actually released.

Honestly, I see this hurts AMD more, because people can't decide if BD is worth waiting for, or act now and get Sandy Bridge, in which most people have done.


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## Damn_Smooth (May 23, 2011)

Undead46 said:


> I honestly don't understand why there hasn't been any _true_ leaked benchmarks yet.
> 
> Usually you see numerous of benches over a month before a product is actually released.
> 
> Honestly, I see this hurts AMD more, because people can't decide if BD is worth waiting for, or act now and get Sandy Bridge, in which most people have done.



How would we know if we did see a true leak? They can all be disputed because of the NDAs. Nobody is going to risk exposing themselves by leaking through official sources until the NDAs are lifted by AMD.


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## ezodagrom (May 23, 2011)

@Those complaining about prices:
What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>


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## CDdude55 (May 24, 2011)

ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



Something being overpriced varies from person to person, the 8 core bulldozer chips are a bit to expensive for my liking and the only way they can justify the price is with performance.

And the 970, 980x/990x aren't overpriced in my view due to the already proven performance.(though they're still way to expensive for me)


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 24, 2011)

Their hyper threading solution might push more people to buy the $300 option over the $200 option. 4 cores vs 8 sounds like a bigger difference than with or without hyper threading. So from a marketing stand point it favors the highend.


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## xenocide (May 24, 2011)

ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



Those CPU's were some of the first high-performance Hex-Cores on the market, and will probably being alive and kicking for quite some time.  That being said, they were initially overpriced because they had no competition.  When the 1366 lineup came out AMD already had no intention of competing with it, so why would Intel make all these high-end CPU's really affordable?  They already had the performance market cornered, this way they could draw more profits out of essentially the same cpu's.

I think people have gotten adjusted to the fact that Quad-Core AMD CPU's are around $100-175, Hex-Core are $150-200, and logically the means Octo-Core should be about $200-250.  The flaw in that logic is that all the current generation AMD CPU's were noticably higher price when they were released, and AMD just drops the price so they stay competative from a Priceerformance perspective.

Also, Intel is hardly the first company to price their top-tier CPU's insanely high... FX-51/53 anyone?  Granted those things probably were worth it by comparison, but that was when CPU's were a lot more important than they are now (from a gaming perspective) ;p


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## jpunk (May 24, 2011)

happita said:


> The cream of the crop is never going to be the cheapest. With that said, octo-cores will shine especially with people who do a decent amount of CAD, video editing, and maybe even photoshop. With all these advantages because of the core count, it also couples with being the performance enthusiast for gamers who are willing to spend the amount that AMD is asking which I don't think is unreasonable. I just hope that retailers don't bump up the price too much further past $290/$320.



It's true, octo core can chew CAD easier. But For Photoshop and any other 2D they don't care about Multi-Core. It's need high Clock. Also Gaming rig, it's need max only 2 core with high clock. But BD can kick SB if their percomance/clock better than SB. 



ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



i7 970 and 980X have high price because they don't have competitor at the time. BD have head on head with SB. So, with its higher price there's no excuses to loose.

AMD also known for it's cheaper price than Intel, so to put price around $320 it's make AMD really confident to beat SB. So....we'll see BD flying to heaven or free falling to hell.


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## Melvis (May 24, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> From my view both the Octo-Core chips are much to expensive, but as said, if it performs well then it can easily compensate for the price.
> 
> The 4 and 6 core Bulldozer chips are pretty well priced, but im still eager to know whether or not the performance will be worth it.



Thats the thing its all going to be about the performance, but that been said if bulldozer just out performs SB even just by a little bit then i still think the price is super cheap, whats the price of intels top CPUs? 2600K is what around $300 and then there is this massive gap to there 6 cores 980X which is $1000. Wouldnt you think they would price it just under the 980X?? i know i would.



xenocide said:


> Also, Intel is hardly the first company to price their top-tier CPU's insanely high... FX-51/53 anyone?  Granted those things probably were worth it by comparison, but that was when CPU's were a lot more important than they are now (from a gaming perspective) ;p



And does anyone remember the P4 Extremes that was priced even higher then any FX CPU back then, which made the FX series cheap even back then for the performance.


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## Jonap_1st (May 24, 2011)

ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



couldn't agree more, don't care about core count though. price is still flexible for the most..


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## 1Kurgan1 (May 24, 2011)

I think the price is fair, is the BE is a bit over $300 that sounds about right. And the non-BE is about $40 less thats great, if you are using Air or Water Cooling, you most likely won't need the BE. At least is the trend continues. I was running 3.9ghz 24/7 on the out of box AMD cooler on my 1055t for months.

I doubt I will be making the upgrade this time, but thats only because I would need to upgrade my mobo at the sametime. So maybe next tax season will make the big leap.


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## makwy2 (May 24, 2011)

Looks good, but I will wait for benchmarks before jumping in.


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## Tiltentei (May 24, 2011)

Ivy will crush it...
Got the 1090T myself, but i hate to admit it, that Intel wins in every single bench test. If Amd's flagship cpu do better then the 2600k it wil most likely be smashed when the Ivy Bridge is released.


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## Melvis (May 24, 2011)

Tiltentei said:


> Ivy will crush it...
> Got the 1090T myself, but i hate to admit it, that Intel wins in every single bench test. If Amd's flagship cpu do better then the 2600k it wil most likely be smashed when the Ivy Bridge is released.



Then bulldozer version II will come out and it might smash it? No one knows yet, so hold ya horses.


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## jpunk (May 24, 2011)

Melvis said:


> Then bulldozer version II will come out and it might smash it? No one knows yet, so hold ya horses.



Let's see whether BD will crush SB. And if it's does, It won't hurt Intel, because they already sold a lot of SB , and of course SB Bridge-EX is on the way (forget about IVY). Let's not talk about "Bulldozer II" or comodo, sepang, etc. Because BD's self not even launch yet.


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## Melvis (May 24, 2011)

jpunk said:


> Let's see whether BD will crush SB. And if it's does, It won't hurt Intel, because they already sold a lot of SB , and of course SB Bridge-EX is on the way (forget about IVY). Let's not talk about "Bulldozer II" or comodo, sepang, etc. Because BD's self not even launch yet.



Of course it wont hurt intel, just look at the P4 days! The P4 was hopeless and was getting crushed by AMD but that didnt matter as Intel was still out selling AMD, 1 couse of the scandal they had going all over the globe and two marketing. And honestly SB isnt that great, it has one CPU the 2600K that stands out from the rest, thats 1 CPU! the 2500K isnt much better the the current i7's out there, the only thing i see better is price and how much they can over clock, and thats like what 3% of the population? SB Bridge-EX whats the difference from there current line up of 2 CPU's? far as ive heard not alot but core count.

If someone is going to say this is going to crush this before it even comes out is a fool. We all know Bulldozer is going to be an improvement, as if it wouldnt be over what they have now. We just not sure how much, and this will all be answered within a month. And if you read my post i said "might" unlike the other guy that said "will" .

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/1


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## xenocide (May 24, 2011)

Melvis said:


> Of course it wont hurt intel, just look at the P4 days! The P4 was hopeless and was getting crushed by AMD but that didnt matter as Intel was still out selling AMD, 1 couse of the scandal they had going all over the globe and two marketing. And honestly SB isnt that great, it has one CPU the 2600K that stands out from the rest, thats 1 CPU! the 2500K isnt much better the the current i7's out there, the only thing i see better is price and how much they can over clock, and thats like what 3% of the population? SB Bridge-EX whats the difference from there current line up of 2 CPU's? far as ive heard not alot but core count.
> 
> If someone is going to say this is going to crush this before it even comes out is a fool. We all know Bulldozer is going to be an improvement, as if it wouldnt be over what they have now. We just not sure how much, and this will all be answered within a month. And if you read my post i said "might" unlike the other guy that said "will" .
> 
> http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/1



There were a number of problems wrong with the P4-era Intel, but they still had name recognition.  That being said, AMD managed to capitalize and go from an almost unkown brand to a valid alternative.  As for your next point, the main reason the Sandy-Bridge line so so impressive is because it was at LEAST on par for the last generation i7's, and for the most part was substantially cheaper.  The i7-2600k at $320 beat the $1000 980x across the board, and the i5-2500k was able to best that same CPU for almost $100 less once you did some easy overclocking.

The real star of the SB lineup was in fact the i5-2500k, which offered similar performance in most applications to the i7-2600k, and managed to beat just about everything AMD had to offer for slightly more money.  To say Sandy-Bridge didn't do great is living in denial.  I expect even if Bulldozer can beat Sandy-Bridge (I expect it to be about on par for the SB lineup), it probably will stand little chance against the Ivy Bridge lineup :x


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## bear jesus (May 24, 2011)

At $320 the FX-8130P better be pretty fast to keep me from going with Intel, either that or the price would have to be well under $300 

One of the major reasons I'm still with AMD is the incremental upgrades i have been able to do over the past 4 years, now it's time for a new motherboard, CPU and RAM so it's up to AMD to impress me if they want more of my money.


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## Damn_Smooth (May 24, 2011)

How did a thread about pricing turn into another Intel flame fest?


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## faramir (May 24, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> Something being overpriced varies from person to person, the 8 core bulldozer chips are a bit to expensive for my liking and the only way they can justify the price is with performance.



I am sure AMD does too, meaning that they wouldn't have priced their upcoming flagship on par with i7 2600K if they didn't feel their performance was comparable (nevermind the missing QuickSync and Intel's braindead GPU). If top Bulldozer soundly beat Intel's current top offering, they would price it accordingly and if it was badly lagging behind it would reflect on pricing as well (as it does with Deneb/Thuban CPUs today). 

Of course you will get forum trolls such as araditus telling you that these prices must be fake just because TR hasn't picked them up yet 

The good thing for AMD is that SB-E is nowhere to be seen yet so they can reap the benefits of their new architecture in top mainstream segment at least for a while. They had plenty of time to do the benchmarking and settle on pricing since SB came out so I'm confident that they have priced Bulldozer in accordance with its comparative performance to the competition. I only wish AMD didn't go for "-core" nomenclature (making 4-module CPU "octo-core") as this may come back to haunt them really soon: "yeah, it's octo-core but not entirely so due to sharing of many per-module resources, hence the not-really-eight-times-the-performance" and "yeah, it's octo-core that performs on par with competitor's quad-core"  If they played it safe and called it "a four-module eight-thread CPU" from the get-go consumers would compare it to Intel's HT 4c/8t directly and find out that AMD's design of "HT" is obviously superior (displaying better performance per additional "thread" than Intel).


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## Strider (May 24, 2011)

Tiltentei said:


> Ivy will crush it...
> Got the 1090T myself, but i hate to admit it, that Intel wins in every single bench test. If Amd's flagship cpu do better then the 2600k it wil most likely be smashed when the Ivy Bridge is released.



This is exactly why I hate synthetic benchmarks. The performance boost you get from a more expensive Intel chip does not justify the cost difference in my humble opinion. Especailly when we are talking about the end-user. Not to mention, I do not play or work with benchmarks, I play games and I work with software.

I am not going to pay sometimes hundreds more to get a movie done 2-3 minutes faster or 10 for FPS in a video game. I have done countless real world side by side comparisons between Intel and AMD processors for the better part of the past 10 years, my job allows me this luxury. The reason Intel lost me as a customer is the fact benchmarks are almost always over-hyped or inflated and they do not hold up in day to day real world usage on end-user machines. They may be a good "generalized" standard, but I am not generalized, I have specific needs and wants from my system, AMD meets all them and far more. 

Like I said though, that's just my own personal opinion, one that I have formed over many years of being a system builder. 

So in a nut shell, the AMD processors are less expensive, yet still perform well above their price. Intel is more expensive, and just does not meet my expected performance increase based on what I just paid for it over the AMD counterpart.


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## Melvis (May 24, 2011)

xenocide said:


> There were a number of problems wrong with the P4-era Intel, but they still had name recognition.  That being said, AMD managed to capitalize and go from an almost unkown brand to a valid alternative.  As for your next point, the main reason the Sandy-Bridge line so so impressive is because it was at LEAST on par for the last generation i7's, and for the most part was substantially cheaper.  The i7-2600k at $320 beat the $1000 980x across the board, and the i5-2500k was able to best that same CPU for almost $100 less once you did some easy overclocking.



You have basically just backed up what i just said 
When it comes to where you say the i7-2600K beats the 980X across the board this is very wrong (unless overclocked), as from the link i gave you the 2600K won 2 out of 9, and for the 2500K against lets go lower the old i7-975 it also only won 2 out of 9. So im not sure where your scores are coming from?  But i will agree the performance is great for the price, that is a win. Just remember there is very few that OC.



xenocide said:


> The real star of the SB lineup was in fact the i5-2500k, which offered similar performance in most applications to the i7-2600k, and managed to beat just about everything AMD had to offer for slightly more money.  To say Sandy-Bridge didn't do great is living in denial.  I expect even if Bulldozer can beat Sandy-Bridge (I expect it to be about on par for the SB lineup), it probably will stand little chance against the Ivy Bridge lineup :x



Once again i have no idea where you get these so called high numbers from, just refer to what i just said and look at the link^. Lets see how the 2500K went against the top AMD X6, out of the 13 benchmarks (excluding gaming) 2500K won 6, where the AMD got 7, so thats pretty good for an AMD chip to hold up against this omg new SB core dont you think?
Once again your just like the other guy saying that AMD Bulldozer version II wont stand up against Ivy when we both have no idea :shadedshu


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## Wile E (May 24, 2011)

xenocide said:


> There were a number of problems wrong with the P4-era Intel, but they still had name recognition.  That being said, AMD managed to capitalize and go from an almost unkown brand to a valid alternative.  As for your next point, the main reason the Sandy-Bridge line so so impressive is because it was at LEAST on par for the last generation i7's, and for the most part was substantially cheaper.  *The i7-2600k at $320 beat the $1000 980x across the board*, and the i5-2500k was able to best that same CPU for almost $100 less once you did some easy overclocking.
> 
> The real star of the SB lineup was in fact the i5-2500k, which offered similar performance in most applications to the i7-2600k, and managed to beat just about everything AMD had to offer for slightly more money.  To say Sandy-Bridge didn't do great is living in denial.  I expect even if Bulldozer can beat Sandy-Bridge (I expect it to be about on par for the SB lineup), it probably will stand little chance against the Ivy Bridge lineup :x



Not when both are OCed, and not in threaded apps. But this isn't the thread for that, so I digress.

This does not look good for AMD to me. If the pricing indicates it takes 8 cores to match a 4 core HTT cpu. This tells me they still won't be able to compete on top when skt2011 releases, and that depresses me. I admit I kinda expected this outcome, but I was hoping for IPC per core to be within striking distance of Intel at very least.


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## Imsochobo (May 24, 2011)

ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



seriously way overpriced ? 



Wile E said:


> Not when both are OCed, and not in threaded apps. But this isn't the thread for that, so I digress.
> 
> This does not look good for AMD to me. If the pricing indicates it takes 8 cores to match a 4 core HTT cpu. This tells me they still won't be able to compete on top when skt2011 releases, and that depresses me. I admit I kinda expected this outcome, but I was hoping for IPC per core to be within striking distance of Intel at very least.



Expect steppings to increase performance to more ivy bridge level once ivy comes, if amd matches sandy or top 2600K, they got 25-30 watts to more powerfull intel chip to beat, which isnt too much, amd really isnt pushing limits to start, so compotition will be closer, but dissapointing to see nonetheless.


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## twilyth (May 24, 2011)

I think everybody is being overly pessimistic and I think that's just the way AMD wants it.  Plus I think Imso's comment about under-delivering up front is probably accurate.  I'm betting AMD takes a page out of Apple's playbook and presents chips up front that rival or beat Sandybridge offerings and that they then ramp up from there - just like apple releases products when they already have the "next gen" spec'ed out.


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## Strider (May 24, 2011)

Wile E said:


> This does not look good for AMD to me. If the pricing indicates it takes 8 cores to match a 4 core HTT cpu.



That's not exactly true. A thread is not a core, not even close. I will take cores over threads any day of the week, especially when it comes to what I do the most, and that's high-end gaming. At any rate, 8 real cores will beat a comparable 4 core 8 thread processor in most all cases.

Also, Bulldozers are multi-threaded anyway. Even though multi-threading (Hyper-threading in an Intel trademark) has been around a long time, since the late P4 days. There are still far more applications that do not support it than do. 

So it's not something I put much stock in. heh


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## bear jesus (May 24, 2011)

I wonder if this is true "AMD FX-8130 will come with a clock frequency of 3.8GHz and can dynamically overclock itself to 4.2GHz with help of Turbo Core 2.0"


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## ov2rey (May 24, 2011)

i running 

 a raid 0 

 amd 955
 2x wd black 2tb
 gigabyte 890Gx

 i want to change to asrock 990Fx extreme4 + AMD FX-8130P 8 cores processor

 do i need to reformat my raid 0 setup?

 or i can just install over new board and update latest raid 0 driver from amd?


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## bucketface (May 24, 2011)

Tiltentei said:


> Ivy will crush it...
> Got the 1090T myself, but i hate to admit it, that Intel wins in every single bench test. If Amd's flagship cpu do better then the 2600k it wil most likely be smashed when the Ivy Bridge is released.



ivy is slated for about q2 2012 so its more i line with bdv2 in q3-4 2012 or q1 2013 if i remember correctly

also sandybridge has almost exactly the same ipc as pevious gen core i" series but more cache, higher clocks & improved turbo make it seem alot better. its more an evolution than a revolution.


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## heky (May 24, 2011)

So when does the NDA get lifted? Tired of reading comments about who is better. Let w1zzard do the tests and than we can argue.


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## inferKNOX (May 24, 2011)

I know this isn't Monopoly, but if the performance is within acceptable margins, "I'm buying!"
Come on 8130P, don't you dare disappoint!!


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## Widjaja (May 24, 2011)

IF the initial pricing is at stated, this is good news.
I was expecting to see stupid crazy prices similar to the last FX series with the 939 sockets.


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## rem82 (May 24, 2011)

Jonap_1st said:


> can't wait to see these octo-cores running side by side with 2600k



Bulldozer *module* has:

*one FETCH
one DECODE
one FPU
two Integer scheduler
one L2 Cache for module.
one L1 instruction cache*

*Same number of transistors with sandy 2600K*

Yes , 8-core Bulldozer* is a true 4-core chip with excellent HYPER TREADING technology *!!! Not true 8-core !!

Bulldozer architecture is very elastic !! That is the power and secret for bulldozer ... 2x128bit FMAC or 1x256bit FMAC or 4x64bit !!!


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## Imsochobo (May 24, 2011)

rem82 said:


> Bulldozer *module* has:
> 
> *one FETCH
> one DECODE
> ...




Hypertransport.. I think you confusing hyperthreading, its almost a true 8 core but its not almost hyperthreading alike, inbetween, great aproach anyhow.
Excited to see if it delivers, I don't want to replace all my servers in my datacenter, they are currently running amd cpu spec for clustering.
I use all my old gaming rigs for servers, and if the new is compatible with the old it'd be marvelous. 

Like reasoning behind the Bulldozer core. Especially the fact that they share the FP pipe between two int pipes. It is also good to relieve most of the FP against many small cores in the future rather than running it in FAT-cores.

But again fetch decode can lead to greater latencies...

We all have to be patient and wait... and see..
there is alot amd can improve with this design in 2nd gen bulldozer when AM4 comes around. this design can probably do alot of magic!

less than a month!


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## Jonap_1st (May 24, 2011)

rem82 said:


> Bulldozer *module* has:
> 
> *one FETCH
> one DECODE
> ...



calm down brother 

i said octo-cores doesn't mean i really care about core counts. i'm just repeated the lines from what i've been read.. 

heck, since i already knew the prices. i'm sure i dont have a right anymore to complain about it


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## rem82 (May 24, 2011)

Imsochobo said:


> Hypertransport.. I think you confusing hyperthreading



Hyperthreading  I wanted to write.


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## mcloughj (May 24, 2011)

if these chips had reverse hyperthreading they would have made mega gaming chips... oh well!


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## Damn_Smooth (May 24, 2011)

mcloughj said:


> if these chips had reverse hyperthreading they would have made mega gaming chips... oh well!



What do you mean?


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## Fourstaff (May 24, 2011)

mcloughj said:


> if these chips had reverse hyperthreading they would have made mega gaming chips... oh well!



I was discussing about "reverse hyperthreading" some time ago, long story short its not going to work. Uses too many cycles in moving the data around. 

If people takes full advantage of the stream processors of Llano, will that cause Llano to take a massive lead in encoding and other massively parallel computing tasks compared to Bulldozer? I have a feeling that Bulldozer's days in consumer market are numbered even before launch due to Llano and Sandy Bridge.


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## mcloughj (May 24, 2011)

Damn_Smooth said:


> What do you mean?



long story short: make a multicore chip act like a single core, with all the cores focused on the one task. Since most games were until recently not multi-core optimised, having a quad or octo core acting as a single core would be very fast for some apps.

But only theoretically as Fourstaff pointed out.


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## heky (May 24, 2011)

Anyone care to share the release date?


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## Imsochobo (May 24, 2011)

heky said:


> Anyone care to share the release date?



~20th june

Midjune, mobo's come 19th-21th somewhere there. not long till


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## TheGrapist (May 24, 2011)

Imsochobo said:


> ~20th june
> 
> Midjune, mobo's come 19th-21th somewhere there. not long till



yay,hopefully i'll have all my stuff sold by then so i can afford it


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## Steevo (May 24, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> I was discussing about "reverse hyperthreading" some time ago, long story short its not going to work. Uses too many cycles in moving the data around.
> 
> If people takes full advantage of the stream processors of Llano, will that cause Llano to take a massive lead in encoding and other massively parallel computing tasks compared to Bulldozer? I have a feeling that Bulldozer's days in consumer market are numbered even before launch due to Llano and Sandy Bridge.



Look at how long it has taken us to get open CL, and yet so few real world applications use it. I don't think that X86 and the small amount of X64 computing is going away soon. It will take a large leap of whole operating systems supporting it, applications, and even consoles supporting it before it becomes mature.


It is only the leading edge of where this tech is going though, as we hit the limit of how small we can make a transistor and how many are required I believe it will take a large change in software and coding to take advantage of the next few major milestones in hardware progression. Memory, interface speed and fetching from datastores are the limiting factor. What good is 8 cores if we can't keep them fed data, what good are they when four have stalled? Higher clock speed will only help so much, and more cores does not directly relate to actual speed.


I truly hope AMD is working on the next, next tech and is using the CPU's they haven't sold to simulate the CPU and iron out the wrinkles.


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## _JP_ (May 24, 2011)

Alright, so it's the FX-6110 for me.


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## wahdangun (May 24, 2011)

mcloughj said:


> long story short: make a multicore chip act like a single core, with all the cores focused on the one task. Since most games were until recently not multi-core optimised, having a quad or octo core acting as a single core would be very fast for some apps.
> 
> But only theoretically as Fourstaff pointed out.



its impossible to do that,  it will just the same as multi threading single application.

@ fourstaff: but SNB doesn't support openCL. So it will take a while


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## bucketface (May 24, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> I was discussing about "reverse hyperthreading" some time ago, long story short its not going to work. Uses too many cycles in moving the data around.



but isn't that with tradional cores not the highly integrated cores of bulldozer. I would have thought that it should be relativly easy to get a single threaded app to run on a "module" as if it were a single "core" utilising both integer clusers as a single "large core", similar to how the fpu can apparently function as a single 256b, 2 128b, or 4 64b.
ps. 
it would be great if i could get an explanation as to why this is undesirable, if that is the case.


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## largon (May 24, 2011)

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a quadcore part that has all four modules enabled but _without SMT_, instead of two modules with SMT.


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## faramir (May 24, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> If people takes full advantage of the stream processors of Llano, will that cause Llano to take a massive lead in encoding and other massively parallel computing tasks compared to Bulldozer? I have a feeling that Bulldozer's days in consumer market are numbered even before launch due to Llano and Sandy Bridge.



You mean via OpenCL and similar interfaces ? I'm positive enthusiasts who decide to go the Bulldozer route are more than likely to pair their new CPU with AMD's graphics (something vastly more powerful than Llano's 400 shaders, of course) which is going to have this same parallel computing functionality but on a far larger scale. 

Llano is about bringing _adequate_ performance for money, conveniently tucked into a nice single package (well and the PCH  ). It isn't nearly as powerful nor flexible as the combination of Bulldozer + whatever GPU you want is going to be.


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## Wile E (May 25, 2011)

Strider said:


> That's not exactly true. A thread is not a core, not even close. I will take cores over threads any day of the week, especially when it comes to what I do the most, and that's high-end gaming. At any rate, 8 real cores will beat a comparable 4 core 8 thread processor in most all cases.
> 
> Also, Bulldozers are multi-threaded anyway. Even though multi-threading (Hyper-threading in an Intel trademark) has been around a long time, since the late P4 days. There are still far more applications that do not support it than do.
> 
> So it's not something I put much stock in. heh



You must be missing what I am saying. The pricing seems to suggest that 8130 is going to be close in performance to the 2600. 8130 is an 8 core, the 2600 is 4 cores with HT. This tells me that Bulldozer has less performance per core than Intel, which, in turn, tells me AMD most likely won't have anything to compete with Intel when they release their new 6 and 8 cores.

Again, I hope I'm wrong. I want an all out war in the $1000 uber-cpu market.


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## xenocide (May 25, 2011)

Wile E said:


> You must be missing what I am saying. The pricing seems to suggest that 8130 is going to be close in performance to the 2600. 8130 is an 8 core, the 2600 is 4 cores with HT. This tells me that Bulldozer has less performance per core than Intel, which, in turn, tells me AMD most likely won't have anything to compete with Intel when they release their new 6 and 8 cores.
> 
> Again, I hope I'm wrong. I want an all out war in the $1000 uber-cpu market.



Refer to rem82's post.  The 2600k and 8130 are pretty damn similar on paper, so depending on how well the architecture works, they should be about equal in term's of price\performance.


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## Wile E (May 25, 2011)

xenocide said:


> Refer to rem82's post.  The 2600k and 8130 are pretty damn similar on paper, so depending on how well the architecture works, they should be about equal in term's of price\performance.



If that post is truth, then it does fair much better, but then how many modules can they put on a chip (and why call them true cores if they are not)? Intel plans 8 cores with hyper threading, iirc. Will there be 16 "core" Bulldozers?

But price/performance is not what I am concerned with. I am only concerned with performance per core per clock (and OC ability).

Guess we'll have to wait and see.


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (May 25, 2011)

Ocoto cores are over priced, should be $260-275, especially since they are not real octo cores and simply hexa cores pretending to be 8 cores. But it will all depend on performance, if they are anything less than faster than a 2600K, and not capable of 5ghz on air then AMD really hasn't succeeded, also there is something to be said when it takes 8"cores" to compete with a 4 core chip.


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## a_ump (May 25, 2011)

[H]@RD5TUFF said:


> Ocoto cores are over priced, should be $260-275, especially since they are not real octo cores and simply hexa cores pretending to be 8 cores. But it will all depend on performance, if they are anything less than faster than a 2600K, and not capable of 5ghz on air then AMD really hasn't succeeded, *also there is something to be said when it takes 8"cores" to compete with a 4 core chip.*



TRUE, but there is also that old argument used back when C2Q came and the Phenom's were on their way. C2Q's weren't true quads, phenom's were, so AMD used that for marketing(till the flop ). Now to the average joe that just looks at boxes comparing numbers, AMD could say "we prefer to use 8 cores, a core for each task so to speak, whereas Intel uses 4 core's to do those 8 tasks, which isn't as efficient, eh ehm."

either way, it can be twisted to benefit the other company. Also, is the integer unit the main component in a CPU or something? if it is, they could pull some crazy twisted saying like "each of our core's is like 75% of intel's, however if you add it up, we have 600% performance and intel only 400%, that's 200% more processing power". the retard lines i can pull outa me ash,  yet to the general public it'd fly


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## Platibus (May 26, 2011)

Two questions:

Is the 8130P the highest end model of Bulldozer? And, will the release of these APUs lower the prices of current CPUs, Phenom and Athlon?


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## CDdude55 (May 26, 2011)

Platibus said:


> Two questions:
> 
> Is the 8130P the highest end model of Bulldozer? And, will the release of these APUs lower the prices of current CPUs, Phenom and Athlon?



According to that chart the FX 8130 will be the highest model of Bulldozer (8 cores with highest clock speed) on the market for some period of time. Though of course what is considered high end changes rapidly.

And the Phenom II's and Athlon II's already got a price cut this month with anticipation of Bulldozer next month, so i doubt they'll be going any lower anytime soon.


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## Damn_Smooth (May 26, 2011)

Platibus said:


> Two questions:
> 
> Is the 8130P the highest end model of Bulldozer? And, will the release of these APUs lower the prices of current CPUs, Phenom and Athlon?



Yes, for now and it should but seeing as they have already dropped in price, I don't know by how much. Not that I would know anyway. 

You should also be able to find plenty of used Phenoms for sale at an even better price.


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## Damn_Smooth (May 26, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> According to that chart the FX 8130 will be the highest model of Bulldozer (8 cores with highest clock speed) on the market for some period of time. Though of course what is considered high end changes rapidly.
> 
> And the Phenom II's and Athlon II's already got a price cut this month with anticipation of Bulldozer next month, so i doubt they'll be going any lower anytime soon.



You beat me by a few seconds.


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## trickson (May 26, 2011)

I would seem to me that AMD is pushing more for a core war than raw speed war that they have lost out on for the last 5 years . Intel has the i7 right ? If it takes an AMD 8 core Bulldozer to compete with a Quad core that would tell me that AMD is not really giving any real bang for the buck ( Of-course time will tell as No one knows just how they will perform ) . I hope they are far better than I think they will be . AMD has to step up the game NOW . And if they do manage to blow Intel out of the water then expect to be paying a lot more than this for a 8 core CPU ! Remember FX ? Them AMD FX CPU's were $1000.00 Bucks and MORE ! Not going to get one at them prices I tell you this . I will Not pay more than $350 bucks for a CPU EVER !


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## boise49ers (May 26, 2011)

ezodagrom said:


> @Those complaining about prices:
> What were you expecting for 8-core processors, $200?
> If the Bulldozer 8-core are overpriced, I wonder what the Core i7 970, 980X and 990X are. :>



Yeah I was expecting around 500. 
Shit I just spent $200 on a used 1090T. 
Got a Frio cooler with it though. I'll be sticking 
with it for awhile. I just don't want to have to 
totally rebuild again. Just did it a month ago.


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