AMD Bulldozer, Llano Pricing Surface

[CDdude55]

@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)

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

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.

 

[xenocide]

@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

 

[jpunk]

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.

@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.

 

[Melvis]

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.

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.

 

[Jonap_1st]

@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..

 

[1Kurgan1]

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.

 

[makwy2]

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

 

[Tiltentei]

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.

 

[Melvis]

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.

 

[jpunk]

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.

 

[Melvis]

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

 

[xenocide]

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

 

[bear jesus]

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.

 

[Damn_Smooth]

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

 

[faramir]

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).

 

[Strider]

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.

 

[Melvis]

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.

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

 

[Wile E]

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.

 

[Imsochobo]

@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 ?

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.

 

[twilyth]

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.

 

[Strider]

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

 

[bear jesus]

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"

 

[ov2rey]

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?

 

[bucketface]

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.