Anybody considering an AMD Bulldozer?

[CaterpillarAssassin]

I know that is their justification, but if it doesn't sell it doesn't matter. The price difference is marginal really, and you end up with a newer chipset.

The point to this is that code isn't written for it. Master the existing code and get people to optimize their stuff for you. You think these results will inspire people to apply the effort? If you want people to code for your processor, then you stick it in a game console like the CELL for the PS3.

If you want a platform to mature, it has to be a performer out of the gate. People aren't going to buy with the hope that in the future it will be better. If people do not buy it, it will die off before it has a chance to mature. Ask Intel how well their Itanium worked out. Or did we have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up and code for that one too?

As with many others, I waited and was disappointed. I waited awhile for AMD's offerings before I went with the Core 2 as well. I know they are good at pricing, but most people don't want to buy two computers to make up the difference.

Completely agree. Its really a shame, as they were the best you could get when the athlon and athlon II came out. I haven't owned an Intel chip since a 486. Now I find myself purchasing Intel for most everything. HTPC has a Core2Duo, and our new office PC's all have sandy bridge chips (i3's and a couple of i7 2600's).

[FlyingPenguin]

Well the guys at Pcper.com, who I greatly respect in these matters, are saying that the Phenom X6 1100T and a 990FX chipset mobo is better bang for the bucks. It's 30% cheaper than the comparable Bulldozer part, and generally outperforms it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103913

And since a 990FX mobo an AM3+ socket, it'll should be compatible with Gen2 Bulldozer IF somehow AMD improves the performance the next generation.

[normalicy]

Yeah, even though the Intel processors are generally quicker, it's hard to compare them when you actually bundle everything. Also, the Bulldozer's will likely be dropping in price quicker than the Intel equivalents if AMD sticks to their trend. The other thing that most places don't pay close enough attention to is the fact that games today don't rely on the processor as much as they used to. When you put a powerful video card in, it's not but a 10-20% difference in FPS on most games from the slowest to the best of this generation processors.

[b-man1]

now that i think about it, didn't a very similar thing happen with intel's P4 cpu when it was first released? the first units shipped were outperformed by P3's until they ramped up the speeds, etc. could this new architecture just be getting ready to take off?

[ZYFER]

Well, the Pentium 4 also moved to a better memory architecture as well. So it had more going for it than just raw performance. At the time, the speeds of the P4 were about the same as the P3 was.

If it is just about clock speed, than the other offerings would be better if they just increased the clock speed on them too, wouldn't they?

I'd be fine if they could at least match Intel, but they aren't even doing that. Especially with their claims about how much better it was going to be.