News AMD Bulldozer B3 Stepping Due

BIOS and kernel documentation has already named a B3 revision for the FX-8150.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/10/24/amd-bulldozer-b3-stepping-due/1

 

I hope some good news!

 

Hopefully AMD will pull themselves together and get something decent out, we need some competition.

 

Bulldozer just outright needs to get into the marketplace. Scan's had them overdue on Pre-order since the release, which isn't exactly helping those of us that are silly enough to buy them anyway.

Hopefully the B3 stepping will fix things, at least. I see no reason to release it as "AMD FX-8150 MK2" when they can just slap B3 on the box instead if it is a massive shake-up of Single-threaded performance.

 

I was waiting for these chips but now, as I suspect many others have, already bought the 2500k after the benchmarks came out, a shame as I was really hoping they would be more competitive with intel.

 

It's still more "bang for buck" to buy a new AM3 processor for me, seeing how I already have a high-end motherboard, so a 2600K would cost me double that of the best AM3-FX.

 

First link says ArsTechnica but links to an Anandtech post?

 

The million dollar question how much will it fix? I said it in a post elsewhere on the forums, hat maybe the 8170 will be the one that sorts it all out as they've got a bit of time to play with it and hopefully get it right and then there's Pile driver, when ever that arrives. If it could deliver 990X performance with higher overclocking potential, then it'll be going in the right direction.

Edit: I think I'm being the eternal optimist where AMD are concerned so lets hope they can sort it out.

 

I am happy with my 1090T@4.4Ghz on a FX990 motherboard. I will wait for a year or more to upgrade on the new AMDs.

 

Definitely. If it's a simple power-reduction, and thus a small increase in OC headroom, it'll be essentially worthless, whereas if we see major improvements in key areas (single thread performance, more consistent mutli-thread performance), B3 will be immense. Bulldozer is already competitive for certain workloads, but its weaknesses are too glaring for the majority.

 

Yeah they only have to increase their performance/clock/core by 100% and they will equal the 2500k and 120% to match the hyperthreaded 2600k.....way to go AMD.

The only BANG from your buck you'll get out of a bulldozer is the sound of your PSU busting under the strain when you try to get a oc out of it......lol.

 

Well some workloads it is really great, but power per watt efficiency, even in these workloads, appears to be way below Intel. So not only are they going to need to improve single thread and low multithreaded performance, but they are going to need to improve power efficiency at the same time (significantly).

I think that is where a huge knock comes in the server market place. These chips seem like the server version is going to be a lot more competitive with the kind of workloads servers face compared to Intel chips...but the compute efficiency per watt looks like it is still going to be WAY below Intel in most/all circumstances.

That is a big issue when a major cost is your electric bill for running your servers as well as power constraints in racks and HVAC. Even if the chips in most of their workloads turn out to be faster, if the performance per watt is a lot lower, don't expect to see a lot of sales. If I am footing the bill I could careless that my new rack server cost me $1000 less and performs 5-15% better than the competition in most workloads I am going to throw at it...if it is costing me $200-300 more in electric per year, plus upping my HVAC costs to cool that rack (probably by $100-200 a year) and my density is lower because of all the extra heat...that is going to make me think more than just twice about implementing it.

 

New Stepping? ........Well, duh!

A new stepping was always gonna come. Most likely within 3 months of launch, which is as soon as is reasonably possible.

Piledriver is far more worth waiting for however.

 

Waiting on Bulldozer B4 stepping, codename Garbageshovel.

 

From the 14 posts I've read here, what everybody is actually saying is, AMD needs to design and build a new cpu. Bulldozer is nothing but Bullcrap.
I am honestly disappointed in AMD. Intel needs some serious competition so they don't begin to slack off.
I'm still no fanboy of Intel or AMD. Or AMD/ATI and Nvidia gpu's for that matter. I just want the best I can afford. It appears that I'll be sticking with Intel/Nvidia for quite a long time to come.
A damned shame. I like saving money, too. Unfortunately, buying into AMD/ATI is just a complete waste of money, and even worse, our valuable, irreplaceable time.

 

I like AMD graphics cards a lot. Unfortunately I use CUDA a lot and until OCL is mature enough to replace it I'll be unlikely to switch over.

 

Woah, AMD GPUs are great, don't bundle them together. If you want a competent multi-monitor, or high res single monitor system, 6950 2GB Crossfire is unmatched by anything Nvidia has for the same money. Also, with 6870s at ~£120-130 now, with near GTX560 Ti levels of performance, that's a ton of bang for buck right there.

The only market Nvidia has nailed right now is the absolute maximum performance required market, as 3/4 GTX580s will be faster than 3/4 6970s, which is hardly a large market.

/off topic

I really hoped Bulldozer was going to be good, as I much prefer AMD's platforms (not the half-assed no USB3/limited SATAIII move of Intel, not to mention better chipset PCI-E lane support for multi-cards, not x8/x8 max without an additional chip), but the lack of refinement kills it for me.

 

AMDs gpu's are great.....trouble is if the AMD ship sinks because of this bulldozer debacle then it will all go down together......no more competition in both cpu and gpu arenas.......very bad day for computing indeed.

 

AMD will not sink on this one. For one, in the server realm (which is actually where BD was aimed) it's being used in supercomputers by all major companies, companies who had silicon from BD and SB-E early and chose BD. Just because Win7 doesn't have any optimizations for its new code path (though Win8 is showing some surprising ones) doesn't mean it's a dead duck, especially as the desktop is an afterthought.

I really wish people would look at where AMD is actually making their money on this one and realize they're fine.

 

this.