4100's price at RM410, is not too bad no?

The cheapest i5 SB is about RM560?

Well....the problem is that i3 2100 could give about maybe less or more performance
nothing change like Phenom II x4 priced at RM384
while i3 2100 RM340

that why ayam is still sad

AMD is going to release B3 stepping Bulldozer.
But I think the performance will not improve, but instead, reduces power consumption/increases overclocking headroom.

Now AMD going to unleash new old weapon to compete?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...960T-hit-Retail
Phenom II 960T, can be unlocked to 6 cores LOL

AMD Is Already Cutting 8-Core FX-8150 Bulldozer CPU Price
http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Is-Alre...ce-228076.shtml

credits goes to vrz: http://forums.vr-zone.com/hardware-depot/1...ml#post10610349

4100's price at RM410, is not too bad no?

The cheapest i5 SB is about RM560?

Now AMD going to unleash new old weapon to compete?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...960T-hit-Retail
Phenom II 960T, can be unlocked to 6 cores LOL

AMD Is Already Cutting 8-Core FX-8150 Bulldozer CPU Price
http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Is-Alre...ce-228076.shtml

credits goes to vrz: http://forums.vr-zone.com/hardware-depot/1...ml#post10610349

I'm waiting for next bobcat... really low end user here

I'm waiting for next bobcat... really low end user here

Probably won't be a big update to that... AMD just released E-450 to replace E-350 so far.

October 19th, 2011, 10:08 GMT · By Sorin Nita
AMD's FX-8150 CPU Is Missing from Retail in Europe




A week after the introduction of its first desktop processors based on the Bulldozer architecture, AMD is facing supply issues with these chips as its flagship FX-8150 CPU is apparently missing from most of the online stores across Europe.

Nobody seems to know right now why the FX-8150 is in such short supply, but US retailers have faced a similar situation last week when the stocks ran out only a few days after the introduction of the CPUs.

Back then, AMD said that a new CPU shipment is heading to retailers across North America, and availability seems to have picked up in these last few days, even though Newegg still lists the FX-8150 as “out of stock.”

The good news however for European AMD customers, is that retailers have apparently dropped the price of the FX-8150 to about €215 (roughly $297 US), which is €15 less than what they asked for these CPUs after their introduction.

The FX-8150 is the most powerful of the four FX-Series processors the Sunnyvale-based chip maker launched, as it packs four Bulldozer modules for a total of eight computing cores.

The chip has a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and also supports the Turbo Core 2.0 technology that can increase its operation frequency to a maximum of 4.2GHz when only half of the cores are in use.

AMD launched the first FX-Series processors based on the Bulldozer architecture the last week, on October 12, but despite being eagerly awaited by many PC enthusiasts the performance of the chips has disappointed.

In most tests that were run by reviewers, AMD's FX-8150, lagged behind the Intel's Core i5-2500K, a few tests even showing it coming behind a last-gen Phenom II X6 1100T processor.

In order to fix some of these performance issues, AMD is apparently working on developing a B3 stepping of the Bulldozer architecture. (via ComputerBase)

AMD's new chip: what a load of Bulldozer

By John Gillooly
15:16 Oct 18, 2011
Tags: AMD | Bulldozer | ASUS | benchmark | fanboi



Like many we've been finding AMD's Bulldozer to be underwhelming... and it is. Just don't expect a magic bullet to fix it.

Over the past few weeks we've had AMD’s new FX-8150 CPU in the labs, running a variety of benchmarks to get our head around the performance delivered by AMD’s new Bulldozer architecture. Like many other reviewers we've been finding the performance of the CPU underwhelming, benching below Intel’s Core i7-2600K and even consistently dipping below the Core i5-2500K.

You may not be aware but there is a simmering dissent in some corners of the internet over Bulldozer reviews. These cover off everything from suspected caching bugs to AMD deliberately sending out a lower performing ASUS motherboard with the review kit (that one in particular has us scratching our heads). But no matter how much our memories of AMD’s greatness want us to subscribe to the crazy theories we just can't do it – it really just seems like AMD painted itself into a corner with years of pre-launch hype over the Bulldozer architecture.

We had initially expected AMD to launch Bulldozer at Computex this year, alongside AMD’s new 990X chipset. Instead we ended up with samples of motherboards and the suggestion we test them using a Phenom II X6 – the implication being that it would be months before Bulldozer arrived. The hot rumour floating around Taipei during Computex was that AMD was struggling to make Bulldozer a competitive performer, and that it was reaching out to overclockers for help tweaking the CPU.

Ever since then there were several rumoured release dates for Bulldozer, but months went by without news. As each rumoured release passed it seemed more and more like AMD was searching for some sort of magic bullet and we suspect that it ended up a case where AMD had to put up or shut up, hence last week’s launch. We wouldn’t be surprised if the fact that Intel is set to launch Sandy Bridge-E before the end of the year played a part in AMD’s timing.

Bulldozer was accompanied by none of the confident bravado that came alongside the launch of Brazos and Llano APUs earlier this year. If anything AMD has subtly shifted gears in recent months to begin hyping up Trinity – next year’s APU – which will combine the Bulldozer-based Piledriver CPU with a 7000 series Radeon GPU. Generally speaking manufacturers tend to shy away from hyping the next generation of product until the current generation launches.

Even during the review process we were being hit with more and more outlandish suggestions, largely revolving around performance in nefarious ‘future workloads’. The implication was that a flood of heavily threaded applications is on the way, the kind of promise that has been made ever since the first multicore CPUs hit the market.

Some of the suggestions for testing applications practically flew in the face of good benchmarking methodology. One suggestion was Battlefield 3, despite the fact that we were at the time hours from the end of beta, despite the fact that the beta version featured old code and was lacking high end assets. Even more importantly it meant testing in an online multiplayer environment, which is about the worst thing you can do for replicability.

Then there were suggestions we use Windows 8, whose task scheduler is apparently more advanced and better leverages the multiprocessing-focused Bulldozer. Of course, there were no associated drivers and the only copy of Windows 8 available is the strange UI-focused developer preview build.

But by that point we had moved well into ridiculous territory. Speculation about the future is well and good but if we need to be testing with unreleased operating systems just to see improvements we aren’t actually reviewing a product in the real world anymore. No matter how outlandish the conspiracy theories, the hard reality is that if you went out and bought an FX-8150 today you’d get less value for your money than if you bought a Core i5-2500K (or even a Phenom II X6 1100T).

We've asked AMD to see if we can get some lower end models of Bulldozer, where its traditional price/performance advantages might be seen. We're also testing with motherboards other than the Crosshair V Formula to see what, if any, performance benefits may arise. But if you are one of those AMD fans desperately hanging out to hear that  a simple tweak will make Bulldozer awesome, then you should probably just accept the fact that while it’s a perfectly cromulent CPU, AMD has lost this round of the performance battle to its far more embiggened opponent.

AMD approached me and expressed a desire to reach out to the members of the enthusiast hardware community about Bulldozer.  We discussed a couple of approaches on how to do this and we decided that we would host this HardForum thread for our readers to post their questions in.  AMD will then have the questions in hand and will internally deliver the questions to the persons at AMD that should best answer those.  Once our questions are answered by AMD, we will construct an interview article and publish it for you to read.  Surely we will discuss that as well. 

This forum thread is for QUESTIONS ABOUT DESKTOP BULLDOZER / ZAMBEZI ONLY.    ONE CLEAR AND CONCISE QUESTION PER POST. 

These questions should be constructed using proper grammar, spelling, and most of all, etiquette. 

Questions not following the above outlined formatting will be deleted and your account will disabled till the interview is published.

So please think before you submit your question,  and please take this opportunity seriously.   We have this chance to subvert all of the rumor mills and get our information straight from the AMD source(s).  I think our community can embrace this event and get the answers it wants and the answers I truly think it deserves.

Should you be unaware of the Bulldozer launch, you can read our review here.

AMD Working on Bulldozer B3 Stepping

by Kristian Vättö on 10/20/2011 9:21:00 AM
Posted in CPUs, AMD, Bulldozer



AMD released their highly anticipated Bulldozer CPUs last week (our review). The reception was not very warm, and a common thought was that Bulldozer didn't perform as well as expected. Especially in single-threaded tests, Intel was still miles ahead, and even in multithreaded tests AMD wasn't a clear winner.

The initial CPUs use B2 stepping, but an AMD BIOS and kernel document already shows reference to unreleased B3 stepping. A stepping update should bring improvements (usually minor) to performance and power consumption, as well as possible bug fixes. Stepping updates are a normal way to provide small upgrades in between bigger ones, such as die shrinks and microarchitecture changes. While B3 stepping may help Bulldozer a little bit, it's very unlikely that a stepping update would provide huge benefits and thus make Bulldozer significantly better than Intel's equivalent CPUs - so waiting for this update is not exactly a good idea.

No timeframe for the update is known but if the past has any meaning, it won't be anytime soon. For example C3 stepping came about 9 months after the original release of Phenom II X4 with C2 stepping.

Source: AMD (page 27)