One thing that I'm leaning towards AMD is that the socket will support future processor. Unless they try to pull stuff like AM3++ board

The beauty of going AMD is that you don't have to deal with the socket BS that Intel is feeding us. You can go with whatever CPU and just swap it out without changing the whole platform.

I'm considering taking my chances by buying the C5F now lol

I'm pretty set on crosshair 5 for 990fx board

Didn't bother reading the whole thing but is this suppose to be a low power replacement cpu to the E series chip? This is very significantly slower than intel.

It delivers great overall performance and stellar battery life as required by notebooks. Now I am wondering how their BD 8xxx would actually perform. I'm still undecided if I should pick up the C5F now or wait till the cpu gets launched. Are they supposed to be launched sometime in July? or was it supposed to be September?

I'd imagine Llano would be kicking some major butt in the low-mid range laptops but when it comes to laptop with discreet GPU, Intel is still going to be taking the lead.

Regardless, I'm more interested in how Zambezi/Trinity would perform. Considering that 990FX doesn't come with discreet GPU, AMD would need to squeeze in as much CPU power as possible. No excuse for allocating transistors into GPU However, it's likely that they'd still perform slower than Intel but only excel in multi core intensive applications.

Actually once I upgraded my PC next, I probably won't be touching the "next gen" CPU for awhile considering that I now have 2 x 6970 with ek waterblock sitting in my closet waiting for a platform to be installed into my casing. It's either going to be z68 or 990fx. So what concerns me the most is how will AMD's high end BD compete with Intel's IB for 1155 in the future.

Been doing some research on the product life cycle and upcoming chips. I'm incline to believe the AM3+ will not last. It's likely going to suffer the same fate as AM2. It would seem that AM3+ is a refreshed 790 to support the first gen BD. The real thing will come from FMx socket.

OTOH, Intel's z68/p67 isn't looking too good either. It'd seem that IB may need a new board despite using the same 1155 socket. Although this seems a little unlikely considering the confusion this would cause. If IB works on 1155 I'd say Intel is still a better bet until enhanced bulldozer is launched.

Yup, I think BD will get a socket change soon after a few Zambezi are released. Further reading suggests that Intel's IB will definitely run on 1155, or so called backwards compatible. Not sure if there'd be anything given up running it on older (current) mobo. So after further consideration, I think I may be better off going Z68 Extreme-Z + 2500k. Sell the 2500k when IB replacement comes out...hopefully spotting 6 cores at least.

My guess is that IB would highly likely get 6 cores or more. The die shrink simply allows more cores to be squeezed in. And with another 30% speed boost that Intel proclaimed, I think AMD would need to roll out FMx ASAP if they intend to stay in the competition. Also, Commodore is essentially a BD, I would imagine AMD should be able to release it much quicker than initial BD's (Zambezi). Rev 1 of just about anything, be it CPU, Mobo, Cars always have more issues and take longer to release.

One thing I may be wrong is that AM3+ might just run alongside FMx. Essentially putting themselves in the same position as Intel:

AM3+/1155 (PCIe 2.0, dual channel)
FMx/2011 (PCIe 3.0, quad channel)

Yeah lot's of wild guesses... I am replacing my EK Nickel blocks so I won't have my PC for another week plus. Hopefully we'd see some BD in action and that Z68 extreme-z becomes available.

Some of the features IB is bringing to the table isn't much of a concern for users now

- pcie 3.0 (Won't be needing it, no more $$ to get more GPU)
- USB3.0 (Doesn't really matter as of now since mobo's chipset support it)
- DX11 (on board? Not really interested in another APU concept since my discreet destroys just about anything the on board can do)

So for as long as IB works on those aforementioned chipset in the review, we are good to go

I wonder how hybrid crossfire works I don't mind have 3 x 6970 + whatever 6xxx on board hybrid crossfire

I think you may be a little confused.

The first gen bulldozer would run on AM3+ and is an FX series. The second gen bulldozer would run on FMx (FM1, FM2, FM3 and etc I presume) and is known as commodore. First gen bulldozer (zambezi) which runs on AM3+ is likely compatible with FMx motherboards, just like AM3 cpus are compatible with AM3+ motherboards. However, FMx bulldozer (commodore) is likely incompatible with AM3+ socket just as how the first gen bulldozer Zambezi wouldn't run on AM3 boards.

AMD's product line chart shows that FMx will be launched in 2012 but doesn't show that AM3+ will overlap FMx which leads me to think that AM3+ will be short lived (6-9 months or so). OTOH, Intel's Ivy Bridge WILL be backwards compatible with 1155 motherboards (some).

Forget about comparing Llano with SB You can already see from reviews that even the A8 pales in comparison to mobile i7 in its cpu department. Llano would probably make some decent low-mid end box/HTPC but you are probably better off going FX/SB with discreet for best performance.

Llano desktop is quite useless unless it is priced significantly lower than Intel's cpu

This will choke to death instantly on my 2560 x 1600 Dell 30"

Who's coming out first? Zambezi? or Z68 Extreme-Z?

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Jun 27 2011, 07:22 PM

If the chart is correct, then AM3+ will still be alright. But the other figure says that commodore would run on FMx socket. This is really confusing as to what AMD's plans are. If AMD keeps AM3+ as their enthusiast level chip/cpu, I'd much prefer to invest in AMD than Intel due to the MB cost.

It's probably true. Just keeping my hopes up still. Looking at the chart carefully this transition ends at Q1 2011...which is really soon. And then the count down to AM3+ going away would begin...

The thing is that it says 2011 Bulldozer...it is almost end of 2011 and it's not out yet. Heck if they replace bulldozer in second quarter 2012 (still meeting the what the chart suggests) I think people would be quite pissed off.

Is there any news about upcoming mini itx llano board? I'm looking to build a tiny pc for the room so that I could stream from hulu. If it wasn't for this, I'd just grab a media player

get a US VPS and install OpenVPN. Or just get some VPN in the stateside. I use a VPS at California as well as openDNS' DNS to bypass all telekom BS.

I use buyvm OpenVZ vps. I've also tried ChicagoVPS. All you need to do is setup vpn on the VPS (google OpenVPN on VPS/CENTOS). Once that is done, you can connect your PC to your VPN via OpenVPN gui. With that, you can bypass everything ISP blocked

I'm trying to get one of my DDWRT router's OpenVPN client function to work.

Monthly fee is insignificant. It could be significant depending on what VPS you use.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Jul 4 2011, 11:35 PM