Nice review Marco. I liked how you hit all of the points that people want to hear about, such as how the processor performs in certain citations.
I'm guessing I was right in the fact that Bulldozer would match Intel's processors. I mean even if it didn't beat Intel, it still performed relatively close to them (i7 not included) and if they manage to get their stuff together for next year then maybe it could possibly beat the newer SB-E processors, maybe...
The fact that the CPU didn't perform as they expected however is going to disappoint a few fans who were anticipating Bulldozer though, me included. I mean I've seen a video of some form of Bulldozer powering a game while allowing multi-tasking to happen and while the same may apply here, it just doesn't seem to be the Intel crushing monster that it was hoped to be...
I was surprised that the thing used a combine method of Hyper Threading and true cores. (Kinda makes me wonder how a 12 core Bulldozer processor would perform) I mean I knew that they had some form a method that allowed them to have 8 cores with 4 modules but I didn't expect it to be this. In any case, historically AMD's methods of producing processors have always lead to questionable performance as time goes on. I mean we have Intel focusing heavily on x86 performance and with the lead they have in silicon dies... There's just no question who dominates here.
Anyways, the methods they've used has always resulted in less then expected performance for those users who used their processors, even though some don't mind the performance drop. While they may have found a way that could at least best Intel at some parts, the applications for which it was put through placed less then expected performance results. Like the computer was giving it instructions and the processor just knew exactly what to do but didn't know the most efficient way to do it; this has historically been AMD's weakness; they do seem to be putting improvement with Bulldozer but it's still a weakness.
Despite that, No one can deny that the confidence that AMD had in this processor was justified and again, bringing back the FX brand is a vote of confidence that AMD was working hard to put out a competitive processor that can compete with Intel's 5-series CPU's. And did you see the slides leaked from AMD presentations that detailed how the processor could be powerful under certain situations due to the Bulldozer module that they made for the CPU; and you can't forget about that AMD belt that was seen just a few days. Even though the performance of the processor was disappointing to some, you can't deny that AMD didn't convince customers that their processor would at least not be a Phenom II X4.
So aside from that; yeah... This is Bulldozer in all it's glory. I wasn't following much on Bulldozer due to my lack of interest in upgrading the system but from what I've read, it's competitive, it's cheap (okay, it's $50 more expensive but the fact that it matches Intel at certain parts makes it more viable to those looking for an Intel alternative without the really crappy performance.) and even though they couldn't take advantage of the 32nm process (power consumption for example.) they have managed to make a competitive processor and a jumping pad for future AMD processors should they feel the heat from the SB-E processors that'll be released earlier that'll be certain to blow most of the Bulldozers out of the water but at a high-cost.
Good job AMD! Good job!
