AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer Processor Review

System Setup
The AMD FX-8150 processor is the fastest and most powerful processor of the FX line and is the focal point of this product launch. We have paired this CPU with an ASUS 990X motherboard that goes by the name Crosshair V Formula. In addition to that, we are running an XFX Radeon HD 6950 flashed with a HD 6970 BIOS, thus unlocking all 1536 cores. This will mean that it will perform somewhere between a 6950 and a 6970 in terms of performance since it isn't quite either.



We also opted for 4GB of Patriot CAS8 2GHz Low Latency RAM which we then downclocked to 1866MHz to bring it within AMD's official specifications for our benchmarking. This was all cooled by a Corsair H100 self contained water cooling unit which we chose in order to see the full overclocking potential of the FX-8150 processor.
AMD also provided us with an Asetek cooling solution for the FX processor which will likely be priced around $100 as an added option. By the looks of it, though, it appears to be very similar if not identical to Antec-branded Asetek solution called the Kuhler 920. We will probably slap it on this system once we finish up our review of the FX-8150. Unfortunately we received it too late to be able to actually test it, but we look forward to letting you know in the future.

System Specs:

• AMD FX-8150, 3.6GHz
• ASUS Crosshair Formula V 990FX Motherboard (running latest BIOS)
• 2x2GB Patriot Sector 5 CAS8 DDR3 2GHz running at 1866MHz
• Corsair H100 CPU cooler
• XFX Radeon HD 6950 flashed to 6970 2GB GDDR5
• 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD (latest firmware)
• Dimastech Bench
• CoolerMaster 1100W UCP PSU

Testing system was running our standard software setup: 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 with all the latest updates and latest version of system drivers (incl. Catalyst 11.9). 

Benchmarks
For benchmarks we will be taking a look at a broad array of benchmarks running on this system at stock clocks as well as various overclocked settings to show you guys what kind of value the Bulldozer may or may not have.

SiSoft Sandra 2011 SP5


Sandra's Arithemetic bench is consisted out of two tests: Dhrystone ALU and Whetstone FPU test. From looking at our results we can see that the Bulldozer processor actually falls behind both the i5 2500K and the i7 2600 but then surpasses the 2500K in the FPU test, quite possibly a testament to the new design.



The SiSandra Cryptography bench is once again a combination of two benchmarks. The first being a sheer cryptographic bandwidth test while the other is a hashing bandwidth test. Taking a look at this we can see that the 2500K and 2600K are relatively the same and the Bulldozer isn't far behind while the Phenom II X6 is miles behind. This scenario becomes flipped for the AMD processors, though, when the hashing bandwidth test is run because it appears that the Intel processors and AMD Phenom II X6 processor appear to be at least twice as fast. This seems a bit odd to us, so we will consider it an anomaly for now until we run another hashing test in one of our other benchmarks.



Moving onto Multi-Core Efficiency benchmark we see that the Bulldozer processor yields us some mixed results showing that it can indeed surpass the 2500K in one test, while in another appearing to be worse than the AMD Phenom II X6 processor. For Bulldozer to score worse than a Phenom II X6 seems ridiculous. Then again, Bulldozer design is optimized for high clocks, and AMD cut down L1 cache from 128KB in Phenom to 80KB. Sometimes, that bid pays off. In the Multi-core efficiency test, it did not.



In the Multimedia test we see the FX processor take charge and lead ahead of both the i7-2600 and i5-2500K by quite a margin. This large margin is unfortunately only visible in the Multi-Media Integer test where the i7-2600 scores a good 25% lower than the Bulldozer chip. This is likely due to the new processor architecture from AMD in addition to having 8 cores - as we called it five months ago, ALU performance is top, while the FPU performance is not. This margin is erased quite a bit in the next test in the Multi-Media Float test where the i7 2600 wins by 70% and the 2500K by 4% but the Bulldozer still shows an improvement of 19% over the Phenom II X6.



For Sandra's Power Efficiency test we see AMD taking the crown for power efficiency and ALU power performance. The most important test, admittedly, is the ALU power performance test in which the Bulldozer beats the i7 2600 by 12% and the Phenom II X6 1090T by 15%. In the power efficiency test, the Bulldozer does not beat some of the other AMD processors, but it still does beat the i7-2600.