Conclusions

Performance
Efficiency
Overclock
Price
Overall

During this analysis several interesting aspects of this CPU emerged.

Starting with a pure consideration, as fully explained in the page "Consumption trend with changes in the Vcore and production process", AMD Bulldozer architecture was to be born with higher operating frequencies well within the limits of the TDP. This unfortunately has not happened since the Global Foundries Foundries have not been able to maintain this standard that were in AMD projects and the CPU required a much higher vcore. The 32nm have been very difficult in production and has had to make certain compromises especially in terms of frequencies and voltages to avoid to exceed the TDP limit. This has made ​​sure that the CPU is very different from initial expectations. The CPU has to be evaluated in its current implementation, however, and compared with the competitor CPUs in these today conditions and in particular with the software currently on the market, that still does not exploit FMA4 and XOP instructions.

Focusing on pure performance, as seen in the previous pages, the FX-8150 CPU often is in most cases a little under the Intel rival reference CPU, which is represented by the i7-2600K, only in a couple of cases is able to be on par or slightly higher than the latter. Most obvious is a weak point derived from a relatively low per-core IPC, as can be seen in the tests: in some cases we also recorded a ipc under the older generation Thuban.

A clock to clock comparison sees the new AMD CPU to be far behind Intel CPUs and in some cases even behind the 1100T. A result that surprised us, and surely we could not expect from a new CPU.

Frequency scaling in the FX-8150 shows an excellent behavior; in 3D stress tests we remark really excellent result in 3D Mark 2011 where it scales really well. But in 3D Mark Vantage and in the Unigine, while retaining a good linear trend, sees the CPU score not up to the scores of other CPUs. In applications such as 7zip and Cinebench however scaling is a little less than the Intel CPU. Varying the type of memory installed, did not bring any major changes in the software used; the same was also valid for other CPUs.

Let's go instead to a negative point, consumption: they are very high when compared to the performance. If idle has a good behavior, we see a load consumption already aligned with the Intel i7-3960x, and this constant association with the Intel top range is also measured at 4 GHz and even at 5 GHz. The difference with an Intel i7-2600K set to a frequency of 5 GHz is well 200W, an high absolute value, even if we consider that Intel CPU was not particularly lucky and required a higher vcore than other CPUs of the same type. That efficiency is very low it is a fact known to AMD too, which has now accepted the defeat of Bulldozer in a fairly resigned way, announcing the battle, however, on other market segments.

The overclocking is definitely a strong point of this CPU, as long as to have a good cooling system. With a good liquid cooling system the 5 GHz are within easy reach, but it becomes difficult to go beyond this frequency while maintaining the same type of cooling.

The fun begins when you decide to put the CPU under pressure going to extreme cooling systems. In our case with a Cascade type phase change we have reached far beyond the 6 GHz frequencies: a result of good relief. The AMD FX-8150 CPU currently holds the record for the absolute frequency of microprocessors where they were well over 8 GHz with a cooling system more advanced as helium or liquid nitrogen.

For those about to buy a new CPU, the FX-8150, at a price of about € 230, is probably a good upgrade for those who already have an AM3+ system, particularly from the perspective of future longevity, while the 1100T at a price of 160 € is still a viable candidate. For those who are preparing to assemble a new system, proposals for Intel LGA 1155 are undoubtedly the most interesting. These considerations are valid especially for the majority of our readers generally interested in gaming. The situation may change for some professionals, who may be interested in having 8 real core at an affordable price, particularly attractive for those who need to virtualize many systems simultaneously. The FX-8150 could also prove very useful for those who make extensive use of professional applications optimized for the new instructions implemented in Bulldozer, applications, unfortunately, still very limited in number.