Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is going to be a rather long review; so I'll get the condensed version out of the way first. If you enjoy reading long reviews, well, you are in luck! Who should buy this CPU: * If you already have an AMD AM3+ capable motherboard and have a low end quadcore or an entry level Phenom II x6 (6 core) * You have to buy AMD because that's how you will always be (see my paragraph below) * You require serious number crunching ability for your heavy threaded applications * You love to overclock your CPU and the price of cooling equipment be damned! This is a Black Edition processor aka the CPU is built for overclocking and comes fully unlocked * You care about native DDR3-1866MHz support and Quad Channel DDR3 Why you would want to skip this one: * You have a decent Phenom II X4 or a Phenom II X6 processor * Your applications are single-threaded (Bulldozer lags behind Intel I5-2500k here) * If you are in the "should I buy Intel I5-2500(k) or go AMD" camp * You upgrade every 9-12months; might as well wait for early 2012 (2nd generation Bulldozer) Now the longer version: I usually start my reviews by giving the context of where I stand with a particular product line and how that influences my buying process. Since 2000, I've had nothing but AMD processors in my desktops. I've moved around as far as motherboards and chip- sets go but as far as processors go, it's been AMD all along. Even for my fileserver/ secondary machines at home. I am probably what you'd call an AMD fanboy except for the fact that I exclusively buy Thinkpads for my personal laptops (current one has the older generation I7-640m) and Thinkpads usually come with Intel processors. The machines at work run I5-2500k and I7-2600. So the point is that I love AMD processors but I am not quite a fanboy. What do I use my AMDs for? My main desktop at home has 3 different uses: 1. Video (Capture, Editing, General Processing), 2. Gaming (think resource intensive titles), 3. Photo processing (Lightroom 3, Photoshop). My current machine has an AMD 1090xt 6core and while I am generally happy with the unit (bought it on Amazon for $169), I find myself wanting more CPU power during video processing (6 cores being maxed out by a H.264 encoder makes me want more CPU power). This is my current setup: . Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 . RAM: G.Skill 1866MHz DDR3 16GB . VGA: Asus GTX 480 with Nvidia drivers 280.26 . OS Disk: Kingston SSDNow V Series 128 GB . Scratch Disk: Raid0 with 2*Crucial M4 128 GB SSDs I managed to get my hands on an 8150 and slapped it on my GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 (grabbed the latest AGESA dated October 13th from the Gigabyte website). The 1866MHz DDR3 memory was recognized natively at its intended speed and Windows 7 x64 Ultimate booted without any issues. What I was most interested in was how x264 encoding (2 pass) would benefit from this new processor. Since the first pass is just analysis, I ignored the first pass numbers and measured the second pass numbers for both the average fps value and the time it took for an encode. The source was a 30Mbps 720p MJPEG file in an AVI container and I encoded it to a 10Mbps 720p H.264in an MP4 container. Over 3 encodes, I got a performance boost ranging from 8% to 11% on both the FPS and time-taken front. Not a small number but not the boost I was hoping for. Granted, that the x264 encoder I have does not have AVX enabled. As far as the games went (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY), I did not see a noticeable increase in frame rates (around 1-2% average frame rate increase at best) but this was rather expected at 1920x1080 since these games are not heavy on thread usage. I wasn't quite sure how to measure any gains in Photoshop CS / Lightroom 3 - so I skipped this part. At this point, I have mixed feelings about this processor (considering my 1090xt is only 6 months old) and my conclusion would be to wait for the second generation of Bulldozer scheduled to come out in Q1 2012. The problem as I see it is that this processor seems to be future-ready as far as applications go but 6 months from now, there will be a better Bulldozer and a better Intel processor or two out there. AMD has always been my favorite as they've always delivered on the price/performance front but that isn't quite true with Bulldozer. I hope AMD cleans up their act with their next release; the desktop/server computing market cannot afford to have Intel call the shots. I was split between a three star and a four star review and I realized that I was drifting towards three stars because of the expectations (and partly the hype) and how I wanted this processor to be a huge upgrade from my current AMD Phenom II X6 1090xt. In itself, this processor isn't that shabby. One might argue that compared to the Intel I5-2500, this process lags in the price/performance category. That would be true but I am an AMD fan and I am willing to give them a second chance before ditching them. Those of you who are on the fence might want to wait a few months.