A couple more points that popped into mind (and more bored web-browsing at work).
Re-reading the FX-8150 reviews that matter again, I think Anand sums up AMD's position pretty well:
The good news is AMD has a very aggressive roadmap ahead of itself; here's hoping it will be able to execute against it. We all need AMD to succeed. We've seen what happens without a strong AMD as a competitor. We get processors that are artificially limited and severe restrictions on overclocking, particularly at the value end of the segment. We're denied choice simply because there's no other alternative. I don't believe Bulldozer is a strong enough alternative to force Intel back into an ultra competitive mode, but we absolutely need it to be that. I have faith that AMD can pull it off, but there's still a lot of progress that needs to be made. AMD can't simply rely on its GPU architecture superiority to sell APUs; it needs to ramp on the x86 side as well—more specifically, AMD needs better single threaded performance. Bulldozer didn't deliver that, and I'm worried that Piledriver alone won't be enough. But if AMD can stick to a yearly cadence and execute well with each iteration, there's hope. It's no longer a question of whether AMD will return to the days of the Athlon 64, it simply must. Otherwise you can kiss choice goodbye.
I hope AMD has enough improvements in store for Bulldozer to boost its performance as much, if not more. Few processors make it off the production line with all their intended features in place. Not even Sandy Bridge, with its smooth and timely release (Cougar Point's hiccups notwithstanding), got all its intended features;
the rest will come with Ivy Bridge. AMD doesn't have the aggressive tick-tock release schedule of Intel, and instead releases a new, major architecture every few years, following it up with minor revisions/improvements (e.g. Agena -> Deneb -> Thuban for Phenom I/II). We saw some
pretty nice performance improvements there, and we're going to have to rely on these architectural improvements on Bulldozer to see enough competition to keep Intel on their toes.
As for price/performance comparisons, here are a few high-end builds and their prices (CPU prices from Newegg except otherwise stated).
1 I take entry-level boards for each chipset (the cheapest product on Newegg) without consideration for board features, such as overclockability; these are commodity features determined by third-party board manufacturers and I'll avoid complicating the price/performance comparison with them.
2 I use the K-parts rather than the non-K ones so as to compare unlocked processors; you can get a better price at the cost of overclockability by going with non-K variants.
3 I'll ignore the 990FX here as I'm not interested in comparing quad-SLI builds, so chipsets with 32X PCIe lanes are out. Its direct Intel match would be the X79.
4 Budget options for AMD are available in the form of 700-series chipsets; from Intel they come in the form of lower-end chipsets (H61). I opted not to post any builds with these as those lack SATA 6Gbps; anyone buying high-end shouldn't be skimping on such minor price differences.
No mid/low-end comparisons are done here as I believe I've posted my analysis of AMD's positions in those segments in earlier posts. I might do so once the quad-core FX processors are benchmarked.
* Prices are tagged by CPU brandCF/SLI builds (ranked by price):X6 1055T ($150) +
Asrock 870 ($90) =
$240X6 1100T ($190) +
Asrock 870 ($90) =
$280FX-8120 ($220) +
Asrock 970 ($110) =
$330i5-2500K ($220) +
MSI P67 ($115) =
$335FX-8150 ($250 MSRP) +
Asrock 970 ($110) =
$360i7-2600K ($315) +
MSI P67 ($115) =
$430Single-x16 builds (ranked by price):X6 1055T ($150) +
Biostar 870 ($60) =
$210X6 1100T ($190) +
Biostar 870 ($60) =
$250i5-2500K ($220) +
Biostar H67 ($70) =
$290FX-8120 ($220) +
MSI 970 ($85) =
$305FX-8150 ($250 MSRP) +
MSI 970 ($85) =
$335i7-2600K ($315) +
Biostar H67 ($70) =
$385[edit] Some changes made in CF/SLI selections. If you read this post before the last edit date-time, please refresh again.
Knowing how the 8150 performs against the 1100T, 2500K and 2600K, I am hard-pressed to call it a "value platform" from those prices.
For non-SLI/CF builds, the i7 offers equivalent real-world multithreaded performance and much better light-threaded performance, as well as lower power consumption/heat, for 10% more.
For gaming builds (SLI/CF), the X6 offers lower multithreaded performance but roughly equivalent gaming performance for much lower cost. The savings can be put into a better graphics setup which is more likely to see better gaming performance.
