I think the former pages filled with new and maybe for some critical readers improved tests, still shed the same light on AMD's latest offering. My thoughts on the Bulldozer CPU have not really changed during the last two weeks. Not even the newer tests persuade me to reconsider changing my initial feeling about this product.

The biggest issue is that Bulldozer was too late on the market. This in reference to the performance it currently offers in most applications. Delay after delay is never a good indication of how things will fianlly turn out. Bundle the late arrival together with the unofficial leaks, the hype created around the architecture and it's performance. The overconfident PR campaign labelling this product as the first true eight core CPU. And then it finally arrives after a 5 year wait and most users notice it has a pretty rough time distinguishing itself from the previous AMD generation. What a dissapointment it must be for them that awaited a new competitive CPU. Only the real dedicated AMD fan boys still try to find a way to make AMDs latest offering shine. It must be applauded, nice dedication and devotion lads, but we will have to await at least newer and hopefully better steppings. In it's current state it's partly doomed. Piledriver might be what Bulldozer should have been right from the start.

There are two things that can improve the performance of this bulldozer CPU.

• First is to overclock it. Preferably at speeds over 4.7Ghz for daily usage. Partypooper will be the current Global Foundries limped manufacturing, which limits the performance per watt drastically. Go over 4.9Ghz and pull easily close to 400Watts out of the wall socket. Which is insane for a brand new 2011 CPU, especially with this mainstream performance. This bonkers power consumption is also one of the reasons I have a hard time with the value awards given on some websites. No idea what the value part refers too, as running a BD overclocked will be noticeable in your electricty bill. Secondly the street prices are still too high. On top of that the current low availability will not improve the price level at all. Last but not least the cost of a decent 990FX board that can cope with the power draw of these CPUs is also not that cheap. Cooling it by a basic air cooler, let alone the boxed cooler, will not handle the heat generated by a decent overclock. And honestly running this CPU at out of the box stock speeds, doesn't seem to make it worthwhile to be even considered as an upgrade over the previous AMD CPU lineup.

• A very honest comment I spotted on the web was that Bulldozer might be slightly ahead regarding application support. If the used software commands the cores/clusters correctly, then indeed the performance is quite decent. Will Windows 8 come to Bulldozers aid ? Only time will tell, but there's more required then just an improved task scheduler. The latter could boost performance with 5-10%. The trend for disabling clusters, modules is interesting to watch, but why on earth buy a so called 8 core and then just run it as 4/4. Setting different affinities per program, ... Really this should not be required to be done by the end user. Hopefully a lot of programs/games will receive an appropriate coding overhaul to be Bulldozer compatible. Yet again time will tell.

Completely off topic now. It's so weird wading through some reviews and to see the different opinions, remarks, points of criticism (if any) and the given awards. So funny to see a pretty spot on conclusion, then still award the FX 8150 with a 9.5 out of 10. Recommend it as value, high tech, must buy, and so on... No idea where the reviewer honesty level is at lately. Do they even dare to look at themselves in the mirror ? The readers that dig this kind of behaviour must love to be fooled or partly lied too. Not many grasp the whole concept behind the award rating. How it can be used as an act to get more goodies. The manufacturers praise them sites as their samples will get awarded over and over again. Good for all of us ofcourse, that there aren't any bad/flawed products around lately.

With this second addition to the FX 8150 review I  hope the Madshrimps test suite is now a bit more up to date and the Bulldozer CPU had a more fairer run.

Major point to stress, is that price wise AMD needs to react to the Intel price cuts. Intels 2500K is retailing already lower than 190 euros (FX-8120 price level)  The 2600K is plus minus retailing at  260 euros. You still have to pay about 220 euros for an FX-8150. Plus if you opt to overclock it, please consider a high end cooling solution.

For AMD's sake let's pray that Global Foundries can deliver the goods with the next batches. Taming the dreadfull power consumption to a more respectable 2011 level. From the software side it will be hard to get the required support onboard from game and other software developpers, etc...

But in BD's defence, if you look at the newer game results, you can get pretty decent frames per second. For multiple GPU solutions I honestly think the AMD FX series lack the raw power. In the synthetic SLI runs it's quite clear that this CPU will hardly be used by benchers. A suicide run is the only thing I see it usefull for. Quite harsh to outsiders, but hard reality to the overclocking community. For daily users, gamers, depending on the application/game run the Bulldozer can shine, but it's only a little comfort if it doesn't cut it with older software.

Let's all hope we will get a nice high end performing AMD surprise in 2012...

Logging off for the 2nd time...