If AMD would spend at least 10% of their R&D budget on developing their own compiler OPTIMIZATIONS .. not a whole compile but work with compiler companies to make them run better on AMD CPUs and also work on software optimizations with different software developers... I thin that with the right software recompiling , these CPUs would really shine. The architecture seems very well build to me but its so different that even the OS has difficulty using it correctly.. never-mind some applications that were developed with less than 1000 times less money than the OS and in less than 10 times the time.

Nothing stays in AMD's path this time .. they have the very advanced 32nm process .. the CPU is not cache starved like the 1st Phenom was ... is not held back by 3rd party chipsets ... Physically and engineering-ly the CPU is very much OK ... The only thing they lack is the right software.

I've red 5 different review last night and one thing became so obvious .. with the right settings, Bulldozer can surpass even 2600K in 50% of the applications used in all the reviews ... The architecture is clearly NOT inferior to SB ... may be better even but not everything can be done in hardware. This is only thing that AMD seems not to be getting .. especially since this issue has been so obvious in the last 10 years .

U all just wait,these chips are fist gen. Many improvments to be made!!!!

Sorry guys, but Piledrive will be even worse than that.
A) Piledrive will lose L3;
B) Piledrive will have much lower freq because it sits inside APU.

Well the code name of the chip was dead on... It surely Bulldozed AMD to the ground.

AMD should dump it's CPU aspirations and stick with it's GPU/Graphics card development. Intel has the CPU market to themselves.

How did you get your synthetic numbers with 2 cores? Were the 2 threads running on cores in the same module, or in different modules? How about trying it the other way and seeing how performance changes?

It'll also be interesting to see how performance changes if 1 of the 2 cores in a module is disabled, particularly for not so well threaded workloads.

So many hopes and dreams have been shattered by AMD, so so sad, Intel wont be releasing anything groundbreaking ever again because there is ZERO competition

Intel could easily half their R&D budget now and still sell a better product

Intel Sandybridge links up with Graphics through 40 PCIe lanes, and with peripherals through a 20Gb/s DMI bus.
AMD Bulldozer links up with Video through a 5.2 GB/s bus which also transports data from peripherals!
Any wonder why AMD processors perform poorly against Intel Sandybridge or even Nelahem (QPI 25-50Gb/s for video + peripheral).
It is the data bus that needs serious work and if AMD wishes to beat Intel, it needs to move all communications with Memory, Video and Peripherals on to the die - only then it will have an architecture which is superior to Intel! I hope AMD does it quick or else it will go belly up! Even a CPU illiterate like me can see this coming!

To XBit:

I notice that you were not giving the memory frequencies setting you were using? Were you using the motherboard default setting?
The Intel cpu motherboards normally default the memory to about 1066MHz (some motherboards down to about 800MHz).
The Intel i7-990 cpu calls for DDR3-1600MHz memory.
The AMD FX cpu motherboards will also default the memory speed to 1066MHz, however the FX cpu is design to run 1866MHz memory.
The AMD PhenomII 1100 cpu memory speed is 1333MHz.
The only thing you have given me on memory is, you used DDR3-1600 on all the motherboards.
Are you using DDR3-1600MHz setting on all the motherboards and processors being tested?
If so, this is good for the Intel processors. But you are under clocking the FX processors, and this will give the FX processors a lower bench mark on all of you test!!!
Also the PhenomII 1100 cpu doesn’t work to well with the memory set to 1600MHz (or at least mine didn’t).