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I got an FX-6100 earlier this week and while Bulldozer has been already a subject of scorn, All over the net I'm getting offhand questions and curiousities as it seems every review and benchmark and unboxing and overclocking seems to be focused on just the 8 cores

I figured I could answer any questions you guys might have, post a few videos I've made, and maybe run some tests if you guys want me to - Only thing is I can't do too many high-hourage tests as it's really hard to sleep in the same room as this case (bright lights)
Other thing is my tests will be at my ''easy accessable no work' overclock which is 4.2 ghz - So I wont be doing much in the way of testing things out for you guys at the base 3.3ghz

Here's a video I made of the unboxing because some people are into that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_9682sSbI

I was kind of excited in the lead up to Bulldozers release, I guess I still am. Do you have a stock hsf and what temps do you get when maxing out all six cores? Clocked and at stock if you can.

Techspots Bulldozer Review does 4, 6 and 8 core performance figures. just saw it not too long ago wondering how the lesser core counts stack up in comparison.

That's a mediocre looking stock cooler; pretty much identical to the one that came with my Phenom II X2, except for how the AMD sticker on the hub of yours is way off center! The stock cooler that came with my X6 1090T is a bit nicer (thin fins and heatpipes), but still rather loud under load...

How low can the voltage go with stock clock speed ?

Dirge wrote:

I was kind of excited in the lead up to Bulldozers release, I guess I still am. Do you have a stock hsf and what temps do you get when maxing out all six cores? Clocked and at stock if you can.

I am not using a stock cooler unfortunatly, and really don't want to remove my backplate to verify. My Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus keeps it at around 41C load and idle (but obviously at different RPM) @ 4.2 ghz



Lowest voltage at stock speed I saw was at 0.9v on idle. Don't know about under load though.

First question: What made you buy it? I'm curious about your workload (serious question, not trolling).

Thanks for the video, by the way. It's interesting to see that AMD went with putting a copper circle at the bottom of the heatsink. I couldn't tell if it was a copper core, or just a plate. At any rate, I've never seen that before on the "entry level" stock heatsinks AMD ships with their processors. They're usually just pure aluminum.

Edit: Oh and since someone had already mentioned low volts, what say you try and undervolt the CPU before you start over volting it? AMD has always shipped their processors with liberal default voltages, or rather the motherboard makers set a very high default voltage. Of the current Phenom/Athlon II line, I've had no trouble keeping the CPU stable at 0.75V to 1.00V off the max voltage. The FX series power consumption under load is (relatively) crazy, and I bet this would do wonders for the chip.

Ryhadar wrote:

Thanks for the video, by the way. It's interesting to see that AMD went with putting a copper circle at the bottom of the heatsink. I couldn't tell if it was a copper core, or just a plate. At any rate, I've never seen that before on the "entry level" stock heatsinks AMD ships with their processors. They're usually just pure aluminum.

Oh, hey... I missed the copper plate/core. I guess it *is* an improvement over the similar HSF they were shipping with some of the Phenom IIs then. How's the finish? I had to lap the base of one of my stock HSFs because it had some rather large gouges in it...

Ryhadar wrote:

First question: What made you buy it? I'm curious about your workload (serious question, not trolling).

Thanks for the video, by the way. It's interesting to see that AMD went with putting a copper circle at the bottom of the heatsink. I couldn't tell if it was a copper core, or just a plate. At any rate, I've never seen that before on the "entry level" stock heatsinks AMD ships with their processors. They're usually just pure aluminum.

Edit: Oh and since someone had already mentioned low volts, what say you try and undervolt the CPU before you start over volting it? AMD has always shipped their processors with liberal default voltages, or rather the motherboard makers set a very high default voltage. Of the current Phenom/Athlon II line, I've had no trouble keeping the CPU stable at 0.75V to 1.00V off the max voltage. The FX series power consumption under load is (relatively) crazy, and I bet this would do wonders for the chip.

My workload other than games is mostly playing around with various database experiments. Bought it because it fit my budget, I liked the overclocking potential vs the phenom (I get a lot of enjoyment out of this, and will be trying a 5ghz run in the future), get some kind of sick satisfaction from high clock rates, and the aformentioned DB tasks conduct themselves well to the very, very multithreaded approach the FX takes. I have a few ideological issues with Intel so I'd be going green-team regardless, and after seeing some initial benchmarks realized "this chip isn't great and probably wont sell, but it still is a very good fit for my needs and things I enjoy playing with" and figured AMD could use a sale on this vs the phenom I was also considering. It wasn't a 100% perfect decision, but I found it fit my needs and preferences well enough. I also purchased it before more firm Folding numbers came out and I actually anticipated it to be a better folder than it is (though this is somewhat moot as I can't keep the system running overnight - my case's lights are way too bright to sleep in the same room)

I needed to overvolt a bit to be stable at 4.2ghz - without overvolting I was at 3.9-4ghz fairly consistantly, but that's not really exploring any headroom beyond the Turbo feature.

just brew it! wrote:

Ryhadar wrote:

Thanks for the video, by the way. It's interesting to see that AMD went with putting a copper circle at the bottom of the heatsink. I couldn't tell if it was a copper core, or just a plate. At any rate, I've never seen that before on the "entry level" stock heatsinks AMD ships with their processors. They're usually just pure aluminum.

Oh, hey... I missed the copper plate/core. I guess it *is* an improvement over the similar HSF they were shipping with some of the Phenom IIs then. How's the finish? I had to lap the base of one of my stock HSFs because it had some rather large gouges in it...

I'll make another video on this when I get home tonight actually. I haven't scraped the thermal paste off the bottom yet

I posted another video of my overclock to the account, but the audio is horrible.

Have you thought of getting some stickers or even using a little paint to cover over your case lights? If they're that bright then paint would probably just dim them and they might cause a sticker to have some glow. There's got to be some kind of solution that is fairly simple to that problem.

the lights are built into the fans, and I actually quite like the look, the sacrifice being it needs to be off at night.