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AMD's Bulldozer was launched to a mixed, predominately negative press reaction as the performance results were lower than expected. High power consumption has also been a kicking point for the company on the forums. It may come as a surprise to many then that they are selling very well. We spoke to several stores in the last couple of days and they are apparently selling out as soon as stock lands.
This may come as a shock to some people, especially as the pricing isn't as low as some of the enthusiast audience would expect. We don't have detailed figures on the sales at this point, but they look to be very positive, although stock levels in specific regions appear to be low. Clearly, their ‘8 core processor' advertising campaigns have paid off.
AMD are calling a halt to the shipping of some processors, such as those in the Phenom II and Athlon II range. The reason is said to be because the manufacturing plants share equipment between older 45nm and newer 32nm products, causing logistics issues. According to reports circulating however, the X4 960T will continue to sell until stocks are out.
Kitguru says: A surprise success story for AMD.
Yeah, mainstream audience dont really read many reviews. they are sold on the concept of ‘bigger numbers’.
I think that the average buyer wants something that performs reasonably well all-round at a lower cost. Shooting for high numbers in synthetic benchmarks does not reflect the real concerns of the average user, who typically wants something that allows them to launch their office suites and browsers (don’t need very high CPU power for that) and play their 3D games right off the bat without investing in another discrete GPU. Also, consumers’ concerns for total power consumption may be a significant factor that eludes reviewers who usually seek performance. If it was just a case of following numbers, then people would simply follow Intel and not AMD, as Intel has typically more than 3X column space than is given to AMD so mainstream users will probably read more reviews favouring Intel. Nothing wrong with Intel’s SandyBridge either, just that it is usually more expensive and users are getting tighter with money.
I am not sure I agree with this, the processor is only part of the package. I find AMD motherboards very expensive. there are cheap boards now for Z68 well under £100 inc vat in the UK.