As with all new technology there are bound to be issues (remember the last Intel Chips) and I think Bulldozer, although not seemingly living up to the pre-release hype is probably not as bad as it is being reported. It will be interesting to see how it does outside of the reviewer's hands who are only doing certain benchmarking tests and rarely, if ever, test under real world conditions.
Nearly everyone was expecting it to blow the i5 and i7 CPU's away but this was never going to be the reality and if people had looked past the headlines and done more research, they would have been aware of this.
Yes, the jump from the current high-end X6 processors isn't that big but if you are running older AMD processors then it is a big leap forward and I am sure that many will be more than satisfied with the way they perform.
Once again, those that jump in first are going to be the beta testers. They will face the problems and encounter early issues that will need to be ironed out. Having been there and done that, I am holding back from buying one at the present time. I have told those who have asked, that I will be waiting until next year when the next crop of Bulldozers come along. By then the majority of problems will have been addressed and the dust will have settled and then I will upgrade.
Yes, I am considering putting together an Intel system too but not because of Bulldozer or any failings on the part of AMD. The one thing I have learnt is, that in most situations, Intel are dominating the PC market and other makers gear their products towards this rather than AMD configurations. I have lost count of the times, when I have approached companies to ask for information as to why something doesn't work as expected, only to be told: "Sorry, we don't have an AMD set-up for testing". This says it all really and as with the hardware, this applies to a lot of software too, tested and reviewed on Intel systems with how things will work on the AMD platform seemingly as an afterthought.
