Bulldozer was a very unrefined architecture to put it bluntly. Soaring power consumption, small increases in overall performance versus the last generation and lower clock per clock performance to nearly every other CPU on the market. Now AMD has a chance to redeem Bulldozer by releasing Bulldozer v2, Piledriver because a significant number of consumers still purchased Bulldozer processors.
It seems AMD has simplified its offerings with the Vishera CPUs (Vishera refers to Piledriver architecture based FX processors to avoid any codename confusions). Only three Vishera processors are planned. One eight core, one six core and one quad core. AMD is probably going for the maximum performance it can from all three, that way it can be more competitive with Intel.
The FX-8350 is the 8 core model, featuring a 4GHz stock clock within a 125W TDP. The FX-6300 is the 6 core model, featuring a 3.5GHz stock clock with a 95W TDP. The FX-4320 is the quad core model, again featuring that impressive 4GHz stock clock but also with a 95W TDP.
AMD is targeting performance with the 8 core models, without too much care for power consumption – thus reaching enthusiasts. Whilst the hex and quad core models get tamed power consumptions so consumers and system builders are more likely to put them in desktop PCs.
