AMD hasn't disclosed the specs of the Bulldozer processor that is used for this comparison, but two different scenarios are being shown to demonstrate the power of its chips.
The first one of these pits an eight-core AMD FX processor against an unspecified Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge CPU, both systems running Handbrake to convert a 5-minute H.264 video in SD resolution.
According to Hardware Info, the Bulldozer chip performs this task with an average of 223 frames per second, while the Core i5 machine gets 188 fps.
Both systems will be comparable in price according to AMD, but one can't help but notice that Bulldozer requires twice the numbers of cores of Intel to surpass a Core i5 by just 20% in a multi-threaded benchmark like Handbrake.
The second scenario has the same FX-Series processor fighting against a Core i7 980X in Dirt 3 at a 2560x1600 resolution, both systems featuring two Radeon HD 6790 cards setup in CrossFire.The Intel machine finishes this benchmark with an average frame rate of 80.9 fps, while the much cheaper AMD desktop averaged 82.8 fps.
Despite the good result achieved by AMD, the selection of the graphics cards, the high resolution and the small difference between the two systems cast a shadow of a doubt over AMD's win, as the 2fps gain could also be caused by other factors, such as better CrossFire scaling on the 990FX board.
AMD hasn't made any official statements over the launch date of the first FX-Series processors other than saying these will arrive in Q4 of 2011. However, most rumors seem to point out to an October release.
You can see about AMD Bulldozer FX-8130P Engineering Sample Overclocked to 5.1GHz
