I'm in need of building a new computer and was wondering should I wait for the new Bulldozer CPU's or build an APU?
AMDs APUs are aimed at extreme low power operation, netbooks etc. Performance-wise they are not great, though better than other low power solutions when it comes to graphics. The jury's out on Bulldozer. Potentially it could be as good if not better than the i7, on a straight $ to $ comparison, but for now we'll just have to wait and see. Which is what I'd advise you to do! Also be sure to factor in the cost of the appropriate motherboard when considering performance, as these can differ massively between the two platforms.
It all depends on what you need. From the AMD side of things: APU's are for everyday computer users and gamers on a budget. Phenoms and Bulldozers are for power users (you'll need a graphics card too.) It's cheaper to go APU, but if you need serious horsepower for things like video editing, 3D, serious multitasking, or heavy gaming, go with the discreet CPU plus a graphics card. If you want fast load times, budget in an 80G solid state drive in addition to a regular hard drive. Install important programs on the SSD and your personal data and less often used programs on the regular HDD. If you use a socket AM3+ motherboard, you can use a Phenom now and upgrade to BD later. That's what I did.
Intel is making the Core i7 2700K to rival the AMD bulldozer so if you plan to get bulldozer wait and see if Intel or AMD wins. If you are impatient I suggust you the core i7 2600K or i5 2500K. Both are faster than the AMD X6 1100T and have lower power demand and can be overclocked to about 4.6 on air and about 5.0+Ghz
It depends on what you need your computer to do, the a-series apu's and the bulldozer processors are aimed at very different markets. If you are an average to moderate computer user and need email, internet, movies, light games, downloading etc. the A-series apu is a great bet, a one stop shop for decent graphics and processing, which saves a lot of money and power. If you are needing more power, either because you do heavy graphics work, 3d modeling, programming, heavy gaming etc. the 2600k is a great processor, and well priced. Bulldozer will be shipping in the next few weeks, but that does not put it retail for about a month (maybe more looking at the gap between Bulldozer server shipment and availability). If you want to wait until it hits stores it will probably be a good bang for the buck, but it could be a long wait.
The AMD APU's are a joke... You're better off with a Phenom II 955 and a dedicated card like the 6770. The A8-3850 has the same computing power as the Phenom II X4 925. The APU's are overpriced, have no power. AMD already released some benchmarks showing the FX-8120 can beat an i7-990x in gaming using a Radeon graphics setup. Also, the FX-8120 beat an unnamed Core i5 at handbrake by a sound margin. There are some flaws in the benchmarks on AMD's part. On Intel's part, you can see the fear with the upcoming release of the i7-2700K, the other poster named Josh did a good job of pointing this out. AMD has already said in the past that it's not worried about competeing with the Core i5. They're more worried about the Core i7-2000 series. I would wait for Bulldozer. In fact, I would wait until the turn of the year if at all possible. The Radeon 7000 series is a few months away.
