Fudzilla: Bulldozer performance figures are in

[bridito]

Charlie says August 19 for Zambezi, other sources say Opteron BD in late Sept with Zambezi in October. You pays your money and you takes your chances in the great AMD release date spinning wheel. No doubt that the LGA2011 mobo and the quad RAM are going to be pricey, but I assume (and we all know what happens when one assumes... it makes an ass out of u and me...) that i7 3820 and possibly even 3830 will be priced very close to the current going price for 2600K. Then again, between now and Novemeber Intel may end up deciding that the greenback is kaput and they will want an ounce of 99.99% gold in exchange for their SB-Es!

 

[podspi]

AMD really needs to improve their memory controller, that would give their Fusion chips a nice performance boost.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-a8-3850-llano,2975-11.html

Using the same memory speed and timings, Sandy Bridge memory bandwidth is like 40% higher than Llano's. Just doesn't make sense to me, AMD has been doing IMC longer than Intel, you'd think they could build a better one but I guess not.

Well, memory bandwidth is shared between the CPU and GPU. And, iirc, AMD gives priority to the GPU.

That being said, AMD's IMC has been pretty meh for a while. Hopefully it will see a huge update w/ BD.

 

[Ares1214]

Charlie says August 19 for Zambezi, other sources say Opteron BD in late Sept with Zambezi in October. You pays your money and you takes your chances in the great AMD release date spinning wheel. No doubt that the LGA2011 mobo and the quad RAM are going to be pricey, but I assume (and we all know what happens when one assumes... it makes an ass out of u and me...) that i7 3820 and possibly even 3830 will be priced very close to the current going price for 2600K. Then again, between now and Novemeber Intel may end up deciding that the greenback is kaput and they will want an ounce of 99.99% gold in exchange for their SB-Es!

Wait, you honestly think that Intel wont charge any more than the i7 2600K for the i7 3820 and 3830?

 

[bridito]

Wait, you honestly think that Intel wont charge any more than the i7 2600K for the i7 3820 and 3830?

I'd be very surprised if the lowest priced SB-E was much over $350 street. Then again, this is a seat of the pants opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it!

 

[RussianSensation]

Haha, I'm still pissed that I went skt 1366 with the eventual plan to upgrade to a gulftown. Now I could build a whole new 1155 rig from the ground up for the cost of the cheapest gulftown.

Intel tends to discontinue their slower / older CPUs and replace them with faster CPUs at the same/similar price level. So it wasn't really a surprise that the 6-core S1366 CPUs never fell below $500. S1366 platform was always the workstation/enthusiast platform with higher price of entry. It is even more so with LGA2011. In other words, unless you are ready to spend $500-1000 on a 6-core SB-E processor, you are better off grabbing a 2500k/2600k and in 2-3 years grabbing a faster mainstream version of Haswell too. Intel's highest platform isn't really aimed at "price" sensitive consumers.

I don't think it's necessarily a deal breaker that 1155 won't support 6 or 8 core CPUs. X79 mobos will be more expensive (i.e., how many people need 14 SATA ports?). It doesn't look like 1st revisions of X79 will have have PCIe 3 (not that we need it now) or more than 4 DIMMs either. In other words, it doesn't look like X79 boards will have anything special about them (perhaps better BCLK overclocking). Intel is basically charging a premium for professional / workstation users who really need 6C/12T processors. The firm my friend works at upgrades their systems to top-of-the line processors every 2-3 years. The guys there will buy the fastest Intel/AMD CPU available when they upgrade for computational fluid dynamics simulation. Intel knows these type of users don't care if a mobo costs $250-350 and a CPU costs $1000. For them, time = $$$.

In 2-3 years from now when much faster 6 & 8 core CPUs arrive (Bulldozer Next Gen & Haswell) and more programs are multi-threaded, S1155 users will be upgrading to a brand new socket anyway. Chances are you'll want newer mobo for better features anyway (Thunderbolt/Lightpeak, PCIe 3, and whatever else will be available then).

Unless AMD's Bulldozer is very successful, Intel will still continue to sell $500-1000 6-core SB-E processors until they are replaced by Haswell. I expect LGA2011 6-core SB-E to be out of reach for most of us in the next 2 years due to AMD's non-competitiveness.

 

[Slufa111]

This is the most expensive sample of the Bulldozer I am guessing though? The FX series?

If that's it then the less expensive Bulldozers will be just as good as the I7-2600K and or I5-2500K.

 

[RussianSensation]

This is the most expensive sample of the Bulldozer I am guessing though? The FX series?

If that's it then the less expensive Bulldozers will be just as good as the I7-2600K and or I5-2500K.

Those benchmarks haven't been validated to be true. DonanimHaber later claimed that he just made them up.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Those benchmarks haven't been validated to be true. DonanimHaber later claimed that he just made them up.

Sad to see that they were garbage. I was hoping AMD would have a winner on their hands. Not a fanboy, just wishing we'd have some more competition, especially on the high end of things.

 

[RussianSensation]

Sad to see that they were garbage. I was hoping AMD would have a winner on their hands. Not a fanboy, just wishing we'd have some more competition, especially on the high end of things.

It's still possible that BD will be a good CPU. I have to admit I am much more excited re: HD7000 series than BD though. Even if BD = SB or is slightly faster (10-20%), HD7000 series has the potential to be 50-100% faster than HD6970! That performance potential has me far more excited.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It's still possible that BD will be a good CPU. I have to admit I am much more excited re: HD7000 series than BD though. Even if BD = SB or is slightly faster (10-20%), HD7000 series has the potential to be 50-100% faster than HD6970! That performance potential has me far more excited.

I tend to agree with you. Dont want to get off topic, but I have almost given up on Bulldozer even before it comes out.

Hope the 7000 series GPUs can make a good jump in both absolute performance and performance per watt. Unfortunately my comp is an old off the shelf system an I am CPU limited most of the time, but a nice increase in GPU performance per watt would be very much appreciated.

 

[bridito]

Maybe by next week at Stanford's Hot Chips 23 we'll all be able to have some more precise information on BD's architecture:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/08/hot_chips_23_preview/

AMD is giving a presentation on the "Bulldozer" core design...

However, I'm betting that there will still be no benchys released. But we'll see!

 

[jvroig]

However, I'm betting that there will still be no benchys released. But we'll see!

There will be no benches because they will only release benches at launch. This has been repeated several times by AMD

Unless it is launch time next week, there will be no benches.

 

[Mr Vain]

It's still possible that BD will be a good CPU. I have to admit I am much more excited re: HD7000 series than BD though. Even if BD = SB or is slightly faster (10-20&#37, HD7000 series has the potential to be 50-100% faster than HD6970! That performance potential has me far more excited.

Well I'm exited about everything AMD ATM, with the upcoming Bulldozer CPU's, HD7000 Series GPU's and now AMD Radeon-branded DDR3 memory, all we need now is AMD branded SSD Drives and Android Phones!

http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/TECHNOLOGIES/RADEON-MEMORY/Pages/system-memory.aspx

http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/h...ed-ddr3-memory

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Im sure AMD Fanboys are having a nerdgasm over this xD

 

[Mr Vain]

Found myself a new flame magnet Avatar!


Could someone plz elaborate on the below sentence, I'm feeling a bit blond today?

Quote
AMD estimates Bulldozer’s opening to be not utterly one-to-one in this area, nonetheless rsther than closer to 80 percent—which could still yield an huge progress to certain applications.

http://www.rictechs.com/what-is-amds-bulldozer-chip-1534454.html

 

[Markfw]

Found myself a new flame magnet Avatar!


Could someone plz elaborate on the below sentence, I'm feeling a bit blond today?

Quote
AMD estimates Bulldozer’s opening to be not utterly one-to-one in this area, nonetheless rsther than closer to 80 percent—which could still yield an huge progress to certain applications.

http://www.rictechs.com/what-is-amds-bulldozer-chip-1534454.html

That is some of the worst English I have ever read !

As for the comment, it looks like they are talking about the Hyperthreading-like attributes of Bulldozer (which I don't agree on), saying 2 cores act like 1.8 real cores.

 

[jvroig]

That is some of the worst English I have ever read !

No kidding. You are even giving them too much credit calling it "English". It sounds like very terrible Eng-rish to me.

Not only that, it completely does not make any sense:

Regular Bulldozer chips will be AMD’s newly written Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), mixing estimate and graphics capabilities upon a singular thinly slice (the FX-series chips and server tools formed upon it will be normal CPUs), and a initial from AMD to be directed during users and builders of high-performance desktop PCs and servers

We know for a fact that Bulldozer is not an APU. That and keeps saying "thinly slice" for what contextually should be "chip". It completely smells like a google-translate work. Perhaps the site is not native english speaking at all? Never heard of it before.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'd be very surprised if the lowest priced SB-E was much over $350 street. Then again, this is a seat of the pants opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it!

Why? The cheapest gulftown is $599. They have been slow-walking us here for a while, just like amd did up to summer 2006. Anytime there is a period of sustained dominance in the high end sector, we see this same sort of behavior. I suppose a 4 core SB-E that had nearly identical performance to 2600k could be $350, but why bother with SB-E to just get a quad? The reason to jump on SB-E is the extra cores.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Wait, you honestly think that Intel wont charge any more than the i7 2600K for the i7 3820 and 3830?

On the 4 core SB-E It better be priced very close(no IGP). The motherboard and ram is going to cost extra but Ram is cheap . IF ya go 4 sticks 8gb its cheap enough.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Why? The cheapest gulftown is $599. They have been slow-walking us here for a while, just like amd did up to summer 2006. Anytime there is a period of sustained dominance in the high end sector, we see this same sort of behavior. I suppose a 4 core SB-E that had nearly identical performance to 2600k could be $350, but why bother with SB-E to just get a quad? The reason to jump on SB-E is the extra cores.

REALLY . I wouldn't mind having socket 2011 for what it brings.

 

[bryanW1995]

You mean that you think that a 2600k would have more than a couple % improvement from more memory bandwidth in your usage pattern? If so, then you will need a 6 core cpu, anyway. Or do you want extra pic-e lanes, which are already available on several 1155 mobos? Or maybe pci-e 3.0, which isn't needed now and probably won't be for several years? Face it, barring some sort of unique usage pattern, the only reason to get a quadcore 2011 cpu is if you plan to upgrade to a 6/8 core IB-E next year and keep the same mobo (which will be slow/outdated by then of course).

 

[RussianSensation]

1. X79 continues to be delayed. We don't even know if it will launch before end of this year.

2. It may or may not even have PCIe 3 support. No current single GPU suffers by more than 2-3% even on PCIe 2.0 x8, nevermind x16. PCIe 3 won't be needed for another 3-4 years.

I anticipate the cost of mobos > $200, easily. X79 only makes sense for 6 core CPUs imo. The extra cache hardly helps (see 2500k --> 2600k).

 

[PreferLinux]

Why? The cheapest gulftown is $599. They have been slow-walking us here for a while, just like amd did up to summer 2006. Anytime there is a period of sustained dominance in the high end sector, we see this same sort of behavior. I suppose a 4 core SB-E that had nearly identical performance to 2600k could be $350, but why bother with SB-E to just get a quad? The reason to jump on SB-E is the extra cores.

Are you talking about the cheapest CPU for LGA2011 or the cheapest hex core? I think one of you is talking about one, and the other about the other (and probably neither realizing that they are). The cheapest 1366 CPU would be the 920 or its replacements, and they cost a sight less than that.

 

[OCGuy]

Im sure AMD Fanboys are having a nerdgasm over this xD

Honestly if I was an AMD fan and BD is a flop, I'm not sure even a great 7 series GPU lineup could save them from serious buyout attempts.....

 

[Abwx]

That is some of the worst English I have ever read !

But good enough since you did understand and answer the question
and responded more or less to it :

As for the comment, it looks like they are talking about the Hyperthreading-like attributes of Bulldozer (which I don't agree on), saying 2 cores act like 1.8 real cores.