Fudzilla: Bulldozer performance figures are in

[dac7nco]

LOL at Intel fighting eight toddlers. I have the uncomfortable feeling that it's likely.

Daimon

Edit: Regarding the "evil intel" comment: They are in business to make money. If AMD can't be competitive, than someone else will have to step up.

 

[Phynaz]

someone please remind me, is bd goin to use 4 modules before a 5th core or is it using up the full modules 1st so 2 modules before using a 5th core?

All the answers given so far are inaccurate.

Per AMD it will be configurable. You will supposedly have the choice to load threads onto modules or spread them across modules.

 

[notty22]

Imho, best performance should always be automatic and transparent to the user. In terms of cores/ turbo / affinity / to~TDP.
Have bios,software configurable for testing purposes is fine also.
That way, the end user does get the best performance available,and there is not always the reviewer screwed up, interjected in discussion.

 

[-Slacker-]

They are in business to make money.

So is the mafia.

 

[Heinrich]

If AMD can't be competitive, than someone else will have to step up.

That'd be fine - if Intel would let them. But they'll just start paying off companies NOT to use Company3 and NOT to give Company3 a chance - just like they did last time.

Intel are SLIME.

 

[jhansman]

While I don't see Intel as the evil empire (well, sorta), I have been using AMD chips for over decade now and continue to support them. Hell, someone has to give Intel some competition, albeit a day late and dollar short. Truth is, they don't need my sheckels, whereas AMD needs every customer it can get to stay in this game. I have high hopes for BD, and hope the major h/w manuf. hang in there with them.

 

[Davidh373]

So is the mafia.

lol... yes, because Intel breaks the law just like the mafia. They rob banks, kill, and cheat all the time. Those in the position of power are only in that position due to their own competency. You are quite ignorant, sir.

 

[SickBeast]

I can see Bulldozer giving Sandy Bridge a serious run for its money provided that it can clock high enough. That seems to be the key problem with CPUs ever since the Pentium 4. They have hit the wall in terms of clock speed. I would imagine that it gets even more difficult with 8 cores on a single die.

I'm personally not interested in 8 slow cores. If they can hit 4ghz overclocked, I will consider buying one.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I can see Bulldozer giving Sandy Bridge a serious run for its money provided that it can clock high enough. That seems to be the key problem with CPUs ever since the Pentium 4. They have hit the wall in terms of clock speed. I would imagine that it gets even more difficult with 8 cores on a single die.

I'm personally not interested in 8 slow cores. If they can hit 4ghz overclocked, I will consider buying one.

Bulldozer needs to have fast cores not only in clock speed, but in instructions per clock and in power efficiency. If they have to have 8 cores at 4ghz to match Sandy Bridge, I say they are in trouble. It is time for AMD to move past just adding more cores to get midrange performance. They need an efficient architecture.

 

[Voo]

lol... yes, because Intel breaks the law just like the mafia. [...] You are quite ignorant, sir.

Please, oh please, tell me that this was intentional. Though it'd be hilarious in both cases.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm personally not interested in 8 slow cores. If they can hit 4ghz overclocked, I will consider buying one.

I am pretty sure BD will hit 4.0ghz without problems since its Turbo mode already hints at 4.2ghz at the beginning of its generation cycle. Also, without knowing the IPC increase, it's difficult to say how fast 4.0ghz on BD will be. But I agree with you that it's preferable to have 4 fast cores than 8 slow cores for most people in the near future. In fact, I would take a $200-225 fast 4-core CPU and a $100 SSD over a $300-325 8-core CPU and a mechanical drive any day.

Even if 8-core SB is as good as the 2600k, that's still not a slam dunk unless their 4-core $200 offerings can also keep up with a 4.5ghz 2500k.

 

[lau808]

if the 8 core bd only keeps up with 26k then 4 core bd wont keep up with 25k. on paper, the 4 module is more effecient than 4 core+ht so that helps make up ground lost to intels superior ipc. at the same time, 2 module/4 core bd wont be as effecient as 4 core no ht so bd ipc would need to be better than intel to keep up with 25k

 

[lau808]

which is crappy for me since i will be buying bd 4core (dont need more than 4) and highly doubt bd will magically appear with a better ipc over sb. but regardless, id prolly be fine with a 955 phenom II wo oc so bd + oc is all just gravy for me

 

[frostedflakes]

Bulldozer needs to have fast cores not only in clock speed, but in instructions per clock and in power efficiency. If they have to have 8 cores at 4ghz to match Sandy Bridge, I say they are in trouble. It is time for AMD to move past just adding more cores to get midrange performance. They need an efficient architecture.

If it were so easy, I'm sure they would be doing that. They probably just don't have the engineering talent and/or R&D budget for architectural improvements like Intel, though. Kind of sad really because I'd love to see AMD be more competitive with Intel on the CPU side. They do have a solid advantage over Intel with GPUs, though, which will be very beneficial if the GPU compute thing ever really catches on.

 

[SickBeast]

AMD will in all likelihood continue to survive for the time being.

I don't know what's happened to their CPU division. It's really too bad. They've beat out intel at the top before and they should be able to do it again. Hopefully Bulldozer will be a huge success for them. I just can't see it competing with Ivy Bridge, which still would put AMD one generation behind.

That said, an 8 core Bulldozer with an 800 "core" integrated fusion GPU would be pretty sweet in a laptop. I don't think intel will have anything to compete with something like that for quite awhile.

 

[-Slacker-]

lol... yes, because Intel breaks the law just like the mafia. They rob banks, kill, and cheat all the time. Those in the position of power are only in that position due to their own competency. You are quite ignorant, sir.

Nice detective work, I obviously implied that intel is exactly as bad as the mafia, with the killing and the drugs and whatnot. I now see the errors of my ways, let me write that down somewhere, so I'll remember not to forget.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

AMD will in all likelihood continue to survive for the time being.

I don't know what's happened to their CPU division. It's really too bad.

The company decided to embrace computer synthesis over hand-designing transistors, and lot of the old Alpha/NexGen graybeards that made their name twiddling with transistors no longer felt welcome and quit. The team that built K8 simply isn't working for AMD any more.

There was a rather long rant about this on some apple forum by an ex-AMD employee, but I couldn't find it.

 

[SickBeast]

The company decided to embrace computer synthesis over hand-designing transistors, and lot of the old Alpha/NexGen graybeards that made their name twiddling with transistors no longer felt welcome and quit. The team that built K8 simply isn't working for AMD any more.

There was a rather long rant about this on some apple forum by an ex-AMD employee, but I couldn't find it.

yes, people get old and then they retire. there's not much you can do about it. i'm sure that most of the people at intel who designed the 386 and such are old and grey at this point, perhaps disillusioned as well.

that is interesting information, though, if true.

i personally don't mind the synthesis approach if it works well and bears fruit. it makes sense in a lot of ways. not only that, but it probably doesn't make sense to try and hand tune transistors in light of how large and complicated cpus have become.

 

[frozentundra123456]

AMD will in all likelihood continue to survive for the time being.

That said, an 8 core Bulldozer with an 800 "core" integrated fusion GPU would be pretty sweet in a laptop. I don't think intel will have anything to compete with something like that for quite awhile.

I really cant see crippling a 8 core Bulldozer with an integrated GPU, even if it had twice the cores of Llano. I would think that you would want a discrete card with this, even in a laptop.

However, if they could increase the integrated GPU to 800 cores, add a 4 core bulldozer that is on a par with a Sandy Bridge quad, and keep the power in check they would have a winner.

 

[Red Storm]

Considering how much money each company has at their disposal, it's a miracle that AMD is able to even compete with Intel. For the sake of competition I hope BD does very well.

Anyone rooting for AMD to fail must also be a fan of higher prices and slower innovation.

 

[exar333]

AMD will in all likelihood continue to survive for the time being.

I don't know what's happened to their CPU division. It's really too bad. They've beat out intel at the top before and they should be able to do it again. Hopefully Bulldozer will be a huge success for them. I just can't see it competing with Ivy Bridge, which still would put AMD one generation behind.

That said, an 8 core Bulldozer with an 800 "core" integrated fusion GPU would be pretty sweet in a laptop. I don't think intel will have anything to compete with something like that for quite awhile.

Good luck cooling that...

 

[RussianSensation]

I just can't see it competing with Ivy Bridge, which still would put AMD one generation behind.

It's better to be 1 generation behind than 2. BD can't be that bad if they are aiming to re-position it into the $200-300 price bracket. If AMD has been able to survive with the Phenom I/II in the last 5 years, I can only see their situation improving with BD.

If BD can deliver great power consumption in idle/load vs. Phenom II, then AMD may be able to regain some market share with BD Fusion CPUs in the next 2-4 years in the mobile space.

Secondly, if AMD is able to squeeze 2x as many cores in a module with just a 12% die space increase, I can see them releasing 16-20 core BD CPUs in the server space on 22nm too.

Lots of potential here on AMD's part. I just hope they did at least something with that dreaded IPC performance of Phenom II. If yes, I can see many people trading a 20% IPC disadvantage to SB for a 30-40% performance advantage in multi-threaded apps of 6-8 cores. But if IPC is similar to Phenom II, then boy are they in trouble.

 

[Davidh373]

Please, oh please, tell me that this was intentional. Though it'd be hilarious in both cases.

umm... ok...

Nice detective work, I obviously implied that intel is exactly as bad as the mafia, with the killing and the drugs and whatnot. I now see the errors of my ways, let me write that down somewhere, so I'll remember not to forget.

You certainly should consider making a different comparison next time. There was some sarcasm in my words, but that very statement suggests Intel goes about poor (or even illegal) business practices. Which they couldn't do.

Anyone rooting for AMD to fail must also be a fan of higher prices and slower innovation.

I'm really not a fan of the vicious stabs at Intel in this thread. Do you guys not realize that the i5 760 is better than the Phenom II X6s at about the same platform cost? The i5 came out long before the X6 CPUs as well. The i5 2500K completely wrecks the X6. I'd say a 4-core wrecking a 6-core in multithreaded performance is pretty damn innovative. If anyone is slow to innovate it's AMD, who has been playing catch up for the last 4-5 years. Yes, they make more obvious jumps in performance between processors, and yes Intel makes lesser jumps. I believe that is only to keep AMD in the race though. If Intel were to make a large jump ahead of AMD like AMD does to catch up to Intel, Intel would crush AMD. AMD would then go under, and Intel wouldn't have anyone to compete with.

Bill Gates and Microsoft did the same thing with Apple in sort of a different way. When Macintosh was going under in 1997, Microsoft purchased $150 Billion in non-voting Apple stock. Keeping competition in the race (IMO) is the best business practice one can adhere to.

 

[SickBeast]

Good luck cooling that...

It's not as though the current Llano chips with 400 cores generate a lot of heat. I'm sure 800 cores would be manageable.

I don't understand why laptops are made of plastic. They should be made entirely of aluminum to dissipate the heat. Perhaps leave the base as some sort of a dense rubber so that people don't burn themselves.

 

[Abwx]

I'm really not a fan of the vicious stabs at Intel in this thread. Do you guys not realize that the i5 760 is better than the Phenom II X6s at about the same platform cost? The i5 came out long before the X6 CPUs as well. The i5 2500K completely wrecks the X6. I'd say a 4-core wrecking a 6-core in multithreaded performance is pretty damn innovative.

Yet the same old urban legends unrelentlessly recycled....

Multithread , did you say ?...

Particularly , the i5 760 really do wonders...