Is AMD planning a similar re-engineering of their line of CPUs

[lopri]

Originally posted by: shady28
The point being, increases in individual CPU performance are so relatively paltry now that it's almost a complete non-factor. Multi-core is where it's at, and whoever can get the most cores with the architecture that makes the best use of them out to market the fastest, wins. Intel definitly has a leg up on AMD now, and the next 12 months probably won't be AMD's best. But lets be real - most people are still out there buying $150 CPUs - a casual look in the forums will show a lot more people buying x2 3800+ CPUs (a $115 cpu now) than buying anything much over $200.

AMD has several things on the cooker right now, but it will probably be next year before we see any of it. 4x4 (quad CPU, quad GPU) would be my bet for the next major revolution. If AMD can get the architecture working efficiently (ie, its complex getting multiple cores to scale up well), then that would be my bet for the next 'revolution' in desktop processing power.

You're trying to talk too big and confusing yourself. Are you saying most people are buying $150 CPUs now but once 4x4 rolls out people will buy $300 CPU and $600 GPU, two each, because it's so revolutionary?

Performance/Watt is where its going. 4x4 is targeted at ultra-high end, and even then AMD knows they need to meet the power bill. Otherwise it'll fail miserably. I'm not 'hoping' it to fail. Torrenza is indeed a nice concept and if sufficient part of industry join the open standard, the desktop usage and hardware purchase patterns can change dramatically. Nevertheless it's not "revolutionary" enough to me since that it's basically adopting workstation into desktop, with added efficiency and convenience.

 

[shady28]

"Are you saying most people are buying $150 CPUs now but once 4x4 rolls out people will buy $300 CPU and $600 GPU, two each, because it's so revolutionary? "


Not at all. For one, we are talking about one chip with both the CPU and the GPU in one. I know plenty of people who have bought a $200 cpu and a $300+ graphics card. Now, you buy one (CPU) and get both - actually a 4xSLI GPU. If that CPU is $500, its still actually in the budget category because it isn't just a CPU.

If you take this thought a tad further, a 4x4 is a perfect upgrade platform for those of us still using older motherboards with DDR400 and AGP cards. One chip to bind them, one chip to rule them all etc etc etc.

That said, the revolutions start at the top and trickle down. I dont see a lot of people buying the 4x4 top line cpu on release, just as I don't expect to see many people bying the Core 2 Duo extreme edition, or the FX-62 or FX-60 for that matter. Not that many people bought X2's on release either.

But, the 4x4 concept will trickle down. And I'd point out, the revolution in it is not the x4 CPUs, it's the integrated x4 GPUs. X4 CPUs are expected from both Intel and AMD next year.

Now lets think about this. What does intel have to do to come up with competition to a system that comes out of the box with 4x SLI GPUs, and 4 CPUs?