Is Ivy Bridge the answer to AMD Bulldozer ?

[itsmydamnation]

If that graph is accurate then I was correct with my assumption that bulldozer doesn't even come.close to the IPC of sandy bridge. Talk about FAIL amd. 8 cores to beat 4? Pathetic

target market segment can have nothing to do with actual performance, look at something like RV770 for example. Also, we know a fair bit about bulldozer, cache, prefetch, decode, scheudler, int resources , FP resources, retirement and we are looking at vast improvements across the board from STARS. i wouldn't buy to much into that one not very AMD looking picture.

 

[nonameo]

I think you are missing the point. Why aren't you saying look how high intel needs to clock fewer cores to keep up with AMD? And both statements are not very smart.

There are 2 different philosophies at play here and neither is right and neither is wrong.

One will fit your needs and one will not. Choose the one that works for you.

The question to ask is for your budget, what is the best product. Figure that out, buy it. Period.

I like this. While it seems that you can't really say that BD will take down sandy or anything, you seem very confident that bulldozer will at least be a clear winner on price. Honestly, I don't have more than 200$ to plunk down on a CPU anyway.

 

[Dresdenboy]

If that graph is accurate then I was correct with my assumption that bulldozer doesn't even come.close to the IPC of sandy bridge. Talk about FAIL amd. 8 cores to beat 4? Pathetic

I don't buy fat cores, I buy performance. How about you?

Is it actually a necessity to provide a certain performance per core? Why? Isn't this just important for lowly threaded apps, which nowadays can be overcome by applying a turbo mode?

You know Pollack's rule that twice the transistors (and thus complexity) provide about 40% more performance. On the other side power efficiency drops.

 

[Castiel]

I don't buy fat cores, I buy performance. How about you?

I always seem to hear that excuse from Amd fans.

 

[out.of.order]

Congrats, but it seems that nobody cares in high end anymore and with a global economic crisis around, the 300$+ cpu market is practically dead for the average pc desktop.

Seems Intel is just about to find out.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4213961/Analyst--Intel-may-miss-Q1-sales-target

you forget the chipset bug that have stopped the sales

 

[grimpr]

you forget the chipset bug that have stopped the sales

Its not the chipset and its not affecting only Intel, i suggest you should pay some more atttention to matters outside of the US and the miniscule small elitist hardware enthusiast circles.

 

[Castiel]

Congrats, but it seems that nobody cares in high end anymore and with a global economic crisis around, the 300$+ cpu market is practically dead for the average pc desktop.

Seems Intel is just about to find out.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4213961/Analyst--Intel-may-miss-Q1-sales-target

We don't care about the world.. Only the states and there are many of us who care about high end

 

[Dresdenboy]

I always seem to hear that excuse from Amd fans.

Which excuse? Are we becoming emotional here? "But it has.. but it can.. but it doesn't need to..." And are you sure that "Core-by-core SB is faster!!!11!1one!one!!" couldn't become an excuse as well?

Look, how I see those things:

Llano should have ~35M T per core, 110M incl. L2, so ~75M for the L2 and other stuff (e.g. power gating ring).
BD has 213M T per module, minus 150M for the L2+rest there remain 63M T for the 2 cores.

This means ~31 million transistors per core for Bulldozer.

Despite the heavy spending on an on-die GPU, the focus of Sandy Bridge is still improving CPU performance: each core requires 55 million transistors.

http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/4083

Actually you could call it "fail" if ~70% more transistors (the 55M likely include the L2) would not perform better than the smaller core.

And if you look closely, you'll see that Zambezi could actually be seen as a 4-core chip with 8-thread execution capability - the integer cores were called "cluster" and the "module" was displayed as a core:

http://citavia.blog.de/2009/04/15/amd-bulldozer-cpu-mpu-architecture-5947212/

This is an illustration used in Bulldozer-related patents.

Because of such background info I won't buy much into any discussion about naming and comparison of parts of a CPU based on later decisions than those by the actual processor architects

 

[grimpr]

@Dresdenboy

No point participating in psychotic conversations driven by inferiority complexes and e-peens, Castiel doesnt care about technology, he's not a technician and afficionado like Idontcare and many others, even Nemesis_1, he just enjoys trolling the smaller guy like in kindergarten and highschool, at the moment he's the no.1 next door troll at all things AMD and Bulldozer, in 6 months he will just dissapear.

 

[Castiel]

@Dresdenboy

No point participating in psychotic conversations driven by inferiority complexes and e-peens, Castiel doesnt care about technology, he's not a technician and afficionado like Idontcare and many others, even Nemesis_1, he just enjoys trolling the smaller guy like in kindergarten and highschool, at the moment he's the no.1 next door troll at all things AMD and Bulldozer, in 6 months he will just dissapear.

Just for you playboy.. Just for you...

 

[Edrick]

Why are we back to comparing an 8 core, 125W part to a 4 core, 95W part and calling it a fair comparison?

Compare a 4 core BD to a 2500 (no HT) and use that as a valid, fair comparison.

Or compare a 8 core BD (125W) to a 8 core SB-E (125W) when they come out.

 

[Castiel]

Why are we back to comparing an 8 core, 125W part to a 4 core, 95W part and calling it a fair comparison?

Compare a 4 core BD to a 2500 (no HT) and use that as a valid, fair comparison.

Or compare a 8 core BD (125W) to a 8 core SB-E (125W) when they come out.

That's not fair edrick. Bulldozer can't compete core for core so they have to throw 8 cores out there to compete with Intel. Amd needs to release a 10 core processor to beat the 2600K

Ill throw it out there again. Intel kicked amd in the nuts with Sandy Bridge

 

[Riek]

Why are we back to comparing an 8 core, 125W part to a 4 core, 95W part and calling it a fair comparison?

Compare a 4 core BD to a 2500 (no HT) and use that as a valid, fair comparison.

Or compare a 8 core BD (125W) to a 8 core SB-E (125W) when they come out.

because the 4, 6 and 8 core BD are all within the 95W TDP?
and the 4core BD seems to be priced around the bottom of the i5 25xx (4c/4T) the 6core seems to be priced to the higher end i5 25xx series and the 8core BD seems to be priced around the 26xx series (we only know about the 2600 atm). The higher end SB (>100W TDP) and the higher end BD (125W TDP) are not on that table.

 

[piesquared]

I always seem to hear that excuse from Amd fans.

Probably because the intel horde/employees/viral marketers/sheeple/investors claim that the only workload that counts is the one that makes their blue lover look the best. Example: how the Llano demo is meaningless because it might run one or two meaningless benchmarks slower, while giving a far better experience for the person that actually spends the money to buy one. Trying to convince a legitimate consumer that one chip is better because it plays superpi or some other meaningless benchmark better is irresponsible and selfish. Such is the nature of the internet and anonymity with no personal consequences.

 

[waffleironhead]

I think at this point, that no matter what comes out from amd, there are still going to be people dissapointed no matter what. You cant make everyone happy.

If a bulldozer is lower on single threaded performance most gamers are going to scream FAIL!
If bulldozer doesnt overclock well, enthusiasts are going to scream FAIL!


Does it matter if it takes an 8 core bulldozer to beat or match a 4 core SB? All I see when configuring a server is cpu/socket costs. I'm not paying software licensing on a per core basis.

 

[Idontcare]

The amd advantage at the upper end is that you have more cores overclocked???

:-/

Its the stupidly obvious stuff like that in the slide that convinces me, beyond all doubt, that the slide is fake and a photochop.

Just like that concept box-art that would have us believe AMD actually intends to claim Zambezi is the world's first 8-core and that the processor has no pins extending far enough past the relief edge to be visible.

People are playing jokes on the unsuspecting masses, it happens every time before every CPU release (Intel or AMD) and it works because there is always a new crop of new members or naive members who fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

I believe the next phase of the photochop crap cycle is the uber-cropped CPUZ screenies followed by dumbass obvious shopped superPi benches.

If this were hollywood we'd all be slapping our foreheads while yelling "lame formulaic plot is lame, and repetitious, and lame". And yet here we are, waiting for the next total BS fanatasy to come from xbit of Fudz to show up in the forum...yeah Photoshop!

 

[Phynaz]

Congrats, but it seems that nobody cares in high end anymore and with a global economic crisis around, the 300$+ cpu market is practically dead for the average pc desktop.

Seems Intel is just about to find out.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4213961/Analyst--Intel-may-miss-Q1-sales-target

Did you even read your link?

Missing the midpoint due to reduced mobile sales has nothing to do with the 'high end'.

 

[Edrick]

because the 4, 6 and 8 core BD are all within the 95W TDP?
and the 4core BD seems to be priced around the bottom of the i5 25xx (4c/4T) the 6core seems to be priced to the higher end i5 25xx series and the 8core BD seems to be priced around the 26xx series (we only know about the 2600 atm). The higher end SB (>100W TDP) and the higher end BD (125W TDP) are not on that table.

Where did you read the 8 core was in the 95W TDP? I am reading it will be 125W. Which puts it into another class in my opinion.

And pricing is unkown at this point. I highly doubt the 8 core BD will be priced the same as the 2600K. The 8 core BD will be faster and priced higher. I still believe 400-500 is within reason.

So it is still comparing apples to oranges any way you look at it.

 

[AtenRa]

I dont know if the specs are correct from the above pic but it seams there could be a 95W TDP 8 Core BD (FX-8110)

Why people continue to compere CPUs with all other stuff except the price ?? If at the same price has better performance it doesn't matter if it has more cores or higher TDP.

 

[toyota]

yes the best cpu for the price is the concern but the tdp, just like oc ability does matter.

 

[AtenRa]

I do agree that OC ability does matter for us Overclockers but please tell me why the TDP matters when you going to buy a high end CPU like SB 2500-2600K or BD 6-8 Core CPU ??

 

[toyota]

I do agree that OC ability does matter for us Overclockers but please tell me why the TDP matters when you going to buy a high end CPU like SB 2500-2600K or BD 6-8 Core CPU ??

it would matter to me because if i can get a product that performs the same with less heat and power usage then I will do so. a 30 watt difference in stock tdp can swell to well over 100 watts difference when overclocking. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/11

 

[Skurge]

I do agree that OC ability does matter for us Overclockers but please tell me why the TDP matters when you going to buy a high end CPU like SB 2500-2600K or BD 6-8 Core CPU ??

Cause if doesn't?

I don't think I've ever looked at TDP when buying a CPU, TDP isnt the most accurate stat either.

2600k is 95w, but it uses a lot less power than almost all the other 95w CPUs.

 

[Edrick]

I do agree that OC ability does matter for us Overclockers but please tell me why the TDP matters when you going to buy a high end CPU like SB 2500-2600K or BD 6-8 Core CPU ??

It does not matter that much when buying a CPU, that is correct.

But it should matter when comparing 2 different CPUs. Would you compare an i3 to an Atom? No. So why compare a 8 core 125W cpu to a 4 core 95W cpu? Thats my point. Nothing to do with price.

I agree that TDP does not mean must to some people here and that price means everything. But on the other side of the coin, some people do not care about price at all and just want the fastest possible.

 

[Castiel]

I do agree that OC ability does matter for us Overclockers but please tell me why the TDP matters when you going to buy a high end CPU like SB 2500-2600K or BD 6-8 Core CPU ??

You've never overclocked an 125w processor before have you. Ask any 930 or 950 guy how hard it is to keep down temps on air after 4.2ghz on bloomfield.