Phenom In perspective

[Darkskypoet]

The absolute nuts-ness of the various communities over he Phenom benchies have some decent info, but seem chock full of fanboys going nuts, and really people missing the point.

Cries of AMD sucks, and is going to die, et cetera... Are really starting to annoy me.

I build C2D systems, I run a cheap x2 system... I oc the beejezuss out of both platforms, and love them both for what they are.

Phenom is a die that is about 2 x the size of either C2D in a 65nm C2Q...
It's monolithic rather then MCM...

And that makes this achievement (although stupid strategically) not so bad engineering wise.

Consider that B3 can hit over 3ghz on air, and B2 does so for some (with issues) as well. This is remarkable for a core that is godforsakenly massive in comparison to the C2Ds that make up the C2Q. As well, Intel didn't have the balls to even go monolithic until 45nm.

That said, lets reiterate.... Going monolithic, was stupid.

AMD with far less mfg resources tried to do what Intel refused to. Considering the strategic approach that would better benefit the firm with less resources, is MCM, whoever decided that should be tarred and feathered... (and they are or are going to be)

Considering benchmarks today, IMHO, are useless in indicating the actual performance of a fully sped cache / proper functioning dual channel memory setup Phenom, the fan boys are toasting the death of AMD based on s**t numbers.

However, again strategically AMD is stupid. This chip should be only available in the 9500, and should be priced at $200-$225 USD. Period. It's broken. The Boards shipping don't properly support it, and the only saving grace for them was to come out honestly and say wow, this has been hard. Because it is damn hard to pull off what they managed with such measly resources.

Enter to Xmas, and spider sells because at heart the chipset is good, the video cards are good, and a $200 quad core is good. Together, it's a very cheap entrance to the higher end, and you get time to ramp, and ship B3's, bios updates, etc.

Furthermore, this canned nonsense is stupid, send them B3s and B2s and let them review and write.

All in all, I think AMDs engineers did a fantastic job considering that management Fu**ed up big time. The size scale and complexity of this core is an amazing feat at 65nm, and if latter spins hit 3.5ghz as some (Hard OCP) have indicated... Thats bloddy well amazing for a monolithic monster such as phenom.

AMDs management should be (in the words of Garfield) dragged out onto the street and shot.

Before I get flamed to high heaven, please realize that the whole of Intel is not laughing at AMD, the Engineers I am sure are raising a pint for them, as I am sure they are among a relative few that truly understand just what hell their competitive brethren have gone through to create this monstrosity with such meager facilities, and budget.

All in all, I hope the bios release fixes the cache issue ( big reason for lack of scaling / instability at OC), and that the memory issue is worked out (also huge in regards to scaling / memory performance). However, this is not Phenom so much as it is a crippled chip that is priced too high for its deformities.

So I for one will raise a pint to the AMD engineers that were forced to do something insanely hard, when something much easier would have been so much better, cheaper, and faster to market. If I had the cash I'd buy them all a round.

 

[Arkaign]

Cliffs? Phenom sucks for now, but is impressive despite it's suck-ness?

Well, hopefully it will suck less later than it does now.

 

[Darkskypoet]

If in fact (at minimum) the L3 cache is locked to 2ghz, AND memory Bandwidth is 1/2 of proper... That severely hurts a Quad core. Considering if those are true, and it still pulls even at 2.4 in a few benchmarks... It may be quite promising. However, you would expect as core speed increases, the scaling would suck more and more as you speed on past 2ghz... Thus the rather craptastic scaling as opposed to many opinions that it only really gets going at or above 2.5ghz.

I'd wait and see what transpires before making stupid comments is all Something honestly doesn't seem quite right here... (not that I expect tomorrow we'll wake to find it a Penryn killer)

 

[eye smite]

It really is a great job by amd. I have been a fan of amd since the k6-2 with 3d now. All of my systems save one are amd and that one is a p4 3.2 gig my company sold me for $100 when they laid me off, otherwise I wouldn't own it as p4's were garbage imo. I don't see any problems with yesterday's launch at all, it was pre production chips and MB's you will obviosly see mature. AMD has earned the rep of being a good developer of their products while maintaining backwards compatibility, i.e. athlon xp and athlon64. You can't say that with intel and their constant cpu and chipset changes. Let us not forget that for 3 years amd trounced intel with the athlon64, parts of that cpu intel still hasn't equaled in inovation. Can anyone say FSB bottleneck? I see that peoples expectations are too high and amd made too early a release of phenom because of the noisy minority screaming for a new cpu. Many companies and home users are still on the rotting and alwasy was rotting p4's. I have 8 amd based systems here ranging from athlon 64's, x2 and one turion. I run world community grid through the boinc client and even the turion at 1400mhz slower is turning in more units than that p4 system I have. How many people out there are still on windows98 and how many of those systems are physically dying and having to be replaced? What would you rather see them buy in the 300-400 price range, a celeron D or an athlonx2 system. Say it's your neighbor and they ask you to help with their system from time to time, which one would you rather be frustrated by?

All in all, I think AMD is going to continue developement of the phenom just like they did with the original athlon64, and I don't think it will be long before you see intel scrambling to stay ahead. Case in point their release of the QX9770 yesterday and a new core and chipset change just around the corner for them. Intel is having to really compete now after paying nearly a billion in fines to the Japanese and Euro trade commisions for unfair business practices with their p4's nearly 2 years ago. I mean like wow, did anyone ever think you'd see Dell sell pc's at walmart with amd chips in them? Just keep in mind one thing as things progress, none of you would enjoy any of the performance you have right now if amd hadn't trounced intel for 3 years with the athlon64. Nuff said.

 

[rchiu]

Well you cannot say AMD did a good job because they pull off something hard, it is only worth it if that something hard comes with benefit. I mean yeah it's cool engineering achievement to manufacture 4 cores on one die, but why are we not seeing any benefits, clock per clock, it is not doing any better than Q6600 with 2 dies. I have to ask AMD engineering architects, what was the reason to go with that design when they knew it would be harder to manufacture, what was the benefit, and why we are not seeing it? I would love to see AMD do well too but I have to be realistic. The fact is Phenom is one year late to the game, perform worse than Intel Quad core clock per clock, cannot clock as high, and priced at a point not competitive to existing Intel product that's on the market for almost a year. That's the fact today. In a couple of month, AMD might come up with B3 that goes 3ghz, or they may increase the yield 5 fold, or they may do this and that, that's all speculations. Just like when Barcelona was released at 2ghz, people were talking about somehow at 2.4+ghz, it would "scale" better and perform much better. It is not stupid comment to comment based on today's fact. If AMD does something down the road, we can make comment base on that down the road. But today, it is what it is.

 

[taltamir]

I heard there is talk about replacing the CEO of AMD... I gotta say finally. AMD has been doing one stupid thing after another. They should have made an MCM platform and THEN move to a unified one. Just like intel has been doing from day one. Yes the the MCM doesn't perform as well, but it can be out and performing at all about a year before the integrated platform can.

I guess they assumed it will be the same success that the X2 was.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: eye smite
Just keep in mind one thing as things progress, none of you would enjoy any of the performance you have right now if amd hadn't trounced intel for 3 years with the athlon64. Nuff said.

You would have next to nothing new from AMD were it not for Core 2. Keep that in mind.

 

[Denithor]

I have to wonder if AMD could make money on Phenom 9500 @ $200 or even $225? If so, that would be the obvious route to follow...better price/performance ratio than C2Q chips would attract some people even if they didn't scale well at higher speeds.

At this point with AM2 compatability problems and prices where they are I don't think Phenom will be accepted very well at all. Which is very unfortunate as Intel will feel no pressure to keep prices down (as mentioned in the QX9770 review).

 

[Darkskypoet]

I am pretty damn sure it wasn't an Engineering decision to go monolithic... And Notice I didn't quite say AMD, I specifically mentioned management bad, poor engineers... What I object to rchiu is the notion of laziness, and lack of caring... If it took AMD this long to produce an MCM package i'd be at the front of the line to lynch them all... But they didn't. I am simply pointing out that one major bad decision sets up this entire comedy / tragedy of errors. Also, to evaluate Phenom the product on this travesty of a launch, is a wee bit early... In fact many of the reviews I read mention really strange scores that don't make sense... I'd rather see how it pans out over the next week or so before I start lynching

Bottom line, the chip doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders... should be punched out at $200 USD for 9500 model, and none higher released till they fix it (B3)... But then again, Pricing is a management decision... and we all know not to expect much from that group.

(please Dirk Meyer come soon) (or Jerry Sanders come back from where ever they sent you)

@zsdersw: please remember there would be no C2D without A64 and X2... WE could go on like this for a while before we hit 3x86 cpus

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: Darkskypoet
@zsdersw: please remember there would be no C2D without A64 and X2... WE could go on like this for a while before we hit 3x86 cpus

He already said that.. whereas the other half of that (which I provided) wasn't said.

 

[Darkskypoet]

@Denithor at this point, its more important to get those motherboards sold, and sell the platform then perhaps short term losses (if any) per chip on phenom. At least (IMHO), as just like Intel, AMD makes a bonus per mb sold, of having a chipset go with it. So profit average over Chipset, and low 9500 may be break even point? (special case now, as Nvidia doesn't have AM2+ chipset out yet, so those adopting platform will buy 790 Chipset)

 

[Darkskypoet]

@zsdersw Even Quad core P4s (yuck) would've pushed AMD to release Phenom... Intel had the advantage of having parallel design regimes (mobile and desktop and Itanium for that matter) AMD does not, thus it was Phenom for Quad core once they decided (years ago) to go that route. C2D did not bring Phenom out, it did however force the current price war that we have benefited from on the low to mid range end... AMD is responsible for a sub $300 Quad core tho.

 

[eye smite]

I got news for you buddy, I don't give intel any credit for what they come out with. I'll reiterate a little more carefully. If it weren't for athlon64, you'd be getting the latest cow patty from intel based on netburst and not a core 2. Intel earned my contempt years ago when they came out with the pentium name. AMD has earned my respect with newer products and backwards compatibility since the K6-2 days and intel can't say that about backwards compatibility on most of their products and they're doing it again. All of their current line will not upgrade to the new stuff they plan in just 3 months with a new chipset, ddr3 and integrated northbridge simnilar to amd's hypertransport. Enjoy forking out the money to build a whole new system when that happens.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: Darkskypoet
@zsdersw Even Quad core P4s (yuck) would've pushed AMD to release Phenom... Intel had the advantage of having parallel design regimes (mobile and desktop and Itanium for that matter) AMD does not, thus it was Phenom for Quad core once they decided (years ago) to go that route. C2D did not bring Phenom out, it did however force the current price war that we have benefited from on the low to mid range end... AMD is responsible for a sub $300 Quad core tho.

Released when? At what price?

The point to all of this is that each is a cattle prod for the other. eye smite doesn't seem to recognize that, which is all I was pointing out.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: eye smite
If it weren't for athlon64, you'd be getting the latest cow patty from intel based on netburst and not a core 2.

I'll reiterate it again.. Intel prods AMD into action just like AMD prods Intel. If you can't see and recognize that, you're a fool.

 

[Darkskypoet]

Oh granted they prod each other, but you allege that Intel has equal choice as AMD as to what to release, and I am simply stating AMD has less choice about what and when to introduce then intel does. Simply a more nuanced view of it I suppose. Ie: Intel could have trashed P4 and introduced Pentium M on to desktop well before C2D came into being, but didn't... they had a choice. AMD had much less choice about when and how to release Phenom. You understand where I am coming from now? Even though in most things Pentium-M was gaining superiority over P4, and to some extent A64, they chose to stay with P4 (netburst) as they could... AMD didn't produce enough to really threaten their 75% plus market share, as AMD was producing all out.

 

[eye smite]

I wasn't being shorsighted on where the competition is important, I was focusing on the fact that if amd hadn't been so competitive, you'd still be delusioned that netburst was a great cpu when it was garbage. When p4's first came out you could lower them to 1 gig which is the highest the p3 would go at the time and the p3 would run circles around it, so we knew way way back then intel was building garbage. It took years of intel earning my contempt on this, and it sure isn't going to dissapear overnight. When intel shows business dealings and customer based decisions like amd has, then they might get a bit of respect from me. Oh my look, It's only been a year and a half and they're going to train all of the intel base again with no backwards compatibility for current system builders and owners when the new core comes out with ddr3 support. Go figure.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: eye smite
I wasn't being shorsighted on where the competition is important, I was focusing on the fact that if amd ...

A focus that's brought about by your silly AMD fanaticism.. so yes, you are being shortsighted. If you weren't, you would've mentioned the other side of the coin.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: Darkskypoet
Oh granted they prod each other, but you allege that Intel has equal choice as AMD as to what to release,

Nowhere have I alleged equality of choice, only equality in the reaction that such prodding (or lack thereof) produces. Lack of competition from either Intel or AMD produces apathy toward driving performance higher and price lower.

 

[Darkskypoet]

But you have, you insist on saying C2D prompted Phenom.. Whereas it did not, You forget AMD must develop chips for all sectors off of one main core... Regardless of C2D, Sun still produces Sparcs (etc), IBM still produces Power chips, etc, etc. Thus Regardless of C2D AMD is forced to move forward on Phenom to preserve its market share on the server side. AMD doesn't have separate lines. By tieing AMDs production decisions 'solely' to Intel, you miss (or seem to miss) other drivers and factors that are out of Intel and AMDs hands.

AS long as you are willing to agree that Intel controls its destiny much more then AMD, thats cool. But its not as simply on the AMD side of the equation as respond / not respond based on Intels dev cycle. More so AMD always has to have the one, and mainly only one core design going perpetually. Intel has more luxury of running multiple teams. AMD forces intel to innovate as the dominant player must respond, Intel out produces AMD and forces pricing for the market. (the rare occurance of this not being so was the short window that the X2 / opteron / A64 was on top)

So in essence I agree with you too a point, but your interpretation is far to simplistic for my liking Good give and take tho!

 

[zsdersw]

Actually, I didn't say Core 2 prompted Phenom, I said "something new from AMD", whatever that "new" thing was obviously depending on what AMD had next in the pipeline.

 

[eye smite]

You say amd fanaticism like it's a bad thing. I'm not as much an amd fan as I'm in full contempt of intel. It would take alot of changing at intel to erase that respect and get back measurable respect. I give credit where credit is due and intel has produced some top notch stuff as of late, but again they wouldn't have if amd hadn't forced their hand. They'd still be doing strong arm tactics with the p4 til they got raked over the coals and not by amd, but by themselves. You want to base your views solely on product, that's fine. I look at a few more things than that, and just like with the a64, amd will keep developing phenom/barcelona and it will mature into a chip worth high praise. However, because of yesterday, people will dismiss them out of hand because they didn't meeet the noisy minorities expectations.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: eye smite
It really is a great job by amd. I have been a fan of amd since the k6-2 with 3d now. All of my systems save one are amd and that one is a p4 3.2 gig my company sold me for $100 when they laid me off, otherwise I wouldn't own it as p4's were garbage imo. I don't see any problems with yesterday's launch at all, it was pre production chips and MB's you will obviosly see mature. AMD has earned the rep of being a good developer of their products while maintaining backwards compatibility, i.e. athlon xp and athlon64. You can't say that with intel and their constant cpu and chipset changes. Let us not forget that for 3 years amd trounced intel with the athlon64, parts of that cpu intel still hasn't equaled in inovation. Can anyone say FSB bottleneck? I see that peoples expectations are too high and amd made too early a release of phenom because of the noisy minority screaming for a new cpu. Many companies and home users are still on the rotting and alwasy was rotting p4's. I have 8 amd based systems here ranging from athlon 64's, x2 and one turion. I run world community grid through the boinc client and even the turion at 1400mhz slower is turning in more units than that p4 system I have. How many people out there are still on windows98 and how many of those systems are physically dying and having to be replaced? What would you rather see them buy in the 300-400 price range, a celeron D or an athlonx2 system. Say it's your neighbor and they ask you to help with their system from time to time, which one would you rather be frustrated by?

All in all, I think AMD is going to continue developement of the phenom just like they did with the original athlon64, and I don't think it will be long before you see intel scrambling to stay ahead. Case in point their release of the QX9770 yesterday and a new core and chipset change just around the corner for them. Intel is having to really compete now after paying nearly a billion in fines to the Japanese and Euro trade commisions for unfair business practices with their p4's nearly 2 years ago. I mean like wow, did anyone ever think you'd see Dell sell pc's at walmart with amd chips in them? Just keep in mind one thing as things progress, none of you would enjoy any of the performance you have right now if amd hadn't trounced intel for 3 years with the athlon64. Nuff said.

The thing is the C2D/C2Q series already has a ton of overhead, if AMD releases a faster cpu before Nehelam, Intel will shoot back with a higher clocked CPU to counter it. The Penryn dual cores are hitting 4.4ghz-4.7ghz on air and the quads are around 4ghz. With a 10% clock advantage AMD has a LOT of catching up to do before they can compete especially since Intel can also compete price wise.

 

[eye smite]

I'll say it again then a little differently. AMD went from the market leader to trying to keep up and that's becausse of implentation of their existing goals with no flexibility to market demands. As the phenom matures over the next few weeks and months and amd focuses strongly on developing this product, you're going to see intel doing double steps to stay ahead. AMD changed the pace first, intel switched gears and out paced them. Now the pace is set and you're going to see real rumblin bumblin jumps across the boards as amd focuses all they have on cpu developement.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: eye smite
I'll say it again then a little differently. AMD went from the market leader to trying to keep up and that's becausse of implentation of their existing goals with no flexibility to market demands. As the phenom matures over the next few weeks and months and amd focuses strongly on developing this product, you're going to see intel doing double steps to stay ahead. AMD changed the pace first, intel switched gears and out paced them. Now the pace is set and you're going to see real rumblin bumblin jumps across the boards as amd focuses all they have on cpu developement.

Again like I said I just don't see it happening this time around. 10% clock for clock lead, plus a ton of overhead to release even faster CPUs. AMDs fastest quad you can buy right now till the 2.4ghz gets ramped up is 2.3 and it doesn't have shit on the q6600 conroe g0 so what makes you think they're going to catch up so soon, when they're not even competing against intels previous model? If the Phenoms were quite a bit cheaper, 2.4 for like 220 or something. I would even consider buying one if the spider quad xfire platform paid off, but they're not. Mobos are expensive, cpus are to expensive, it's not worth even considering at this point.