Should AMD have focused on a Steamroller high TDP product line instead of Vishera?

[dac7nco]

Its not a waste of time though,since the FX6300 is still a decent budget CPU.

Everyone seems to obsess about the FX8350.

I'm talking about all Piledriver CPUs, including the FX6300. I cannot abide terrible single-thread performance; It's why I used AMD during the days of the Pentium-IV. I'm not talking about zooming around a windows desktop, which is perfectly snappy on a core pentium laptop. I'm not bashing FX because I'm an asshole - I wouldn't be willing to use an AM3 Thuban or 1366 Nehalem these days either, unless I was forced to. Extreme clock speeds don't impress when I'm trying to have something ready by 6pm, to show at 9am the next day, and I don't give a flying F*** about gaming, unless I have time to fire up CIV-V (which I haven't done in months).

When this 220W monstrosity comes out, I won't be impressed if it approaches or meets my stock (silent) 3930K in multi-threaded applications. I won't even be impressed if it sells for $400, and not $900. 220W is just pathetic.

 

[USER8000]

I'm talking about all Piledriver CPUs, including the FX6300. I cannot abide terrible single-thread performance; It's why I used AMD during the days of the Pentium-IV. I'm not talking about zooming around a windows desktop, which is perfectly snappy on a core pentium laptop. I'm not bashing FX because I'm an asshole - I wouldn't be willing to use an AM3 Thuban or 1366 Nehalem these days either, unless I was forced to. Extreme clock speeds don't impress when I'm trying to have something ready by 6pm, to show at 9am the next day, and I don't give a flying F*** about gaming, unless I have time to fire up CIV-V (which I haven't done in months).

When this 220W monstrosity comes out, I won't be impressed if it approaches or meets my stock (silent) 3930K in multi-threaded applications. I won't even be impressed if it sells for $400, and not $900. 220W is just pathetic.

Except I have used BOTH the socket 1155 Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs(my main platform) and the FX6300 for a few builds for friends. In a number of newer games the FX6300 was appreciably faster than the socket 1155 Core i3 I had,so much so I ditched it and got a Core i5 as replacement.

I can understand FX8300 series against Core i5 though as the latter seems to be a better balanced CPU,but the Core i3 has been gimped by Intel too much now.

The socket 1156 Core i3 was a great CPU,and once overclocked it shone. The current ones are locked down,and even if Intel activated Turbo on them(like the mobile versions) it would have helped. But they don't to maintain their product segmentation.

The problems people should try owning some of the cheaper Intel CPUs too but they don't and big them up massively. They go on about single thread performance owning Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. If it was so important why not deactivate half the cores on a Core i5 and Core i7 CPU so you can get a few hundred mhz more?? No of course not.

 

[galego]

Linux OpenBenchmark: check
Eurogamer poll: check

This is like the 30th time you mention them? Like a salesman, going door to door, repeating the same old story, and ignoring the rest 99% of the results that disagree with their point.

I like how you bury your head in the sand though when you're beeing asked for your computer specs.

No. It is as the 30th time that I correct the same nonsense and clichés such as the FX is bad for gaming or intel always win. If people stop making such claims I will stop correcting them.

It is also false that I ignore "the rest of 99% of the results". Consider gaming, if you read the part of my message you quote, you will see that I say that FX will be slow with all the old games because are poorly threaded.

Finally, I laugh each time I am being asked for my computer specs. I did the past 30 times and will continue doing it.

Galego, the only reason Anand, Kyle and the rest don't come out and say "FX is a waste of our time, and we're really disappointed" is because AMD wouldn't send them anything else to review. I don't know why FX has any kind of functional turbo at all these days. AMD keeps clocking the chips higher, and pushing upward into their boost territory, which is now miniscule on Piledriver.

With all my respects, millions of FX users will react with incredulity if such claims were published tomorrow.

 

[dac7nco]

With all my respects, millions of FX users will react with incredulity if such claims were published tomorrow.

Those millions are likely, predominantly gamers. They're also likely to have spent their lives on AMD and don't care, I'll give you that.

USER8000, I'll concede your point about FX vs. the i3; The only recent non-turbo chip I've ever looked at from Intel is 1155 Celerons (for a torrent box). My needs force me to shy away from AMD... time is literally money. I'll also state that ending turbo overclocking with Haswell Non-K chips has seriously pissed me off... and Intel's increasing segmentation has me, a very knowledgeable, multi-OS, multi-system user, pretty befuddled. If AMD met my needs in any area, I'd be all over them.

 

[guskline]

To refocus on the OPs question, I wonder if the release of the FX 9590/9370 is to keep interest in the AMD high end desktop long eneough to see SteamRoller actually hit the desktop. Haswell, and before it Ivy bridge were written about extensively prior to thier official release. I'm guessing it was because the engineering samples were floating around for quite awhile prior to actual release. On the other hand where are the SteamRoller engineering samples? Are they even out there? The release of the FX 9590/9370 makes me believe that AMD is stalling with the SteamRoller rlelease. I understand that testers cannot violate nda provisions. However, AMD has been incredibly silent on SteamRoller. Has it been derailed?
Thoughts?

 

[dac7nco]

To refocus on the OPs question as a certain poster refuses to post his specs as I have

Removed cranky post

 

[ninaholic37]

On the other hand where are the SteamRoller engineering samples? Are they even out there? The release of the FX 9590/9370 makes me believe that AMD is stalling with the SteamRoller rlelease. I understand that testers cannot violate nda provisions. However, AMD has been incredibly silent on SteamRoller. Has it been derailed?
Thoughts?

I was wondering the same thing, is an FX version based on Steamroller even coming out? All I see are announcement for the Kaveri (A-Series) and new Opteron (Server) chips lately.

 

[guskline]

Removed cranky post

Agreed, done. Following up on the whereabouts of SteamRoller, are we likely to see those cores first in APUs?

 

[dac7nco]

Agreed, done. Following up on tthe whereabouts of SteamRoller, are we likely to see those cores first in APUs?

Probably. I think the 5GHz turbo Piledriver release is to give them breathing room for Steamroller and Global Foundries 28nm problems. I suspect APUs are the (only) future for AMD... They're talking up advancements in Adobe applications for current and future APUs, which mitigates the problem somewhat. I was pleased with the OpenCL Handbrake results awhile back. I'm all for cheap crunching power, I've simply had to pay a great deal for it lately if I want a system that's fast in everything.

Global Foundries has any potential breakthrough by AMD by the short hairs, I'm afraid... I keep my finger crossed.

 

[frozentundra123456]

No. It is as the 30th time that I correct the same nonsense and clichés such as the FX is bad for gaming or intel always win. If people stop making such claims I will stop correcting them.

It is also false that I ignore "the rest of 99% of the results". Consider gaming, if you read the part of my message you quote, you will see that I say that FX will be slow with all the old games because are poorly threaded.

Finally, I laugh each time I am being asked for my computer specs. I did the past 30 times and will continue doing it.



With all my respects, millions of FX users will react with incredulity if such claims were published tomorrow.

Well, the rest of us laugh just as much when you say in one post that you prefer "real life benchmarks" and then proceed to quote the linux benchmark over and over, for which maybe 5% of the users will ever even use that OS.

 

[dac7nco]

Well, the rest of us laugh just as much when you say in one post that you prefer "real life benchmarks" and then proceed to quote the linux benchmark over and over, for which maybe 5% of the users will ever even use that OS.

LOL at those real-life benchmarks. I use Linux for clustering purposes. Prior to the release of Bulldozer, I was told by a moronic NewTek rep that it would make a nice cheap render node... he was wildly mistaken. The Xeon E3s of the last two generations have been VASTLY superior, and not just for PG&E.

 

[dac7nco]

As an aside...: http://seekingalpha.com/article/151...intel-s-finfets?source=email_rt_article_title

This is an opinion as well, but a considered one.

 

[galego]

Well, the rest of us laugh just as much when you say in one post that you prefer "real life benchmarks" and then proceed to quote the linux benchmark over and over, for which maybe 5% of the users will ever even use that OS.

Hum, I recall giving several Windows benchmarks... and more than one time.

My answer to the popularity argument has to be the same, sorry. According to you popularity argument all W8 based benchmarks would be ignored because W8 has less than a 10% of market share. Do you propose using only W7 in hardware reviews (or even old XP) right?

 

[Mallibu]

Hum, I recall giving several Windows benchmarks... and more than one time.

My answer to the popularity argument has to be the same, sorry. According to you popularity argument all W8 based benchmarks would be ignored because W8 has less than a 10% of market share. Do you propose using only W7 in hardware reviews (or even old XP) right?

Terrible argument. You compare different versions of windows (7,8) that are almost the same platform, with a totally different os that has 1% market share.
That's like saying, "Why benchmarks are run for Ubuntu 12.10 when 13.04 has bigger market share?" Well guess what, architecture and core differences between os versions are minimal, what matters is the platform (Windows/Linux) anyone uses. If Intel is faster in Win7, it's also faster in Win8.

And if we want to be fair here, the next most popular platform after windows is OS X therefore it should be included long before Linux. But you can't since Apple doesn't use AMD cpus, because they're terrible in performance/watt.

 

[galego]

As an aside...: http://seekingalpha.com/article/151...intel-s-finfets?source=email_rt_article_title

This is an opinion as well, but a considered one.

A different one:

Intel does not have another process which can produce high performance at the expense of power usage which is the opposite of their current technology. My point was that GloFo and TSMC have processes which do both currently. Intel seems focused on only one and thats low power usage. People are saying 20nm TSMC is going middle of the road for both performance and power usage.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35159763&postcount=58

Check also this

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/..._Is_Ahead_of_Its_Own_20nm_Roadmap_Report.html

 

[galego]

Terrible argument. You compare different versions of windows (7,8) that are almost the same platform, with a totally different os that has 1% market share.
That's like saying, "Why benchmarks are run for Ubuntu 12.10 when 13.04 has bigger market share?" Well guess what, architecture and core differences between os versions are minimal, what matters is the platform (Windows/Linux) anyone uses. If Intel is faster in Win7, it's also faster in Win8.

And if we want to be fair here, the next most popular platform after windows is OS X therefore it should be included long before Linux. But you can't since Apple doesn't use AMD cpus, because they're terrible in performance/watt.

No. I replied to a popularity argument not one about technology.

About your technological argument, there are differences between them. For instance W8 has an improved scheduler for AMD modules, whereas W7 lacks it, as a consequence W8 can increase the gaming performance of an FX chip up to a 10% (that is more than Ivy -> Haswell).

If you are going to reject linux because has about a 8% share then you would reject any OS with a similar share like W8.

I am not the one that is accepting or rejecting things in base to popularity argument. I don't care about OS-X, if you care go for it and give benchmarks.

A final note. OS-X runs on AMD chips as well. There is people running OS-X on their AMD Hackintosh.

 

[mrmt]

Agreed, done. Following up on tthe whereabouts of SteamRoller, are we likely to see those cores first in APUs?

Maybe you guys could explain where a Steamroller FX fits on this vision:

http://www.tomshardware.com/gallery/fad1,0101-325029-0-2-3-1-jpg-.html

 

[galego]

Maybe you guys could explain where a Steamroller FX fits on this vision:

http://www.tomshardware.com/gallery/fad1,0101-325029-0-2-3-1-jpg-.html

That is from February 2012. Could you explain where a Centurion FX fits on that vision?

 

[Mallibu]

No. I replied to a popularity argument not one about technology.

About your technological argument, there are differences between them. For instance W8 has an improved scheduler for AMD modules, whereas W7 lacks it, as a consequence W8 can increase the gaming performance of an FX chip up to a 10% (that is more than Ivy -> Haswell).

If you are going to reject linux because has about a 8% share then you would reject any OS with a similar share like W8.

I am not the one that is accepting or rejecting things in base to popularity argument. I don't care about OS-X, if you care go for it and give benchmarks.

A final note. OS-X runs on AMD chips as well. There is people running OS-X on their AMD Hackintosh.

All the points you make are so false, I'm just wondering if you are actually serious.

First, let's leave the marketing keyword ,up to, outside. In cold numbers reality, both Intel & AMD gained ~ 2-3% on Windows 8, on average, and that's what matters.

Second, Linux has not 8%. Head over to the Linux forums, there are threads discussing what Linux should do to go above 1% usage. You might want to go over there, and enlighten them (and the rest of the world) that they've been 800% wrong.
In the same time, I'm doubting you have used a single distro in your lifetime.

Third, CPUs are benchmarked with the most popular apps/games people use, and that's the way it should be. Therefore Windows & OS X get the priority here, noone cares what you personally want.

Fourth, I've built 4 hacintoshes, including my own, over the last 3 months, and AMD is a terrible no-go. Full of bugs, kernel hacks & works very unstable.
Quoting MacBreaker:

Mac OS X does not offer any official support for AMD processors, so the only methods available to AMD Hackintoshes remain in a state of quasi-legitimacy. For instance, the tonymacx86 forums expressly prohibit any discussion of AMD Hackintoshes, and even on forums that permit discussion, AMD is always a much less popular subject than Intel.
Keep in mind that support for AMD Hackintoshes is sparse, and in some cases nonexistent. Once you've installed Mac OS X on your AMD computer, whether with iBoot Legacy, nawcom's ModCD, or a distro, you're on your own.

Have fun sorting that mess out.

 

[Arachnotronic]

That is from February 2012. Could you explain where a Centurion FX fits on that vision?

They reused a lot of IP...LOL!

 

[Sweepr]

That is from February 2012. Could you explain where a Centurion FX fits on that vision?

Fits the the fact that there wont be any Steamroller-based Opterons with more than 2M/4C in 2014 (in other words: dont expect Steamroller based FX CPUs for desktop enthusiasts in 2014), so the best thay can do is OC the old chips at the expense of an insanely high TDP (meanwhile Intel releases 130W 12-core IB-EP CPUs for servers and a half harvested 6-core IB-E that unfortunately is enough to trash the competition performance wise for desktops).

 

[mrmt]

That is from February 2012. Could you explain where a Centurion FX fits on that vision?

The last hurrah of a dying product line? A marketing stunt? A collector's edition for the wealthiest fanbois?

What's your specs btw? Will you buy a Centurion? Does your PSU at least support Centurion? (mine doesn't).

 

[AtenRa]

so the best thay can do is OC the old chips at the expense of an insanely high TDP

I dont see any OC old chips for 2014 Server, desktop FX will use the same dies

 

[Sweepr]

I dont see any OC old chips for 2014 Server, desktop FX will use the same dies

Current Abu Dhabi has up to 16 Piledriver cores too. What are you expecting from these ''new chips'' (based on the same... by then 2-year old cores) beside a moderate clock bump?
Not too long ago these were their plans: http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/images/L_AMD_server_CPU_roadmap.jpg

 

[AtenRa]

Current Abu Dhabi has up to 16 Piledriver cores too. What are you expecting from these ''new chips'' (based on the same... by then 2-year old cores) beside a moderate clock bump?
Not too long ago these were their plans: http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/images/L_AMD_server_CPU_roadmap.jpg

"Improves performance/watt over existing 6300 family", much like Trinity to Richland. Not that hard to understand it, isnt it ??