Barcelona B2 stepping showing reduced memory bandwidth?

B2 is supposed to enable higher clocks. Maybe something needed to be sacrificed to get there?

From Johan (of Anandtech):

http://aceshardware.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=178

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:41 pm Post subject: B2 stepping

I am not sure at what stepping Barcelona is now, but I just did some testing with the B2 stepping at 2.5 GHz, and it seems that contrary to what some people have been claiming, that this stepping has actually a slightly slower northbridge.

Raw Bandwidth numbers are up to 10% lower than the 2 GHz with an identical configuration (mobo, RAM). Further investigation necessary of course, but the scaling in specjbb (rather mediocre, on both 1.5.0.8 and 1.6 JVMs of sun) seems to confirm this.



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Can anyone else with B2 confirm/deny?

Dave Graham should get some B2s.
Maybe Johan ran into some bios issue with Nortbridge divider(more underclocked IMC).AFAIK ,IMC should operate @2Ghz(at least) for 2.5Ghz Barcelona in split power plane capable mobo.

I bet it's for keeping the tention in the competition :D

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Originally Posted by BeardyMan

I bet it's for keeping the tention in the competition :D

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Haha, you're funny!

They prob slowed down the northbridge frequency to ensure that they could get to 2.5ghz far more often.

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Originally Posted by terrace215

B2 is supposed to enable higher clocks. Maybe something needed to be sacrificed to get there?

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Sounds spot on. AMD would not tweak things down unless they felt they needed too. If the performance core is good it will be a small pittance to sacrifice.

let us think about this, the IMC is the largest Clock limiter for AMD.
Now the IMC runs at a slower speed (thus slightly lower performance)
But that also means the core can run even faster (thus more performance)
So why does anyone here have a reason to complain?
[Besides the bandwidth is still more than what Intel has :p: ]

In server this may be a small step backward, but generally all around, if sacrificing 10% mem BW yields 25% or more core clock speed (for whatever reason, good ones don't make sense to me at the moment), then this is probably a good thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MR_SmartAss

This will disappoint a lot of AMD fanpois here. Some of them took Gary Key words as undeniable truth. In the following few weeks we'll find out Gary was full of BS and the die-hard AMD fanpois screwed. :D

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what's a fanpoi?

Well, honestly from reading the thread we don't even know if this guy set it up correctly or even really has a B2. Is he running a split power plane board? Its basically a 5 post thread.

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Originally Posted by ryboto

what's a fanpoi?

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Definition of fanboy/fanboi

As to why people sometimes spell it fanpoi (fanpois, plural), I have no idea.

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Originally Posted by twilyth

Definition of fanboy/fanboi

As to why people sometimes spell it fanpoi (fanpois, plural), I have no idea.

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i thought maybe spelling it with a p gave it some special meaning...now I know they're just spelling it wrong...

Well, having thought this through... a 2.5 GHz Barcey has a multiplier of 12.5, where as a 2.0 GHz Barcey has a multiplier of 10, this is probably that odd multiplier thingy happening again.

Regardless, this would be inconsequetial to Phenom performance, BW on DT is not a critical factor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by twilyth

Definition of fanboy/fanboi

As to why people sometimes spell it fanpoi (fanpois, plural), I have no idea.

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It's to fool the spell checker , some forums will automatically put a smiley there.

we should do that, the worldfilter thing..

Yep, I would say part of it will be this odd divider issue. Here is Techwarelabs CPUZ of a 1.9 GHz Barcey (multi=9.5), using DDR2-667
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/.../index_3.shtml
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/.../cpuid-mem.jpg

It is running at 318 (or 1900/6 ~ 316 MHz) speed, or DDR2-632 rated speed.

Any weird scaling on mem BW related stuff, this is the first place to look... what is the memory clocking? This should be the first question to ask.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MR_SmartAss

This will disappoint a lot of AMD fanpois here. Some of them took Gary Key words as undeniable truth. In the following few weeks we'll find out Gary was full of BS and the die-hard AMD fanpois screwed. :D

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B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B

dangit use the proper letter.

also boys is spelled with a Y not an I.

Why does everybody love getting down on AMD so much?
This crap makes me laugh the very same guys that come into the AMD threads and crap are the same shmucks that said Intel sucked just a year ago:rolleyes:

C'mon guys if you can do better than AMD ...YOU.. make this technology happen for the unrealistic Fair weather contradictory crowd that you belong too if you all know so much that enables you to be such a critic:cool:

To allot of people AMD represents more than just a processor its called freedom of choice and Balance in the Market place :yepp:

you are the man! Great to hear the word actually coming out from a guy who use Q6600. I love AMD even I am using C2D.

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Originally Posted by Brother Esau

Why does everybody love getting down on AMD so much?
This crap makes me laugh the very same guys that come into the AMD threads and crap are the same shmucks that said Intel sucked just a year ago:rolleyes:

C'mon guys if you can do better than you make this technology happen for the unrealistic Fair weather contradictory crowd that you belong too if you all know so much that enables you to be such a critic:cool:

To allot of people AMD represents more than just a processor its called freedom of choice and Balance in the Market place :yepp:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by MR_SmartAss

This will disappoint a lot of AMD fanpois here. Some of them took Gary Key words as undeniable truth. In the following few weeks we'll find out Gary was full of BS and the die-hard AMD fanpois screwed. :D

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why mods/admins don't delete this trash of post?

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Originally Posted by MR_SmartAss

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=343
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=155

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pethatic...

Ah just let him be :p: ,his user name speaks for itself(smarta$$ :D)

Until December nobody is going to be really able to judge it seems, there are so many things being thrown up that really it is a complete minefield on what the desktop overclocker buyer can expect come that time.

What we can say at the moment is that a lot of polishing will needed to be done in the next couple of months with the cpu and supporting platform. Things seems a bit flakey all around at the moment and give the impression that this cpu was rushed to market.

Regards

Andy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zakelwe

Until December nobody is going to be really able to judge it seems, there are so many things being thrown up that really it is a complete minefield on what the desktop overclocker buyer can expect come that time.

What we can say at the moment is that a lot of polishing will needed to be done in the next couple of months with the cpu and supporting patform. Things seems a bit flakey all around at the moment and give an impression that this cpu was rushed to market.

Regards

Andy

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QFT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zakelwe

Until December nobody is going to be really able to judge it seems, there are so many things being thrown up that really it is a complete minefield on what the desktop overclocker buyer can expect come that time.

What we can say at the moment is that a lot of polishing will needed to be done in the next couple of months with the cpu and supporting platform. Things seems a bit flakey all around at the moment and give the impression that this cpu was rushed to market.

Regards

Andy

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Eat it !! Straight from the master himself !!

CLOSED

Perkam