Official AMD Barcelona Thread

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Originally Posted by californian7856

lol check this out
http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+to+Laun...rticle7890.htm
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By Amiga500 on 6/29/2007 12:11:43 PM , Rating: 2
Sure, you might pay out the same bucks for a slightly slower system (in comparison with Intel) now...
But if AMD went under, what would you have to pay for a decent system next time out?

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he´s right about one thing though. amd goes down - no price cuts at Intel(or very few), new microarchitecture once in 5 year. basically they would just sit on their butts and count money.

i´m not saying go buy underperforming cpu for same money but i surely hope amd will sort this out somehow. Intel has been trying very hard to put amd out of bussiness lately and so far they have done well. amd needs something to respond with, so lets hope they can pull through.

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Originally Posted by dexman

he´s right about one thing though. amd goes down - no price cuts at Intel(or very few), new microarchitecture once in 5 year. basically they would just sit on their butts and count money.

i´m not saying go buy underperforming cpu for same money but i surely hope amd will sort this out somehow. Intel has been trying very hard to put amd out of bussiness lately and so far they have done well. amd needs something to respond with, so lets hope they can pull through.

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I wouldnt agree with that. Intel wouldn´t make much money that way. And they need something to keep all their factories busy. And they need something people would want to upgrade rather frequently.

Prices might be abit higher and such. But I dont see development stopping.
on the other hand it would also open up options for the bigger changes that competition wont allow.

And just because AMD could die, doesn´t mean its all over in competition. If it sucked hard enough everyone could just make an Apple move and change CPU arch. Specially since x86 aint pretty in any way.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

I wouldnt agree with that. Intel wouldn´t make much money that way.

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You mean they would have made less than now?

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And they need something to keep all their factories busy.

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Just because there is no competition doesn´t mean people will stop buying products they need, although prices being ridicilous. just look at microsoft.

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Prices might be abit higher and such.

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i´d say prices would be tremenedously higher.

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But I dont see development stopping.

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neither do i. i said development would slow down considerably.

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on the other hand it would also open up options for the bigger changes that competition wont allow.

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right, chances for huge savings in R&D since they know nobody can threaten them any time soon.

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And just because AMD could die, doesn´t mean its all over in competition. If it sucked hard enough everyone could just make an Apple move and change CPU arch. Specially since x86 aint pretty in any way.

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it would mean no competition for some years to say at least. it doesn´t take a day to enter this kind of market.

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Originally Posted by dexman

You mean they would have made less than now?

Just because there is no competition doesn´t mean people will stop buying products they need, although prices being ridicilous. just look at microsoft.


i´d say prices would be tremenedously higher.

neither do i. i said development would slow down considerably.

right, chances for huge savings in R&D since they know nobody can threaten them any time soon.


it would mean no competition for some years to say at least. it doesn´t take a day to enter this kind of market.

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I really dont see your points. Because you essentially try and paint AMD and Intel as the only MPU designers and suppliers in the world.

If development slows down, so will the reason to buy a new CPU. Would you buy a new CPU that was 10-20% faster 2 years later?

R&D wont lose much, maybe go from 6 to 5billion$. But if you want to compare with MS, Vista costed what, 40-50billion$? Hardly money saved on R&D so to say.

And even MS have to keep pace up and develop alot of new products and things.

Roughly, I would say the ticktock might change to 3 years vs 2 now. And the price may go up 20%. But besides that I dont see anything. If you want to compare with MS, then MS should take 1000$ for Vista Ultimate now with an annual fee of 100$ and only release 1 windows version each 10 years and use a few billion$ on it. Yet its far from the reality.

On the other hand I can see a longterm benefit of a temporary monopol in the death of x86 aswell as a few other things. And a greater push for more drastic tech changes for the better.

But again, after those changes we want competition again.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

I really dont see your points. Because you essentially try and paint AMD and Intel as the only MPU designers and suppliers in the world.

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it´s pretty much that way from the desktop PC point of view. i wasnt talking about all processors, just this specific segment. even apple started to use intel cpu, and then there is via...which doesn´t need any further comment,they´ve been focusing on other things and clearly can´t compete intel. i´m not aware of anyone else making processors for computers that WE use as workstations, correct me of i´m wrong.

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If development slows down, so will the reason to buy a new CPU. Would you buy a new CPU that was 10-20% faster 2 years later?

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that is partially right. computers imo wont experience rapid decrease in selling because improvements are not what they used to be. majority of people dont even know what rig they have, they just call dell and say "I need PC for gaming/office". the most important thing is that this is growing market, every year more computers are sold, so i wouldnt worry if i was intel that some enthusiastic people are giving up on me.

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R&D wont lose much, maybe go from 6 to 5billion$. But if you want to compare with MS, Vista costed what, 40-50billion$? Hardly money saved on R&D so to say.

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surely they would have spent more if someone was breathing on their neck.

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And even MS have to keep pace up and develop alot of new products and things.

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can´t see any horrible effort in OS market. but they have to progress when they look how awfully close are free distributed OS to their systems. honestly, it took Vista 5 years to replace XP and what are the results? some bling-bling features, slight improvenents. with competition Vista would have come much earlier.

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Roughly, I would say the ticktock might change to 3 years vs 2 now. And the price may go up 20%. But besides that I dont see anything.
On the other hand I can see a longterm benefit of a temporary monopol in the death of x86 aswell as a few other things. And a greater push for more drastic tech changes for the better.

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sorry but your thinking is flawed in this. monopoly is a second name for stagnancy, nothing good comes out of it, longterm or shorterm. history has proven this over and over. what´s holding intel from inventing something other than x86 and switching to it while there is competition?

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Originally Posted by dexman

it´s pretty much that way from the desktop PC point of view. i wasnt talking about all processors, just this specific segment. even apple started to use intel cpu, and then there is via...which doesn´t need any further comment,they´ve been focusing on other things and clearly can´t compete intel. i´m not aware of anyone else making processors for computers that WE use as workstations, correct me of i´m wrong.

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Apple changed due to price and such. And Apple is actually a fine example on that you can completely scrap a CPU architecture if you want. Your view on things is pretty narrow if you can only see Via, AMD and Intel. Workstations also include, or did include sparc, powerpc, and so on. If there is money to be made, a new company would quickly emerge.

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Originally Posted by dexman

that is partially right. computers imo wont experience rapid decrease in selling because improvements are not what they used to be. majority of people dont even know what rig they have, they just call dell and say "I need PC for gaming/office". the most important thing is that this is growing market, every year more computers are sold, so i wouldnt worry if i was intel that some enthusiastic people are giving up on me.

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I dont get your point. Also think cash, what do you think Intel would win losing the volume and consumers wanting new CPUs? Intel would lose profit big time. Its just not an instant "I win card" to be a monopoly.

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Originally Posted by dexman

surely they would have spent more if someone was breathing on their neck.

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See here you are actually completely wrong. Both AMD and Intel is reducing heavily on R&D right now. AMD have reduced it with about 500million. Intel with about 500million aswell. So currently R&D is the loser of competition, in favour of a pricewar. So a big nono, development lost here!

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Originally Posted by dexman

can´t see any horrible effort in OS market. but they have to progress when they look how awfully close are free distributed OS to their systems. honestly, it took Vista 5 years to replace XP and what are the results? some bling-bling features, slight improvenents. with competition Vista would have come much earlier.

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You lack basic understanding of Vista. Do some research on whats changed under the hood.

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Originally Posted by dexman

sorry but your thinking is flawed in this. monopoly is a second name for stagnancy, nothing good comes out of it, longterm or shorterm. history has proven this over and over. what´s holding intel from inventing something other than x86 and switching to it while there is competition?

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Oh..history. So you say monopoly is stagnant and nothing good ever came out of it.
Is that why the monopolies around in europe and asia made sure people could have the infrastructure ready for broadband? Just look at the "competition" on US broadband. Even in the ultra dense NY area you got crap. Nobody really want to digg down fiber on their own if there is competition. Its very expensive and a longterm investment. And if nobody else does it its a current loss that could kill you in the name of competition.
Look on the OS front, without the monopolistic MS we would have what, chaos and 5000 standards? twice the cost of developing games due to no standardlized platform and tools?

And since we still run around with x86 and all its flaws and drawbacks. Its a clean show on competition aint helping here, but rather keeping us somewhat stagnant. All in the name of competition, because any possible road into new areas would give you a huge loss if it fails. And burden you economicly in a way your competitors aint.


Monopols and competition each got their flaws and stregths. And they are best fixed now and then when the stregth of the other is needed.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

I wouldnt agree with that. Intel wouldn´t make much money that way. And they need something to keep all their factories busy. And they need something people would want to upgrade rather frequently.

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If Intel ran AMD out of business, they would jump for joy. They would shut down unneeded factories, cut costs, and sell millions of more chips at a much higher price, with less quality as they would be a monopoly. People wouldn't be able to upgrade if Intel didn't want them to, as building new technology is pricey for a company.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Prices might be abit higher and such. But I dont see development stopping.
on the other hand it would also open up options for the bigger changes that competition wont allow.

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Of course development wouldn't stop! Intel would be the only company on the block, and everything would have to be bought through them. I hope you're honestly not suggesting that competition makes a company want or able to do more. If so, you're wrong. Competition forces a company to put out a better product than its competitor or die. Without competition there is no need to get better as you already own the market.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

And just because AMD could die, doesn´t mean its all over in competition. If it sucked hard enough everyone could just make an Apple move and change CPU arch. Specially since x86 aint pretty in any way.

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Apple uses Intel processors now. IBM's PowerPC is no longer the preferred Apple OS processor. Intel would own the market twice as hard.

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Originally Posted by dexman

Just because there is no competition doesn´t mean people will stop buying products they need, although prices being ridicilous. just look at microsoft.

i´d say prices would be tremenedously higher.

neither do i. i said development would slow down considerably.

right, chances for huge savings in R&D since they know nobody can threaten them any time soon.

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You loose on all point,
1/ new market for intel is Silverthorne. This is where they want make money, cpu for mobile 100$ device (so very few $ for cpu). And this market if very competitive. They hope to produce Silverthorne with performance equal to pentium M second generation, TDP of less than 2W. Do you really believe they could then sell then entry cpu for pc market at more than 500$ and bad performer?
2/ One of the most $ market is server, and again their is some competitors, if intel target high price low perf for this market there will be alternative

So sure, they would probably drop a little bit slowly price and increase a little bit slowly marging but that would not be the end of the world...
:shrug:

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Originally Posted by Phlash

Apple uses Intel processors now. IBM's PowerPC is no longer the preferred Apple OS processor. Intel would own the market twice as hard.

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Apple OS is a custom...

... BSD...


... BSD port:
* FreeBSD/alpha Project
* FreeBSD/amd64 Project
* FreeBSD/ARM Project
* FreeBSD/i386 Project
* FreeBSD/ia64 Project
* FreeBSD/MIPS Project
* FreeBSD/pc98 Project
* FreeBSD/ppc Project
* FreeBSD/sparc64 Project
* FreeBSD/sun4v Project
* FreeBSD/xbox Project

So, that would be probably not so difficult for apple to move their os from intel to an other cpu if need...

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This tread is on barcelona, I stop this discussion but please stop with the "if amd goes down this is the end of the world"

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Originally Posted by Shintai

I dont get your point. Also think cash, what do you think Intel would win losing the volume and consumers wanting new CPUs? Intel would lose profit big time. Its just not an instant "I win card" to be a monopoly.

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you dont get it. they would lose hardly any volumes. regular people would still upgrade on the basis they do now. they dont give a damn if performance is not improving as it should be. do you really think that ordinary people upgrade because of performance? no they dont. they see new os is out, or wife need a new laptop with better features, then they get new system. just how big is the percantage of enthusiastic users that upgrade for performace gains with every introduction of new cpus? very small.

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See here you are actually completely wrong. Both AMD and Intel is reducing heavily on R&D right now. AMD have reduced it with about 500million. Intel with about 500million aswell. So currently R&D is the loser of competition, in favour of a pricewar. So a big nono, development lost here!

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ok, so you´re saying Intel would spend same/more money on R&D as they do now with amd gone :clap: if you do you´re pretty naive...

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You lack basic understanding of Vista. Do some research on whats changed under the hood.

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i do, but that doesn´t change anything about vista being earlier if there was competition. just dont say they were working on security issues and DRM because that´s BS. vista is late because MS doesnt have to answer any competition.

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Is that why the monopolies around in europe and asia made sure people could have the infrastructure ready for broadband? Just look at the "competition" on US broadband. Even in the ultra dense NY area you got crap. Nobody really want to digg down fiber on their own if there is competition. Its very expensive and a longterm investment. And if nobody else does it its a current loss that could kill you in the name of competition.

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ok, you get your point. there are areas where monopoly might be better solution. but in case you didnt notice we are speaking about competition in Desktop PCs processors. in case you really believe that this market is better off with monopoly than once again... :clap:

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And since we still run around with x86 and all its flaws and drawbacks. Its a clean show on competition aint helping here, but rather keeping us somewhat stagnant. All in the name of competition, because any possible road into new areas would give you a huge loss if it fails. And burden you economicly in a way your competitors aint.

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THERE WOULD BE NO POSSIBLE ROAD INTO NEW AREAS WITHOUT COMPETITION. just because we still run on x86 doesnt mean its caused by a competition. what kind of logic is that? and you said it dozen of times in this forum. intel has more developing teams and huge economic background. they surely can take ventures into new areas. amd is one who should play it safe.

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Originally Posted by dexman

you dont get it. they would lose hardly any volumes. regular people would still upgrade on the basis they do now. they dont give a damn if performance is not improving as it should be. do you really think that ordinary people upgrade because of performance? no they dont. they see new os is out, or wife need a new laptop with better features, then they get new system. just how big is the percantage of enthusiastic users that upgrade for performace gains with every introduction of new cpus? very small.


ok, so you´re saying Intel would spend same/more money on R&D as they do now with amd gone :clap: if you do you´re pretty naive...


i do, but that doesn´t change anything about vista being earlier if there was competition. just dont say they were working on security issues and DRM because that´s BS. vista is late because MS doesnt have to answer any competition.


ok, you get your point. there are areas where monopoly might be better solution. but in case you didnt notice we are speaking about competition in Desktop PCs processors. in case you really believe that this market is better off with monopoly than once again... :clap:


THERE WOULD BE NO POSSIBLE ROAD INTO NEW AREAS WITHOUT COMPETITION. just because we still run on x86 doesnt mean its caused by a competition. what kind of logic is that? and you said it dozen of times in this forum. intel has more developing teams and huge economic background. they surely can take ventures into new areas. amd is one who should play it safe.

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You need to note a few facts we have now:
1. R&D budgets are declining.
2. People will not upgrade unless there is something better.
3. Vista is NOT late due to lack of competition. Do some research. Vista was basicly abandoned and started from scratch again.
4. x86 compability is the ABSOLUTE reason we still got x86 CPUs. There is no technical reason for us to stay with it besides that. And nobody dares to change it because the competitor would run of with it all. IA64 was a bold move, now its isolated to bigtin because AMD just added x64 and gave us 20 more years with x86. Thats not development, thats stagnation.

So I would consider you naive. :shakes:

And remember, I didnt say a monopoly would be beneficial forever.

And if I can add the broadband part again. Monopolies gave us fiber, not competition.

Guys, you can quit the "doom for AMD" We'll prolly see benchies for the newest batch soon ;) Core 2 had bugs too.

I'm 100% confident that AMD can deliver. It's just the matter of when. If they can win the server segment, that's good news for Phenom in November. you have to realise that November and December are crucial because of the Christmas buying season. I'm just a little bit worried about how they're going to price it. It must be priced competitively, or they're going to lose during the Christmas buying season. If Phenom can best Conroe or Penryn, it's going to fly out the door at OEMs like HP around Christmas.

ok, i see i have to repeat myself

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Originally Posted by Shintai

You need to note a few facts we have now:
1. R&D budgets are declining.
///Intel R@D budget would be even lower if being a monopoly
2. People will not upgrade unless there is something better.
///There would be better things but not as good as with competition around. In the end, people would still upgrade despite rantling
3. Vista is NOT late due to lack of competition. Do some research. Vista was basicly abandoned and started from scratch again.
///Thats what MS says. Hardly they were speeding things up even if they could.
4. x86 compability is the ABSOLUTE reason we still got x86 CPUs. There is no technical reason for us to stay with it besides that. And nobody dares to change it because the competitor would run of with it all. IA64 was a bold move, now its isolated to bigtin because AMD just added x64 and gave us 20 more years with x86. Thats not development, thats stagnation.
///Thats just alibistic approach. Our hands are bind because of competition. Just invent something new and implement it better than competition. You would be first to the market anyway.

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Anyway, my point is that temporary monopoly in this market wouldn´t improve a thing. Thats my opinion, yours is it would, we can leave it at that.

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Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

Guys, you can quit the "doom for AMD" We'll prolly see benchies for the newest batch soon ;) Core 2 had bugs too.

I'm 100% confident that AMD can deliver. It's just the matter of when. If they can win the server segment, that's good news for Phenom in November. you have to realise that November and December are crucial because of the Christmas buying season. I'm just a little bit worried about how they're going to price it. It must be priced competitively, or they're going to lose during the Christmas buying season. If Phenom can best Conroe or Penryn, it's going to fly out the door at OEMs like HP around Christmas.

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WHEN they deliver a given level of performance matters.

AMD will not lead in the server segment. Not with these launch clocks, nor even at 2.5GHz in Q4. Harpertown and Seaburg arrive by then.

Phenom will do even worse vs Conroe, as AMD's sole advantage is latency & bandwidth to main memory, which is most pronounced in multi-socket server systems. Phenom at 2.2-2.4GHz (the highest speed on the December map from AMD) will be soundly beaten by Kentsfield and completely blown away by Penryn.

2.5GHz in September 2006 would've been competitive.
2GHz in September 2007, followed by up to 2.5GHz in Q108 is woefully uncompetitive.
Execution matters.

he-he
AMD claims Barcelona is 50 per cent faster than Clovertown in server apps
So 2GHz of K10 will be enough for all =)

sure Barcelona at 2 GHz will be very competitive

@ Dexman, don't even try to argue with shintai
its so pointless
he will never understand logical thinking

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Originally Posted by terrace215

WHEN they deliver a given level of performance matters.

AMD will not lead in the server segment. Not with these launch clocks, nor even at 2.5GHz in Q4. Harpertown and Seaburg arrive by then.

Phenom will do even worse vs Conroe, as AMD's sole advantage is latency & bandwidth to main memory, which is most pronounced in multi-socket server systems. Phenom at 2.2-2.4GHz (the highest speed on the December map from AMD) will be soundly beaten by Kentsfield and completely blown away by Penryn.

2.5GHz in September 2006 would've been competitive.
2GHz in September 2007, followed by up to 2.5GHz in Q108 is woefully uncompetitive.
Execution matters.

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can you please show us the secret info you got about K10's IPC?
i ask because the last official infos say K10 has 20-50-70% IPC boost.

*please stop writing posts without cover, just for :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:ing's sake.
lol :banana::banana::banana::banana: these bananas, hehe :))

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Originally Posted by MAS

he-he
AMD claims Barcelona is 50 per cent faster than Clovertown in server apps
So 2GHz of K10 will be enough for all =)

sure Barcelona at 2 GHz will be very competitive

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What a fine example of blind faith...

You should remember that even in AMDs simulated scores , they were comparing a 2.6GHz K10 with a 2.66GHz Clovertown.
Since then , K10 went to 2GHz and Clovertown to 3GHz.

Mark my words : K10 won't even get near to the 2.66GHz Clovertown , not to mention the 3GHz 5365.

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Originally Posted by alayashu

can you please show us the secret info you got about K10's IPC?
i ask because the last official infos say K10 has 20-50-70% IPC boost.

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No "infos say K10 has 20-50-70% IPC boost".

Now all AMD will say is that FOUR K10 cores @ 2GHz will perform 40-70% faster than TWO top-bin K8 cores, in certain cherry-picked benchmarks.

That's not a statement about K10 core IPC vs K8 core IPC.

That figure is likely 10-15% in most cases, putting Barcelona IPC roughly on par with Core 2 Duo IPC.

In applications that max out main memory bandwidth, the K10 will do relatively better. In apps with a large cache footprint, C2D will do relatively better.

But enough is known about the K10 design, plus AMD's simulated performance on a few benchmarks, to pin down its IPC.

I can understand any confusion if you only looked at AMD press releases, since, when they issue new claims, they fail to mention that the old claims no longer apply. And they've changed their story at least 3 times at this point:

First: Barcelona will outperform Intel's fastest Clovertown by X & Y%.

(AMD begins to have clockspeed concerns, so in April: )

Second: Barcelona will outperform Intel's Clovertown clock-for-clock by X and Y% on two 2P spec_rate benchmarks.

(Intel improves its compiler and tuning on spec_rate, and Barcelona clock is still dreadfully low, so change to: )

Third: Barcelona will outperform AMD's own DC K8, per socket (not core) by X and Y% on two types of applications.

and also:

Third(b): Barcelona will have the best performance PER WATT.

(But now Intel will launch 50W 2GHz Clovertown w/1333FSB in August, so AMD will be abandoning 3b shortly. )

God people, if you don't believe that K10 will not outperform K8 on the core level. Then I will be forced to wonder how the :banana::banana::banana::banana: do you remember to keep breathing.
The Short way to see K10:
It performs better than K8 by a significant margin in many levels.

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Originally Posted by nn_step

It performs better than K8 by a significant margin in many levels.

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Not according to my calculations! http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=602

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Originally Posted by nn_step

God people, if you don't believe that K10 will not outperform K8 on the core level. Then I will be forced to wonder how the :banana::banana::banana::banana: do you remember to keep breathing.
The Short way to see K10:
It performs better than K8 by a significant margin in many levels.

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You're in for a big surprise in a few tests....

terrace, they said something that can be interpreted in many extreme ways.
but your interpretation, that K10 is as fast or slower than K8 is very improbable.
IMO their 50-70% was at the core level / per clock in multithreaded environment
on FP/SSE. Though, taking the same discussion from head to tail every month is
useless, there are 2 more months until the server chips are out, and 1 month till
the long awaited benches pop.

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You're in for a big surprise in a few tests....

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allrite then, show us those surprise benches. I hope you weren't referring to rendering eh ;)

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Originally Posted by MAS

he-he
AMD claims Barcelona is 50 per cent faster than Clovertown in server apps
So 2GHz of K10 will be enough for all =)

sure Barcelona at 2 GHz will be very competitive

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Where do you see server apps. All they showed is a specfp_rate to be 50% faster. And they even in the press release stays at estimated performance and only "certain applications".

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Originally Posted by red

"Now it is: 4 Barc cores will outperform 2 K8 cores by up to 40 to 70%. Big deal."

Those are handpicked benches. One is the outdated SPECfp_rate2000
http://i17.tinypic.com/2eq51k5.jpg and the other "OLTP" (usually they should specify if this is TPC-C or H) http://i16.tinypic.com/4d6wjmo.jpg

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1183...googlenews_wsj
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/pro...629&ID=7108474
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...arcelona_2ghz/
"Mr. Allen estimated that the first versions of Barcelona still will be 40% to 50% faster than existing Opteron chips, which have two processors."
"We will be seeing a performance boost of 40-50 per cent above our highest frequency dual-core products that are available today," AMD VP Randy Allen told us.

Some calculating, the fastest 2P K8 can deliver 4*3GHz=12GHz. 45% (40+50/2) faster than that would be 17.4Ghz. Divided by 8 K10 cores=2.175GHz. 2.175/2=8.75% IPC K10 advantage?

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You cant just multiply frequency for every core as that doesnt take into account scaling, intercore communication etc. You're results are completely invalid.