!!!The Ultimate K8L Thread 2007 & Beyond!!!

[Serge84]

So the K8L in dec Thread died. But we still need a K8L and Fusion Thread to stay alive to continue to talk about this great technology 1st hand until it gets here. Please stay on topic so this Thread never dies. To a happy new future and new year for AMD!

This is about K8L so continue about the news, speculation, ideas, specs, and anything you can think of only about k8L and the future of AMD here...

[madcho]

Serge84 can you regroup the whole news about it in the first post of the topic thx

[kemo]

So we should talk about K8L for 6 months until it hit the Market
No thanks I will pass

[w0mbat]

What´s with SSE4A now? Is SSE4A like SSE4 from Intel, or is it from AMD? What means the "A" after SSE4?

[nn_step]

SSE4A is AMD's version of Intel's SSE4 instructions

[Epsilon84]

There is nothing to discuss that hasn't already been covered by the old thread.

In fact, due to the lack of news/ES on K8L, the old thread inevitably turned into a speculation/prediction fest about how K8L would fare against Core2, and we all know how must AMD vs Intel topics pan out...

I have a feeling this thread will suffer a similar fate. Sooner or later someone will mention Intel in this thread and watch the fanboys erupt.

[Serge84]

If I was a mod I'd delete anything that has to do with company B. We are trying to talk about Company A only. Please stay on topic. What is Company B doing in a company A topic anyways?

AMD will have SSE4A and new extended 64-bit instructions in K8L. Fusion will put 2 cpu cores and 2 gpu cores into the processor package. This must be K13, this will increase performance in games by a greater margin with the help of standard video cards in a PCI-E2 slot. This should bring a new power to GPU and CPU processing. But not only that, it will make the processor itself much more powerful.

This stage of making a (CGPU) would be amazing if used in every other area imaginable not only graphics will be changed but processing power as well for just a single processor. A physics core could also be used in this disine or even allow different tasks to be placed on the G processor cores in side the CGPU to take load off of the graphics card itself and allow for more realistic games from weaker cards. This will be out on AM3 in 2008/2009. Wonder how it will go. This maybe the next true FX idea.

[Turtle 1]

Well serge I definitly like the idea of talking about fusion. You got a link for 2cores gpu and 2cpu cores on one die. I would love to read up on it. To see how they plan on incorperating the memory for the gpu.

[Serge84]

CPU/GPU Silicon “Fusion” – Another Industry First for Customers
AMD plans to create a new class of x86 processor that integrates the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) at the silicon level with a broad set of design initiatives collectively codenamed “Fusion.” AMD intends to design Fusion processors to provide step-function increases in performance-per-watt relative to today’s CPU-only architectures, and to provide the best customer experience in a world increasingly reliant upon 3D graphics, digital media and high-performance computing. With Fusion processors, AMD will continue to promote an open platform and encourage companies throughout the ecosystem to create innovative new co-processing solutions aimed at further optimizing specific workloads. AMD-powered Fusion platforms will continue to fully support high-end discrete graphics, physics accelerators, and other PCI Express-based solutions to meet the ever-increasing needs of the most demanding enthusiast end-users.

“With the anticipated launch of Windows Vista, robust 3D graphics, digital media and device convergence are driving the need for greater performance, graphics capabilities, and battery life,” said Phil Hester, AMD senior vice president and chief technology officer. “In this increasingly diverse x86 computing environment, simply adding more CPU cores to a baseline architecture will not be enough. As x86 scales from palmtops to petaFLOPS, modular processor designs leveraging both CPU and GPU compute capabilities will be essential in meeting the requirements of computing in 2008 and beyond.”

Fusion processors are expected in late 2008/early 2009, and the company expects to use them within all of the company’s priority computing categories, including laptops, desktops, workstations and servers, as well as in consumer electronics and solutions tailored for the unique needs of emerging markets.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...113741,00.html

AMD Fusion is the code name for a future next-generation microprocessor design and the product of the merger between AMD and ATI, combining general processor execution as well as 3D geometry processing and other functions of today's GPUs into a single package. AMD's merger with ATI closed on October 25, 2006. This technology is expected to debut in the timeframe of late 2008 or early 2009; as a successor of the K8L microarchitecture.

Regarding future AMD microarchitectures beyond the introduction of AMD K8L at mid-2007 and K8L+ in late 2007 and early 2008; AMD executive VP Henri Richard's June 2006 interview with DigiTimes hints at the future processor development beyond that of the well documented K8L:
“ Q: What is your broad perspective on the development of AMD processor technology over the next three to four years?

A: Well, as Dirk Meyer commented at our analysts meeting, we're not standing still. We've talked about the refresh of the current K8 architecture that will come in '07, with significant improvements in many different areas of the processor, including integer performance, floating point performance, memory bandwidth, interconnections and so on. You know that platform still has a lot of legs under it, but of course we're not standing still, and there's a next-generation core that's being worked on. I can't give you more details right now, but I think that what's important is that we're establishing clearly that this is a two-horse race. And as you would expect in a race, sometimes, when one horse is a little bit in front of the other, it reverses the situation. But what's important is that it is a race.
”

— AMD Executive VP, Henri Richard, Source: DigiTimes Interview with Henri Richard

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060628VL201.html

In an interview with Exec VP of AMD, Mario Rivas, CRN.com claims that: "With its Fusion program, AMD hopes to deliver multicore products using different kinds of processing blocks. A GPU, for example, will excel in multiple parallel computational tasks, while the CPU will take on heavy number-crunching duties. The Fusion-based processors, with the CPU and GPU integrated in a single architecture, should make the life of software programmers and application developers much easier, Rivas added." [1] This could signal that the design of Fusion has been going on for sometime. According to the article, further details will surface in December of 2006.

* The integration of GPU functionality into a CPU core.
* Four platforms focus on the four different aspects of usage[2]
o General Purpose
o Data Centric
o Graphics Centric
o Media Centric

[edit] Speed increase

There is to be an expected speed increase with the Fusion. Because the GPU and CPU will be on the same die, information transfer between the CPU and GPU/GPU memory will significantly increase since there will be no need for the information to travel on a bus to and from the CPU and GPU as it is today with current motherboards.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/10/25/am...ion_processor/
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/11094
http://www.crn.com.au/story.aspx?CII...&src=site-marq
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...tor_091206.pdf
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4696

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10...f_amds_fusion/

This thing is still in the research stage as far as I know. DDR3 will be out at 1800mhz speeds before we see this. It could use shared or be on extended cache chips on the CPU most likely with Zram because it can be used with much greater mb's or GDDR5 will be used if they do intend to put memory on the chip in great numbers. This will be made on 45nm or 32nm tech most likely if it comes out in 2010. These GPU's might just use whatever memory is avalible in the DDR3 ram.

Its just entertaining speculation other then the factual links provided.

[Aerou]

thx serge for the bright idea of this new thread, I am veeery interested in both K8L and Fusion and thx for gathering the links. But I really hope for some news or more specifics on the Fusion project. Maybe unification is the next step in computing. As many things matter, not only paper specs, will see how it turns out, when some samples get tested, so cya in 2009

[Serge84]

thx serge for the bright idea of this new thread, I am veeery interested in both K8L and Fusion and thx for gathering the links. But I really hope for some news or more specifics on the Fusion project. Maybe unification is the next step in computing. As many things matter, not only paper specs, will see how it turns out, when some samples get tested, so cya in 2009

I look forward to the day as well. It looks very nice. Always good to have a positive look on things rather then a vs here vs there thing. I do too, but they tend to keep there lips tight about everything. lol Thats no fun. Always makes you come back for more tho on the bright side until its released.

[nn_step]

just some new sexy pics for you guys

and a much better picture
http://nnstep.com/help/300mmWafer_Qu...Structures.jpg

[Serge84]

just some new sexy pics for you guys

and a much better picture
http://nnstep.com/help/300mmWafer_Qu...Structures.jpg

Thats not sexy... thats SMEXY!

[Helmore]

Hey wow, that's a great pic of 'K8L', where did you get it?
Do you have any more information regarding it's overal structure? It's still not clear to wether it's a 3 or a 4 issue core and has the amount of stages changes anything?

[nn_step]

Chai Chee Lane Singapore

[Turtle 1]

Very colorful pic. But sexy is what I would call nn-steps old avatars. Sorry a blew up there its the wolf in me coming out.

nn you didn't ans. the mans question on the 3-4 issue.

[nn_step]

Very colorful pic. But sexy is what I would call nn-steps old avatars. Sorry a blew up there its the wolf in me coming out.

nn you didn't ans. the mans question on the 3-4 issue.

it is still a 3 issue core, since right now even at full load and with non-conroe Optimized code (aka it wasn't written specifically for conroe) IPC maxes out at 2.5. Superior branch prediction and efficient issue will provide a far superior performance improvement (see performance jump from yohan to conroe)
Heck if Intel or AMD wanted they could make a 50 IPC core, the execution logic doesn't take up much die space (0.1% or less) It just wouldn't do much good since you can only extract so much Instruction parallelism out of any given program. [the next logical step is thread level parallelism in case you wanted to head in that direction]

[Sparky]

nice pic, nn you just gave me my new wallpaper

I'm eagerly waiting to see what K8L brings to the table - not like I'll be able to afford to upgrade but I still want to see it.

[[XC] Malkec]

Any new info on K8L?

[mzs_biteme]

Any new info on K8L?

Nope... Just a lot of speculatory BS as always and little to NONE actuall K8L news/details...

This tread WILL die long before anybody sees K8L anyways...

[Turtle 1]

nice pic, nn you just gave me my new wallpaper

I'm eagerly waiting to see what K8L brings to the table - not like I'll be able to afford to upgrade but I still want to see it.

Yep I grabed It and its my wallpaper

[arisythila]

nice pic, nn you just gave me my new wallpaper

I'm eagerly waiting to see what K8L brings to the table - not like I'll be able to afford to upgrade but I still want to see it.

Its my wall paper too

[Super strokey]

As a fusion related question, does this mean we will see some super fast vram for sale in teh future that has dimms kind of like the way that ram is sold for systems now? Or is it planned only to be a direct sharing with the system memory? Could make for some new upstart companies if its the former

[Equil|briuM]

Just wait for it's release ffs.

I would understand if there was any testing going on or actual CPUz screenies.. but tbh - it's a load of horse.

AMD should not have botherd with Quadfather.. and just get there asses in gear with K8L.

Hey, im an AMD guy 100% - but there is NO doubt that they are just ing about now.

K8L should have been out within the new year.. not near the end of this year.

Wow, look at all those banana's. :P

[dinos22]

this must be the most talked about CPU of all time

is this thing ever coming out i wonder