The Sandy Bridge Preview (Anand)

[flippin_waffles]

Well, it looks like sb is in for a world of hurt.

[terrace215]

game performance was disappointing so far, hope they iron out that on retail..

Factor in the fact that the comparison was to a part running at 22.5% higher clockspeed on the games that are single-threaded.

The retail parts will have turbo active, and will slightly outclock the older parts, in addition to their significant IPC advantage.

Looks like AMD is about to get Conroed, again.

[terrace215]

Well, it looks like AMD is in for a world of hurt.

Fixed.

[STaRGaZeR]

So ~35-40% single thread perfomance advantage over Thuban at the same clocks? How's AMD going to close that gap?

[Hornet331]

So ~35-40% single thread perfomance advantage over Thuban at the same clocks? How's AMD going to close that gap?

Obviously with more cores.. but for singel threaded performance...

So maybe informal's guesses about BD single thread performace increase over Deneb wheren't that farfechted at all... or better they are neccecery to keep the same performance gap as they have now when you compare deneb/nehalem.

[xVeinx]

So ~35-40% single thread perfomance advantage over Thuban at the same clocks? How's AMD going to close that gap?

[terrace215]

{Bulldozer stuck in a sand trap.}

Yes, it ain't gonna be pretty.

[h0bbes]

Yes, it ain't gonna be pretty.

you must really love intel

Anyway i hope AMD will release competitive (enough) products

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well looks so-so for overclocking enthusiasts, it much depends like anandtech pointed out several times on the pricing of the K SKUs and OCability. SB looks a lot more attractive to non-overclockers tho if those prices will be true cuz u get a decent boost in clock frequency for the same price as previous gen. :p

Really wonder how far the unlocked chips can be clocked. On the paper with signicantly higher stock speeds and less power consumption and 32nm it sounds like it could have a decent OCability if you simply look back and compare overclockability of say Conroe - todays CPUs. Imagine if 4.7 ~ 4.8GHz was possible on high vcore (1.3~1.35v) and 4.3~4.6GHz on say 1.2~1.25v or sth like that, then paying the price premium for the K SKU wouldn't be an issue for overclockers either I think. :p Pure speculation though and I may be very far from the reality but 1.0v stock vcore (prolly just energy saving state so could actually be sth like 1.10~1.15v set in bios though), 3.4GHz clock speeds from launch, lower power consumption and 32nm sounds like a good recipé from an OC standpoint...

[freeloader]

You think AMD is going from first silicon on a BRAND NEW microarchitecture on a brand new process to launched parts in *under* 1 year? They would have to be extraordinarily lucky.

And what makes you think they want to give A0 silicon to a review site??!! These things typically run at low clocks, major functionality can be bugged, etc., etc. It would be a PR disaster.

AMD doesn't need to give anything to a review site. They can simply release the information on a slide at some future event. Let's hope for the sake of sane CPU prices that AMD can get something out the door before September 2011. I'm personally going to SB myself as I'm not going to wait for AMD. I had a spark of enthusiasm in the other AMD thread, but after seeing some SB numbers, that spark is extinguished.

[Hornet331]

AMD doesn't need to give anything to a review site. They can simply release the information on a slide at some future event. Let's hope for the sake of sane CPU prices that AMD can get something out the door before September 2011. I'm personally going to SB myself as I'm not going to wait for AMD. I had a spark of enthusiasm in the other AMD thread, but after seeing some SB numbers, that spark is extinguished.

I would wait for the S2011 SB and by that also BD should be close around the corner.

[570091D]

Well, it looks like sb is in for a world of hurt.

funniest post in the thread

i do want amd to drive bulldozer all over intel's lineup, shake up the market a bit, bring prices down, and drive some more inovation. however, amd has had some real problems delivering on the cpu side of the business and i'm worried they might be trying to pull an nvidia (show world + dog what they're working on without having any working samples or knowing where performance will be).

i guess we'll know for sure q2 2011...

[cegras]

My god, I am almost ashamed to own intel with the collective-patting-on-the-back of terrance, stargazer, and co.

[vietthanhpro]

FPS up--> IQ down ! ---> Intel Graphics HD !

[-Boris-]

Would be real nice with benches with turbo off on all chips, or better yet, with turbo on on all chips.
Even if you can do some calculations, you still can't do any accurate perdictions.

You can of course never get to much processor speed. But now it seems like we are getting spoiled here. I remember when processor speed mattered more than graphics cards, and when you actully felt a big difference from going up a notch. Of course a speed bump then was more like 15-30% higher frequency, against 3-5% today.

[flippin_waffles]

Fixed.

Haha well, it looks like you're in for a world of hurt also. btw, how are those 32nm issues at intel coming along? Surely they've got it all worked out by now. No? Oh.

[570091D]

Haha well, it looks like you're in for a world of hurt also. btw, how are those 32nm issues at intel coming along? Surely they've got it all worked out by now. No? Oh.

where are those bulldozer benches?

[haylui]

hopefully BD will have a smaller gap than today's Nehalem vs Deneb...

[flippin_waffles]

where are those bulldozer benches?

Probably not going to show up for a while now if this is all they have to compete with. Thanks a lot intel...

[slaveondope]

Not feeling the ~$500 for a 4c 8t overclockable 2600K

[terrace215]

Haha well, it looks like you're in for a world of hurt also. btw, how are those 32nm issues at intel coming along? Surely they've got it all worked out by now. No? Oh.

Don't tell me you're one of those people that gets carried away with boilerplate risk disclaimers? BTW, I don't work for Intel.

Probably not going to show up for a while now if this is all they have to compete with. Thanks a lot intel...

The first stage of grief is denial...

[terrace215]

My god, I am almost ashamed to own intel with the collective-patting-on-the-back of terrance, stargazer, and co.

We never would have guessed, looking at your posting history.

[cegras]

We never would have guessed, looking at your posting history.

You mean all the times in the past few months where my posts were those asking you to stop being arrogant in requesting info, making overblown assumptions about AMD, and generally spreading FUD? I mean, I haven't contributed anything more than that other than calling you and your company out for the collective-back-patting.

Do I have to go through this thread and quote all of you to show you how terrible it's getting? Let's try:

Holy , lower power consumption, awesome CPU&GPU perfomance increases across the board. I want one.

A pity they didn't test games with HT on/off.

Considering you can play games at 60 fps on 15" resolution with the lowest details, I really do see why you're so excited. I really do. (I really don't)

Holy crap, that's only 6 EUs on that IGP? The 12 EU option will completely end snide remarks about "Intel IGPs"

That clicking you hear is the sound of Llano being erased from AMD roadmaps. It might beat 2C SB IGP, but not by much, it looks like, and its CPU will be blown out...


Too bad turbo is not engaged.

Nice L3 measurement, but I wonder on the L1 & L2. Going back to the canardPC leak, which has been pretty good in the past, they had the L1 latency down to 3, L2 down to 9...

Maybe Dr. Who can make a cryptic comment....

And those IPC gains are coming despite an L3 of 6MB vs 8MB in the i7 880 !

I think you're overestimating how that Evergreen part is going to perform when integrated with Llano

BTW, IPC gains are higher than thought.

In addition to the L3 cache being smaller on Sandy, the other Westmere comparison parts were allowed to Turbo (!), so it is not clock-for-clock at all, particularly on single-threaded workloads.

The i7 880 can hit 3.73GHz, 20% higher clock than the non-turboing 3.1GHz Sandy.

What do you want them to share?

What exactly do you want AMD to share with Anand at this point? Other than Bobcat, I doubt anything is in anywhere near good enough shape to let it be "reviewed" this way at this time. (EDIT: lol, gazer)

AMD is not within 6 months of a launch... maybe not even 12 months

Sorry, that was too easy.



This is Intel Haifa we're talking about, they always Conroe the market with each of their new uarchs.

You think AMD is going from first silicon on a BRAND NEW microarchitecture on a brand new process to launched parts in *under* 1 year? They would have to be extraordinarily lucky.

And what makes you think they want to give A0 silicon to a review site??!! These things typically run at low clocks, major functionality can be bugged, etc., etc. It would be a PR disaster.

Factor in the fact that the comparison was to a part running at 22.5% higher clockspeed on the games that are single-threaded.

The retail parts will have turbo active, and will slightly outclock the older parts, in addition to their significant IPC advantage.

Looks like AMD is about to get Conroed, again.

Fixed.

^ My god, you're so excited about SB you had to double post.

So ~35-40% single thread perfomance advantage over Thuban at the same clocks? How's AMD going to close that gap?

Don't tell me you're one of those people that gets carried away with boilerplate risk disclaimers? BTW, I don't work for Intel.



The first stage of grief is denial...

[Jowy Atreides]

The first stage of grief is denial...

Ironically displayed by yourself.

Sandy Bridge does not appear to be even worth the platform upgrade for anyone owning a nehalem.

Poor show.

[terrace215]

Ironically displayed by yourself.

Sandy Bridge does not appear to be even worth the platform upgrade for anyone owning a nehalem.

Poor show.

Yeah, 20% IPC increases just fall from the trees everyday... totally worthless! Meanwhile, Phenom II owners will... what? wait until Q4 of next year to buy a new BD platform for a Zambezi that will be significantly behind the competition? That's right, BD is officially NOT Am3 compatible:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...forms_AMD.html