Mainstream sandybridge: a near perfect cruncher?

[kjeldoran]

Yeah i haven't heard as much about bulldozer as I have SB, what's the general consensus about BD?

I have no idea what BD is going to offer. If it offers 10% more performance clock for clock compared to phenom 2 and offers 8 cores for the current pricing scheme of thuban, I will be interested. Honestly, the thing that intrigues me the most is Interlagos, especially if they keep their current socket g34 pricing similar. I'd imagine it would have 12 core and 16 core varients. If the slowest 12 core is at the same price as the current slowest 8 core offering, I think it would be a nice cruncher. Especially if there is increased IPC and frequency (due to 32nm).

Not just pricing. Consider how much performance Intel have been adding with each generation WITHOUT AMD as a real performance competitor ... now consider what would happen if AMD pull something special out of the bag with Bulldozer. Intel aren't going to really "dig deep" without a reason to do so.

I wish AMD had similar performance to Intel as competition is nice.

Interesting tidbit with SB and UEFI and asus...
http://www.electronista.com/articles...cal.interface/
and a leak about laptops...
http://www.electronista.com/articles...ks.in.new.pcs/

I don't really see any benefits from UEFI for me. Pulled from wiki:

* Ability to boot from large disks (over 2TB)
* Faster boot-up
* CPU-independent architecture
* CPU-independent drivers
* Flexible pre-OS environment, including networking support
* Modular design

Lower boot does not matter as my daily use only gets restarted for critical updates. My 2 other crunchers don't get rebooted. The 2TB limit doesn't matter to me, plus who would make a 2TB bootable partition. The rest I don't know the meaning...

[slaveondope]

I have no idea what BD is going to offer. If it offers 10% more performance clock for clock compared to phenom 2 and offers 8 cores for the current pricing scheme of thuban, I will be interested.

I was about to post just this. I figure a 4ghz 8 core BD will be doing at least ~40k ppd and as long as it does that and I can snag a low end model for ~$200 push the fsb Im sold.

[D_A]

I wish AMD had similar performance to Intel as competition is nice.

I've been an AMD fan for years, my first PC was a K6-2 350MHz unit which I still have sitting behind my left shoulder albeit in 500MHz form, but sine the Core2s came out it's been all Intel. I really want AMD to come out with a game-changer like the Athlon XPs were, I really do, but I just haven't seen it yet.

[nanoprobe]

I was about to post just this. I figure a 4ghz 8 core BD will be doing at least ~40k ppd and as long as it does that and I can snag a low end model for ~$200 push the fsb Im sold.

If they make BD compatible with AM3 sockets and DDR2/DDR3 then I would be interested. If they require another mobo upgrade than that's a deal breaker for me.

[xVeinx]

Sandy Bridge is likely to be the next big cruncher if for no other reason than because stores like Microcenter are selling through their current stocks of 1156 and 1336 processors and not replacing the stock, including motherboards. The Tustin, CA Microcenter seems pretty intent on clearing out inventory for January...

The best deals are likely to be Sandy Bridge in January. Luckily, memory prices also are dropping a bit, Black Friday sales aside...

[[XC] Hicks121]

The 2600s looks really nice. Are those prices on there going to be the retail prices? If so, I am pretty stoked.

lol...just saw the 2600k is only a bit more, but more wattage.....hmmm. Unlocked too?

[xVeinx]

The 2600s looks really nice. Are those prices on there going to be the retail prices? If so, I am pretty stoked.

lol...just saw the 2600k is only a bit more, but more wattage.....hmmm. Unlocked too?

I'm not sure how good pricing will be, but it seems that prices should be slightly higher than the first core series when it debuted (based on the leaks). Motherboard pricing appears to have similar targets. If Microcenter has the 2600 for $250 or so, then they're going to get some fantastic business.

[charlie]

Enthusiast = big price tag. Always has and I don't see why this time around would be any different.

I've always likes black PCB s because black goes with every other color and makes the other colors pop. I'm sort of a minimalist tho. However I would love to see white too!

there was a white pcb mobo 5 or 6 years ago...

I can't remember who made it though...

edit: it was a Sapphire mobo for AMD chip:

[Movieman]

Without having much knowledge of what socket 2011 will do I have to say that based on what I know the SB chips will be the most efficient electrical usage chips we've ever seen and I mean by a factor of so much many of you would call me a liar if I showed you what I've seen.
This isn't an evolutionary step forward in electrical efficiency, it's a revolutionary step forward.
How good without getting into benches?
I think 25-2600 SB systems would out do DDTUNGS farm of 55-Q6600's and his 50-60 office dells and thats no BS and cost 1/4-1/5th the electric to run them.
SB IS the next i7-920 for the masses of crunchers and a Godsend for those with high electric rates.

[snoro]

Look at where he lives, so i guess i will wait for bd and lga2011 to get me a nice workstation for AE and crunching.

[bearcatrp]

When are the server versions coming out?