AMD Bulldozer Thread

[Mech0z]

http://www.nytimes.com/external/vent...ref=technology

This should prove that Bulldozer is not a fiasco, just server focused, and we can hope they can make a version specialized for desktop users, but I think Llano is for that.

[n!Cola]

Rumor : Amd to swith to TSMC for bulldozer ?

[Hornet331]

[kaktus1907]

Nope just chuck testa!

[Hornet331]

hahaha nice one.

[Monkeywoman]

Rumor : Amd to swith to TSMC for bulldozer ?

so if they switch founderies there's a chance for lower TDP and higher clocked models? Xbitlabs has and interesting article http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...er_Fiasco.html

Basically saying dozer wasn't tweaked, possibly by next stepping?

[ice_chill]

so if they switch founderies there's a chance for lower TDP and higher clocked models? Xbitlabs has and interesting article http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...er_Fiasco.html

Basically saying dozer wasn't tweaked, possibly by next stepping?

Nice find but shocking to read, when people say AMD this AMD that, it's really the management people that messed up, nothing wrong with the engineers.

[Tha Last Meal]

[JohnZS]

Almost looks like that dude Rory is stood in front of a notorious BSOD!

[ZhaoYun]

We all waited 5 years for this... Sure hope the next stepping shows great improvement.

[ice_chill]

We all waited 5 years for this... Sure hope the next stepping shows great improvement.

Good luck waiting another 5 years

[zalbard]

JF-AMD commented on his IPC claims over at AnandTech forums:

So here's the story on IPC from my perspective.

The original design goal was higher IPC. Back before we had taped out the first processors the discussion came up. I am not allowed to say anything in public that hasn't been vetted past engineering. I specifically asked the engineering team about IPC and they replied that they expected higher IPC and I was cleared on that statement.

In my estimation, I made the IPC stament on XS and I don't recall making it other places (but I am sure that my comments were reposted.)

This is not a case of me lying, this is a case of me being wrong. And that happens to all of us. There is no way that I would intentionally say something that I did not believe to be true because a.) the interenet is a permanent record and b.) eventually you'll have to answer to those comments.

In these different forums that I would frequent, I have made thousands of posts about the product, always trying to help people understand the technology. Everything was done with the intention of being informative. I never made client performance predictions and was very clear on correcting people who took server benchmarks and tried to correlate client performance, because it just doesn't work like that.

Since the launch I haven't really been in any forums because I was in Seattle all week with MSFT. Once the product launched, I started receiving lots of hate mail. If I had a dollar for every message that used the word f*** I would have enough money to buy myself a bulldozer server.

Early on there were a lot of people that said I was crazy for trying to talk to the enthusiast community, but I persisted, the occasional idiot is something that everyone has to put up with from time to time. But the volume of hate messages that I received has unfortunately convinced me that I was wrong.

I was doing this on my own time, it was not part of my job. And because of that, I don't really feel compelled to take any more abuse.

All of the statements that I have made at the time were statements that I believed to be true. I am no more a liar than Paul Otellini when he said IB would ship in Q4. He is not a liar, he is giving the best information he has at the time and things change. If you are going to extend courtesy to others when their statements don't pan out, you should do that with everyone.

Thanks to exarkun and some of the others that have had a reasonable response in all of this. Too many people were waiting to attack, it's almost like they don't really care, maybe they just like to fight.

This pretty much perfectly matches my expectations.

[highoctane]

I have absolutely no ill will at all towards JF-AMD personally, from the posts I've read from him in general he's a stand up guy, especially to have a skin thick enough to deal with some of the kids posting on the forums.

Everyone on this forum should know by now after dealing with this same ordeal over and over after every new product launch that nothing is concrete until final product launch and retail availability.

The internet flash mobs are like a bad storm for things like this but eventually it will blow over and things will be quiet until the next product launch nears and the flash mobs start building up again.

[Olivon]

So that was all engineers's fault who told bullz to JF-AMD on A0 stepping ... WaoW, that's even worst from what i was thinkin'

[Cordell Cahill]

I'd like to see some benchmarks of BD at 5ghz vs X6 at 4.2ghz and\or BD at 4.5ghz vs X6 at 3.8ghz

[FlanK3r]

maybe with Piledriver (I hope for so) will be finally right about higher IPC than K10.5

[Raqia]

maybe with Piledriver (I hope for so) will be finally right about higher IPC than K10.5

Doubtful; see paragraph 3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...fx,3043-9.html

It is still a path forward for AMD, but unless they're low-balling estimates, most of the improvements will come from process rather than architectural tweaks. BD is still a nice product for the price; it just doesn't make terribly good use of die space / transistors in its current iteration. I think it'll find a lot of success as a part of an APU if it's paired w/ a balanced GPU.

[freeloader]

maybe with Piledriver (I hope for so) will be finally right about higher IPC than K10.5

I'm not 100% sure that Piledriver will have a much higher IPC than K10.5. Strictly based on rumours we've heard that the 15% figure will be from tweaks to the core (5%) and frequency gains (10%). The 5% due to tweaking is very much appreciated, but the 10% from frequency optimizations is questionable given the problems facing Global Foundries. It's too bad AMD wasn't releasing Piledriver right now and then working up from there.

Let's all hope that AMD/Global Foundries can figure out their problems quickly.

[bamtan2]

JF-AMD commented on his IPC claims over at AnandTech forums:

This pretty much perfectly matches my expectations.

being harassed would definitely suck... a lot. bulldozer is bull but amd employees dont deserve to be harassed by idiot fanboys. though they will be harassed by idiot fanboys.

[freeloader]

JF-AMD may have stuck his foot in his own mouth but he definitely doesn't deserve to be harassed by anyone. It's just a CPU for heaven's sake.

[RussC]

JF shouldn't be posting in internet forums to start with. Nothing good can ever come of that. You will always post somthing you'll regret at some point. The companies Ive worked for, it was blatantly obvious and/or company policy, if your caught posting in Internet forums or any other venue about company products, policy or practices, "your fired". Its that simple. Especially the 2 startups I worked for.

To comment on JF's comment, AMD is really disfunctional. Engineers dont know the IPC rates of the products their making??? Especiall after it's finished. Wow. So what, they sit in meetings at 1 AMD Place and say that IPC increases w/o really knowing. Makes no sence whatsoever. Since I work here in the Golden Triangle, just minutes from AMD, and an engineer myself making semi conductor fabrication equipment, i feel a certain kinship to these technology company's, but AMD is just baffleing to me.

I guess it's just deperation by AMD, their poor, always on the verge of bankruptcy, probably loosing talent by the week, I guess thell really always be just an also ran now.

RussC

JF-AMD commented on his IPC claims over at AnandTech forums:

This pretty much perfectly matches my expectations.

[ice_chill]

Ok people Bulldozer is a disappointment, why are people still trying to argue that there is something good about it ? Lets speculate on Intel's Extreme chip coming out soon.

[Hornet331]

I agree.. it makes no sense that the own engineers have no clue on how there product perform at all? Did they just thrown in some design clusters in a pot shook it and look what came out?

The hate mail thing on the other hand.. well its unnecessary.. but you know its the internet:
Internetz.jpg

And that counts for pretty much verything on the internet.. still...

[eXa]

RussC i disagree.

As long as you are really honest and standup there is nothing wrong with posting on forums and stuff like that. The problems start when you start twisting the truth or hide stuff or if you are dishonest. So if a company has thoose "your fired" policy i would be really worried about what theyre hiding.
JF has been very honest and standup in my opinion, the only minor mistake he did was stating as a fact that IPC would increase while all he could have said instead was that "the engineers tells me that ipc WILL increase" and no one would have any reason to bash him. Now dont get me wrong, i dont think he should be bashed for that minor "mistake" either, but this is the internet and there is tons of idiots out there. If he cant ignore thoose idiots then maybe internet is not for him...
I dont think there is many on this forum for instance that would be stupid enough to send him hatemail for what he said... (atleast i hope so)

Take Gabe from Swiftech. Oh man has he recieved alot of bashing for some of his decisions, (re-introducing alu after the 3000 series failure for instance) and i bet he wanted to just say f*** it and leave but didnt. After all most of the critique was because people do like Swiftech products and want the best. Luckily Gabe has stuck around and his post on this forum is BY FAR the best advertisment even tho he only really post about new products like a PSA or something() and honestly answering questions.
I hide my face in shame whenever i see a stupid youtube commercial video from AMD or nVidia and the like, omg they are so stupid, the make me cringe...

Then you have EK wich also has recieved alot or praise for beeing around and beeing honest. But when they had problems with theire nickleplating they said almost nothing. And recieved (deserved) alot of bashing. If they had only said "We are sorry, we have had some problems with the plating but are trying to fix it" it would be ok. People do mistakes, its ok as long as your honest.

Moral is... my point beeing, if your honest you cant really go wrong. The problems start when you start acting shady or doing shady stuff.
Ofc you cant always share everything, thats not my point. But just say so, "Im sorry, i cant share that info right now" or something in that line.

[safan80]

JF-AMD may have stuck his foot in his own mouth but he definitely doesn't deserve to be harassed by anyone. It's just a CPU for heaven's sake.

I disagree, he's a marketing guy that didn't understand the market he was working in nor the product he was selling. He works for AMD and he has to be careful about what he posts on the customer driven forums and he was not. Since his statements about the IPC were posted here he should of came back and made the post he made at anandtech here. His actions are typical of the average marketer create hype to get people to buy his company's product. Accuracy does not matter to a marketer because one can always backtrack.