FX4100--><--955Be Battle of the X4’s

[Zeus]

As expected, complete annihilation for the 4100. Tests at max clocks for both should be interesting but my money is on the good old 955BE.

[EniGmA1987]

This thread fails, in both the OP and many people who are replying. People should know by now that the new architecture was designed to have less performance at the same clock. Why is it then a "big surprise" to see it doing what it was intended?

[ReKcOlNu]

As expected, complete annihilation for the 4100. Tests at max clocks for both should be interesting but my money is on the good old 955BE.

Is it true AMD is going to EOL Phenoms and the X6's at end of this year?

BTW, Just noticed egg has em
AMD FX-4100 Zambezi @ NewwEgg $129.99

[xdan]

This thread fails, in both the OP and many people who are replying. People should know by now that the new architecture was designed to have less performance at the same clock. Why is it then a "big surprise" to see it doing what it was intended?

It's a "big surprise" because both the single thread performance and the multithread performance are lower than the previous generation, Phenom II and it seems that event than PH I(multithreasd).
And it's more disturbing because BD has larger cache, and a much better IMC almost on pair with Intel's Lynnfield,

[Zeus]

This thread fails, in both the OP and many people who are replying. People should know by now that the new architecture was designed to have less performance at the same clock. Why is it then a "big surprise" to see it doing what it was intended?

Hold on buddy, nobody here seems to be surprised afaik, my reply even starts with: As expected...bla bla. It's just that these are the first benches most (including me) see done with a "4 core" Bulldozer cpu.

I can't see how this fails in any way.

I think we'd better be gratefull theoldtimer saved us buying this "thing" instead of calling it a fail.

[GenTarkin]

Well AMD messed up marketing these things big time. When I read heavily about its uarch back in January, my first thought was..."damn I hope AMD markets the 2 module as a dual core, 3 module as a triple core and 4module as quad" because it would have a perceptibly better public image if they had done so.

Its obvious in its current design BD cores really hurt when sharing their shared parts of the pipeline, as shown in some tests done on this forum, actually when the shared cores are disabled and only 1 is enabled...the cores perform exceptionally! as seen in the post on this forum. Its when sharing kicks in that hampers the execution units badly. Someone should compare disabled "cores / module" (of a FX4100) against say a dual core stars, you will see single thread it does outshine stars. It should have been marketed as a true improvement over SMT not a catchup game to being a true 8 core processor.

Ugh AMD ... only if you would have done it differently.
The uarch can scale extremely well w/ clock speed, their next challenge is process refinement and bringing the power consumption as low as possible..basically the same thing the P4 was faced with. Lets hope this doesnt turn into another P4 =/
Right now it sure seems like one.

I think BD originally was targeted around 4+ghz base frequency and a 5ghz turbo w/ a lower power envelope but it didnt go as AMD had planned this time around.

[Spectrobozo]

what would be the point of calling it a "dual" something if it is being sold for more money then the old gen (faster) quad core anyway?
it wouldn't look any better, it should have higher performance, or a lower price,

[GenTarkin]

Well if it was a dual marketed processor, they could get away w/ a higher price than older dual cores because, it performs way beyond them. Thats the whole idea behind CMT but they tried to get away w/ marketing a CMT based uarch as "true cores" rather than not full cores. If they had said this new "core" has up to 160% more throughput than a traditional "core" then performance would be off the charts in most cases therefore would live up to its name and price.

For the case of thuban vs 8150...well the 8150 if marketed as a quadcore, would make it look better because .. for a hexcore comparison they should make a 6 module CPU =)

[theoldtimer]

I reinstalled the FX4100 this afternoon then looked in every part of the bios that I knew of for a way to unlock more modules/cores but I didn't find any setting for that. The ASRock motherboard is new to me though so if you know of an Fkey that will open up more bios setting I'm willing to give that a go? I can control the processor modules I have in bios though just nothing about enabling more that I can find. Sorry Royalk.

@theoldtimer
Can you try to unlock modules/Cores on FX-4100?

[RussC]

This does exist, there are cryo pumps for semiconductor fabricatin equipment, but use He. They phase change He to cool a cold plate to collect water vapor for faster pump downs or super low pump downs for vacum systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopump

I believe there are also LN2 phase change systems also, but I don't know of any off the top of my head.
RussC

I
@El Gappo and OT
A pot block works so well because the pot base acts as a huge buffer...this isn't good with thermal transfer as a water block (designed to move heat quickly from CPU > water in loop) ...idle temps suffer a lot but load temps are pretty nice

What would be really cool is if we could inject LN2 into an all copper block in a continuous open loop

[Royalk]

I reinstalled the FX4100 this afternoon then looked in every part of the bios that I knew of for a way to unlock more modules/cores but I didn't find any setting for that. The ASRock motherboard is new to me though so if you know of an Fkey that will open up more bios setting I'm willing to give that a go? I can control the processor modules I have in bios though just nothing about enabling more that I can find. Sorry Royalk.

Well...OK, waiting to see BIOS updates

[Mechromancer]

because FX 4110 is not "true" quadcore, but 2M/4T...

I agree with this. It is more comparable to a dual core than a quad in actual design. AMD should have marketed it and priced it as such. The FX-8120/50 should have just been called quad cores with 8 threads as well. Unfortunately they're as power hungry as an 1100T (at much much higher clock speeds though).

[theoldtimer]

I did try some max MHz runs using the ambient water cooling and one is a little faster than the one below but the settings and vcore are better in this one so I'll just post this one instead not that much difference in speed (5160MHz) anyway. I've tried a bunch of different settings along with vcore to 1.7v but this is about it for this chip at least under these test conditions.

I don't have anything that really works that well to clock it up in windows so all the overclocking is done in the bios and then of course it has to load windows.

Sorry to let everyone down along with AMD but this appears to be about as fast as I can get it to run under ambient water cooling. Maybe the only thing holding it back is me but I have not doubt my friend chew* could get it to run faster maybe a lot faster using ambient water cooling.

[AlleyViper]

what would be the point of calling it a "dual" something if it is being sold for more money then the old gen (faster) quad core anyway?
it wouldn't look any better, it should have higher performance, or a lower price,

Intel is selling at the same price range also dual cores with 4 threads, and still they can compete very well.

[Mechromancer]

The Phenom II X4 965 sells for the same price ($129.99) on Newegg.com. AMD needs to call these things dual cores and quad cores QUICK!

[Dumo]

I did try some max MHz runs using the ambient water cooling

Subzero is more fun with FX OT

[ReKcOlNu]

The Phenom II X4 965 sells for the same price ($129.99) on Newegg.com. AMD needs to call these things dual cores and quad cores QUICK!

Egg had the 965 for $115, sale ended same day Zambezi launched. Now they have the 955 for $105, sale ends on the 24th.

[theoldtimer]

I may try the FX4100 cold Dumo, I’m still trying to make up my mind. I needed to prove to myself what it would or wouldn’t do with room temp cooling before I moved on to cold or to another processor.

Subzero is more fun with FX OT

@ FlanK3r and Beep. Yeah the FX does like Winrar. In the chart below the 955be is running @4446MHz as before in the first post. The FX4100 is @4.5GHz or when shown as FX41-49+ it is the FX4100 running at 4977MHz.

[charged3800z24]

I may try the FX4100 cold Dumo, I’m still trying to make up my mind. I needed to prove to myself what it would or wouldn’t do with room temp cooling before I moved on to cold or to another processor.



@ FlanK3r and Beep. Yeah the FX does like Winrar. In the chart below the 955be is running @4446MHz as before in the first post. The FX4100 is @4.5GHz or when shown as FX41-49+ it is the FX4100 running at 4977MHz.
[IMG]edit[/IMG]

Oldtimer, you can delete the white space in paint by dragging the bottom right corned to meet the bottom right corner on your chart...Unless something weird is happening with your image upload etc.
You can also delete the "axis title" in excel if you do not need it.

[theoldtimer]

Thanks charged for taking the time.

[dess]

Could you try games with 2CU/4C vs. 2CU/2C vs. 1CU/2C "modes"? There are 9-11% difference between the last two (being 2CU/2C the better).
http://www.overclock.net/amd-general...ock-speed.html
Unfortunately, there are no tests with the stock 2CU/4C mode here. But perhaps some games would gain from running their threads "alone", especially those with two threads.
More info here.

[theoldtimer]

Could you try games with 2CU/4C vs. 2CU/2C vs. 1CU/2C "modes"? There are 9-11% difference between the last two (being 2CU/2C the better).
http://www.overclock.net/amd-general...ock-speed.html
Unfortunately, there are no tests with the stock 2CU/4C mode here. But perhaps some games would gain from running their threads "alone", especially those with two threads.
More info here.

The FX4100 system is down at the moment. I can set it back up under air cooling and test at lower clock speeds if that will work for you? Which game or game demo did you have in mind for the test?

[imamage]

The FX4100 system is down at the moment. I can set it back up under air cooling and test at lower clock speeds if that will work for you? Which game or game demo did you have in mind for the test?

Battlefield 3 probably a good choice as it's new , and it support Multi-thread workload quite well

[dess]

The FX4100 system is down at the moment. I can set it back up under air cooling and test at lower clock speeds if that will work for you? Which game or game demo did you have in mind for the test?

Sorry for being silent, I have no time for forums now. You can easily find good examples to test with on the links.

[demonkevy666]

Well if it was a dual marketed processor, they could get away w/ a higher price than older dual cores because, it performs way beyond them. Thats the whole idea behind CMT but they tried to get away w/ marketing a CMT based uarch as "true cores" rather than not full cores. If they had said this new "core" has up to 160% more throughput than a traditional "core" then performance would be off the charts in most cases therefore would live up to its name and price.

For the case of thuban vs 8150...well the 8150 if marketed as a quadcore, would make it look better because .. for a hexcore comparison they should make a 6 module CPU =)

that would probably end up as 140 watt cpu but i think that would be really nice, imo.