AMD "Piledriver" refresh of Zambezi - info, speculations, test, fans

[Daveburt714]

Local Microcenter has them at the same price... I'm going to go pick one up before work.

I'm sure the price will drop to MSRP pretty quickly, but I'm willing to bite the bullet (even on tax).

Guess I need to go back to my "Hardware Anonymous" meetings!

[Miwo]

hmm MC doesn't have 6300s yet looks like. Guess ill just have to wait...
Hope for some good mobo combo deals

[Oliverda]

Corrected

what about the Family name?

I was right.

[FlanK3r]

Oliverda: tomorow will be time for your review...Now I have first 27 reviews done ...tired (maybe it was 8h-10h readings...)

[Oese]

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...408737&garpg=3

That site has AMD confirmed info that resonant clock mesh is not included. Other thing is instruction cache is still only 2x32kb, whereas trinity has 2x64kb.

Still that doesnt matter much and site stated that it can be called piledriver core. Anyway I think then with Steamroller will come RCM and 2x 64kb I Cache + New Decoder + 28nm.

Site found higher consumption tho, sadly. But there are fluctuations in the chips also i'd say.

[demonkevy666]

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...408737&garpg=3

That site has AMD confirmed info that resonant clock mesh is not included. Other thing is instruction cache is still only 2x32kb, whereas trinity has 2x64kb.

Still that doesnt matter much and site stated that it can be called piledriver core. Anyway I think then with Steamroller will come RCM and 2x 64kb I Cache + New Decoder + 28nm.

Site found higher consumption tho, sadly. But there are fluctuations in the chips also i'd say.

where did they get 32Kbytes ?

it's 64Kbytes for a module are they talking about splitting between two cores ? ??

[PedantOne]

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...408737&garpg=3

That site has AMD confirmed info that resonant clock mesh is not included. Other thing is instruction cache is still only 2x32kb, whereas trinity has 2x64kb.

Still that doesnt matter much and site stated that it can be called piledriver core. Anyway I think then with Steamroller will come RCM and 2x 64kb I Cache + New Decoder + 28nm.

Site found higher consumption tho, sadly. But there are fluctuations in the chips also i'd say.

there is no resonant mesh in Vishera, on Trinity die-shot is visible (caps) and on die-shot of Vishera is not

[Oliverda]

http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...408737&garpg=3

That site has AMD confirmed info that resonant clock mesh is not included.

That's interesting. Is it official?

That's a very good review anyway.

[Oese]

where did they get 32Kbytes ?

it's 64Kbytes for a module are they talking about splitting between two cores ? ??

I'm sorry, Vishera has 2x16, Trinity has 2x32. Not 64

Bottom line is, vishera is piledriver minus RCM and wider instruction cache.

P3D has asked AMD as far as I know and they stated vishera doesnt have it.

From that i think there will be either a piledriver 2 or steamroller WITH rcm, where we will see additional effects in terms of power consumption.

[Oliverda]

I'm sorry, Vishera has 2x16, Trinity has 2x32. Not 64

Bottom line is, vishera is piledriver minus RCM and wider instruction cache.

P3D has asked AMD as far as I know and they stated vishera doesnt have it.

From that i think there will be either a piledriver 2 or steamroller WITH rcm, where we will see additional effects in terms of power consumption.

Bulldozer (Zambezi), Vishera and Trinity have the same cache subsystem.

L1I: 1x64kB for 1 module
L1D: 2x16kB for 1 module
L2: 1x2048kB for 1 module

[fakhrain]

Nice comparison of FX-4300 vs A10-5800K by Anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/700?vs=675#

It seems that Trinity does a little bit better (prolly negligible) in content creation and productivity tests, while Vishera has its edge in gaming, probably due to the additional L3 cache.

[Oese]

Bulldozer (Zambezi), Vishera and Trinity have the same cache subsystem.

L1I: 1x64kB for 1 module
L1D: 2x16kB for 1 module
L2: 1x2048kB for 1 module

Dammit I got it now: It is the Instruction Window that is bigger in trinity. Vishera has 2x16 byte, Trinity has 1x32 byte.

Guess thats not that important? Dammit I thought they have bigger cache...

[Oliverda]

Dammit I got it now: It is the Instruction Window that is bigger in trinity. Vishera has 2x16 byte, Trinity has 1x32 byte.

Guess thats not that important? Dammit I thought they have bigger cache...

Not really. Vishera (Piledriver v2) includes all Trinity (Piledriver v1) enhancements.

Actually Piledriver v2 includes some additional enhancements over v1. link

[FlanK3r]

there is most reviews guys, who dont know much about Vishera, read example 10 reviews at least.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post5145907

[Oese]

Not really. Vishera (Piledriver v2) includes all Trinity (Piledriver v1) enhancements.

Actually Piledriver v2 includes some additional enhancements over v1. link

Then my source is wrong...

[Avidgamer]

Hey guys, does anyone know if the reviewers are using an up to date version of Skyrim in their tests? I believe there's a pretty big increase in CPU performance between the release and Dawnguard versions

[informal]

I doubt they use the updated version but who knows. For some reason (compiler used?) Skyrim performs noticeably worse on BD than it does on intel hardware. It's odd since in many other games the difference is not that noticeable.

[Avidgamer]

I doubt they use the updated version but who knows. For some reason (compiler used?) Skyrim performs noticeably worse on BD than it does on intel hardware. It's odd since in many other games the difference is not that noticeable.

Yes, there was a compiler problem. I remember using this mod: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/12/mod...uld-be-faster/ and then some of the later patches apparently incorporated the same improvements. It would be interesting to see a comparison between an 8350 and a 3570 with fully up to date versions of the game.

[sdlvx]

I doubt they use the updated version but who knows. For some reason (compiler used?) Skyrim performs noticeably worse on BD than it does on intel hardware. It's odd since in many other games the difference is not that noticeable.

You can tell if a program is compiled with ICC by opening up the exe with a hex editor, searching for the text string "intel", and stumbling upon text that talks about enabled Pentium 4 and great Intel CPU optimizations. Cinebench r11.5 has these strings.

[Avidgamer]

It's not the case with Skyrim at least. From the sounds of it the devs simply didn't bother to enable any compiler optimisations, such as SSE1/2/3 etc. I can't find any evidence it uses the Intel compiler.

[PedantOne]

Then my source is wrong...

is not, Oliverda is wrong, his article is full of BS, there is not resonant mesh and other improvements over trinity

[BeepBeep2]

I doubt they use the updated version but who knows. For some reason (compiler used?) Skyrim performs noticeably worse on BD than it does on intel hardware. It's odd since in many other games the difference is not that noticeable.

It relies on x87...

[informal]

Ok I' now pretty sure pedant guy is OBR's new forum account :P