AMD's Bobcat and Bulldozer

[AliG]

well because i wouldnt buy a 1000$ gpu ... let alone a 1000$ cpu .... and most people wouldnt ... the market for those type of cpu is quite low and unrealistic ... so if amd goes that route ill stick with what i have now ....

That's entirely my point. No one's forcing you to buy their high end product nor should they price their top end product the same as now if it does compete with Intel's. The only reason why their products are so cheap right now is because the performance isn't there. If it performs accordingly then they would be stupid not to raise the prices. As usual, there will always be good midrange products, probably even affordable 4+ module processors, just not the high end - which is perfectly fine.

It's like Movieman said about SB and overclocking:no where in any law does it state that they have to let us overclock via fsb, or even at all. Sure it was nice to get high end performance for 1/6th the price, but their goal, as with any company's is to make money. Same goes for AMD, no where does it state they have to sell their top processors for a loss. So instead of asking for what you likely never will recieve, instead just take what the market gives you, and that will be a very powerful midrange product for $200-300.

[R101]

not really. Ipc may be lower than SB, or not, but, BD will be a higher count CPU that SB. for the 8-10 SB core versions you will have 12-16 cores BD. Probably in future BD CPUs we will get 12-16 cores for desktop as well, if they need it.

Yep, it will be expensive for Intel to compete with BD in multithreaded workloads if the BD performance is as high as we are led to believe. But it will be a good old scenario all over again: release 8+ SB cores when they are ready, and as soon as the BD benchmarks come out, Anand will have a benchmark of Ivy Bridge 16 core/32 thread with 4 graphics cores and whatnot.

Who would buy BD with the knowledge that something quicker is coming 2 months down the road..

If AMD has an edge in performance with BD it needs it on the market ASAP.

[Florinmocanu]

if they release in Q3 2011, SB with 6-8 cores, no way that ivy-bridge for high-end (10-12-16 cores) will come out 2-3 months later. Only low-end-mainstream ivy bridge will come in the end of 2011/or start of 2012.

[Sn0wm@n]

That's entirely my point. No one's forcing you to buy their high end product nor should they price their top end product the same as now if it does compete with Intel's. The only reason why their products are so cheap right now is because the performance isn't there. If it performs accordingly then they would be stupid not to raise the prices. As usual, there will always be good midrange products, probably even affordable 4+ module processors, just not the high end - which is perfectly fine.

It's like Movieman said about SB and overclocking:no where in any law does it state that they have to let us overclock via fsb, or even at all. Sure it was nice to get high end performance for 1/6th the price, but their goal, as with any company's is to make money. Same goes for AMD, no where does it state they have to sell their top processors for a loss. So instead of asking for what you likely never will recieve, instead just take what the market gives you, and that will be a very powerful midrange product for $200-300.

so you would get a high end cpu if they cost 1000$ or if they were to cost 450$ ....

[AliG]

so you would get a high end cpu if they cost 1000$ or if they were to cost 450$ ....

you're still completely missing the point.

The market dictates what you get for $450, not the consumer nor the producer. In the end, regardless whether it's "high end" or "mid range" what you buy for $450 will get you about equivalent on both sides, and even if AMD's "high end" is $300 and Intel's is $1000, the Intel is certain to be the better product. Same goes for if AMD help the $1000 product and Intel the $350, you get what you pay for.


In the end if you're willing to pay $450, then pay $450. If there is a $1000 product from the same company, you can bet your ass it's a better product. No company in their right mind would price their product at $450 if it was deemed to be worth $1000 by the market.

Honestly who cares if it's high end or not? If you gave me the choice between an i7 970 and an AMD 1090t, I would take the i7 hands every time even though it's not the top end product and the 1090t is because the performance lies with the i7. Same goes for graphic cards and so on and so forth. You pay for performance, not for the name (or at least you should be, otherwise you're getting ripped off every time).

[Sn0wm@n]

you're still completely missing the point.

The market dictates what you get for $450, not the consumer nor the producer. In the end, regardless whether it's "high end" or "mid range" what you buy for $450 will get you about equivalent on both sides, and even if AMD's "high end" is $300 and Intel's is $1000, the Intel is certain to be the better product. Same goes for if AMD help the $1000 product and Intel the $350, you get what you pay for.


In the end if you're willing to pay $450, then pay $450. If there is a $1000 product from the same company, you can bet your ass it's a better product. No company in their right mind would price their product at $450 if it was deemed to be worth $1000 by the market.

Honestly who cares if it's high end or not? If you gave me the choice between an i7 970 and an AMD 1090t, I would take the i7 hands every time even though it's not the top end product and the 1090t is because the performance lies with the i7. Same goes for graphic cards and so on and so forth. You pay for performance, not for the name (or at least you should be, otherwise you're getting ripped off every time).

yes i understand your point ... your the guy who couldnt care less about high end cpu's because he doesnt have the useage for it .. so he doesnt deem it needed for others either so he coudnt care less if its priced @ 1000$ and to that person 1000$ cpu means its high end because that market deems it is .... and guess what ???? these company could get more sales and make more proffit per waffer if they would be willing to cut down on their proffit margin .... selling more @ lower price = more sales wich in the end = more exposure for company etc .... but yes people on xs feel more powerful when they have a 1000$ cpu .... Oo

[Motiv]

not really. Ipc may be lower than SB, or not, but, BD will be a higher count CPU that SB. for the 8-10 SB core versions you will have 12-16 cores BD. Probably in future BD CPUs we will get 12-16 cores for desktop as well, if they need it.


So, in multi-threaded scenarios, BD will be really good. In single thread scenarios, that penalty you say does not apply anymore, since 1 core in a module is used, not both. The penalty applies only when both of them work. And they would work at 90%, not 80%. A module will be 180% of 2 theoretical BD cores, which would be 200%.

My reply was in regards for home Computing (higher end desktops). In that instance you're looking for more speed, less cores. The problem being that BD strength is in it's cores, where it looks intels will be in its speed.

There comes a point in home Desktops, where more cores are just wasted space, hence why I'm stating will a 3 module be the sweat spot for AMD.

[Motiv]

yes i understand your point ... your the guy who couldnt care less about high end cpu's because he doesnt have the useage for it .. so he doesnt deem it needed for others either so he coudnt care less if its priced @ 1000$ and to that person 1000$ cpu means its high end because that market deems it is .... and guess what ???? these company could get more sales and make more proffit per waffer if they would be willing to cut down on their proffit margin .... selling more @ lower price = more sales wich in the end = more exposure for company etc .... but yes people on xs feel more powerful when they have a 1000$ cpu .... Oo

Are you saying you have a supiorior pricing structure, than the ones AMD and intel give us.

I suspect both AMD and Intel are extremely adept at getting blood out of stones.

[Sn0wm@n]

Are you saying you have a supiorior pricing structure, than the ones AMD and intel give us.

I suspect both AMD and Intel are extremely adept at getting blood out of stones.

please share with us what is your view and why does it make sense if you dont think mine is reasonable and makes sense ...

[informal]

Following my previous post,I wanted to see how an 8 core Bulldozer might stack up against an 8 core Sandy Bridge. I looked up on the net for the average perf. figures fro Thuban and Westmere and got to behardware website.It's not the most accurate list nor the best test selection,but it's a start.
Westemere @ 3.33Ghz has a 221 "points" on their scale. X6 @ 3.2Ghz has 160.
Now for an impact of adding of cores I looked at their conclusion for Nehalem->Westemere and Deneb->Thuban effect:

During our test of the Core i7-980X, we noted a gain of 16% on the i7-975, and concluded that the Phenom II would benefit more by going up from 4 to 6 cores because of the absence of Hyperthreading. A quad-core Intel with HT already makes 8 logical cores available to applications and this meant that the potential gain would be lower.

This is verified in practice as, at equal clocks, the average gain between the Phenom II X4 955 and the Phenom II X6 1090T is 24.7% (23.9% without Turbo CORE). The performance gain on the Phenom II X4 965 is a notable 18.2%.

As can be seen, with 50% more cores and same clock Westemere is ~16% faster than Nehalem in client workloads,while Thuban gets a ~24% perf. increase.

Now,with SB we will have 33% more cores and the impact according to the quote above should be 10% (50% more cores : 16% perf. increase = 33% m. cores : x perf. increase => x=10%). Add on that the IPC jump with SB of ~15%(average) and we have : 221x1.1x1.15=279 "points" . Since Westmere and SB are built on the same 32nm node,I suspect intel won't hit 3.33Ghz for a chip with 33% cores and IPC increase while staying in the 130W bracket.So let's assume they have to cut on the clocks by 10%(a bit generous) and we have a 3Ghz 8 core Sandy Bidge with approx. 279/1.11~=251 "points" . Turbo is counted in the scores since both Westemere(a base for results) has a Turbo mode up to 3.6Ghz.But let's assume a better Turbo in SB adds another 3% on top of the score above : 251x1.03= 258 "points".

On to the Bulldozer 8 core. I've done some speculative calculations and already got some numbers for BD. To cut the story short,a 4Ghz 125/140W model with Turbo up to 4.5Ghz and 10-15% IPC jump. Following the behardware's Deneb->Thuban jump(due to sheer core /thread uptick,no IPC change) we would have : 33% more cores : x% perf. increase= 50% m. c. : 24% p. increase => x=18% . The clock difference between 4Ghz and 3.2Ghz( for Thuban in behardware's chart) is 25%.The IPC difference I would pick 12.5% (10-15% arith. mean).The scaling hit is 10%. Turbo affecting scores is 3% due to higher Turbo on BD vs Thuban,the same as for SB's better Turbo effect. All summed up : 160x1.18x1.25x1.125x0.9x1.03=246 "points" .Thuban @ 3.2Ghz has 160 "points" . This correlates well with the 4.7-5.4Ghz perf. range of X6 Thuban I speculated before(~5Ghz/3.2Ghz=1.56x~=246/160).

X8 BD @ 4Ghz with the new Turbo should be generally comparable(4% difference),performance wise, to 3Ghz 8 core Sandy Bridge with the new turbo.Die sizes will be different though and I expect that 8 core Sandy Bridge will be noticeably larger chip(300-333mm^2) while for BD X8 i expect 200-220mm^2.

[MTd2]

Even though we used different approximations, you, poper, dresdenboy and me arrived at about the same performance, give or take a few percent. Hmm....

[Mats]

As can be seen, with 50% more cores and same clock Westemere is ~16% faster than Nehalem in client workloads,while Thuban gets a ~24% perf. increase.

Westmere vs Nehalem, Thuban vs Deneb.
Three of them got turbo, one doesn''t.
Doesn't that give Thuban a bit too high performance increase, which affects the calculated BD performance increase? Just asking..

[AliG]

yes i understand your point ... your the guy who couldnt care less about high end cpu's because he doesnt have the useage for it .. so he doesnt deem it needed for others either so he coudnt care less if its priced @ 1000$ and to that person 1000$ cpu means its high end because that market deems it is .... and guess what ???? these company could get more sales and make more proffit per waffer if they would be willing to cut down on their proffit margin .... selling more @ lower price = more sales wich in the end = more exposure for company etc .... but yes people on xs feel more powerful when they have a 1000$ cpu .... Oo

I don't think that's the case, as you said people buy the high end products primarily to feel more powerful. That means that it has a set market to it, and more than likely even if they priced it at $500, 99% of the people still wouldn't buy it. Those people would just save their money and get the cheaper product that offers just about identical performance as they don't overclock, or if they do they don't have the means to actually capitalize on the extreme edition's additional capabilities (such as cooling).

I'm certain that these companies all have people with degrees in business from the best schools in the world designing their price ranges. There is science behind their so called madness

[Olivon]

Enjoy !

[Sn0wm@n]

anyway ... can you please wish upon us that amd doesnt sale a high end product at more then 450$ if they win the performance crown or come even close to .....

omg .. that die shot looks so beautiful

[demonkevy666]

Enjoy !

wait when was this taped out ?

[AKM]

omg .. that die shot looks so beautiful

Indeed

[generics_user]

top half looks like a GPU with cache, but orochi was supposed to be a 4 module 8-core without GPU

[Mechanical Man]

Picture is from high angle, so lots of distortion.

[MTd2]

I don't think it is distorted. Plus, the 2 left modules are completely not symmetrical with the right ones O_o. Also, the up and down module are of different sizes. To tell you the truth, all modules are different! WTF!

[Donnie27]

I don't think it is distorted. Plus, the 2 left modules are completely not symmetrical with the right ones O_o. Also, the up and down module are of different sizes. To tell you the truth, all modules are different! WTF!

All four cores are the same!

Nice Pic.

[MTd2]

If they are the same, why the top ones are clearer much larger than the botom ones? They should be smaller given that they are further away in the picture!

[MAS]

All four cores are the same!

it's clear they are not

[Tobit]

Slightly better angle...

[Motiv]

So this is the 8 core (4 module) BD fusion chip?

http://www.techeye.net/chips/amd-sho...ks-more-fusion