K10 Scores starting to surface

[EvlUndrWareNome]

Lets see a concrete review. A review with pictures and an author. I do not trust pics from a foreign nation across the world.

The only hype or benches I will believe is when it is a true posted review, written up by an author, with pics of the packaging and cpu. I want to know what chipset it is running on as well as memory.

I dont trust a few screen shots from across the globe as a reliable performance benchmark.

Also note these are early opteron K10's not the Phenoms that willl be out later this year, nor the chipset we will run them on, and most likely different ram speeds/timings.

[JumpingJack]

Also note these are early opteron K10's not the Phenoms that willl be out later this year, nor the chipset we will run them on, and most likely different ram speeds/timings.

So, just curious, are you saying it is in AMD's best interest to release the buggy, less reliable material into servers first?

[informal]

So, just curious, are you saying it is in AMD's best interest to release the buggy, less reliable material into servers first?

No he means EVTs are not representatives of the final performance...

[JumpingJack]

No he means EVTs are not representatives of the final performance...

Thanks.... typically enterprise chips are the cream of the crop. Though there is some ambiguity in the stepping represented here, it doesn't look like CPUID has been updated with the CPUID string/look up table to designate stepping yet... so if this is B1 as some are postulating, then this is the launch stepping is it not?

This is of course proceeding under the assumption that this data is factual and not made up, back alley leaks like these deserve a healthy dose of skepticism.

[informal]

Thanks.... typically enterprise chips are the cream of the crop. Though there is some ambiguity in the stepping represented here, it doesn't look like CPUID has been updated with the CPUID string/look up table to designate stepping yet... so if this is B1 as some are postulating, then this is the launch stepping is it not?

This is of course proceeding under the assumption that this data is factual and not made up, back alley leaks like these deserve a healthy dose of skepticism.

A small number of people really knows what is the launch stepping...
There is one more possibility,apart from EVTs,the boards weren't up to the task(ie early BIOS,some features turned down just to be safe in order to test the early chips for various reasons)

[JumpingJack]

A small number of people really knows what is the launch stepping...
There is one more possibility,apart from EVTs,the boards weren't up to the task(ie early BIOS,some features turned down just to be safe in order to test the early chips for various reasons)

The BIOS argument is a decent one, but typically BIOS code does not interact to produce a computational result... it provides very low level IO code, most of which OSes simply ignore today. Though it could be that there are initializations for various functions that are not occuring correcty and such, but I have never really experienced a BIOS update, even a buggy one, to affect performance that much.

Nonetheless, there is way way too much contradictory information or conjecture. Theo seems to think it is a monster, Hector Ruiz is downplaying the significance, Raul is certain of great performance, AMD has conceded single thread perfomance to Intel in various press statements.... so it is hard to know what to make of this.

[Donnie27]

Kinda funny to note that both Pentium III and K7 did not reach their pinnacle until they were well in the shade of anticipation for the newer tech. Barton and Tualatin, too few remember ye.

K8 has gone through allot too, but besides the X2... it hardly feels like an mutated alien in the face of its original self.

Yup!

[terrace215]

,Sood simply said Phenom @ 3ghz is "stone cold killer" and that it is and will be considerably faster than any intel or AMD chip when it is out.

No, he didn't say that, actually.

This is what he said:

And for the record, if you were to benchmark Phenom at 3GHz you would see that it kicks the living crap out of any current AMD or Intel processor

It's also worth noting here that Rahul has been an AMD fan for some time, predicted good Q1 results for them, and IIRC, has mentioned that he is invested in their stock.

[terrace215]

The BIOS argument is a decent one, but typically BIOS code does not interact to produce a computation result... it provides very low level IO code, most of which OSes simply ignore today. Though it could be that there are initializations for various functions that are not occuring correcty and such, but I have never really experienced a BIOS update, even a buggy one, to affect performance that much.

Nonetheless, there is way way too much contradictory information or conjecture. Theo seems to think it is a monster, Hector Ruiz is downplaying the significance, Raul is certain of great performance, AMD has conceded single thread perfomance to Intel in various press statements.... so it is hard to know what to make of this.

Don't leave out the most important indicator: Henri Richard up and quit right before the K10 is to launch. Says it all right there.

[JumpingJack]

Don't leave out the most important indicator: Henri Richard up and quit right before the K10 is to launch. Says it all right there.

I don't read too much into this, other than to say -- top execs leave for various reasons, and Richard's departure, especially the timing, subjects the event to an enormous amount of speculation.

My underlying point is that we simply are still in the dark, this back-alley bench is the most data was have had to date, and it consisted of Cinebench, CPUMark, and SP1M... we have various people making strong but non-data backed claims of trouncing this or failing that...

Having said that, this data did originate on Coolaler's site... that name alone attaches a certain degree of credibility to the results based past experience and on a reputation some of which was built on this site. However, it is still not sanctioned, and fails some basic principles, such as clearly spelling out all the details necessary to reproduce the results -- and, most importantly, the stepping is ambigous at best ... it is none-the-less-fun to debate.... but this is such a hot topic, I approach this with a high degree of trepidation. Do not underestimate the degree of importance this product is to AMD, they are betting the farm on it and, frankly, I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[LordEC911]

Don't leave out the most important indicator: Henri Richard up and quit right before the K10 is to launch. Says it all right there.

You don't think he was forced out???

[Zytek_Fan]

You don't think he was forced out???

I think he was getting bored. Being the chief of marketing at a company that doesn't market very much makes little sense. I believe Henri resigned because he wanted to do the best thing for the company, and seeing he had little to offer at the moment, he resigned. Takes a lot of balls to do something like that.

[JumpingJack]

AMD is LAUNCHING the K10 on the B1 stepping, per everyone else. Then B2 in Q4. At any rate, it is unlikely that B1 has any huge performance bugs. These results fit precisely with what AMD themselves claimed.... up to 10-15% better IPC than the K8. About in the ballpark of Conroe/Kentsfield per clock. Better on some bandwidth-heavy server stuff & HPC, worse on desktop apps.

It is hard to determine what stepping this site is showing, if it is real (my little disclaimer ).... but there is a hint.

The CPUID string that CPUID read from BIOS does not read "AMD Opteron processor unknown" or "Engineering Sample (ES)".... AMD uses a special registers, which the BIOS reads and constructs the processor name and model string, and information.... see for example, page 345 http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...docs/32559.pdf

The CPUID report from Coolaler's site correctly identifies the processor family as 10, and also does not read the CPUID string as anything other than the branded processor name....

Assuming this is not faked (which is well could be), it appears to be the release product.

Jack

[Donnie27]

Put's on Mod hat:
And how would you feel if I refered to you in that way?
Make your point without the name calling or go elsewhere.
I've said it nice, now I'll say it not nice..Stop the flaming!

Oh and I PM-ed you Before I forget, Rahul Sood was one of the folks calling those early Conroe test done here by *that guy, fugger, fcg, victor and etc bogus. Hinted that some of the folks here was being paid. That was the cause that misunderstanding in that other post. At least 4 Webmasters weren't as rude but said similar things.

Saying he is bias is contrary to what he says, his own words.

Many people have been asking for my latest perspective on AMD, and I just finished writing an article on them. I wrote it because I love the company, but I am utterly disappointed in what has transpired with them lately. I haven't lost hope though, but I think there are changes necessary in order to turn around. You'll see it on the blog in a few days.

Love blinds!

[freeloader]

I'll wait for the real release from AMD before I comment on the performance; not that my opinion means anything, anyhow. I'd like to see how these chips run on updated BIOS and motherboards (shipping) at speeds of 2.5ghz plus.

[nn_step]

Love blinds!

So do M23 NFDDs (Noise and Flash Diversionary Devices aka flashbangs)

but eventually the truth is reveled

[Zytek_Fan]

Wait and the truth will be revealed.

[fakhrain]

Stupid people huh? Like the person before said, everyone thought AM2 was going to be competitive with Core 2 clock for clock, well well look what happened.

well i don't. in fact there was still a lot of people who realized that AM2 is just the same old S939 but with DDR2 support.

[Kenetixx]

Man these Phenom threads are getting messy :|

[Zytek_Fan]

Man these Phenom threads are getting messy :|

Because the people posting positive stuff (including me) are excited

[kl0012]

Because the people posting positive stuff (including me) are excited

I suppose the stuff must be objective, not positive/negative.

[jmilcher]

Put's on Mod hat:
And how would you feel if I refered to you in that way?
Make your point without the name calling or go elsewhere.
I've said it nice, now I'll say it not nice..Stop the flaming!

I totally agree, people tend to particiapte more and enjoy the threads that dont involve flaming...

But the nature of this beast topic is hard not to show your true fanboy colors.

6 months from now there will be no arguing.

[savantu]

so you're SUN guy:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8658

Nope , it's just thinking ahead into the future ; it doesn't take a genius to notice the current trends , just look at Intel IDF's presentations about ultra mobile stuff.

[savantu]

Somehow the massive core improvements amount to a 3-4% increase against K8.

Doesn't make any sense at all.

Yes they do.

The K8 core is already strong to begin with.The law of diminishing returns is in full force here.

When you already start high , the improvements you make will bring little advantages.

Compare that with the P4 core which was far more fragile ( code quality was vital while the K8 eats just about anything ). Core brought massive improvements over the P4 , the score jumped a lot.Even compared to the K8 , core has a huge number of improvements , in the end it is only 20% better on average.

There are a lot of situations where K8 core+ 1MB L2 will be as fast or faster than K10 core + 512Kb L2 + 2MB L3 , especially where latency counts.In multithreaded apps , this will be more pronounced as the L3 will get trashed by different threads.

[biohead]

Put's on Mod hat:
And how would you feel if I refered to you in that way?
Make your point without the name calling or go elsewhere.
I've said it nice, now I'll say it not nice..Stop the flaming!

not trying to fuel a fire here, but calling stupid people stupid isn't flaming, it's just calling them exactly what they are.

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