Quote Originally Posted by ajaidev View Post
To put things into prospective i made these. The BD modules are suppose to perform ~80-90% of a dual core cpu lets say a deneb based , so a dual module BD will come close to a deneb quad core and a quad module based BD will come close to a 8 core based deneb. Now as things stand a x5550 ~ x4 2435, this means AMD has to give 6 core to achieve what intel does with 4. In BD terms, you will need a three bulldozer modules to come close to a Nehalem based cpu but what we have seen with westmere "hex core" is great and i expect sandy bridge to only improve in performance. So much so that i expect only a four module bulldozer maybe able to compete with a four core sandy bridge.

If Intel releases a 6 core based sandy bridge, AMD will have to release a 6 module based cpu IMO.
It doesn't work like that. The architecture is completely different, with a potentially decent boost in IPC, so any comparison to deneb's performance makes little sense. 80-90% of another core means that they save a bit of space by using the modules, but maintain close to 90% of the performance of 2 cores in multi-threaded applications, whatever that level of performance will be. Frankly, I'd be wary of comparing Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer, as there are some decent architectural changes on the horizon for both camps. It really is a shot in the dark.

I have a couple of questions, which might be a little naive-I'm not terribly knowledgeable about such things here . It would appear that there is a boost in single threaded performance that takes place by using the modules simultaneously, and I'm curious as to how that will play out in multi-tasking, as to how that might balance when you have multiple single threaded processes (or even a single threaded app running alongside a multi-threaded app).
Secondly, part of the architecture change with bulldozer is a change in the efficiency of the processor. There are some definite changes taking place in the FP unit, but I'm not sure how much this will end up being when it comes to actual performance. Is the boost in Floating point calculations going to come mostly due to a more efficient use of the current units, or due to an actual boost in IPC?