AMD cuts to the core with 'Bulldozer' Opterons

[informal]

speculations here

if each core in the module has 4 independent ALU and AGUs, the core will be "swelled" and may get too big.

my image for 2 ALU arguments comes from
1. post above (average integer IPC is about 2)
2. bobcat diagram (very similar to half of a bulldozer module)


if the architecture is for server space, then it sounds possible to have only 2 ALU per core as each thread for server application is of low IPC but highly-threaded (>24 thread).

BD and bobcat were developed by 2 different teams with 2 different goals in mind... While they do share some common ideas,Bobcat is targeted at very low power and good mainstream performance ,while BD is targeted for very high performance with advanced power gating technologies in place to control the power draw in various scenarios. Note also that Bobcat has no support for various ISA extensions BD will support and has a much weaker fp unit with no FMAC capability(which is normal for low power design).

As for the "swelled" comment,you seem to forget that BD is going to be produced @ 32nm node,so no,the cores won't be that big in any case. The module itself is probably even going to be smaller than one SB core(with SMT),courtesy of the way AMD designed the very BD module ...