Thuban 1055T/1090T Previews, info and Reviews

[OhNoes!]

@ohnoes the cpu for 180$ was good, but the motherboard is a good 50-100$ higher than what you needed to spend on the AMD platform for the same overclock. and depending on which chip u have, your gonna be getting 3 sticks of ram instead of 2, sure its the same price per GB, but will that extra 50$ make any difference? so as a total platform cost, its easily 100$ more for the intel system, (or 25% of the total cost, 400 vs 500$), so i would hope you can get 25% more perf out of it. (or if you look at the complete cost of the PC, PSU, case, HDD, etc, then it might only be 10% more expensive)

I'm running in dual-channel mode; I have 2x 2GB G.Skill ECOs on there and still getting about equal bandwidth, plus using less voltage (1.35v for 1600MHZ 7-8-7-24) with a lot less vtt too.

[Hornet331]

@ohnoes the cpu for 180$ was good, but the motherboard is a good 50-100$ higher than what you needed to spend on the AMD platform for the same overclock. and depending on which chip u have, your gonna be getting 3 sticks of ram instead of 2, sure its the same price per GB, but will that extra 50$ make any difference? so as a total platform cost, its easily 100$ more for the intel system, (or 25% of the total cost, 400 vs 500$), so i would hope you can get 25% more perf out of it. (or if you look at the complete cost of the PC, PSU, case, HDD, etc, then it might only be 10% more expensive)

Actually, no, cause you don't need to use 3 sticks and if you look at compareable boards, they are in the same price range (890FX) the 890GX boards are often a bit cheaper ~50€, but also often offer less then most x58 boards.

[informal]

Actually, no, cause you don't need to use 3 sticks and if you look at compareable boards, they are in the same price range (890FX) the 890GX boards are often a bit cheaper ~50€, but also often offer less then most x58 boards.

There will be some feature rich 890GX based boards on the market too. Maybe they won't match what x58 offers,but price will be considerably lower.

@ohnoes

tl;dr ,pure waste of bandwidth.

[Manicdan]

they are in the same price range (890FX) the 890GX boards are often a bit cheaper ~50€, but also often offer less then most x58 boards.

he didnt say he needed features of the board, just the OC, and a sub 100$ board from AMD can OC more than well enough to reach 4.2ghz if the cpu is good for it. if he needed Intels better SB raid controller, then its a different story

[Anarki]

Hi guys, any idea about UK pricing and availability? I can't see any info at all

Also am I correct in thinking these chips being AM3 - are backwards compatible with AM2+ motherboards?

If so, do you think running DDR2 RAM will bottleneck these chips much? I'm planning on getting a 1055T to replace my 550BE but can't afford a new motherboard + DDR3 RAM.

[SEA]

It is clear in the data that within a few percent they are on par, probably going back and forth, but per clock also needs to add per core. From a purely technical perspective the results say two things in my opinion. First, it really speaks volumes about the lead Intel has on the instruction efficiency at the core level, it takes 6 AMD cores to come up to 4 Intel cores.
[...]
Jack

Don't forget:
Intel CPU uses 4 extra virtual cores to be on par. If hiperthreading would be off, it would be pretty much behind X6.

[crazydiamond]

yes anarki, it should drop into most am2+ mobo's, just check the mobo maker website. most of them have lists of what boards will support x6. cant help you with the bottleneck question

SEA, i just see it as it takes intel 8 threads to equal 6 from amd

[SEA]

yes.
My point is that this is not a case: "it takes 6 AMD cores to come up to 4 Intel cores"

[Jowy Atreides]

Hi guys, any idea about UK pricing and availability? I can't see any info at all

Also am I correct in thinking these chips being AM3 - are backwards compatible with AM2+ motherboards?

Yes, even the cheapest AM2+ board can take thuban. It's £23

Source - asrock websie, the n86-s is listed.

http://www.asrock.com/news/events/2010SixCore/index.asp

[alfaunits]

Who gives a f***? It's the same as saying "it's not fair for Bruce Lee to use kung fu to fight OJ Simpson because OJ doesn't know kung fu" - it's a fight, not a black/white cake.
Stop with the pointless arguments.

Don't forget:
Intel CPU uses 4 extra virtual cores to be on par. If hiperthreading would be off, it would be pretty much behind X6.

[OhNoes!]

yes.
My point is that this is not a case: "it takes 6 AMD cores to come up to 4 Intel cores"

But it is, unless you want to say, i5 and i7 are octa cores? It is 4 cores capable of executing 8 threads due to SMT. It is a design feature. It's like saying it takes a fast car 4 tyres to keep up with a Hayabusa on two tyres. If you give a hayabusa 4 tires, chances are, it's going to be slower than on two tyres, same thing as executing 8 - threads on 6 cores. What matters is designing a core capable of executing two threads, and that is only feasible with a very powerful and efficient core - what JJ is saying.

[Jowy Atreides]

Hey you guys. Especially onoes.

Here is proof you're right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8wD8fTBS8E

[informal]

TrueCrypt performance on Thuban is stellar. Head over here to see how it fares against same clocked i7 (decently faster is an understatement).

[SEA]

Who gives a f***? It's the same as saying "it's not fair for Bruce Lee to use kung fu to fight OJ Simpson because OJ doesn't know kung fu" - it's a fight, not a black/white cake.
Stop with the pointless arguments.

Hahaha you right. X6 uses 2 extra cores and no matter that somebody with 4 cores does not know kung fu

Actually dude, sorry to point this for you, but it was not an argument... just correction of other XS member.
Also it is clear, that no need for arguments anymore - just look at results and calm down

[Anarki]

Yes, even the cheapest AM2+ board can take thuban. It's £23

Source - asrock websie, the n86-s is listed.

http://www.asrock.com/news/events/2010SixCore/index.asp

I meant the pricing of the new chips I wish they were £23!

Glad to hear I can use my existing motherboard and enjoy 6 core goodness

[Jowy Atreides]

I meant the pricing of the new chips I wish they were £23!

Glad to hear I can use my existing motherboard and enjoy 6 core
goodness

I got the 55T for £189 but prices have spiked to £220

They should level about £200 for the next while. No official price known to me, but zosma looks to be a killer price for x6

[flippin_waffles]

Who gives a f***? It's the same as saying "it's not fair for Bruce Lee to use kung fu to fight OJ Simpson because OJ doesn't know kung fu" - it's a fight, not a black/white cake.
Stop with the pointless arguments.

I don't understand your objections. The point Is, that it is as relevant to say that it takes intel 8 threads to outperform AMD' 6 threads, as it is to say it takes AMD 6 cores to outperform intels 4.
Its also relevant to say that it costs intel 30% more logic to achieve the extra performance necessary to outperform AMD's chips on a per core basis.

[OhNoes!]

I don't understand your objections. The point Is, that it is as relevant to say that it takes intel 8 threads to outperform AMD' 6 threads, as it is to say it takes AMD 6 cores to outperform intels 4.
Its also relevant to say that it costs intel 30% more logic to achieve the extra performance necessary to outperform AMD's chips on a per core basis.

I'm surprised you even said outperform, even though that is not always the case. The thing is there is a lot of generalization going on with regard to efficient thread # execution. A normal system at any given time is executing 10s, if not 100s of threads. If you want to talk about load, that is another story. All Intel has done with HT is designed a process that allows a core to execute 2 threads when the situation calls for it - it is simply ipc headroom that would otherwise go to waste due mostly to inefficient code - taking advantage of that just that. That is why HT is bad in efficiently coded apps. HT is therefore good for a world of badly coded apps. A core is a core, what can I say?

[MBomberZ1]

I don't understand where all the hater-ade is coming from, if you don't like it, don't get it, read about something else. Wasn't this supposed to be info about the new chips? I'm excited about them, glad that i can drop a new 1090T into my motherboard. I will be really itching to get one if it can get past 4ghz on water easily with out turbo.. Curious though how the overclocking works with Turbo, i have not used any chips with this type of feature before. I assume that you must find the max stable clock with turbo engaged? Is it hard to do this with each core since it only can do 3 at a time? I cant imagine you just find the max stable standard clock and then for some reason its ok with adding 500mhz on top of that with out failing. Thats a big jump.

[alfaunits]

I'll give you that price wise this CPU is positioned quite well (for the customers, not AMD though :P).
Taking only Nehalem and PhII CPUs into account:
PhII x6 is top of the line essentially for AMD. 920 is middle of the line for Intel. From an objective viewpoint, I would presume this segment is very little, due to people either not needing that much or needing much more. I would expect PhIIx6 to be between i7-920 (or 930 who cares already....) and a E5620 Xeon.
From a subjective point of view, I wanted to get PhIIx6 and not Neha hexcore to save money. But if PhIIx6 has similar performance to a quad core i7, I'll go for Xeon. So I am angry because my wallet will hurt

[OhNoes!]

I don't understand where all the hater-ade is coming from, if you don't like it, don't get it, read about something else. Wasn't this supposed to be info about the new chips? I'm excited about them, glad that i can drop a new 1090T into my motherboard. I will be really itching to get one if it can get past 4ghz on water easily with out turbo.. Curious though how the overclocking works with Turbo, i have not used any chips with this type of feature before. I assume that you must find the max stable clock with turbo engaged? Is it hard to do this with each core since it only can do 3 at a time? I cant imagine you just find the max stable standard clock and then for some reason its ok with adding 500mhz on top of that with out failing. Thats a big jump.

You can disable Turbo, if your bios allows it. I don't know if it can be done by software; otherwise, yes, you'll have to factor in turbo when overclocking.

[Manicdan]

I don't understand where all the hater-ade is coming from, if you don't like it, don't get it, read about something else. Wasn't this supposed to be info about the new chips? I'm excited about them, glad that i can drop a new 1090T into my motherboard. I will be really itching to get one if it can get past 4ghz on water easily with out turbo.. Curious though how the overclocking works with Turbo, i have not used any chips with this type of feature before. I assume that you must find the max stable clock with turbo engaged? Is it hard to do this with each core since it only can do 3 at a time? I cant imagine you just find the max stable standard clock and then for some reason its ok with adding 500mhz on top of that with out failing. Thats a big jump.

check out the AMD section, a few members have been playing with them and OCing them with and without the turbo. lots of great info there.

[RaV[666]]

So I am angry because my wallet will hurt

Your sig tells me you have the dough .
Anyhow, yes PH X6 is targeted at quad core nehalems.Gulftown is in league of its own.
However look at it in this way, you could build 2-3 hex AMD systems for a price of one intel ;-).This should be a hit with the crunchers.
Get 1035T, some midrange mobo with built in grafx,two cheap 1gb stix of ram.OC it to 4ghz.Cheap and powerful (for the price).

[OhNoes!]

Actually its faster per clock than i7,since the result in the table for QC i7 is at 4.33Ghz . You do need better reading glasses though
So it beats the QC i7 in perf. and perf./$ and lags behind the Gulftown by 18% in pure perf. but wins by a ginormous margin in perf./$. (we are talking about a projected price of 200 bucks for 1055T,BUT we have one user who bought his 1090T for 176$ already!)

This is on my regular everyday system, just to make a point. Who needs a $1600 cpu when my 930 @ $200 can do this? If you're nice, I'll post my receipt too.

[alfaunits]

Exactly my point.. 920 (or 930 for those who say 920 is EOL) whips PhIIx6.

@Rav, I have not upgraded anything but hard drives->SAS->SSD in more than 2 years. Literraly.