AMD to Disclose Details About Bulldozer Micro-Architecture in August

[terrace215]

Johan got his information directly from AMD. The chart has fading bars and AMD(JF) already stated that only they know how high the bars actually go(that's the purpose of the fading btw,to not actually disclose the true perf. projection). You are reading waaaay to much into that chart,especially knowing that AMD couldn't possibly predict the clock speeds they would milk from the BD silicon at the time they made the chart. 60-80% uplift from MC is a good bet,but seeing how AMD delivered and over-delivered with Shanghai,Istanbul and especially MC,you can bet they will do all they can to over-deliver with BD when it launches.

Johan got his info from JF, at the same time of the 5%-die-size thing, the same day (or so) that AMD released this chart. Hence the question to JF.

***EDIT: Could it be that it was just a misread? What *is* 80% better on SpecInt_rate (per that chart) is MC over Istanbul. (rather than Interlagos over MC, which the chart shows at 35%)

AMD can make a reasonable stab at Interlagos clocks... remember that power is what is really gating things here. (more so than with a Zambezi 1-die part) But I agree there's a bin or so of "not sure", which is why the bars fade out.

I'm sure AMD will try to over-deliver, my point is merely that the chart shows BD relative to a slightly-worse-than-reality version of MC.

The numbers are interesting:

With int_rate, both Nehalem-EX and Westmere are already at the low-end of BD's projected range, so I think Westmere-EX (25% core increase, higher clocks), and also SB (33% core increase, new arch, higher mem bandwidth) will have no trouble maintaining dominance here.

With fp_rate, Intel has a lot further to go to catch a (2-socket) 400-430 SpecFP_rate(base). But presumably this is where AVX comes in, as well as more cores/bandwidth.

For single-to-low-threaded stuff, I expect Intel will win across the board, probably substantially.

edit: obsessed? Isn't the whole point of these boards/threads speculation? Some people find it fun, you know. It's a challenge trying to decode these AMD performance projection slides, but the results can be informative, no?