AMD Zambezi news, info, fans !

[Apokalipse]

If 4 core Llano-Stars based CPUs (3-5% IPC increase over previous) with 8MB L3 + cache optimizations ran at 4.2 Ghz stock (and overclocked near 5 Ghz) they would be at stock i5 2400 level and beat one (overclocked as much as possible with BCLK) by far while overclocked.

i5 2400 is selling for $190 right now.

I'm not saying single core or dual core IPC will be lower, I actually expect it to be much higher... but I believe that a 4.2 Ghz Deneb will be close to the X4 BD model in extensive multi-threading.

So are you comparing a 4.2GHz Deneb against a lower clocked Zambezi?

...I could be way off base, you never know. I just think that if AMD's only goal was "MOAR COARS" they would have stayed with the Stars architecture through 32nm and made 16 core parts based off of it.

The point of the BD 'module' is to give most of the performance of two full cores (hypothetical BD cores, not stars), with only a tiny increase in die area over one core. So they have more cores and multithreaded performance per die area, which gives them something better than HyperThreading.
If they used 8 stars cores, the die area would be a lot larger, and probably have to sacrifice cache.

Of course the modules design is one aspect of BD, and there is far, far more to it than "MOAR CORES".
They are increasing multithreaded performance, increasing IPC, and increasing frequency all at the same time. Which is difficult, because they can often trade off each other.

Server chips =/ desktop chips...

You really think they are binned alike? Server chips are low-power, desktop chips are not-so-much. E3 1280's TDP doesn't include IGP either I believe...

I believe AMD measures TDP differently for server and desktop parts. I'm not sure if Intel does.