Amd K10 B3 stepping tanks.

[Nemesis 1]

AMds B3 stepping still bugged going for B4 stepping or respin. Not due out till May 8.

http://www.erenumerique.fr/ces..._vrac_-news-11723.html

 

[nonameo]

Well, I went to the dark side, but it still worries me and I hope that AMD recovers. The CPU market needs some healthy competition.

 

[AmberClad]

Is this the same old TLB bug? Or a new one?

 

[Pocatello]

But the R700 is doing well, so it should be on schedule.

 

[Avalon]

That sucks.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Besides graphics AMD is in real deep trouble

 

[bfdd]

That kind of sux I was kind of looking forward to see what they had to offer with a CPU free of bugs and hopefully a price drop. Could of convinced me to switch.

 

[v8envy]

This is terrible news, long and short term. It implies Intel will probably delay their 45nm quads another month.

 

[The-Noid]

AMD can't get to 45nm fast enough.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

That kind of sux I was kind of looking forward to see what they had to offer with a CPU free of bugs and hopefully a price drop. Could of convinced me to switch.

I don't think AMD can take too many more price drops in the CPU department. Remember, they haven't released the two Dual-Cores and two Tri-Cores in the Phenom family yet, how would they price it all under $150?

Either way, I didn't think AMD would be able to rid themselves of the TLB issue so easily. What I wonder about is if AMD is going to actually bring out those K8 MCM chips and how they'll run. No matter what I think it'll be Intel > AMD until AMD manages to pull a rabbit out of their hat though it would be nice to see them actually making money again.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: Rhonda the Sly
I don't think AMD can take too many more price drops in the CPU department. Remember, they haven't released the two Dual-Cores and two Tri-Cores in the Phenom family yet, how would they price it all under $150?

Let me take a stab at some CPU prices which would make AMD's offerings interesting to the budget builder. In their current state the Phenoms have very little to offer the mainstream or enthusiast builder. Oh, and I'm assuming value motherboards will appear at the $60 pricepoint as well.

2.2 ghz x 4 - $160
2.2 ghz x 3 - $120
2.2 ghz x 2 - $80

2.3 ghz x 4 - $180
2.3 ghz x 3 - $130
2.3 ghz x 2 - $90

And so on and so forth, plus or minus $10. I don't think AMD will be able to get away with charging a large premium for the higher speed parts until they hit 3 ghz or so.

Now, will this be profitable right this second for AMD? Probably yes on the higher clocked dual cores, probably not so much on the quads and lower clocked parts.

 

[bfdd]

2.3 or 2.4ghz at 180 would suit me just fine. I'm not asking for a sub 150 part. I purchased my e6600 when it first came out, it wasn't nearly that cheap. It'd be nice to buy a cheap quad and have a nice little overclock when they fix their bugs. The thing that interests me the most is running 4 3870's.

 

[Zenoth]

Poor AMD ...

 

[Sylvanas]

If you want a drop in quad core for an existing AM2 rig then might as well get it, the 'bug' only appears in very specific circumstances yet it gets blown out of proportion most of the time- unless you run a server then theres no problem.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
If you want a drop in quad core for an existing AM2 rig then might as well get it, the 'bug' only appears in very specific circumstances yet it gets blown out of proportion most of the time- unless you run a server then theres no problem.

The only problem is that the X2 often performs better than Phenom, for example, a 3+ghz X2 (easily done with even cheapo 4x00+ X2s), will perform better in most tasks next to a Phenom @ 2.3-2.4ghz.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
If you want a drop in quad core for an existing AM2 rig then might as well get it, the 'bug' only appears in very specific circumstances yet it gets blown out of proportion most of the time- unless you run a server then theres no problem.

The only problem is that the X2 often performs better than Phenom, for example, a 3+ghz X2 (easily done with even cheapo 4x00+ X2s), will perform better in most tasks next to a Phenom @ 2.3-2.4ghz.

This in depth review compared the Phenoms to just about everything and as you can see they finish ahead of X2's by a long shot. Even squeezing 400mhz out of an X2 and running the benches again would not bridge the gap in performance.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
If you want a drop in quad core for an existing AM2 rig then might as well get it, the 'bug' only appears in very specific circumstances yet it gets blown out of proportion most of the time- unless you run a server then theres no problem.

The only problem is that the X2 often performs better than Phenom, for example, a 3+ghz X2 (easily done with even cheapo 4x00+ X2s), will perform better in most tasks next to a Phenom @ 2.3-2.4ghz.

This in depth review compared the Phenoms to just about everything and as you can see they finish ahead of X2's by a long shot. Even squeezing 400mhz out of an X2 and running the benches again would not bridge the gap in performance.

Awesome article, thanks for linking and sharing, I would have not likely have seen it otherwise.

Regarding the comments...would you agree your assessment is true for only multi-threaded apps and not true for single or dual-threaded apps?

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
If you want a drop in quad core for an existing AM2 rig then might as well get it, the 'bug' only appears in very specific circumstances yet it gets blown out of proportion most of the time- unless you run a server then theres no problem.

The only problem is that the X2 often performs better than Phenom, for example, a 3+ghz X2 (easily done with even cheapo 4x00+ X2s), will perform better in most tasks next to a Phenom @ 2.3-2.4ghz.

This in depth review compared the Phenoms to just about everything and as you can see they finish ahead of X2's by a long shot. Even squeezing 400mhz out of an X2 and running the benches again would not bridge the gap in performance.

Awesome article, thanks for linking and sharing, I would have not likely have seen it otherwise.

Regarding the comments...would you agree your assessment is true for only multi-threaded apps and not true for single or dual-threaded apps?

Well that's a good question and in most cases probably true. Lets use Farcry (single threaded) in the review as an example, see that the lower clocked Phenom 9600 has around the same performance as the X2's which are at or around the same frequency, on the other hand the Intel processors pushing 3ghz are top of the table in that single threaded bench, so it that case then maybe squeezing extra mhz from an X2 would be worth it over a Phenom. However we're only going to get more and more multithreaded apps as time goes on in which case the Phenom would be the better pick evident in the UT3 bench where the Phenom is ontop of even the QX9770 and ahead of the FX62 and other duals by quite a margin.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
AMds B3 stepping still bugged going for B4 stepping or respin. Not due out till May 8.

http://www.erenumerique.fr/ces..._vrac_-news-11723.html

Did you see this: http://www.extremetech.com/art.../0,1697,2247405,00.asp

Quote from link:

AMD tells us the delay isn't due to manufacturing problems, but instead because their OEM vendors have requested a low-power version.

Ouch. I see, I see. So its not that AMD has manufacturing problems, they just can't manufacture what their customers want. Yep, no problemo there.

Hmmmm, you think they might have asked around to find out what their customers wanted before they decided to "vaporware" their 125W TDP chips?

Every day that passes we get more and more confirmation that Henri Richards left AMD for very good reasons. And I think AMD is better for it. Now if they could just jettison Herr Ruinzand get Meyer in there to turn things around...

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
This in depth review compared the Phenoms to just about everything and as you can see they finish ahead of X2's by a long shot. Even squeezing 400mhz out of an X2 and running the benches again would not bridge the gap in performance.

That is an impressively good article. Well written, very thorough and some interesting tests at the end. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: pm

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
This in depth review compared the Phenoms to just about everything and as you can see they finish ahead of X2's by a long shot. Even squeezing 400mhz out of an X2 and running the benches again would not bridge the gap in performance.

That is an impressively good article. Well written, very thorough and some interesting tests at the end. Thanks for posting it.

No problem, its definitely a good source of info.

 

[Slaimus]

I really am confused on why this TLB issue has become what it has become. They could have done:

1. Make BA stepping at up to 2.0 for Opterons since they are stable
2. Make B2 stepping at up to 2.6 for Phenoms since this bug is near impossible to have happen on desktop workloads.
3. Make B3 with the TLB fix for Opteron and Phenom
4. Make B4 with less power usage for EE Opteron

 

[DrMrLordX]

Slaimus, they haven't figured out how to cope with the TLB bug yet, which is why it is still present in the B3 stepping.

They could have solved the problem as a "quick fix" by removing the L3 cache from all their K10 designs and increased L2 a bit to compensate (whatever they could do without killing yields) but that would make too much sense.

 

[Dainas]

So when will we know how the B3 stepping clocks next to B2? Not like a socket AM2+ board will be doing much server work.

 

[Duvie]

Along these lines it appears somewhat funny if the same people who crucify AMD for a bug that affects the operation in one in a million cases have no problem using Microsoft Vista, which, if the same standards were applied, should carry a red flag stating ?Toxic Waste, Do Not Approach Even With a 6 Foot Pole?. But wait, why don?t we at least try to stick to the facts.

This quote is classic!!!