AMD should learn from Nvidia

[JustMe21]

I think AMD should learn from what Nivida did with Kal-El. Take a Brazos, modularize it, then they can stack different configurations of Brazos/Bulldozer modules on a processor. Brazos could answer the low power needs, such as just browsing the web and kick in BD when it needs more power. And if all the APUs are mdoularized too, they could Crossfire as needed so evena a lower powered Brazos module could lend graphics power to the higher end modules.

Of course, I would also like to also see a motheroard with a lite OS on a built in flash drive or one added on via usb plug on the motherboard or be on an EEPROM or other flashable device. The lite OS could also be part of the full OS that resides on the hard drive and has additional functions that are not enabled until the drive powers up. You would also be able to configure in the BIOS what powers on when you use the lite OS, such as power on hard drives only when you run the main OS or select to power it on as an option that can be selected within the lite OS. Video cards, and other devices could be optionally powered on that way as well.

 

[Arzachel]

Not sure what you are advocating. Using a single design for everything would mean single-threaded performance that would make BD seem the holy grail of IPC, and wattage that couldn't be scaled down enough for tablets while scaling poorly when increased.

 

[BD231]

Who the hell wants more tablet tech? More importantly, where the heck are all those dooms day people saying if AMD does not compete in the desktop market we're screwed? If AMD does indeed announce it's going to take after apple I'm gonna choke the closest living thing until its dead.

 

[Concillian]

I think he's saying to have a Brazos module for desktop performance for low power consumption while browsing.

I think for laptop and desktop power envelopes this is overkill, at least until OSes support such features. Imagine if you had an app limited to 2 cores and the OS kept wanting to give it to the Brazos cores instead of the "real" CPU.

Mobile OSes are more flexible. They can be tailored to individual devices, and when you have a form factor that's so power critical things like that not only make sense, they are adopted across the board (Kal-El is not the only ARM processor doing the small cores / big cores thing).

The little guy here is not going to have much success convincing MS that it needs to change the way it schedules threads. Plus, how well received would performance hits due to the Windows scheduler be? They haven't gone over well in the past. Bulldozer already requires special scheduling to work best. This would add an additional level of depth to the scheduler on top of that (knowing ahead of time whether this should go to a 'low power' core or a 'high power' core.)