Bought an 8 core got a quad

Jan 27, 2009
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So I got a 8core amd 8320 and Windows 7 saw it as 8 core. Updated to windows 10 recently and it's now quad core with 2 threads per core.

Is this true? Has it always been like this?
I mean I'm fine with it as Windows 10 now takes full advantage of viscera as I can see throughout and especially in games.
 

burninatortech4

Senior member
Jan 29, 2014
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Each module can process two integer operations and one floating point operation. Look up the piledriver architecture.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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you could say it's 2 cores sharing resources or 1 core with some doubled resources,

performance seems a lot closer to a real core than HT, AMD calls it an 8 core... so..
 

waltchan

Senior member
Feb 27, 2015
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FX-8320 is actually a quad-core with eight-threads, despite AMD's dirty sneaky advertisement on them. They were sued on the Bulldozers being only dual-core for FX-4100.
 

Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
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Each module can process two integer operations and one floating point operation. Look up the piledriver architecture.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

FPU is SMT, so one core can process a thread simultaneously with the other core, otherwise the FP MT score of a module wouldnt increase in respect of a single core loading the FPU...

To make things clear a FPU is not a core, each core process both Integer and FP threads, that the FP exe ressources are shared is another matter.
 

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
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I feel the best term is module, each pair of cores that shares resources is a module. So marketing calls it 8 cores, but more realistically it is 4 modules. Neither description tells the whole story, but honestly the AMD CPUs look better when one AMD module (CMT) is compared to one Intel core with Hyperthreading (SMT).
 

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
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Why would you buy an FX in 2016? Doesn't make any sense. And yes, an 8320 is a glorified quad core.
 

Dresdenboy

Golden Member
Jul 28, 2003
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citavia.blog.de
So I got a 8core amd 8320 and Windows 7 saw it as 8 core. Updated to windows 10 recently and it's now quad core with 2 threads per core.

Is this true? Has it always been like this?
I mean I'm fine with it as Windows 10 now takes full advantage of viscera as I can see throughout and especially in games.
What kind of software do you use?

That CPU is a design with 8 integer cores, sharing 4 FPUs and some other stuff in 4 so called modules or compute units (AMD marketing). It runs 8 threads on these 4 modules significantly faster than 4 threads (for true multithreaded code about +50% to +80%). That's the main difference to SMT (Hyperthreading), where running 8 threads on 4 cores gives about +20% to +30%, which in turn means, that 2 threads running on one core are running about ~60% to 70% their original speed (when running alone). Due to this they call it 8 core.

But these 8 cores are not as strong as for example Intel's cores (except for the Atoms).

Each module can process two integer operations and one floating point operation. Look up the piledriver architecture.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
That sounds like the complaint. It's more complex than that. 2 integer operations (in some cases more, some in the AGUs) per core and in that Vishera FPU also 4 ops/cycle max.

But performance is not only defined by this.
 

USER8000

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2012
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FX-8320 is actually a quad-core with eight-threads, despite AMD's dirty sneaky advertisement on them. They were sued on the Bulldozers being only dual-core for FX-4100.

No,it isn't. It has 8 integer cores and with 4 shared FPUs. If you actually looked back at the last 30 years of CPUs,there have been CPUs without an FPU or an external one,and they have been defined as functional cores.
 
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Azuma Hazuki

Golden Member
Jun 18, 2012
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The FX8xxx line *are* octacores. There are 8 integer units in there; each set of 2 of those shares one FPU. They are a hell of a lot more like an 8-core than, say, Intel's i7.

Does Intel beat them at the high end? Absolutely yes. I won't contest that. But don't spread FUD and lies.
 

Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
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The FX8xxx line *are* octacores. There are 8 integer units in there; each set of 2 of those shares one FPU. They are a hell of a lot more like an 8-core than, say, Intel's i7.

Does Intel beat them at the high end? Absolutely yes. I won't contest that. But don't spread FUD and lies.
FX-8150/8350 is quad core with HT and was never different
 

Kuiva maa

Member
May 1, 2014
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LOL that's just MS trolling AMD.

Originally FX series was reported on an OS level as having its actual core number. Windows then would proceed and assign workloads on two cores of the same module while other modules would be idle ,triggering the CMT penalty for no reason. It is akin to having a core i7 executing a dual threaded task in one core using HT and three other cores sit idle. But in fact Windows know how to properly utilize HT which in this case is pretty similar to how AMDs CMT design needs to be treated . Therefore these days AMD FX modules are reported as hyperthreaded cores.
 

Doom2pro

Senior member
Apr 2, 2016
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Why would you buy an FX in 2016? Doesn't make any sense. And yes, an 8320 is a glorified quad core.

I bought an FX-6300 for my living room Media Center PC... Works good.

And yes, there are physical integer units in those cores, unlike HT which simulates a physical core using underutilized pipelines in the real core. This makes it sort of a hybrid, but as far as Integer stuff goes, it's really 8 cores.
 
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nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
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Yes Windows 10 is treating One Module as a Single Core however if you look at the performance monitor you will have 8 threads just like a Core i7 with hyperthreading.

Your going to see some great benefits once games fully embrace DirectX 12.
 

PG

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
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Good Lord. AMD FX was released in 2011. How in the world are people still beating this dead horse? It isn't even a horse anymore, it's a pile of ash that used to be some bones that used to be a horse. The flesh rotted away years ago and people kept beating it, hence the pile of ash.

OP, were you living under a rock? Or were you in the cabin with the Unibomber?

I shouldn't do this, but here goes. AMD said that way back in the day the number of cores was determined by how many Integer units a cpu had. A full FX has 8 Integer units, so they call it an 8 core. By that definition they are correct. You can disagree, fine, but that's where they get it from.

Normal consumer socket Intel cpus have 4 Integer units max. Yes, an i7 has HT, but still only has the 4 Integer units, so AMD uses this Integer unit advantage in their marketing. What's the big deal? Anyone intelligent looked at the reviews back in 2011, saw which architecture was better, bought what they wanted, and moved on. How are people still fighting and/or being outraged over AMD's marketing this many years later?
 

Leyawiin

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2008
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This is all on the performance tab of the task manager of Win 10:

"AMD FX-8320E Eight-core processor. Four cores, eight logical processors"

Everyone should know by now its a bit different than a Deneb/Thuban.
 
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crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
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I thought it was better from an OS thread scheduling point of view to see the FX that way?
 
Jan 27, 2009
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Yes Windows 10 is treating One Module as a Single Core however if you look at the performance monitor you will have 8 threads just like a Core i7 with hyperthreading.

Your going to see some great benefits once games fully embrace DirectX 12.
I hope so cuz rise of the tomb raider in dx12 mode actually runs worse than dx11