Fudzilla: Bulldozer performance figures are in

[classy]

Because AMD have to. Logically, if Bulldozer's IPC has increased then they do not require such high clock speeds and could have released them months ago. That is very obvious from early on. The IPC issue could come back to haunt Bulldozer in games performance.

I read that link and that would seem to confirm the slides we have seen. The 8150 shown in slides competes in multi threaded apps and if it is performing along the lines of 980X it will trail in games to the 2600K.

The 8120 blurb compared to the 2500K is bit interesting though. Those processors are not that far apart in clock speed.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

The old Athlon II X3 440 is about on par with the E3400 in what regards the performance/price:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

Overclocked is a much better value.

Did you ever acknowledged the strengths of the AMD CPUs? Look at that chart, AMD is one generation behind and still dominates the chart. How come AMD with an old technology still offers better bang for the buck?

The only slot in which AMD lags behind Intel is the enthusiast one. On every single other price point, AMD is better value.

Saying that Intel is "the best" and AMD "is slow" is like saying that Volkswagen (who makes the Bugatti Veyron) is faster than BMW. No, only a car of theirs is faster, all the others are inferior.

Wrong for what should be obvious reasons. Sandy Bridge has 30% higher IPC than Penryn. That means the Celeron E3400 needs to be clocked around 32-33% higher than the G530 to match it in speed. In practice, that means the E3400 needs to be clocked at 3.4-3.5GHz to match the G530 at 2.4GHz. The max it'll go for 24/7 use is 3.8GHz on most occasions, and you'll need a third-party heat-sink not to mention it'll consume more power while being a lot less efficient. It's also on a dead socket. Also needs to be mentioned: CPU benchmark is a worthless synthetic that doesn't translate well to real-world performance.

AMD lags behind Intel in the Essential, Performance, and Enthusiast market. Their only saving grace as of now is the $100 Athlon II X4 640 (for multi-threaded workloads), $120 Phenom II X4 955, and the $150 Phenom II X6 1055T (for multi-threaded workloads, again). The Phenom II X6 1090/1100T are priced too close to the Core i5-2400 to make sense, and the 2400 can overclock to 3.8GHz easily. At $75, the Athlon II X3 445 performs too close to the $57 Celeron G530 to make sense. The $60 Athlon II X2 is simply left in the dust.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Could also be just because they can?

Clearly they couldn't in earlier steppings, which is why they made several revisions to clock it higher. If the earlier steppings were competitive and had sufficient performance at their lower clock speeds, AMD would've released them in Q3 and released new steppings now that have higher overclocking potential along with newer, higher-clocked models.

There was some mention of cache problems in earlier steppings, so that could also play a role.

The reality is, they've been pushing as hard as they can to get very high clock speeds and overclocking headroom while delaying it several times. They're also pitting an Eight-Core CPU against a Quad-Core without SMT from Intel. To me that screams, as we should all know by now, that it still has significantly lower IPC than Sandy Bridge.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

That is because they designed it that way.... They relied on increasing clockspeed to increase the performance and not on massive ILP. it was a designchoice which was known from the start. Nobody expected lower frequencies than its competition... yet they release an FX8120 that is running its 8cores at a lower frequency then the Gulftown 980x..

So no its clockspeeds are not that high compared to the competition. I believe they originally expected higher frequencies (like 3.5GHz to be the lowest number and not 3.1 to be the lowest number).

Even their flagship (FX8150) has only a 100MHz advantage in extreme heavy >8threaded applications.

The FX-8150 is clocked at 3.6-4.2GHz and will be priced at $250-260. That should tell you all you need to know.

 

[Black96ws6]

Did actually even click on my links? Hint: All of them had nothing to do with BD. Thanks for exposing yourself as a brain-dead, potty-mouth AMD fanboy.

Which links are you referring to? The AMD reviews from a hundred years ago?

Or the one from the foul-mouthed guy who has an axe to grind aganist AMD? Was that you in the video?

So not being able to refute that you're basing your assumptions on pure BS (that the reason no benches have been released is because BD sucks), you resort to personal insults and name-calling?

Wow.

 

[Olikan]

The FX-8150 is clocked at 3.6-4.2GHz and will be priced at $250-260. That should tell you all you need to know.

indeed...or it will be a rv770 or it will be a phenom I
or something in the middle LOL

 

[Medu]

The old Athlon II X3 440 is about on par with the E3400 in what regards the performance/price:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

Overclocked is a much better value.

Did you ever acknowledged the strengths of the AMD CPUs? Look at that chart, AMD is one generation behind and still dominates the chart. How come AMD with an old technology still offers better bang for the buck?

The only slot in which AMD lags behind Intel is the enthusiast one. On every single other price point, AMD is better value.

Saying that Intel is "the best" and AMD "is slow" is like saying that Volkswagen (who makes the Bugatti Veyron) is faster than BMW. No, only a car of theirs is faster, all the others are inferior.

CPU's don't run on their own. Lets say an average gaming machine costs $1000-without a mobo/cpu. The choice is between an AMD package that costs $200 or an Intel package that costs $300 but is 30% faster. Quick calcs suggest that AMD are better value but on anything that is CPU limited an Intel PC will be 30% faster while the system only costs 8.3% more.

 

[Black96ws6]

CPU's don't run on their own. Lets say an average gaming machine costs $1000-without a mobo/cpu. The choice is between an AMD package that costs $200 or an Intel package that costs $300 but is 30% faster. Quick calcs suggest that AMD are better value but on anything that is CPU limited an Intel PC will be 30% faster while the system only costs 8.3% more.

Right, and a stock or mildly-OC'd Sandy Bridge would probably still be faster than an OC'd AMD X6 in most games, legacy apps, or anything else that doesn't use a bunch of cores, so there's the power\wattage\electricity bill to think of as well since Intel uses less power...

 

[GaiaHunter]

CPU's don't run on their own. Lets say an average gaming machine costs $1000-without a mobo/cpu. The choice is between an AMD package that costs $200 or an Intel package that costs $300 but is 30% faster. Quick calcs suggest that AMD are better value but on anything that is CPU limited an Intel PC will be 30% faster while the system only costs 8.3% more.

First a gaming machine is an evolving system - Mobo/CPU are the parts that are mostly replaced after the GPU (and failing PSU).

The rest of the system will remain the same a long time - in case of an upgrade, around $700-800 of those $1000 won't matter.

The price difference will be considerably higher than just 8%.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

First a gaming machine is an evolving system - Mobo/CPU are the parts that are mostly replaced after the GPU (and failing PSU).

The rest of the system will remain the same a long time.

Well, even if we're talking multi-threaded performance, the Phenom II X6 1090T is comparable to the Core i5-2400 there and costs $20 less, but it loses out by a significant margin in everything else while consuming A LOT more power. If you're looking for a Phenom II X6, the only one that makes sense is the 1055T given its $20 lower price in comparison to the 1090T and same overclocking headroom on average.

 

[Despoiler]

Clearly they couldn't in earlier steppings, which is why they made several revisions to clock it higher. If the earlier steppings were competitive and had sufficient performance at their lower clock speeds, AMD would've released them in Q3 and released new steppings now that have higher overclocking potential along with newer, higher-clocked models.

There was some mention of cache problems in earlier steppings, so that could also play a role.

The reality is, they've been pushing as hard as they can to get very high clock speeds and overclocking headroom while delaying it several times. They're also pitting an Eight-Core CPU against a Quad-Core without SMT from Intel. To me that screams, as we should all know by now, that it still has significantly lower IPC than Sandy Bridge.

The stepping revisions did not seem to be clockspeed related. B0 was hitting upwards of 5.0ghz on air from everything I read and saw.

A lot of people keep ignoring the stated design goals of the chip. It wasn't designed to mimic a large core SB or AMD would have. It's a mutli-threading focused server chip that they are going to sell in a desktop version. Why do you think the server version shipped first? It was never about needing more cores to compete with SB. The number of cores are there for multi-threaded workloads. On a desktop chip you probably won't get as much use out of 8 cores running a single game, but on a server you can take every advantage of it in things like super computing, virtualization, and cloud computing.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Well, even if we're talking multi-threaded performance, the Phenom II X6 1090T is comparable to the Core i5-2400 there and costs $20 less, but it loses out by a significant margin in everything else while consuming A LOT more power. If you're looking for a Phenom II X6, the only one that makes sense is the 1055T given its $20 lower price in comparison to the 1090T and same overclocking headroom on average.

I wasn't trying to make any considerations about what makes more sense to buy atm.

I have seen that argument of diluting the price of single components on the final price several times as if every single CPU sold is sold as a new machine or for a complete new build.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

The stepping revisions did not seem to be clockspeed related. B0 was hitting upwards of 5.0ghz on air from everything I read and saw.

A lot of people keep ignoring the stated design goals of the chip. It wasn't designed to mimic a large core SB or AMD would have. It's a mutli-threading focused server chip that they are going to sell in a desktop version. Why do you think the server version shipped first? It was never about needing more cores to compete with SB. The number of cores are there for multi-threaded workloads. On a desktop chip you probably won't get as much use out of 8 cores running a single game, but on a server you can take every advantage of it in things like super computing, virtualization, and cloud computing.

That's the opposite of what I heard, but whatever.

But yes, and I've said it earlier: Bulldozer is first and foremost a server CPU. On the desktop I expect it to be like the Phenom II X6 1090T vs Core i7-860, with it being somewhat faster in multi-threaded and significantly slower in everything else. Only thing different is that Bulldozer will probably have much better power consumption than earlier architectures and overclocking headroom should be a bit higher than Intel this round.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I wasn't trying to make any considerations about what makes more sense to buy atm.

I have seen that argument of diluting the price of single components on the final price several times as if every single CPU sold is sold as a new machine or for a complete new build.

I agree. I think that argument is irrelevant, so I dismiss it in most cases. Only thing I think should be taken into account given other components is platform costs, which includes the motherboard and CPU and sometimes the memory as well.

A completely new build would mean a new Hard Drive, Optical Drive, new case, and new Power Supply. If you have a previous build you may use those.

 

[Edrick]

I wonder if BD (as we know it today) will ever be released? Kinda reminds me of Larrabee. We kept seeing teasers and promises, but nothing ever came from it.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I wonder if BD (as we know it today) will ever be released? Kinda reminds me of Larrabee. We kept seeing teasers and promises, but nothing ever came from it.

I think it'll finally be available by next month. Kinda worries me that Tom's said they still don't have samples, though.

 

[Idontcare]

I wonder if BD (as we know it today) will ever be released? Kinda reminds me of Larrabee. We kept seeing teasers and promises, but nothing ever came from it.

Announcing projects and plans only to then retreat and cancel them in their original form is Intel's thing, not really AMD's.

Phenom had all sorts of fits and starts in the beginning as well. There is nothing atypical for AMD going here either. For better or worse, this is kinda their M.O. for new architectures.

The K5, K7, K8 and K10 were all delayed relative to the widely accepted/intended release dates. They were each delayed for different reasons, but nonetheless "pulling it together" when it entails everything needed to have a fully functioning platform has been AMD's Achilles heel for a long time.

One could easily argue the case that it appears to be endemic to the corporate culture itself as the trait has persisted despite having multiple changes in the executive administration itself over the same intervening timeframe. Hitting deadlines and milestones, internally committed as well as externally, is not their strong suit when a new microarchitecture is involved, it would seem.

 

[Riek]

The FX-8150 is clocked at 3.6-4.2GHz and will be priced at $250-260. That should tell you all you need to know.

And your point?

That doesn't change the fact that AMD developed BD to run at higher frequencies... So you should expect higher frequencies to be competitive, nothing strange about that.

BD was developed to allow more cores on a lower die space with higher frequencies..

What we see is more cores with only a frequency advantage for their highest clocked part. Every other part is worse or equal to the competition..

So yeah ofcourse they need higher frequencies to be competitve... already said that was a design goal? Does that make it bad? does that make it a sucky alternative?
If BD can run between 3,6 and 4,2GHz and be competitive with a cpu that runs at 3,5-3,8GHz with the same transistor count for the cores than I would believe mission accomplished... Surely if you see the frequencies difference is at best point 20%.. but then they use only 50% the transistors SB uses...

 

[BlueBlazer]

Do I smell another new stepping, or fab issues? Latest quote from Tankguys' AMD Bulldozer pre-order.......

Latest ETA update from my supplier is now early November. This uncertainty is why I'm not quite ready to take actual orders yet - I don't want to tie up people's money until I can be more definitive

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

And your point?

That doesn't change the fact that AMD developed BD to run at higher frequencies... So you should expect higher frequencies to be competitive, nothing strange about that.

BD was developed to allow more cores on a lower die space with higher frequencies..

What we see is more cores with only a frequency advantage for their highest clocked part. Every other part is worse or equal to the competition..

So yeah ofcourse they need higher frequencies to be competitve... already said that was a design goal? Does that make it bad? does that make it a sucky alternative?
If BD can run between 3,6 and 4,2GHz and be competitive with a cpu that runs at 3,5-3,8GHz with the same transistor count for the cores than I would believe mission accomplished... Surely if you see the frequencies difference is at best point 20%.. but then they use only 50% the transistors SB uses...

Because the IPC is abysmal in comparison to Sandy Bridge, and that should be obvious. EIGHT cores priced to compete with FOUR. If it were faster, it'd be priced as such. AMD needs higher margins on their products. You don't get that by giving people "free" performance; AMD isn't a charity, but a business.

 

[Black96ws6]

Do I smell another new stepping, or fab issues? Latest quote from Tankguys' AMD Bulldozer pre-order.......

Ouch. Well they better be here before the online Black Friday deals.

Because if they're not (or they just plain can't compete), I'm upgrading to a 2600k or SB-E and calling it a day. I need something beefy to play Civilization 5, BF3, and Counter Strike:Global Offensive .

 

[guskline]

Ouch. Well they better be here before the online Black Friday deals.

Because if they're not (or they just plain can't compete), I'm upgrading to a 2600k or SB-E and calling it a day. I need something beefy to play Civilization 5, BF3, and Counter Strike:Global Offensive .

Order a 2500k now and with the $100 saved over the 2600k beef up your gpu or run sli/crossfire

 

[Despoiler]

Do I smell another new stepping, or fab issues? Latest quote from Tankguys' AMD Bulldozer pre-order.......

How big is Tankguys? I've never heard of them. Are they or their distributor too small to get priority on the first shipments?

 

[GaiaHunter]

Because the IPC is abysmal in comparison to Sandy Bridge, and that should be obvious. EIGHT cores priced to compete with FOUR. If it were faster, it'd be priced as such. AMD needs higher margins on their products. You don't get that by giving people "free" performance; AMD isn't a charity, but a business.

Can you remember of a situation or two where the same AMD needing higher margins on their products released a faster product for less than the competition?

 

[Black96ws6]

How big is Tankguys? I've never heard of them. Are they or their distributor too small to get priority on the first shipments?

Good point. Hopefully it's just them and not major retailers.

Side note, anyone seen the new ASRock AM3+ Extreme3 board?

A new BD 8150 would look really good in that

*Disclaimer: Assuming BD lives up to expectations