• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Is Barcelona in trouble?

No.. thats anandtech being angry with AMD as whole. I remember many article of Opertron in trouble and they were running at very low speed just few months before launch.
 
Aye, I wish someone would make a non-biased review site once and for all. I am getting damn tired of this crap.

This goes for Nvidia, Intel, AMD etc....
 
My guess is that Barcelona will debut at fairly low clockspeed, and then scale upwards as AMD gets the production quirks smoothed out.
It probably won't be wiping any floors with Intel - at least not at launch. What happens later is an open question.
 
I don't see anything biased about Anandtech's report on their experience with Barcelona at Computex. They are reporting what they experienced and heard firsthand from others who would know because of their experience.

Have any of the naysayers and malcontents in this thread experienced anything to the contrary with their Barcelona's or had different conversations with mobo OEMs at Computex?

I didn't think so.
 
Judging by the lack of enthusiasm and general lack of information regarding Barcelona I would guess that the article is fairly accurate about the chip. After looking at how AMD handled the R600 launch, I'm not too surprised. But to give AMD credit, I don't think there was any way they could have ever lived up to the expectations with regards to performance of the people on this board. Maybe if they delay it long enough, people won't be stewing in disappointment but instead be concentrating on Fusion. Then we can hear how Fusion will be delayed and people will have something new to be upset about.

AMD needs some restructuring of management. Good ideas alone don't make a killer product. I would give AMD a grade of D on execution.
 
Performance isn't the only important factor when it comes to products. Releasing a product on time is very important as well.

I've been enjoying my Core 2 Duo since October and many others since July of 2006. Even if Barcelona is 20% faster than Core 2 Duo at equal clock speed, it really doesn't matter because once again we dont know when it will ship in 2007. What we do know is that Core Q6600 will drop to $266 in July and so many Core 2 Duo owners today will be able to sell their chips and upgrade to quad for $200 extra or less. Unless Barcelona can deliver Quad core performance at $200-$250 to equal Core 2 Quad, there still isnt any reason to wait. Why would someone ditch a perfectly fine P965 mobo and get a new AMD $150 motherboard and a new chip that might outperform Core 2 by 20-25%? I'd rather spend $150 towards a faster graphics card and get 100% boost in performance.

What is concerning is that AMD had 4-5 years to work on this new architecture. A64 was an excellent processor that brought major innovations. Sure Core 2 Duo outperforms it by 20-25% but is it that hard to release a new AMD processor with 25% more performance than A64 after 4 years in development? Apparently....

AMD's execution as of late with ATI products leaves much to be desired.
 
Originally posted by: tuteja1986
No.. thats anandtech being angry with AMD as whole. I remember many article of Opertron in trouble and they were running at very low speed just few months before launch.
Click to expand...
Don't shoot the messenger. They report on what they see, and if what they're seeing is slow compared to the competition, that's what they're supposed to say.

I mean, consider these two statements:
1. "Benchmarks were 15% slower than a Core2Duo of the same clock speed."
2. "Benchmarks were slower than Core2Duo of the same clock speed, but we expect them to be as good when the chips are released into production."

You might want to see statement #2, but it actually has MORE editorializing on Anandtech's part than the first one, which is all bad news.
 
I'd be suprised now if Barcelona ends up faster clock for clock than core 2, I honestly reckon even after getting things tweaked and tuned it will still be slower clock for clock. How much, we will have to wait and see. On the other hand now I have such low expectations, at least there is more of a chance of AMD 'surprising' people.
 
So close to launch and AMD was still showing us "Simulated" benchmarks. So it's no surprise that they didn't have working silicon yet.
 
Many of the reports of bad scaling come from old silicon. Hopefully newer silicon will fix this, but AMD is the only one who knows this. AMD is usually pretty quiet about their future products, so the lack of information about Barcelona isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have a feeling that we won't find out anything concrete about Barcelona until a week or so before launch.
 
On paper, K10 should at the very least be the equal of Core, clock for clock. The fact that it isn't currently performing as expected suggests there are indeed big problems, and I'm skeptical as to whether AMD will be able to iron them out in time for a Christmas launch. Right now, Q2 doesn't seem overly conservative to me. I wonder how far Brisbane will scale.
 
The article clearly gives it to you with no BS. I don't see the problem with that.

This writer clearly knows that you should not judge non final silicon with non final motherboards with non final bioses unlike other sites.

I think the best part of that article is the mention that supposedly K10 doesn't see it's potential till 2.6GHz+
 
Barcelona is late and AMD is in trouble because of it. What bothers me is the mention of motherboard problems, and If they cant get one to work good with a current motherboard what is going to happen to all the people that think they will be able to run Barcelona in thier current AM2 board with a simple bios change?

They wont be able to probably and the Motherboard makers will no doubt want to sell you a new board and not give you a free and simple bios flash anyways :frown:
 
I don't get some people's mentality here. So when Anandtech report bad news about AMD, even if it is fact, they are being biased? The article already made it really clear that the bad performance was due to unoptimized bios, and they are being nice to AMD by pointing that out, they could have just said Barcelona sucked.

I think AMD is in trouble here. I think eventually Barcelona will perform okay when AMD ramp up the speed and mobo is optimized. But they have not shown Barcelona performance will clearly beat what Intel offers today, or 6 month from now. Yes they have been in worse shape in term of product offering before. But remember they just spend 5.4 billion to buy ATI, and a lot of those money were borrowed. With ATI getting beat on the graphic side, AMD really cannot afford to not having a competitive product for long. They have been losing money the last couple of quarters, I don't see how they can turn that around if they don't have a good product to offer in the next 6 moth to 1 year. If they keep losing money like that, and with that big debt burden, AMD may run into cash flow problem really quickly.
 
The A64 architecture was kind of a double edge sword for AMD, on one hand they had a superior design that whooped the competition, and got AMDs name out. On the other hand now many people expect AMD to be better than Intel and if they are behind then their demise as a company is imminent.
 
Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Performance isn't the only important factor when it comes to products. Releasing a product on time is very important as well.

I've been enjoying my Core 2 Duo since October and many others since July of 2006. Even if Barcelona is 20% faster than Core 2 Duo at equal clock speed, it really doesn't matter because once again we dont know when it will ship in 2007. What we do know is that Core Q6600 will drop to $266 in July and so many Core 2 Duo owners today will be able to sell their chips and upgrade to quad for $200 extra or less. Unless Barcelona can deliver Quad core performance at $200-$250 to equal Core 2 Quad, there still isnt any reason to wait. Why would someone ditch a perfectly fine P965 mobo and get a new AMD $150 motherboard and a new chip that might outperform Core 2 by 20-25%? I'd rather spend $150 towards a faster graphics card and get 100% boost in performance.

What is concerning is that AMD had 4-5 years to work on this new architecture. A64 was an excellent processor that brought major innovations. Sure Core 2 Duo outperforms it by 20-25% but is it that hard to release a new AMD processor with 25% more performance than A64 after 4 years in development? Apparently....

AMD's execution as of late with ATI products leaves much to be desired.
Click to expand...
that was my problem. I wanted to wait for amd to get an agena/phenom, but I could have died of old age first! I mean, I'm 34 now. I've been with amd for 5 yrs now through 3 upgrades. Let's face it, most people would prefer to root for the underdog. Especially in this case, when it is better for all of us to have a reasonably strong intel-figher in the cpu arena. I just haven't read a single review ANYWHERE that gives me hope of a phenom processor at anything approaching a reasonable performance level before Q1 08. I settled on a Q6600 on july 22 and a p35 mobo so I can upgrade to a penryn in 18-24 mos. Oh well, at least I have an opteron 180 in my wife's computer...
 
Originally posted by: rchiu
I don't get some people's mentality here. So when Anandtech report bad news about AMD, even if it is fact, they are being biased? The article already made it really clear that the bad performance was due to unoptimized bios, and they are being nice to AMD by pointing that out, they could have just said Barcelona sucked.

I think AMD is in trouble here. I think eventually Barcelona will perform okay when AMD ramp up the speed and mobo is optimized. But they have not shown Barcelona performance will clearly beat what Intel offers today, or 6 month from now. Yes they have been in worse shape in term of product offering before. But remember they just spend 5.4 billion to buy ATI, and a lot of those money were borrowed. With ATI getting beat on the graphic side, AMD really cannot afford to not having a competitive product for long. They have been losing money the last couple of quarters, I don't see how they can turn that around if they don't have a good product to offer in the next 6 moth to 1 year. If they keep losing money like that, and with that big debt burden, AMD may run into cash flow problem really quickly.
Click to expand...
I thought that the article was, if anything, very fair to amd. They seemed to be giving amd the benefit of the doubt in several instances while most consumers (like me) have gotten tired of empty promises. I hope that barcelona is a great success because amd is likely to go under if not. I think that even if it is successful they will be bought out or go private equitey by the end of 08.

 
R600, and the blatant falsehoods that were told surrounding it's launch have harmed AMD's credibility as far as I am concerned. I've had AMD processors for years, and on the whole I have been pleased with them -but- if they won't work with existing motherboards or there are signs that it is going to be months before it is released, I'll likely go Intel.

AMD has never answered for the "family launch" promises, the "we have great drivers" promises and the "we don't do soft launches" promises. I won't ever wait for AMD to release something in the future, and I suspect I'm not alone in coming to that realization due to the R600 fiasco. AMD is going to have to start following through with respect to product releases or they are going to wait themselves right out of business.
 
I don't understand the statement that "K10 will come alive at around 2.6GHz."

"Come alive?"

The best a processor can do is 1:1 scaling as clockspeed increases AFAIK right?

So scaling clockspeed up will show what potential performance at higher clocks will be.

 
Originally posted by: Hulk
I don't understand the statement that "K10 will come alive at around 2.6GHz."

"Come alive?"

The best a processor can do is 1:1 scaling as clockspeed increases AFAIK right?

So scaling clockspeed up will show what potential performance at higher clocks will be.
Click to expand...

Yea...... I was curious about that one as well. Hopefully someone can clearify that one.
 
Originally posted by: Hulk
I don't understand the statement that "K10 will come alive at around 2.6GHz."

"Come alive?"

The best a processor can do is 1:1 scaling as clockspeed increases AFAIK right?

So scaling clockspeed up will show what potential performance at higher clocks will be.
Click to expand...

the article was confusing as hell. you're right, the scaling should be linear along short frequency differences, but not across large gaps, where the scaling should drop, all other things equal.

my best guess on that particular statement is that the bus has too much throughput for the cores, and at 2.6ghz the core will fully utilize the available resources. but that contradicts the statement about the platform not running at full speed.

moreover, the article blames the core frequency shortfall on the motherboard, but that doesn't make much sense either. the multiplier allows decoupling of bus and core clocks. so regardless of how sluggish the platform is, the core itself should be able to run at whatever speed it was designed to, at least for debug or demo purposes. but that is not shown either.

so im inclined to read the platform maturity line with skepticism.
 
Isn't it supposed to be backwards combatible with current AM2 boards? Any out there yet that can support these? bios updates/drivers anything? I wonder how good they would do in that situation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top