There you have it. If they can put those out with their awesome new chipset they have a huge market imo. Want a PC that can hook up to your HDTV and use your 40"? There ya go.
There you have it. If they can put those out with their awesome new chipset they have a huge market imo. Want a PC that can hook up to your HDTV and use your 40"? There ya go.
Agreed...while I don't think AMD is going to catch Intel in the enthusiast market anytime soon, the mainstream and server prospects for AMD are looking quite good.
While I won't argue that for the mainstream and value segments some AMD SKUs are quite compelling. But consider the halo effect high end parts have on mainstream and low end purchasing.
Little Johnny logs onto a counterstrike sever where *everyone* is running an Intel rig. When Mom and Dad go to Best Buy he'll do his best to steer them to an Intel box, even though it won't be overclocked, ever.
Bob from accounting asks Gus the IT Guy what he's running at home. Gus gushes about his OCd Intel Q6600 with his Nvidia 9800GX2. Bob walks away trying to remember 'Intel' and 'NVidia.'
Fred the IT buyer loaded up on P4s while those were clearly the worst buys and worst performance/watt machines back in the mid 2000s -- nobody ever got fired for buying Intel. Now he considers loading up on Phenoms, but then considers what happens if some CxO's box bluescreens due to viruses or spyware or immature BIOS. He's in meetings explaining why he chose to go with an unproven, lower performing, known to have issues solution to save a grand total of $50/PC. Fred decides to play it safe.
I wouldn't say the mainstream prospects are all that rosy. The Phenom launch was quite disastrous. In fact, Idontcare is on to something -- changing the product brand will do more good than harm.
*If* AMD can get Shanghai out the door and make a compelling argument for the upgrade cycle of their existing opteron base then they could do quite well continuing to sell opterons with the decent ASP's they fetch.
It won't help the mobo makers as the allure for socket compatible opterons diminishes when you start talking about replacing entire 1U hardware setups (why not migrate to harpertown at that point).
Whether that means they need to shrink the company to 1/2 its current size in order for the volume behind those opteron ASP's to support the bottom line or not is a question their CFO has no doubt evaluated.
But yes, finding your entire desktop SKU portfolio competing with Intel's lowest bin celeron value market is a downward death spiral the likes of which Centaur, Cyrix, and Via have decended.
I'll also add that in my early days at Texas Instruments we actually fabbed Cyrix's original 386 and then 486 chips. In addition, once spurned by Cyrix in their move to IBM as a foundry, Texas Instruments manufactured 486 chips and competed directly against AMD and Intel. It was a downward spiral, you never heard of a TI pentium-class chip...we faded out of existence in that market space.
Where is AMD headed *if* they can't get another architecture back on top of Intel's tick/tock lineup? You only need to know your x86 industry history and it becomes self-evident how this ends.
Via survives because they MASSIVELY dialed back their market expectations once the PIII and the Athlon hit the markets. Reality does that sometimes.
batmang
Diamond Member
- Jul 16, 2003
- 3,020
- 1
- 81
I agree. Also, the 9600 RETAIL is $219. Thats still cheaper than the RETAIL Q6600 by about $35. As long as your not overclocking that is a great deal IMO. AMD really does need to release some higher clocked Phenoms though....I hate that Intel has the complete upper hand in the enthusiast market. Thats why I went with AMD (my sig). I like the underdog. I liked it better when they were even. It made Intel have reasonable pricing. The E8400 launched at $220-230. Now its no less than $259. COME ON AMD!!!!!
Exactly right. Which helps explain the absurdly low price tags Intel is hanging on Xeons -- lower than desktop equivalents in some cases. They're making the value proposition of a hardware platform switch very, very very difficult to resist for the segment of the market that cares about price/server.
But can such a downward death sprial still support the kinds of executive compensation the people at the top have grown accustomed to? The CxOs have also asked themselves that question -- will the board continue compensating us at the same levels when the company is half the size and rapidly shrinking? Is it better to get more $ while the getting is good, or try to think and act long term?
Whether or not AMD will be big enough to continue competing with Intel (and Nvidia) on the R&D front once heads roll is yet another question.
There is room at the top of the food chain for 2 or 3 players. Everyone else must play the small, furry mammal role and find a niche. VIA found its niche in the mini-itx segment with low power, low cost, low energy use platforms.
Much like how S3 still survives to present day.
Kuzi
Senior member
- Sep 16, 2007
- 572
- 0
- 0
AMD messed up the 65nm fight, Phenom is slower and produces more heat than comparable Intel CPUs. AMD will not be able to get quad-core CPUs any higher than 2.6GHz at 65nm.
If AMD wants to make any sales with the soon to be released B3 processors, they have to sell them dirt cheap, that is the only way.
I also believe Intel can release Nehalem before AMD releases any 45nm CPUs, but they might just wait. Lets hope AMD does better with 45nm Shanghai, no more bugs and low clocks :/
If AMD wants to make any sales with the soon to be released B3 processors, they have to sell them dirt cheap, that is the only way.
I also believe Intel can release Nehalem before AMD releases any 45nm CPUs, but they might just wait. Lets hope AMD does better with 45nm Shanghai, no more bugs and low clocks :/
65nm really was a turning point for the worse for AMD. I don't think anyone can really deny that.
Power consumption did not materially decrease, speedbins did not materially increase.
It was basically a die-shrink node so AMD could print more chips/wafer...other than that there appears to have been zero benefits to the consumer.
http://www.tomshardware.com/20...stepping_improvements/
Cookie Monster
Diamond Member
- May 7, 2005
- 5,161
- 32
- 86
I thought phenoms were actually pretty "cool" temperature wise? cant seem to find a review on it.
Are you interested in temps or power consumption?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...d-phenom_15.html#sect0
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=10
Sucking 30 more watts at load just from the CPU is a *LOT* of extra heat to dissipate. Reports of Phenoms idling at nearly 50C are not unheard of (rated max is 70C). In theory they should match a Q6600 at idle, of course.
Sucking 30 more watts at load just from the CPU is a *LOT* of extra heat to dissipate. Reports of Phenoms idling at nearly 50C are not unheard of (rated max is 70C). In theory they should match a Q6600 at idle, of course.
That article is crap. Only an idiot would publish this without an explanation. Something happened during the test, or Sandra is the most worthless benchmark ever. A bunch of the results are clearly noise - they probably just ran each benchmark once. Maybe during that Sandra run, Windows synchronized the clock or something. A lot of what they say is just plain wrong.
Hey I just thought they were trying to say G2 was the shiznit
But you have a good point that they did too much of a cursory analyses and not enough attention to the details. Maybe it was intern day?
For something like that you really should get yourself say 10 retail samples of each stepping and generate some probability distributions before attempting to speak to the significance of the mean power consumption value of any given stepping.
BUT what doesn't help is that AMD doesn't do this themselves (i.e. publish actual power consumption numbers by stepping), and instead the task of generating this kind of comparison gets left up to the least scientific of efforts by the THG folks.
You know AMD has the data, why not just put it out there and at least reduce the chances of malicious articles doing even more harm.
But something did happen to 65nm...maybe CIT worked too well and the final iterations of 90nm ended up having 95% of the 65nm node's goodies in them already?
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Hey I just thought they were trying to say G2 was the shiznit
But you have a good point that they did too much of a cursory analyses and not enough attention to the details. Maybe it was intern day?
For something like that you really should get yourself say 10 retail samples of each stepping and generate some probability distributions before attempting to speak to the significance of the mean power consumption value of any given stepping.
BUT what doesn't help is that AMD doesn't do this themselves (i.e. publish actual power consumption numbers by stepping), and instead the task of generating this kind of comparison gets left up to the least scientific of efforts by the THG folks.
You know AMD has the data, why not just put it out there and at least reduce the chances of malicious articles doing even more harm.
But something did happen to 65nm...maybe CIT worked too well and the final iterations of 90nm ended up having 95% of the 65nm node's goodies in them already?
From looking at the article, it looks to me like they are either running EE versions of the 90nm CPUs or undervolting them, because stock X2 5000+ 90nm voltage is not 1.184V. According to newegg, stock voltage should be 1.30/1.35V: http://www.newegg.com/product/...turesmx-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA
The reason that you see such power consumption in the THG article is that the 90nm F3 is running at 1.184V, while the F2 90nm is running at an unknown voltage, since the load CPU-Z image for the F2 CPU is the same image as for the F3 CPU. For the 65nm G1, voltage is 1.328V and for G2, voltage is 1.344V
So all this test shows is that if you undervolt a 90nm F3, you can acheive the same results as a stock 65nm G2.
Thanks for bringing up the voltage...I did a double take when I read the article and saw the load volts in the CPU-Z shots, but then having no recent experience with the AMD side I figured that was something they intentionally did with the 65nm X2's to boost the number of chips that fell into the speedbin.
(same TDP for 90nm and 65nm because the 65nm voltages are higher, but because of this there are even more chips/wafer that hit that speedbin at 65nm)
So is it really just fubar'ed? Do the G2's really not require 1.34'ish volts to hit their speeds? Or are the 90nm numbers just BS because they are using EE chips?
Really to make the analyses more robust they should have intentionally undervolted all the chips so they were functioning at their minimum stable voltage for stock clockspeeds while fully loaded. Then you'd have a clearer assessment of the underlying technology. Not perfect, but it would be better.
The voltage for the 65nm parts seems to be pretty accurate - AMD's Brisbane CPUs have a fairly high stock voltage, looking at newegg, voltage for 5000+ Brisbane is 1.325-1.375V. Stock voltage for 5000+ BE, guaranteed G2, seems to be a bit lower @ 1.25-1.35V.
AMD does have a 90nm 2.6GHz part with a 65W TDP - the Opteron 1218 HE is 2.6GHz w/ 65W @ 1.20-1.25V. From what I see though, there is no X2 5000+ 90nm that ran at 65W.... IDK, but whatever, THG results are clearly FUD.
Cookie Monster
Diamond Member
- May 7, 2005
- 5,161
- 32
- 86
Kuzi
Senior member
- Sep 16, 2007
- 572
- 0
- 0
You see AMD's 90 nm process was excellent, throughout it's life time AMD kept on tweaking and improving it. They had the time and resources to do that because Intel were still dealing with their Netburst mess.
After the release of 65nm Core 2 processors everything changed, Intel got a huge boost in performance over X2s and also were a process generation ahead (smaller, cheaper, less heat and power).
AMD released 65nm processors about 18 months after Intel (that is normal for AMD), but the clocks went down instead of going up. I mean if the fastest Athlon X2 at 90nm clock to 3.2Ghz, you would expect the new process generation to clock at least 3.6Ghz or so. Instead Brisbanes only ran at 2.6GHz-2.8Ghz.
Phenom being a quad core would have a hard time just getting to 2.6GHz, and if you look at Phenom OC results after increasing the frequency a few hundred Mhz, the power draw becomes unbelievably high, probably the cause of a serious leakage problem.
It remains to be seen if/how AMD will fix this leakage problem with 45nm, I do have high hopes for Shanghai, at least to allow AMD to be competitive again. A 10-15% clock per clock performance increase over Phenom and at least 3GHz frequency would help them do that. But can they do it?
After the release of 65nm Core 2 processors everything changed, Intel got a huge boost in performance over X2s and also were a process generation ahead (smaller, cheaper, less heat and power).
AMD released 65nm processors about 18 months after Intel (that is normal for AMD), but the clocks went down instead of going up. I mean if the fastest Athlon X2 at 90nm clock to 3.2Ghz, you would expect the new process generation to clock at least 3.6Ghz or so. Instead Brisbanes only ran at 2.6GHz-2.8Ghz.
Phenom being a quad core would have a hard time just getting to 2.6GHz, and if you look at Phenom OC results after increasing the frequency a few hundred Mhz, the power draw becomes unbelievably high, probably the cause of a serious leakage problem.
It remains to be seen if/how AMD will fix this leakage problem with 45nm, I do have high hopes for Shanghai, at least to allow AMD to be competitive again. A 10-15% clock per clock performance increase over Phenom and at least 3GHz frequency would help them do that. But can they do it?
Keysplayr
Elite Member
- Jan 16, 2003
- 21,219
- 56
- 91
But When Intel released 65nm C2D, clocks went down as well. The fastest retail Netburst CPU was 3.8 GHz (single core) and Pentium D 960 (dual core) was 3.6 GHz. The fastest C2D at release, was 2.93 GHz (flagship).
Different architectures. Clock speed is irrelevant.
AMD's Phenom is a different architecture from Athlon 64/X2.
The only difference was, Intel got a lot more performance moving to a new architecture than AMD did moving to a new architecture, even though clocks were lowered across the board for both companies.
Comparing the transition from Netburst to Core 2 and from A64 to Phenom really isn't a valid comparison.
Netburst and Core 2 are very different architectures. For example, Netburst has a 31 stage pipeline, Core 2 only a 14 stage pipeline... that can explain why clocks had to be lower.
Phenom and A64 are very similar, Phenom is the same basic architecture with tweaks in most areas of the core, 4 cores, shared L3, and faster HyperTransport.
Kuzi
Senior member
- Sep 16, 2007
- 572
- 0
- 0
Agreed. Can't compare two different architectures, but Phenom and Athlon 64 are similar, both are 12 stage pipeline if I remember correctly.
keysplayr2003: The problem Phenom is facing with low clocks right now is not so much architecture as it is bad process. As even the Athlon X2s at 65nm only clock to 2.6GHz. That was what I meant in my last post.
superstition
Platinum Member
- Feb 2, 2008
- 2,219
- 221
- 101
To be fair, that Phenom was selling for $150 at CompUSA...
Comparing standard pricing to huge discount pricing isn't exactly right.
It is taking quite sometime for AMD to clock Phenom up, but AMD's 65nm process is slowly maturing. We have 2.8GHZ Brisbane SKU's out now. Not too shabby.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103242
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter