Phenom II info leaks out, AMD hints at something

[nerp]

AMD has a long way to go before it has dug itself out of the hole. All signs in recent months ahve been promising and the company has made significant changes to its fundamental structure. ATI is gobbling up market share from nvidia, too.

But, the global economy is entering a recession, consumer spending is supposed to be hellaciously weak this holiday and long into 09, and AMD MUST become profitable in the near future to remain in existence. This is for sure.

Either we're watching AMD's last gasp, or this is the beginning of the company's return to profitabilty. If it does survive, buying AMD at $3 now will be a nice long-term investment.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. AMD made it possible for poor kids like I was build computers in the 90s.

 

[piesquared]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

That's a fairly curious statement right there. I can think of a few architectures in the last, oh, 15 years that have had great O/Cing characteristics yet not quite fit into their targeted power envelopes. Anyway, releasing high priced SKU's is a waste of time in the current economic trouble. I doubt very much that Intel will move many i965's.

Targeted power envelopes is part of the SKU. Higher clocked SKU obviously entails higher-TDP envelope.

This was obvious wasn't it?

Higher priced SKU's are no more a waste of time than being in business at all when losing money every quarter.

Well, i'm just wondering how you would suggest they shoe-horn a >125W cpu into a board that supports a <125W cpu. They are trying to maintain backwards compatibility after all. And I don't think they were losing money because they didn't have a $1000 processor. More like because the entire line didnt' compete (percieved). If they have a competing line up, a $1000 processor won't mean jack shit to the bottom line, just like the i965 isn't going to.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

That's a fairly curious statement right there. I can think of a few architectures in the last, oh, 15 years that have had great O/Cing characteristics yet not quite fit into their targeted power envelopes. Anyway, releasing high priced SKU's is a waste of time in the current economic trouble. I doubt very much that Intel will move many i965's.

Targeted power envelopes is part of the SKU. Higher clocked SKU obviously entails higher-TDP envelope.

This was obvious wasn't it?

Higher priced SKU's are no more a waste of time than being in business at all when losing money every quarter.

Well, i'm just wondering how you would suggest they shoe-horn a >125W cpu into a board that supports a <125W cpu. They are trying to maintain backwards compatibility after all. And I don't think they were losing money because they didn't have a $1000 processor. More like because the entire line didnt' compete (percieved). If they have a competing line up, a $1000 processor won't mean jack shit to the bottom line, just like the i965 isn't going to.

Did I shit in your wheaties or something this morning? What the hell.

 

[piesquared]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

That's a fairly curious statement right there. I can think of a few architectures in the last, oh, 15 years that have had great O/Cing characteristics yet not quite fit into their targeted power envelopes. Anyway, releasing high priced SKU's is a waste of time in the current economic trouble. I doubt very much that Intel will move many i965's.

Targeted power envelopes is part of the SKU. Higher clocked SKU obviously entails higher-TDP envelope.

This was obvious wasn't it?

Higher priced SKU's are no more a waste of time than being in business at all when losing money every quarter.

Well, i'm just wondering how you would suggest they shoe-horn a >125W cpu into a board that supports a <125W cpu. They are trying to maintain backwards compatibility after all. And I don't think they were losing money because they didn't have a $1000 processor. More like because the entire line didnt' compete (percieved). If they have a competing line up, a $1000 processor won't mean jack shit to the bottom line, just like the i965 isn't going to.

Did I shit in your wheaties or something this morning? What the hell.

Crap, I thought that might come across as a little too agressive. Apologies, just trying to get my point across.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

That's a fairly curious statement right there. I can think of a few architectures in the last, oh, 15 years that have had great O/Cing characteristics yet not quite fit into their targeted power envelopes. Anyway, releasing high priced SKU's is a waste of time in the current economic trouble. I doubt very much that Intel will move many i965's.

Targeted power envelopes is part of the SKU. Higher clocked SKU obviously entails higher-TDP envelope.

This was obvious wasn't it?

Higher priced SKU's are no more a waste of time than being in business at all when losing money every quarter.

Well, i'm just wondering how you would suggest they shoe-horn a >125W cpu into a board that supports a <125W cpu. They are trying to maintain backwards compatibility after all. And I don't think they were losing money because they didn't have a $1000 processor. More like because the entire line didnt' compete (percieved). If they have a competing line up, a $1000 processor won't mean jack shit to the bottom line, just like the i965 isn't going to.

Did I shit in your wheaties or something this morning? What the hell.

Crap, I thought that might come across as a little too agressive. Apologies, just trying to get my point across.

You sure did get your point across

I agree with your point. However, the $1000 dollar processors are often more of a marketing tool than anything else. If company As fastest CPU dominates the competition, then its generally perceived by the public that company A has the faster CPU at all the price range. This is rather known as the "halo effect" and i think this is pretty important. I guess in one sense having to lose the FX series and not being able to produce a high end flagship, AMD did lose quite abit of mindshare which is pretty important when it comes to marketing.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: piesquared

Originally posted by: Idontcare

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

That's a fairly curious statement right there. I can think of a few architectures in the last, oh, 15 years that have had great O/Cing characteristics yet not quite fit into their targeted power envelopes. Anyway, releasing high priced SKU's is a waste of time in the current economic trouble. I doubt very much that Intel will move many i965's.

Targeted power envelopes is part of the SKU. Higher clocked SKU obviously entails higher-TDP envelope.

This was obvious wasn't it?

Higher priced SKU's are no more a waste of time than being in business at all when losing money every quarter.

Well, i'm just wondering how you would suggest they shoe-horn a >125W cpu into a board that supports a <125W cpu. They are trying to maintain backwards compatibility after all. And I don't think they were losing money because they didn't have a $1000 processor. More like because the entire line didnt' compete (percieved). If they have a competing line up, a $1000 processor won't mean jack shit to the bottom line, just like the i965 isn't going to.

Did I shit in your wheaties or something this morning? What the hell.

Crap, I thought that might come across as a little too agressive. Apologies, just trying to get my point across.

OK ok, lets both calm down then, we can both do this like rational people My apologies too for taking things too personal/literal.

Let me back-up, here's my thinking...let's say AMD is seeing lots of X4's that are stable/functional at 3.6GHz but they dissipate 160W.

I think we are both in agreement that this is plausible (exact watts and GHz aside) if the AMD marketing slide is to be believed.

Now obviously one way to sell these 160W chips is to so-called underclock them to 3GHz where they would consume <125W. (I am making up these numbers just to paint the picture here)

Since the majority of AM2 mobos in existance today support 125W chips this makes for a good upgrade chip for a lot of folks. (your point I believe, which I accept)

My point is that it should also make sense to AMD to go ahead and bin out some of those 3.6GHz 160W chips and market them as FX chips and make a mobo requirement for handling their current draw and power dissipation.

My argument here financially is that selling one 3.6GHz chip for $500 is better than selling two 3 GHz chips for $200 each.

My practicallity argument here is that no matter what mobo the consumer plugs their 3GHz 125W X4 into, if they are in fact going to overclock it to 4Ghz then that poor little mobo is about to get beat like a rented mule.

So why not at least give the mobo makers a chance to create and sell some mobo's that can officially live thru such beatings? Brand it the FX series again, and everyone can sell a few more higher margin SKU's.

Yes the chips are higher power, and they'd require new mobo's but presumably so too would any 4GHz overclocked Phenom II X4.

As for $1000 CPU's...whether it makes a difference or not, doesn't it at least help to try and cash in on it? Those opterons are upwards of $2.5k for a good reason...gross margins help a company live longer (bleed more slowly). They aren't a panacea of money for the company, but it can't hurt them can it?

 

[piesquared]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster


However, the $1000 dollar processors are often more of a marketing tool than anything else. If company As fastest CPU dominates the competition, then its generally perceived by the public that company A has the faster CPU at all the price range. This is rather known as the "halo effect" and i think this is pretty important. I guess in one sense having to lose the FX series and not being able to produce a high end flagship, AMD did lose quite abit of mindshare which is pretty important when it comes to marketing.

Originally posted by: IdontcareMy point is that it should also make sense to AMD to go ahead and bin out some of those 3.6GHz 160W chips and market them as FX chips and make a mobo requirement for handling their current draw and power dissipation.

I don't think AMD has the marketshare, or influence to convince a motherboard maker to produce a 160w board. Also I think it'd be way to expensive and counter-intuitive to AMD's imperative of P/W. I just don't think a >125W cpu would be all that appealing to consumers, especially given energy costs today.
Not to mention, the Intel marketing machine would have an absolute field day with that, and would devestate AMD's reputation as a company striving for P/W and P/W/D leadership.

I do agree however, that a flagship sku would help in gaining mindshare, and that is fairly important. Ultimately that falls on the shoulders of responsible journalism though, and reviewing products in the area they aim to compete. Not like the days of old, when processors at the same price point were reviewed, with a few top of the line OMFGBBQSAUCEADDRELISH Ultra Extremes are thrown in for good measure, just to show the outrageous disparities. That's what creates the mindshare, even though it is largely irrelevant to the consumer looking at a $200 purchase.

There is another way to create mindshare though, like in the Athlon XP days when enthusiasts found great value in buying cheaper chips. Unfortunately in those days though, the broader market wasn't allowed to capitalize on those great opportunities. But I digress, i'm getting off on a tangent.

Anway, yeah, mindshare can be created through other means besides $1000 sku's. Server is a different ball of wax though, as i'm sure you are aware. Margins are significantly higher for a good reason.
Besides, there are pretty strong hints that an FX is on the way.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: piesquared
I don't think AMD has the marketshare, or influence to convince a motherboard maker to produce a 160w board. Also I think it'd be way to expensive and counter-intuitive to AMD's imperative of P/W. I just don't think a >125W cpu would be all that appealing to consumers, especially given energy costs today.

If a new mobo is needed/required to support ~4GHz Phenom II's because of current/amperage requirements then to what end is AMD advertising the idea that enthusiasts can experience lots of overclocking headroom with the 3GHz SKU?

What mobo is AMD supposing these enthusiasts are using?

This is the part of the logic that I am failing to find self-consistent.

As for special higher wattage mobos...didn't AMD go thru an iteration with the early 140W Phenoms that were blowing up boards so they revamped their mobo requirements? That didn't pose to much of an issue apparently given that they did it.

This is all just getting back to what I was thinking when I said something doesn't seem right with AMD purportedly stating the Phenom II has 4GHz overclocking headroom but they aren't interested in making profits by creating higher clocked SKU's.

If that were truly the motivation then they would not have created the 140W SKU's with Phenom that was blowing mobo's before. But they did it anyways. And now they say they have the legroom to do it again, and the experience to make sure it isn't a problem, but suddenly have a lack of interest. I don't get it.

So everyone gets to overclock their Phenom II to 4GHz only to blow up their mobo in the process? Great I guess.

Originally posted by: piesquared
Not to mention, the Intel marketing machine would have an absolute field day with that, and would devestate AMD's reputation as a company striving for P/W and P/W/D leadership.

You make a great point here. Intel caps i7 TDP at 130W, AMD follows with capping the Phenom II ACP at 125W.

Definitely playing the conservative card here to keep Intel marketing from having an easier job than they otherwise already have.

At this point in time all I want to know is if a 3GHz Phenom 940 is going be performance competitive in single-thread apps with an i7 940.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

It will get better at 32nm when they introduce High-K

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Lol 920 and 940.

Why not just go the last step and call them Phenom II X4 i7 920.

Wonders when the 965 is coming...not shown on any of the roadmaps.

The purported overclocking headroom is nice but it makes one wonder why they don't offer higher clocked (and higher priced) SKU's if the 940's really can clock to 4GHz territory. Something doesn't seem quite right there.

indeed hopefully they can do something though. I really hope they crush i mean really blow intel out of the water.

Dunno how you can be a fan boy of one or the other though. Its not like the products have any differentiation. Just buy the best one... and if Intel remains on top AMD will be gone or sold in a few years. And we will be in a bad place with slow progress

 

[nyker96]

they seem to hit above 4 ghz OC!

 

[RedShirt]

Can a AM3 processor be put into an AM2+ motherboard? My board only supports up to a 95 watt processor. I'd like to just do a drop in upgrade and be done with it (rather than getting a new motherboard, reformatting, and all that jazz).

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: nyker96
they seem to hit above 4 ghz OC!

You are looking at a marketing slide. I would reserve my judgement.

 

[BLaber]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
It will get better at 32nm when they introduce High-K

High-k will only be used at 32 nm for producing low power consumption chips.That is what this slide tells

http://images.anandtech.com/re...2008FADay/3roadmap.jpg

 

[BLaber]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: nyker96
they seem to hit above 4 ghz OC!

You are looking at a marketing slide. I would reserve my judgement.

I think nyker96 must be referring to the MSI engineer (Toppc @ coolaler forums), who did show Deneb c0 stepping @ 4ghz on air on MSI DKA790 Platinum board. :thumbsup:

Stepping that will come out on Jan 8 is c2.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: BLaber

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
It will get better at 32nm when they introduce High-K

High-k will only be used at 32 nm for producing low power consumption chips.That is what this slide tells

http://images.anandtech.com/re...2008FADay/3roadmap.jpg

I use to be in the business of preparing my own slides for external viewers...that stage where you take highly accurate and technically relevant information and you sanitize it for public release and rarely do you end up with a slide that communicates what you really intended to say but the VP's on the approval loop are finally happy and allow you to make it (the somewhat muddled info) public.

That said it makes very little sense for AMD to restrict the deployment of HK/MG to just low-power low-performance devices.

I look at that slide and I see labels being used that do not fully communicate the entirety of the underlying process technology feature set.

Consider that if HK/MG really were not viable for implementation in low(er)-power high(er)-performance devices then its actually a rather bad sign that the process tech is not functioning to the level (then in 2010) that Intel's was functioning nearly 3 yrs prior (at that point). I 90% doubt that scenario to be plausible.

I fully believe the 32nmSOI_HP label to be just that, a label on a slide intended to communicate to the viewer when the qual process is intended to start and begin for the 32nm high-performance node, and that those device will in fact contain HK/MG even though the node label does not explicitly hint at it...after all AMD publicly stated HK/MG would be available in the second revision of 45nm and they have yet to refute their own slides to my knowledge.

 

[Kraeoss]

this is much interesting....

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: RedShirt
Can a AM3 processor be put into an AM2+ motherboard? My board only supports up to a 95 watt processor. I'd like to just do a drop in upgrade and be done with it (rather than getting a new motherboard, reformatting, and all that jazz).

According to FUDzilla yes the AM3 Phenom II's will be socket compatible and backwards functional in an AM2+ board:

These CPUs will work in both AM2+ and AM3 boards as they have a combo memory controller that can support both memory standards.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index....view&id=10500&Itemid=1

 

[Kraeoss]

yes this is so convienient my board just died and i need a budget solution just so happens there are some fairly cheap asus boards that will support them so i guess i'll get one slap a sempron in it untill then...

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
According to FUDzilla yes the AM3 Phenom II's will be socket compatible and backwards functional in an AM2+ board:

Weren't Phenoms supposed to work on even the original socket AM2 boards?

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Idontcare
According to FUDzilla yes the AM3 Phenom II's will be socket compatible and backwards functional in an AM2+ board:

Weren't Phenoms supposed to work on even the original socket AM2 boards?

They do on some, but most MB manufacturers never made the neccesary BIOS updates, and most importantly, the Phenoms had much higher power requirements than the X2's. In the AM3 case, the power problem won't exist. Even so, I still have my doubts for backward compatability for AM3 to AM2+, just due the differences in DDR2 and DDR3 voltages that the IMC would have to deal with.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Idontcare
According to FUDzilla yes the AM3 Phenom II's will be socket compatible and backwards functional in an AM2+ board:

Weren't Phenoms supposed to work on even the original socket AM2 boards?

They do on some, but most MB manufacturers never made the neccesary BIOS updates, and most importantly, the Phenoms had much higher power requirements than the X2's. In the AM3 case, the power problem won't exist. Even so, I still have my doubts for backward compatability for AM3 to AM2+, just due the differences in DDR2 and DDR3 voltages that the IMC would have to deal with.

Yeah it's definitely of questionable value to the supply chain ex-AMD when AMD makes these things socket compatible like that.

Last thing Asus wants to hear is that they get to spend $ on BIOS engineers making a bios update so a bunch of people can buy AMD CPU's but not upgrade their mobos.

The power thing was irony. Poor mobo guy spends the money to make the bios, doesn't score himself a new mobo sale to go along with that CPU sale, and then the CPU blows up the dam mobo which then gets RMA'ed with expectation that the mobo maker is going to eat the warranty costs.

Yeah that's a business model I want to be part of

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Yeah it's definitely of questionable value to the supply chain ex-AMD when AMD makes these things socket compatible like that.

Last thing Asus wants to hear is that they get to spend $ on BIOS engineers making a bios update so a bunch of people can buy AMD CPU's but not upgrade their mobos.

The power thing was irony. Poor mobo guy spends the money to make the bios, doesn't score himself a new mobo sale to go along with that CPU sale, and then the CPU blows up the dam mobo which then gets RMA'ed with expectation that the mobo maker is going to eat the warranty costs.

Yeah that's a business model I want to be part of

At the same time, if they sold the MB with the premise of it being compatible with Phenom CPU's, then they better make good on it, or they open themselves up for lawsuits and bad press. (You can look at the Gigabyte 680i MB's to see what happens when they don't live up to their promises.) If they never made such promises, then I would doubt they would make those updates to the BIOS, unless they are trying to gain customer loyalty through good customer service.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Martimus
At the same time, if they sold the MB with the premise of it being compatible with Phenom CPU's, then they better make good on it, or they open themselves up for lawsuits and bad press. (You can look at the Gigabyte 680i MB's to see what happens when they don't live up to their promises.) If they never made such promises, then I would doubt they would make those updates to the BIOS, unless they are trying to gain customer loyalty through good customer service.

Oh yeah, definitely no disagreement there. If the mobo makers takes on the responsibility of providing compatibility then they better darn well provide it.

Even though my 680i Asus Striker board is long since dead, it still pisses me off that Nvidia chipsets (or the mobo traces to said chipsets) weren't designed to be Yorkfield compatible.

Could argue Intel did this intentionally to harm Nvidia over the Skulltrail/SLI debacle, but still it sucked to be a consumer getting screwed there.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I think AMD's business model wasn't as bad as it sounds here. AMD obviously used future upgradeability as a reason to buy their hardware. It was a great selling point, to buy an AM2 socket A64 knowing that you'd be able to upgrade to a Phenom quad core down the road. But, you didn't get all of the functionality/performance without a full platform upgrade. This would prompt the enthusiast crowd to upgrade their boards with the CPU's making everyone happy. And having that upgrade path may have been a deciding factor for some people making the initial purchase... Asus I'm sure would love to sell you two boards, but would rather sell you one board then zero.

Of course the average AM2 board wasn't built with 125-140 watt CPU's in mind. Hell, most early AM2+ boards weren't built with that in mind.