Rumour: Bulldozer 50% Faster than Core i7 and Phenom II.

[Arkadrel]

If alot of new games are useing 6cores/threads, why would you want to only have 2 cores? and lose all that cpu performance advantage a 6core cpu would have?

 

[Phynaz]

What makes you think that consumers don't want more cores?

Intel is at 6 right now, they are rumored to be at 8 cores sometime after AMD.

People that think that moving to more cores is not the direction the market is heading over the next few years have not been paying attention.

First they said nobody needs more than one core.
Then they said nobody needs more than two cores.
Then it was four cores.

Trust me, the people that say there is no need for more than four cores are the same people that own quad cores today. And used to say dual was fine.

Call me in a year and tell me you still recommend quads.

Joe Six Pack?

Most don't even know what cpu cores are, let alone want more of them.

Selling based upon number of cores to your average consumer is a mistake. When your wife bought her last car did she care about engine displacement or transaxle final drive ratio?

 

[waffleironhead]

Joe Six Pack?

Most don't even know what cpu cores are, let alone want more of them.

Selling based upon number of cores to your average consumer is a mistake. When your wife bought her last car did she care about engine displacement or transaxle final drive ratio?

I think you are forgetting the very successful intel marketing campaign.
"Dual Core: Do More"

Selling based on bigger better faster has always attracted buyers, whether it be horsepower, cpu cores, or FPS. Hell my dad bought a quad core and all he does is play solitaire most days. Why?, because it had more cores than the dual core next to it on the shelf.

 

[evolucion8]

My GF wanted to buy an i3 for her PC, but when I told her that the i3 is only a Hyper Threaded Dual core and costed almost the same as the Athlon II X4 635 which is a real quad core, she opted for the AMD CPU.

 

[996GT2]

My GF wanted to buy an i3 for her PC, but when I told her that the i3 is only a Hyper Threaded Dual core and costed almost the same as the Athlon II X4 635 which is a real quad core, she opted for the AMD CPU.

The sad part is that the i3-2100 performs on par with (or better than) a quad core Athlon II X4 635 in just about anything, despite the fact that the latter is a "true" quad core.

In Cinebench's single threaded benchmark, the i3 blows away anything AMD has to offer:

Even in the multithreaded benchmark, the dual core i3 performs nearly on par with the quad-core Athlon II X4 645, meaning it would probably beat the lower-clocked 635.

Even in games that do benefit from more cores (like Civ 5), the i3 is superior to AMD's quad-core Phenoms, so the Athlons (crippled by their lack of L3 cache) stand no chance:

 

[gregoryvg]

What makes you think that consumers don't want more cores?

Intel is at 6 right now, they are rumored to be at 8 cores sometime after AMD.

People that think that moving to more cores is not the direction the market is heading over the next few years have not been paying attention.

First they said nobody needs more than one core.
Then they said nobody needs more than two cores.
Then it was four cores.

Trust me, the people that say there is no need for more than four cores are the same people that own quad cores today. And used to say dual was fine.

Call me in a year and tell me you still recommend quads.

So, would I be better off (more future looking) if I were to build an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (on sale at Microcenter) system over the new i5 2500K for gaming? I'm looking at building this right now, so BD is not an option atm.

 

[996GT2]

So, would I be better off (more future looking) if I were to build an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (on sale at Microcenter) system over the new i5 2500K for gaming? I'm looking at building this right now, so BD is not an option atm.

No. A 2500K will absolutely destroy a 1055T in every single benchmark. The AMD might have more cores, but the performance of each core is considerably less than Intel.

The end result? It doesn't hold a candle to a 2500k.

Proof? See the Anandtech article with full benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/17

 

[Martimus]

So, would I be better off (more future looking) if I were to build an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (on sale at Microcenter) system over the new i5 2500K for gaming? I'm looking at building this right now, so BD is not an option atm.

If you are looking to build now, then the i5 2500K isn't an option either since they recalled the boards, and no-one seems to be selling the processor either. (Even if they were, you couldn't do anything productive with it without a motherboard.)

I would say that the I5 2500K would be better in most games than the X6 1055T. Although I thought the X6 was cheaper at MC than the 2500K anyway. If you scroll up a few post to 996GT2's post, he shows a faster clocked X6 (the 1100T) against a I5 2500K in a single game, and cinebench. If you read the Anandtech article on Sandybridge, you can see more game comparisons as well.

 

[996GT2]

If you are looking to build now, then the i5 2500K isn't an option either since they recalled the boards, and no-one seems to be selling the processor either. (Even if they were, you couldn't do anything productive with it without a motherboard.)

I would say that the I5 2500K would be better in most games than the X6 1055T. Although I thought the X6 was cheaper at MC than the 2500K anyway. If you scroll up a few post to 996GT2's post, he shows a faster clocked X6 (the 1100T) against a I5 2500K in a single game, and cinebench. If you read the Anandtech article on Sandybridge, you can see more game comparisons as well.

You can still buy SB parts at some places. My friend just bought an Intel P67 motherboard yesterday

 

[gregoryvg]

If you are looking to build now, then the i5 2500K isn't an option either since they recalled the boards, and no-one seems to be selling the processor either. (Even if they were, you couldn't do anything productive with it without a motherboard.)

Actually, I already own the i5 2500K. Bought it at Microcenter last weekend for $299 (combo deal with an ASUS P8P67) before intel released their recall. So I can either keep it and do the recall thingee or get an AMD Proc.

I will more than likely keep the 2500k, because I haven't seen the 6-Core AMD chips beat it in any current games (comes kinda close in a couple), but I am wondering about future games. Per thread the i5 is stronger than the Phenom, but what if a game really does need 6-cores, any chance of the AMD pulling ahead?

 

[evolucion8]

The sad part is that the i3-2100 performs on par with (or better than) a quad core Athlon II X4 635 in just about anything, despite the fact that the latter is a "true" quad core.

In Cinebench's single threaded benchmark, the i3 blows away anything AMD has to offer:

Even in the multithreaded benchmark, the dual core i3 performs nearly on par with the quad-core Athlon II X4 645, meaning it would probably beat the lower-clocked 635.

Even in games that do benefit from more cores (like Civ 5), the i3 is superior to AMD's quad-core Phenoms, so the Athlons (crippled by their lack of L3 cache) stand no chance:

The issue here is that I built her the PC way before that i3 2100 was launched, and the Athlon II X4 635 was competitive and was a better performing chip compared to the first generation of i3, is obvious that you can't compare both now as the current i3 is newer and faster while the Athlon II X4 635 has been in the market for more than a year.

 

[ShadowVVL]

by JFAMD
Call me in a year and tell me you still recommend quads.


Whats your number again?

 

[JFAMD]

I think AtenRa said it best.



lol indeed, it would be like see an old thread from 1996 that was about how games would never use more then a single core lol.

btw jf I remember reading about a fiber optic cpu that intel had been doing research on and im wonder is amd doing the same? Or is fiber optic cpu way to far in the future?

We will definitely need to see some new materials in semiconductors eventually. Just don't know what and when. I only deal in the next 18 months for 75% of my job and I leave materials to the experts who know about that stuff.

by JFAMD
Call me in a year and tell me you still recommend quads.


Whats your number again?

http://blogs.amd.com/

 

[ShadowVVL]

Oh and he hit me with the blog,,,I did not see that coming lol.

Maybe in 2015-2020 we will see something new. Also there was the diamond cpu idea like 10 years ago, but I think that was probably canceled due to cost or some other issue.

 

[zebrax2]

Seriously though if you don't find any use for the extra cores then you could always buy the lower core variants. Even if IPC didn't increase general performance would probably be still higher as it will probably be clocked higher

 

[JFAMD]

Seriously though if you don't find any use for the extra cores then you could always buy the lower core variants. Even if IPC didn't increase general performance would probably be still higher as it will probably be clocked higher

Exactly. So many people say that "there is no need for..." when they really mean "I have no need for...."

Sometimes the market is bigger than 1 person, you shouldn't believe that every product needs to be built to your specs. Instead, just buy what you need and let others buy what they need.

 

[maddie]

Exactly. So many people say that "there is no need for..." when they really mean "I have no need for...."

Sometimes the market is bigger than 1 person, you shouldn't believe that every product needs to be built to your specs. Instead, just buy what you need and let others buy what they need.

SO SO true. Sometimes I feel we have a very dictatorial few here.

 

[RyanGreener]

Exactly. So many people say that "there is no need for..." when they really mean "I have no need for...."

Sometimes the market is bigger than 1 person, you shouldn't believe that every product needs to be built to your specs. Instead, just buy what you need and let others buy what they need.

Agreed 100%.

 

[Axon]

Exactly. So many people say that "there is no need for..." when they really mean "I have no need for...."

Sometimes the market is bigger than 1 person, you shouldn't believe that every product needs to be built to your specs. Instead, just buy what you need and let others buy what they need.

Personally, when I say something like that, its in the context of what the person asking wants out of their system. Most of the guys who participate in the recommendation threads do the same. If someone asks for a gaming rig, there is no reason at this time to recommend an i7 2600k over an i5 2500k - the two bench virtually the same in gaming, and the i5 is $100 less. If that same person wants to do more comprehensive computing, like encoding, then yes, they absolutely should get an i7 2600k.

So if I have an 8 core CPU I'm considering, but the games I play only use three cores (and it appears that trend will continue for the next two years), why should I spend an additional $100 or more on an already expensive component? Or if the 8 core CPU benches the same as the quad core, again, why spend more? This is true for myself and anyone with a similar profile.

With that said, let me go back to your original point, which was entirely accurate. If BD is better for gaming, I don't give a s**t how many cores are in there. It could be 1 or 100 cores, but ultimately, I only care that it's the best gaming CPU (assuming the price isn't out of control, like $1000 for the 990x, or whatever that chip costs these days). But it has to bench better, and given how few games take advantage of extra threads, I don't expect the additional cores to be an advantage.

 

[Mopetar]

The future of computing could drastically change as the core count increases. People claim that there's no way to use that power effectively, but I think that they're just not thinking very hard.

Why not use one or two to run all of your web browsers in a virtual machine? If there's a browser exploit it's very unlikely that it escapes the VM sandbox, making it even more difficult for machines to be exploited.

If we've got another couple of cores sitting around, why not put them on encryption duty, encrypting and decrypting everything stored on disk, so that even if the machine becomes compromised your data is still safe.

If we still have some left over cores, let's allow other smart devices in our house to ship computationally heavy loads to the computer. The TV in the other room can have the computer transcode anything it doesn't understand into something that it can. Let it talk with my car to analyze traffic patterns and find quicker routes to frequently visited locations.

We're only limited by our own imaginations. If anyone can't think of something to do with more CPU cores, I'll be glad to take them instead.

 

[Castiel]

Actually, I already own the i5 2500K. Bought it at Microcenter last weekend for $299 (combo deal with an ASUS P8P67) before intel released their recall. So I can either keep it and do the recall thingee or get an AMD Proc.

I will more than likely keep the 2500k, because I haven't seen the 6-Core AMD chips beat it in any current games (comes kinda close in a couple), but I am wondering about future games. Per thread the i5 is stronger than the Phenom, but what if a game really does need 6-cores, any chance of the AMD pulling ahead?

Keep it. Amd's current lineup can't hold a candle to sandy bridge

 

[Voo]

The future of computing could drastically change as the core count increases. People claim that there's no way to use that power effectively, but I think that they're just not thinking very hard.

Uh except for the fact that there are lots of things where there exist no work efficient multi threaded algorithms (you don't happen to have a practically relevent parallel algorithm for sparse graphs in a PRAM model lying around?) and others that just don't scale well above a few dozen cores. So sorry to damp your enthusiasm, but not all problems will profit from more cores - though that's an extremely large research area.


But sure 8 cores will work for most stuff just fine, but I just remember the great discussions we had back about whether someone should get a e8400 or a Q6600. How many people said one should get the quadcore because at least by 2010 we'd be severely limited in new games. Well it's 2011 now and I think we can safely say that precognition turned out to be just completely wrong. So if someone wants to bet with me that by 2013 we'll have several games where a quad core will be severely limited compared to a hexcore, I'm all for it


I don't say that there aren't use cases where more cores are useful (distributed computing, en/decoding, ..) just that that's a minority of all users.. but if someone wants to call me out on that, we can make a poll in this forum and see if we get more than 15% (and the AT crowd is doubtlessly an extreme sample )

 

[SickBeast]

There are a ton of current games that benefit enormously from a quad core vs. a dual core.

 

[thilanliyan]

I will more than likely keep the 2500k, because I haven't seen the 6-Core AMD chips beat it in any current games (comes kinda close in a couple), but I am wondering about future games. Per thread the i5 is stronger than the Phenom, but what if a game really does need 6-cores, any chance of the AMD pulling ahead?

Performance in most newer games will be determined more by your GPU and not your CPU. The benchmarks you see of games tested with different CPUs are usually run at low resolutions (which you probably won't be doing) to show differences in the CPUs. In reality there will be very little difference in game performance.

 

[Ajay]

Performance in most newer games will be determined more by your GPU and not your CPU. The benchmarks you see of games tested with different CPUs are usually run at low resolutions (which you probably won't be doing) to show differences in the CPUs. In reality there will be very little difference in game performance.

This ^^^^^^. There are exceptions to every rule, but not many care that their min frame rate is 22fps instead of 25 fps, so long as the game appears to play smoothly.

As far as CPUs and cores go, semiconductor engineers are running out of tricks to get higher clocks and higher IPC. The easiest way to get more throughput is to add cores - it's just that the software is lagging in it's use of more cores just as it's always lagged in supporting new features.