Shanghai / Istanbul vs Nehalem?

[daw123]

Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Tempered81]

I would think nehalem will be faster clock for clock & OC higher

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: daw123
btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

LOL was it that thread where they claimed nehalem won't be released until this time next year?

 

[Zstream]

We have no idea how any of these overclock. Stock vs stock I think AMD will do decent.

All I know is that Shanghai will have 6mb of L3 Cache, it will feature the same L1 & L2 Cache. With 45nm it should be around 15-20% lower in power consumption with an increase of 15-20% clock for clock over Barcelona. Basically what it comes down to is that the L3 cache is severely lacking in barcelona.

This is all server talk as the more L3 cache the chip has the better. No idea how it will perform in games and what not.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Zstream
We have no idea how any of these overclock. Stock vs stock I think AMD will do decent.

All I know is that Shanghai will have 6mb of L3 Cache, it will feature the same L1 & L2 Cache. With 45nm it should be around 15-20% lower in power consumption with an increase of 15-20% clock for clock over Barcelona. Basically what it comes down to is that the L3 cache is severely lacking in barcelona.

This is all server talk as the more L3 cache the chip has the better. No idea how it will perform in games and what not.

15-20% increase in IPC just from the increase in L3$. I'm inclined to say unbelievable but is their historical data/evidence to substantiate the hope that increasing L3$ from 2MB->6MB will increase IPC by 15-20%? Or is this just purely a guesstimate/hopefulness?

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: daw123
Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

 

[Zstream]

If AMD keeps the same size L2 cache the only alternative is to increase the L3 cache and speed. Let me explain...

L1 cache is filled, L1 cache has data it no longer deems as necessary. It passes the data to L2 cache, once L2 cache is filled it proceeds to L3. With Barcelona the L3 cache is filled up amazingly fast due to the smaller L2 cache size, unfortunately it is not big enough to keep the left over L2 cache and when the chip needs to access the L3 cache it is painfully slow. AMD is moving the L3 cache I heard on the chip to make it faster and larger.

Don't blame me I still think Barcelona should of had a 128k L1 cache -> 8mb shared L2 cache and did away with L3 all together. AMD did not have the time to do this so we are stuck with it. (AMD saw the benefits of L3 cache in server environments, it sucks for 90% of normal workstation apps)

If you really want to see AMD move they should place 1mb of L2 cache on each core, that would help out a lot!

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Zstream
If AMD keeps the same size L2 cache the only alternative is to increase the L3 cache and speed. Let me explain...

I still don't see the math...how does all that you write add up to a 15-20% IPC improvement? (versus adding up to a 5% improvement or a 50% improvement)

AMD surely knew the bottlenecks in their K10 design and opted to allocate their transistor budget as best suited maximizing performance. I really find it hard to swallow that they shortchanged the L3$ by 4MB to the detriment of the chip's entire performance by 20%.

4MB of L3$ would not consistent 20% of the die-size or transistor budget, so if L3$ was the leading performance bottleneck then this would have been seen in the simulations long before tape-out and we would have seen larger L3$ on day one.

Understand I want to see a >20% IPC improvement, but I can't force myself to blindly hope and believe it will happen based on the scant few architecture tweak details that have leaked to date. I'm not ignorant enough of chip design to be bliss about this.

 

[Zstream]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Zstream
If AMD keeps the same size L2 cache the only alternative is to increase the L3 cache and speed. Let me explain...

I still don't see the math...how does all that you write add up to a 15-20% IPC improvement? (versus adding up to a 5% improvement or a 50% improvement)

AMD surely knew the bottlenecks in their K10 design and opted to allocate their transistor budget as best suited maximizing performance. I really find it hard to swallow that they shortchanged the L3$ by 4MB to the detriment of the chip's entire performance by 20%.

4MB of L3$ would not consistent 20% of the die-size or transistor budget, so if L3$ was the leading performance bottleneck then this would have been seen in the simulations long before tape-out and we would have seen larger L3$ on day one.

Understand I want to see a >20% IPC improvement, but I can't force myself to blindly hope and believe it will happen based on the scant few architecture tweak details that have leaked to date. I'm not ignorant enough of chip design to be bliss about this.

Obviously you are...

Who said anything about 4mb L3 cache? It is 6mb and it is quite faster. THE LATENCY IS WHAT KILLS L3 on THE CHIP.

Anyways read up on server applications and farm and then come back.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Zstream
Obviously you are...

Who said anything about 4mb L3 cache? It is 6mb and it is quite faster. THE LATENCY IS WHAT KILLS L3 on THE CHIP.

Anyways read up on server applications and farm and then come back.

I think its pretty clear that I'm referring to an extra 4MB (as in 6MB vs. 2MB).

Your tone is laughable. I ask for numbers and rational, you deliver specious words and zero justification.

Thanks for adding yourself to the list, it makes it easy when folks are pro-active like that.

 

[BLaber]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: daw123
Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

 

[the kernel]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Zstream
Obviously you are...

Who said anything about 4mb L3 cache? It is 6mb and it is quite faster. THE LATENCY IS WHAT KILLS L3 on THE CHIP.

Anyways read up on server applications and farm and then come back.

I think its pretty clear that I'm referring to an extra 4MB (as in 6MB vs. 2MB).

Your tone is laughable. I ask for numbers and rational, you deliver specious words and zero justification.

Thanks for adding yourself to the list, it makes it easy when folks are pro-active like that.

Indeed, this is a ridiculous assertion he is making. The whole point of the extra cache is to hide memory latencies and AMD already does a good job of that with the IMC. Intel doesn't see near that amount of IPC improvement with adding bigger caches and they have a much greater problem with memory latency without an IMC.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: BLaber

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: daw123
Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

No, its full of people who just want the best. Unless you have blinders on, right now Intel is the hands-down winner for enthusiasts. Can you run everything fine on a Phenom? Of course. But you arent taking a $130 Dual-core and cranking it to 4.0ghz anytime soon.

Go visit the video card section. This site is full of AMD fans that are just hoping and praying that they make a move in the CPU market. They are grudgingly using Intel for the time being because it is the smart move.

 

[VulcanX]

In my experience i would say Nehalem is gonna kill them just like the Core 2 generation, i am not as advanced as u dudes, but based on the architecture of the Core2s and Quads, i dont see how Nehalem can fail, they have the platform set, and for AMD to come back their integrated memory controller etc better be SUPER FAST, otherwise Intel gonna pwn them. If Intel could murder the Phenoms at 775 pin, what will it do at 1366 with higher FSB? LMFAO

 

[TekDemon]

I'm fairly certain that Core i7 is going to be significantly faster for desktop users. Unless you're planning on building a large multi-cpu computer for some sort of specialized or server use it's pretty unlikely that AMD is going to have the edge.
And Anandtech is not the Intel fanboy forums, they're generally preferred here because they have the fastest CPUs right now, so what do you expect people to say when asked which is the best CPU? Sticking with a particular brand of hardware for no good reason is retarded. Unless you personally work for AMD or your family members work for AMD or something it's ridiculous to be this attached to a brand. You might as well only buy Corsair RAM and refuse to buy anything else, or only buy Seagate hard drives and flame every other hard drive no matter what the benchmarks say. Nobody ever does that because it's insane, but for some reason CPU and GPU fanboys go nuts.
BTW, I've owned 3 different AMD CPUs over the years (T-bird 1.2Ghz, Athlon XP 1600+, and A64 754 3400+) so I have nothing against AMD, but for the foreseeable future they're not going to be ahead of intel in performance-especially if you plan on overclocking.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: BLaber
Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

For someone with a join date of 6/23/2008 you are prone to having little to no memory of just how disloyal the majority of members here were when A64 came out, same when Northwood came out, same when Conroe came out.

It's just how we are, a bunch of disloyal opportunists looking out for numero uno when it comes to the rigs we use.

Without AMD and their Athlons I would not have been able to pursue my PhD (chemical physics with emphasis on computational chemistry) as Intel just didn't have the FP horsepower/$ my research projects required at the time for completing the projects in a reasonable timeline.

And yet today my basement has five Intel quad-core systems running foreign currency exchange simulations to maximize the rate of coin going into my pocket from my business.

Don't get me wrong, I am a loyal fanboi...of my family and whatever is in their best financial interest.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: BLaber

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: daw123
Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

No, its full of people who just want the best. Unless you have blinders on, right now Intel is the hands-down winner for enthusiasts. Can you run everything fine on a Phenom? Of course. But you arent taking a $130 Dual-core and cranking it to 4.0ghz anytime soon.

Go visit the video card section. This site is full of AMD fans that are just hoping and praying that they make a move in the CPU market. They are grudgingly using Intel for the time being because it is the smart move.

Please, you have been one of the most egocentrical, absolutist posters on this forum ever since you purchased a Core 2 Duo.

They are good chips and in games they are very good products. However, in server environments such as virtualization and databases they are not superior. Since this isn't the 'PC Gaming' forum or the 'Video Card' forum your assertions that Intel C2D is a superior product is flawed. It is not especially when considering platforms. Right now the P35 and P45 and the X-3/4 series are nothing special outside of the overclocking.

Overclocking is a value added feature of the chip but it is not driving the market or their stocks. Intel's ability to pump them out at amazing quantity is. Not only that, clock for clock AMD Phenom's are very, very competitive. And if you want to dive into Overclocking then the Phenom's are now seriously giving Intel problems. Too little too late? Maybe, but they are price and performance very competitive for enthusiasts and AMD platforms are much more comprehensive.

Nvidia hasn't helped Intel out in this regard. The NF4 and NF570/590 are the last great chipsets. The 6 and 7 series are damaged products despite some people having luck with them. So, it would be nice if you didn't sound so biased. I have both s939 and AM2+ athlon X2's AND P35 based C2D computers.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: BLaber

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

No, its full of people who just want the best. Unless you have blinders on, right now Intel is the hands-down winner for enthusiasts. Can you run everything fine on a Phenom? Of course. But you arent taking a $130 Dual-core and cranking it to 4.0ghz anytime soon.

Go visit the video card section. This site is full of AMD fans that are just hoping and praying that they make a move in the CPU market. They are grudgingly using Intel for the time being because it is the smart move.

Please, you have been one of the most egocentrical, absolutist posters on this forum ever since you purchased a Core 2 Duo.

Folks this wasn't supposed to be an Intel Fanboi vs. AMD Fanboi thread, nor an AMD Zone vs. Anandtech forums thread.

Yes the OP made a (perhaps needless) opening remark regarding the forum members of AMD Zone, but that information was provided to us more as a way of explaining some of the motivation and curiosity behind the creation of this thread IMO.

Please let's keep it to the topic title and let this thread be about an uncharacterized AMD CPU vs. an uncharacterized Intel CPU.

 

[harpoon84]

I think with Nehalem Intel will extend its current performance lead, especially in a multi-threaded environment. Previews have indicated gains in MT performance of around 20 - 50%, I just can't see how AMD can compete with that with a die shrink + larger L3 cache. They'll probably get 5 - 10% IPC gains, which is nice for a shrink, but its a case of taking one step forward whilst the competition takes two steps... Intel is simply advancing at a faster rate than AMD at this point, and for the foreseeable future (although there are rumours of Intel slowing down the tick/tock cycle).

 

[BLaber]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: BLaber

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: daw123
Hello guys and gals,

I recently registered with AMDZone for the hell of it and I was wondering how Shanghai (or even Istanbul) compares to the i7 based on the current information available / released by AMD and Intel.

I realise that with none of these chips being released on the open market yet, benchmarks and information may not be accurate or could be misleading.

btw the people on AMDZone are AMD fanatics and realy hate Intel (or spIntel as they call them). Was this just me or have others had the same impression? It makes me not believe the information posted on that forum because it is generally so biased toward AMD.

This topic is purely for my own curiousity.

Thanks for reading.

They are diehard fanbois that just love to pay for inferior products. I would take everything they say with a grain of salt, just like if you signed up for "IntelLand" or some Intel fansite.

Just like that .... I thought Anandtech forums are unofficially known as "INTELZONE" just like we have AMDZONE for Amd fanbois ...

No, its full of people who just want the best. Unless you have blinders on, right now Intel is the hands-down winner for enthusiasts. Can you run everything fine on a Phenom? Of course. But you arent taking a $130 Dual-core and cranking it to 4.0ghz anytime soon.

Go visit the video card section. This site is full of AMD fans that are just hoping and praying that they make a move in the CPU market. They are grudgingly using Intel for the time being because it is the smart move.

Now just comparing your reply to Idontcare's reply , there's a huge difference.

Your Reply is just BLUNT , this is what I have been reading every time any AMD topic come's up.This is the only reason I wrote what I wrote. :disgust:

But look at IDC's reply so to the point without bragging about INTEL this , Intel that ,,, :thumbsup:

Iam not saying you shouldn't buy Intel CPU or any thing like that.. Buy the BEST thing your money will get U , but pls dont be a TROLL whenever an AMD thread comes up.

Sorry OP for spoiling your thread. . Also PLS BEAR WITH MY ENGLISH

 

[harpoon84]

I think with Nehalem Intel will extend its current performance lead, especially in a multi-threaded environment. Previews have indicated gains in MT performance of around 20 - 50%, I just can't see how AMD can compete with that with a die shrink + larger L3 cache. They'll probably get 5 - 10% IPC gains, which is nice for a shrink, but its a case of taking one step forward whilst the competition takes two steps... Intel is simply advancing at a faster rate than AMD at this point, and for the foreseeable future (although there are rumours of Intel slowing down the tick/tock cycle).

 

[harpoon84]

DP

 

[Martimus]

Just to add to the discussion, and attempt to steer it away from the stupid "Fanboy" arguments (since they are meaningless and unproductive), I found some information on Istanbul.

According to the article, it is a simple die shrink, with additional cache. the interesting thing that was pointed out was that AMD cores are about half the size of Nehalem Cores at 45nm (including L1 Cache.) They pretty much said that they could on combat hyperthreading by adding additional cores, since they are small enough to do that. So an AMD chip could literally have two cores for every two thread - single Intel core. Istanbul is expected to be just lower than 300 mm^2.

But, it doesn't look like we can expect much of a performance boost per core from the article. Although if they are able to increase the IMC frequency with the die shrink (which is plausible, since the power consumption should decrease allowing greater IMC speeds) then we should see a nice performance gain. I can't quantify what it would be, but a 10% increase in IPC from Barcelona to Shanghai doesn't seem unrealistic.

 

[jones377]

That isn't an actual die-picture of Istanbul however.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: jones377
That isn't an actual die-picture of Istanbul however.

Nope. It is an artists rendition (Hans De Vries). It is really just a Shanghai picture with two more cores photoshopped in. (Although looking at the picture again, it may be more than that even.) But that doesn't change that the core sizes should stay the same as they are with Shanghai.