[techpowerup]piledriver emerges.. vishera details show promise:quad channel ddr3, HTA

[IonusX]

piledriver is the followup to bulldozer architecture. it has 4 families that use this architecture: trinity (apu), vishera (consumer), terramar (high end server), sepang (low end server). and today we have news about vishera
vishera will sport support for quad channel ddr3, up to 10 cores, TBM and BMI instructions, fma3 and f16c as well as a 16-bit floating point type and the really fascinating hyper-transport assist which up till now was only found on opteron cpu's.
http://www.techpowerup.com/159062/AMD-Vishera-Packs-Quad-Channel-DDR3-IMC-G34-En-Route-Desktop-.html

 

[RavenSEAL]

God I hope this thing doesn't blow. AMD really needs the focus on increasing the IPC and cache. Otherwise, there is no way in hell they'll get past Piledriver as far as performance chip production.

No MOAR COREZ PLEXZZ!!!

 

[nemesismk2]

thanks for the info

 

[IonusX]

God I hope this thing doesn't suck, they really need the focus on increasing the IPC and increasing the cache.

No MOAR COREZ PLEXZZ!!!

as far as techpowerup article is aware L1 cache i doubling from bulldozer to piledriver. it also appears that trinity it little more than a quad core vishera with no L3 cache. kind of like how the athlon II x4's were phenom II x4's with no l3 cache also my ninja's tell me that trinity (quad core) of equal clock is 25% better (cpu fluid bench wise) than the a8-3870k.

 

[ShadowVVL]

God I hope this thing doesn't blow. AMD really needs the focus on increasing the IPC and cache. Otherwise, there is no way in hell they'll get past Piledriver as far as performance chip production.

Same, but its amd so don't expect too much.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I need more corez

 

[Joepublic2]

as far as techpowerup article is aware L1 cache i doubling from bulldozer to piledriver. it also appears that trinity it little more than a quad core vishera with no L3 cache. kind of like how the athlon II x4's were phenom II x4's with no l3 cache

That's cool, but one of the main reasons bulldozer isn't as fast as it can be is because the cache latency is higher than Intel's (L1 and L2, not sure about L3); a smaller, faster L1 is much preferable to a larger, higher latency L1 given the same percentage of cache hits in a given application.

 

[IonusX]

That's cool, but one of the main reasons bulldozer isn't as fast as it can be is because the cache latency is higher than Intel's (L1 and L2, not sure about L3); a smaller, faster L1 is much preferable to a larger, higher latency L1 given the same percentage of cache hits.

its also because it has vastly fewer transistors than they were hyping. if they had met their full transistor count it would probably have been 20% better or so. (we can only assume, we dont actually know)

 

[RavenSEAL]

its also because it has vastly fewer transistors than they were hyping. if they had met their full transistor count it would probably have been 20% better or so. (we can only assume, we dont actually know)

 

[IonusX]

would you like to grab some nano transistors and find out with me?? ill go halvzies on the 8150 XD

 

[frostedflakes]

I'm assuming they mean "quad channel" like G34 boards already have, which is two dies with dual channel IMC on the same package. So it means up to four channels for server parts, still two for desktop/workstation. I find it very hard to believe that they would be moving to quad channel for their mainstream desktop/workstation platforms and presumably octo channel for MCM server. I don't even know how you'd make an octo channel chip, it would require a ton of pins and an enormous socket.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I'm assuming they mean "quad channel" like G34 boards already have, which is two dies with dual channel IMC on the same package. So it means up to four channels for server parts, still two for desktop/workstation. I find it very hard to believe that they would be moving to quad channel for their mainstream desktop/workstation platforms and presumably octo channel for MCM server. I don't even know how you'd make an octo channel chip, it would require a ton of pins and an enormous socket.

Wait for it...

Aliens?

On a serious note, you're right. I don't understand AMD's idea of using a server architecture as the platform for a desktop chip. I don't think anyone does...

Therefore, aliens.

 

[MaxPayne63]

up to 10 cores

What exactly do they mean by a 'core?'

 

[Magic Carpet]

What exactly do they mean by a 'core?'

5 modules?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Old, but still relevant:

Stop putting more crappy, slow, power-sucking cores on your consumer CPUs and maybe you'll get somewhere, AMD.

Putting two more cores won't fix the problem. Make each core significantly faster (at least 25% faster) and lower the power consumption by 25% and then you might have a somewhat decent CPU.

 

[SickBeast]

I like the diagram, Mr. Axel.

Some people within AMD clearly did go coo coo for cocoa puffs. Bulldozer started off as a crazy project where the CEO probably did look just like your drawing. Even after several revisions, the madness ensues.

Here's my drawing, equally relevant:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[nismotigerwvu]

What would be the point of 16 bit floats?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Wait for it...

Aliens?

On a serious note, you're right. I don't understand AMD's idea of using a server architecture as the platform for a desktop chip. I don't think anyone does...

Therefore, aliens.

What, you mean like SNB-E/Gulftown?

AMD A4/A6/A8 <---> Intel i3/i5/i7 (LGA 1155)
Interlagos <-----> SNB-EP

Also, I think it's cute that people rip on AMD for having lackluster CPU cores, but nobody really tears Intel a new one for the god awful HD graphics and their pathetic attempt at HPC with "Knights Corner". And I'm an Intel fan, but it's ridiculous to ignore that AMD just *does* a lot more for us as enthusiasts than Intel does.

 

[Concillian]

quad channel DDR3... so they can push IGP even harder since they've never been particularly memory bandwidth limited for CPU tasks.

I'll believe the IPC improvements when I see them, in the meantime it's looking like moar coares and 256 bit memory access so they can market APUs based on better IGP performance vs. IB since their dual channel IGPs were already pretty limited by bandwidth.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

What, you mean like SNB-E/Gulftown?

AMD A4/A6/A8 <---> Intel i3/i5/i7 (LGA 1155)
Interlagos <-----> SNB-EP

Also, I think it's cute that people rip on AMD for having lackluster CPU cores, but nobody really tears Intel a new one for the god awful HD graphics and their pathetic attempt at HPC with "Knights Corner". And I'm an Intel fan, but it's ridiculous to ignore that AMD just *does* a lot more for us as enthusiasts than Intel does.

Well, for desktops the admittedly awful Intel HD graphics doesn't matter much because there's tons of discrete cards, though Llano is good for HTPCs and if you undervolt it gives a good combination of price/performance and performance/watt, especially if you use the IGP. For laptops Llano is very good, and Zacate/Ontario is very good for ultra-portables/netbooks. Bottom line, Zambezi simply sucks.

 

[Concillian]

Also, I think it's cute that people rip on AMD for having lackluster CPU cores, but nobody really tears Intel a new one for the god awful HD graphics and their pathetic attempt at HPC with "Knights Corner". And I'm an Intel fan, but it's ridiculous to ignore that AMD just *does* a lot more for us as enthusiasts than Intel does.

When it comes up, people certainly rag on Intel for their IGP. Especially the drivers.

We rag on what has major shortcomings. BD's major shortcomings are largely IPC and efficiency related, so that's what gets picked on.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Well not every cpu company bankrupts their company and stalls innovation for six+ years to purchase an overpriced gpu company then bring a APU to market a year later than the other cpu company that didn't.

Intel hasn't been trying to create gaming gpus.

Knights Corner isn't that bad, what it isn't, is a gaming gpu, what it is is a gpgpu co processor that can use x86 code, so it's already plus 1'ed AMD since AMD's gpus are running on empty when it comes to software support for gpgpu.

 

[SickBeast]

OP FWIW I see nothing exciting about a new CPU that's 10% faster than an uber failure that runs pig rich. More cores do nothing for the average person. If you work for AMD please tell them to scrap all this crap based on their horrific new architecture and go back to the drawing board, focusing on creating a single powerful core than can compete with what Intel has.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I like the diagram, Mr. Axel.

Some people within AMD clearly did go coo coo for cocoa puffs. Bulldozer started off as a crazy project where the CEO probably did look just like your drawing. Even after several revisions, the madness ensues.

Here's my drawing, equally relevant:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

LOL I love all the funny pictures people have come up with in regards to the BD debacle.

 

[IonusX]

OP FWIW I see nothing exciting about a new CPU that's 10% faster than an uber failure that runs pig rich. More cores do nothing for the average person. If you work for AMD please tell them to scrap all this crap based on their horrific new architecture and go back to the drawing board, focusing on creating a single powerful core than can compete with what Intel has.

from the way things are looking trinity beats llano by 25% and it has none of the software fun stuff vishera gets it also doesnt get as much l1 or l3 cache and it gets min. 2/5ths the core modules of a vishera
as long as they dont goof on transistor count and use their chance at coding instructions properly then vishera will be a huge improvement over bulldozer across the board. expect its 8core piledriver to outpace the 8150 by easily 30-40% which puts the vishera 8 core well into i7SB/SB-E turf. and thats before you even discuss the 5 module vishera. so piledriver will be ebtter but will intel waste it with IB.. no doubt
i expect a similar environment in the piledriver/IB era that we saw in the am3 vs 1156/1136 era.

what happens after that well assuming amd doesnt botch it again that trend will continue indefinitely