Things are looking better for AMD

[tokie]

I was thinking about waiting for Bulldozer, but realistically even if it does beat a stock Sandy Bridge, there is no way it is going to beat a 4.5GHz overclocked Sandy Bridge. The kind of x86 innovation required would be enormous, and I just don't see that kind of IPC improvement as possible at this stage in the game with how much everything has been integrated into the CPU.

 

[Bearach]

All i was saying is don't think AMD is your friend. If they take the performance crown they will charge through the teeth for their top product. Like you said if one is at the top they charge what they want.

Yeah, I agree, AMD is just a company like Intel. They're both trying to make as much profits as possible, and to think one wouldn't is a little naive.

 

[shabby]

Bulldozer will be at least 25% faster than the current Phenom II's clock-for-clock.

I heard it'll be 50% faster...

 

[Makaveli]

And I heard that bill gates actually had a hit done on steve jobs back in the late 80s. The steve jobs we have now is actually an alien from another planet who is here to observe and steal all our mojo with Iphones!

 

[Castiel]

And I heard that bill gates actually had a hit done on steve jobs back in the late 80s. The steve jobs we have now is actually an alien from another planet who is here to observe and steal all our mojo with Iphones!

"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Sandy Bridge-E (socket 2011) will be the high end, for Intel. It's not going to have the onboard GPU. So just imagine what performance increases Intel will get if they happen to put processor logic in place of the GPU logic. For one Anand mentioned extra cache, but no specifics, which should definitely improve performance.

 

[Makaveli]

I think its been confirmed that SB-E chips will have more cache then the current mid tier version. Its should be quite the beast i'm hoping BD really pulls off a win even it its only for a short time. In the grand scheme of things tho it starting to look like AMD merely got lucky when intel was trying to push the P4.

And what I mean by that is they have been in battle with a bigger foe with far more resources from day one and intels slip ups has helped them alot in the past. However i'm not sure they will ever make that mistake again.

Intel will never totally kill AMD for the powers at be would never allow it, but they will forever keep them in 2nd place. Alteast on the CPU front.

 

[soccerballtux]

meh, Crysis Warhead is the future of gaming:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=146

who cares how much faster this is? AMD is cheaper and does what everybody needs it to. 2x as fast as what you need is still 2x as fast as what you need.

While I think AMD will be hurting even with Bulldozer, they'll still be fine for what we need.

 

[Wreckage]

Not only that, but intel just handed them a huge chunk of the low-end market by eliminating overclocking on the i3.

I doubt even a microscopic spec of the low end market even knows what overclocking is.

 

[cmdrdredd]

When there's a chipset on a mobo that has SATA 6Gbps and TWO x16 PCIe lanes not two 8x..then maybe it will be worth my time.

 

[Castiel]

meh, Crysis Warhead is the future of gaming:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=146

who cares how much faster this is? AMD is cheaper and does what everybody needs it to. 2x as fast as what you need is still 2x as fast as what you need.

While I think AMD will be hurting even with Bulldozer, they'll still be fine for what we need.

If you think that's bad look at the 2600K vs the 1100T.. Yikes what a beatdown

 

[exar333]

I heard it'll be 50% faster...

Link for this? That's IMHO an outlandish claim.

 

[Castiel]

I've heard everything about BD.. I even heard it can walk on water. All BS till we get some leaked benchmarks

 

[Bearach]

Link for this? That's IMHO an outlandish claim.

I really think he was just being sarcastic.

No one knows what Bulldozer is like, at least anyone whom can talk about it anyway.

 

[flexcore]

I am a AMD supporter and I think they are going to have a tough time with bulldozer. I agree with BD doing well in highly threaded apps and struggling with lightly threaded ones. This will go over good with the server crowd and DC but unfortunately desktops need to be able to handle lightly threaded loads. Programming just hasn't kept pace with core count.

 

[ilkhan]

When there's a chipset on a mobo that has SATA 6Gbps and TWO x16 PCIe lanes not two 8x..then maybe it will be worth my time.

You sig says you are using a single GTX295. Why would you want more than 16 PCI-E lanes?
An 8x8 setup is only marginally slower than 16x16 is under SLI regardless.

 

[shabby]

When there's a chipset on a mobo that has SATA 6Gbps and TWO x16 PCIe lanes not two 8x..then maybe it will be worth my time.

You need to do some more reading, sata 6gbps is on all sandybridge mobo's, 2 ports are native and some boards have additional ones. And if you want 2x16pcie lanes get the x58 mobo or wait for the high end 2011 socket.

Link for this? That's IMHO an outlandish claim.

I was about as serious as the op.

 

[SickBeast]

I was about as serious as the op.

I'm being serious.

 

[shabby]

I was being super serious too, srsly!

 

[RussianSensation]

I am one of the first to admit that I wish SB delivered about 20% IPC improvement but it ended up being about 10-15% on average. Still, it's on 32nm process and at 4.8ghz 2600k will be about as fast as a 5.3ghz Core i7 920....that's still a 35% performance gain from my Core i7 @ 3.9ghz (which in itself is more or less faster than anything AMD has at the moment).

The bottom line is AMD now has nothing to compete with Intel at $180+. However, I see AMD becoming an even better alternative < $150. Once next generation consoles ship, future graphics will take a giagantic leap forward - and once again we'll be purely GPU limited. At that point it probably won't matter much if you are gaming with a $150 or a $500 CPU. Modern processors have become so fast for games, that you are almost always better off buying a new graphics card.

However, more and more consumers are shifting towards mobile systems. From that market perspective, AMD is even farther behind. Intel will completely dominate the mobile space for mainstream and high-end notebooks unless BD brings insane performance/watt improvements.

 

[exar333]

I am one of the first to admit that I wish SB delivered about 20% IPC improvement but it ended up being about 10-15% on average. Still, it's on 32nm process and at 4.8ghz 2600k will be about as fast as a 5.3ghz Core i7 920....that's still a 35% performance gain from my Core i7 @ 3.9ghz (which in itself is more or less faster than anything AMD has at the moment).

The bottom line is AMD now has nothing to compete with Intel at $180+. However, I see AMD becoming an even better alternative < $150. Once next generation consoles ship, future graphics will take a giagantic leap forward - and once again we'll be purely GPU limited. At that point it probably won't matter much if you are gaming with a $150 or a $500 CPU. Modern processors have become so fast for games, that you are almost always better off buying a new graphics card.

However, more and more consumers are shifting towards mobile systems. From that market perspective, AMD is even farther behind. Intel will completely dominate the mobile space for mainstream and high-end notebooks unless BD brings insane performance/watt improvements.

I mean I do somewhat agree, but at what point do you just pay the extra $50 for a huge performance increase? What about when MC has deals for the 2500k for say $150? That would basically make every AMD option a poor choice unless you are really strapped for a build and need a $100 MB/CPU combo. With SB, if you are doing a full build, it doesn't make much sense to go AMD when you can get a CPU/MB combo with SB quads for $~300. Unless your breaking the bank at that price point, why not pay a little more and get the performance you really want.

 

[RussianSensation]

I mean I do somewhat agree, but at what point do you just pay the extra $50 for a huge performance increase? What about when MC has deals for the 2500k for say $150?

Well I didn't include MC because that's a bit unfair! I am waiting to see their prices on 2500k and 2600k. Agreed, if there is a MC near you, things get worse for AMD, but AMD throws in a free or $10 mobo with their processor as well to sweeten the deal.

With SB, if you are doing a full build, it doesn't make much sense to go AMD when you can get a CPU/MB combo with SB quads for $~300. Unless your breaking the bank at that price point, why not pay a little more and get the performance you really want.

That has been my logic. Still, I see a market for AMD's CPUs. Every $50-100 towards a videocard/SSD matters. That's where AMD wins. Put it this way, you can buy an X4 640 ($99) + GTX470/HD6870($210-230) or just a 2600k ($320) + Integrated graphics.......

 

[Rifter]

Im going to start off by aying i like AMD, they offer good CPU's at the $100 or lower price point right now. And every system in my house is AMD other than my main rig in sig.

That said AMD really needs to get there crap together, they have been falling apart since the core2 days and show no signs of turning it around. There new Phemon II CPU's arnt even competeing with anything intel has made in 2 years, they are competeing with 2+ year old core2 quads in performance. Now with SB out AMD is really going to take a pounding. Overclocking is not done by enough people for SB being locked out to effect much of anything in overall sales, its not going to drive droves of customers to AMD thats for sure.

I have high hopes for BD but unless we are talking a 50+&#37; IPC improvement(i think i have a better chance of winning the lottery than this happening) i think LGA 2011, which will probably be out the same time or close to BD, is going to murder it and we will still be right where we are now with all AMD CPU's selling for $250 or less because they cant compete and the top intels still being $1000+, a complete reversal of the A64 vs P4 days.

 

[beginner99]

As far as I understood a 8-core bulldozer is more or less a 4-core SB with HT. Yes it has a little more hardware than used for HT but that hardware is useless for single-threaded performance, where AMD currently just sucks which is probably best seen in Starcraft II Benchmarks.
And it does matter. Just look around. probably only the most common Software is actually multi-threaded. Most not so common (but still commercial) software is not or would not benefit from it.
And I doubt we will see much of an increase here clock-by-clock. I don't think AMD has the resources to pull that off.

EDIT:
I have never seen an AMD computer anywhere in companies or universities...They just don't buy from them and yes overclocking is irrelevant on marketshare. Just look at some of your friends how much they know about cpus and how much they care. Nothing and not at all.

Plus as indicated AMD sucks even more in mobile space where they can't just compete by using more cores because of power restrictions. So it's not only performance that sucks but especially performance per watt.

 

[richierich1212]

EDIT:
I have never seen an AMD computer anywhere in companies or universities...They just don't buy from them and yes overclocking is irrelevant on marketshare. Just look at some of your friends how much they know about cpus and how much they care. Nothing and not at all.

Why do you think that is? Most of the companies or universities that I've visited have Dells, and you already know what happened with Dell + Intel several years ago, why do you think they got massive fines? Plus Intel had to pay AMD just recently for monopolistic tactics.