What if bulldozer...

[SickBeast]

Sandy Bridge came out close to a year ago. Bulldozer can't even beat out the Phenom II in a number of tests. It would have been a failure even if it had been released two years ago.

It does have a few redeeming qualities, but once you consider power consumption, it's quite frankly a really bad processor.

 

[Martimus]

how fast was it supposed to go, 5+ghz? Longer pipeline should have let it no?

If you remember all our discussions stemming from Hot Chips last year when they unveilled the base architecture, then yes: 5GHz was kind of the target. We knew they weren't going to get there when the issues with the low-k dielectric surfaced combined with the relative poor performance from the gate-first high-k dielectric. The pipeline is already plenty long, and the comparisons to netburst are more than justified. (I think most of us were worried about this direction, although they didn't go as far as Intel did when they designed their chip to NEED extremely high clock speed, but they did go that route from practically the beginning of the design.)

EDIT: I apologize her the short terse statements. I am tired, but I seem to remember us speculating on there being a stock 5GHz bulldozer eventually based on the design decisions which showed large latencies in many components. The low clock speeds of Llano was a big red flag, since the 32nm process introduced a new lower-K dielectic and a high-k dielectic that should have allowed higher clock speeds, but instead we got lower ones. It was that moment that I expected AMD to wait out the process for higher clock speeds, since the architecture was never going to be competitive unless they were able to increase clock speed over current processors by at least 20% due to the increased latencies from accessing nearly all layers of cache, along with other issues.

I am sure you know more about it that I to be honest, so maybe my musings were way off, but it seemed pretty straight forward to me at the time.

 

[Idontcare]

If you remember all our discussions stemming from Hot Chips last year when they unveilled the base architecture, then yes: 5GHz was kind of the target. We knew they weren't going to get there when the issues with the low-k dielectric surfaced combined with the relative poor performance from the gate-first high-k dielectric. The pipeline is already plenty long, and the comparisons to netburst are more than justified. (I think most of us were worried about this direction, although they didn't go as far as Intel did when they designed their chip to NEED extremely high clock speed, but they did go that route from practically the beginning of the design.)

Hopefully 22nm ends up being gate-last. Every indication is that it will be.

Unfortunately it will be a year (at best) behind Intel's 22nm and Intel's 22nm will have moved on from the benefits of gate-last to the benefits of 3D xtor-tech

Its like those math word-problems we all had in algebra - a man leaves chicago aboard a train traveling 80 mph to LA, another man leaves by car traveling 65 mph, who gets to LA first?

AMD can't possibly hope to catch up to Intel, much less stop the rate of the growth in the gap between them, without out-spending them...and out-spending them is simply a mathematical impossibility at this stage.

5-stages of grief:

1. Denial — "AMD is fine, they've been down before, they'll bounce back!"
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual.
2. Anger — "WTF is this BD BS? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen?"; '"Who or what is to blame? Is it the compilers? Those lazy good for nothing programmers? JFAMD?"
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.
3. Bargaining — "I'll buy them anyways, gotta support competition."; "Where's the undervoltage testing? Surely there is a niche for this product where it WINRAR's the day..."; "Just wait till Piledripper or SteamingPile or Constipator are released, AMD has promised it will do better next year!"
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the inevitable. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand this sucks, but if I could just do something to convince myself to just wait longer..."
4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with AMD anymore?"; "I'm just going to buy an Intel SB soon anyways so what's the point... What's the point?";
During the fourth stage, the ardent AMD supporter begins to understand the certainty of AMD's situation. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse to login to their favorite forums and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the individual to disconnect from things they once held near and dear. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.
5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "AMD can't fight it, they may as well prepare for it."; "NV will probably buy them anyways..."
In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with the inevitable, they move on with life, pleasantly surprised to find that their newly acquired 2600K does not give their kids leukemia despite what they read on AMDZone...

​

 

[Dadofamunky]

Bulldozer's biggest problem is that it was designed to go much faster than it is. Due to the manufacturing problems at the foundry, they just can't get those speeds. If there were no issues with the process, then it would have been released on time in all likelyhood based on what has been said, but alas that did not happen.

The good news about that is that we should see relatively large increases in clock speed as the 32nm process becomes more mature. So we should see better chips down the road. Since Intel has quite a bit of head room in their design already, they will likely respond with similar increases in clock speed as well, so we have a pretty nice win-win scenario for us as consumers. (although since Intel should be able to match any clock increases that AMD produces through the near future, that may preclude AMD from even attempting any clock speed increases and instead just use increased yields to help lower power consumption and reduce costs on packaged heat sinks.)

I think that's a pretty good assessment. Unfortunately, it's up in the air (at least to me) that AMD can afford the time lag while the process matures and the bugs are worked out of it. Not only that, but the single-threaded performance drop doesn't go away with a stronger process. Clock speed can mask some of that but only up to a point. I just hope AMD can somehow stay alive and functional.

 

[Dadofamunky]

And THIS (see below) is why IDK is a mod and I'm not ~

That is a first - applying Kubler-Ross to the Processor market! "SteamingPile!" OMG!

Hopefully 22nm ends up being gate-last. Every indication is that it will be.

5-stages of grief:

1. Denial — "AMD is fine, they've been down before, they'll bounce back!"
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual.
2. Anger — "WTF is this BD BS? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen?"; '"Who or what is to blame? Is it the compilers? Those lazy good for nothing programmers? JFAMD?"
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.
3. Bargaining — "I'll buy them anyways, gotta support competition."; "Where's the undervoltage testing? Surely there is a niche for this product where it WINRAR's the day..."; "Just wait till Piledripper or SteamingPile or Constipator are released, AMD has promised it will do better next year!"
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the inevitable. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand this sucks, but if I could just do something to convince myself to just wait longer..."
4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with AMD anymore?"; "I'm just going to buy an Intel SB soon anyways so what's the point... What's the point?";
During the fourth stage, the ardent AMD supporter begins to understand the certainty of AMD's situation. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse to login to their favorite forums and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the individual to disconnect from things they once held near and dear. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.
5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "AMD can't fight it, they may as well prepare for it."; "NV will probably buy them anyways..."
In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with the inevitable, they move on with life, pleasantly surprised to find that their newly acquired 2600K does not give their kids leukemia despite what they read on AMDZone...

​

 

[Maximilian]

5-stages of grief:

1. Denial — "AMD is fine, they've been down before, they'll bounce back!"
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual.
2. Anger — "WTF is this BD BS? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen?"; '"Who or what is to blame? Is it the compilers? Those lazy good for nothing programmers? JFAMD?"
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.
3. Bargaining — "I'll buy them anyways, gotta support competition."; "Where's the undervoltage testing? Surely there is a niche for this product where it WINRAR's the day..."; "Just wait till Piledripper or SteamingPile or Constipator are released, AMD has promised it will do better next year!"
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the inevitable. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand this sucks, but if I could just do something to convince myself to just wait longer..."
4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with AMD anymore?"; "I'm just going to buy an Intel SB soon anyways so what's the point... What's the point?";
During the fourth stage, the ardent AMD supporter begins to understand the certainty of AMD's situation. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse to login to their favorite forums and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the individual to disconnect from things they once held near and dear. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.
5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "AMD can't fight it, they may as well prepare for it."; "NV will probably buy them anyways..."
In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with the inevitable, they move on with life, pleasantly surprised to find that their newly acquired 2600K does not give their kids leukemia despite what they read on AMDZone...

​

I loled :awe:

 

[Zebo]

I'm still using a two year old 920 which is much faster clock for clock. I think it's even faster than SB but does not overclock as well. Basically they'd have to released it prior to fall of 08' to make me buy. But heat and power cancel that out so no it's a total failure.