What the AMD Tech Guy said

[Black96ws6]

I haven't had a lot of luck lately posting things that haven't already been posted, so if this has, apologies and mods please delete.

A few nuggets on Bulldozer, ARM, and Fusion:

http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2011/09/14/what-the-amd-tech-guy-said/

 

[BlueBlazer]

I haven't had a lot of luck lately posting things that haven't already been posted, so if this has, apologies and mods please delete.

A few nuggets on Bulldozer, ARM, and Fusion:

http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2011/09/14/what-the-amd-tech-guy-said/

I've read this earlier, but all I see is about servers. Not a single mention of desktop, Zambezi or AMD FX processors. :hmm:

 

[Plimogz]

The bits about the shared resources of Bulldozer and the implications and trade-offs of said sharing -- that'll affect desktop users as well. Can't say how with any confidence, however. So yeah... let the long, uninformed wait continue.

 

[BlueBlazer]

The bits about the shared resources of Bulldozer and the implications and trade-offs of said sharing -- that'll affect desktop users as well. Can't say how with any confidence, however. So yeah... let the long, uninformed wait continue.

A sample quote from JF-AMD here....

I know you won't believe it, but in reality, we go after customers and parts of the market, not competitors. Why would I go squarely after their products, there are plenty of places that they are not at. Yes, we are focused on threaded applications because we believe that there is more upside on threading moving forward and less opportunity for single threaded environments.

Remember, he's a server guy. The are quite a number of users there literally "feeding from his hands", so to speak. I'm not one of them, and I often do "read between the lines". :hmm:

 

[sangyup81]

also, "moar cores" works way better for server applications

 

[thilanliyan]

I don't even care if Zambezi is that great. There's nothing I do that is super CPU-intensive other than the occasional video encode.

I just want to see their server side (where the real money is if I'm not mistaken) making bucket loads of cash so they have the resources to invest in R&D for the future...hopefully.

I'd rather not see Intel completely dominate.

On a side note, has anybody else noticed that either Intel or AMD have only been super friendly with OCing folk when they are the performance underdogs? Or is it just me. I seem to remember Intel had a bunch of the OC type of event that AMD just did when they were coming out from the Netburst era.

EDIT: The real money is in mobile apparently. Thanks for the correction AtenRa.

 

[AtenRa]

I just want to see their server side (where the real money is if I'm not mistaken) making bucket loads of cash so they have the resources to invest in R&D for the future...hopefully. .

I believe that was some years ago, now days Mobile market is bigger than Desktop or server, and i believe it will be bigger than both of them together very soon.

http://www.investorvillage.com/mbthread.asp?mb=476&tid=10759150&showall=1

Intel Q2 2010 Server total revenue in $K= $2,235,818
Intel Q2 2010 Desktop total revenue in $K= $2,717,361
Intel Q2 2010 Mobile total revenue in $K= $4,341,669

AMD needs to be competitive in Mobile, thats where the money is now and will be in the near future, thats why they say Fusion is the future

In order to get that, they need to be compatitive in Server/Desktop too, because they will be using the same architectures for all three markets, BD will be used in Server, Desktop AND mobile (Trinity).

So i dont think that the performance of BD will be that low as ES benchmarks show.

 

[BlueBlazer]

On a side note, has anybody else noticed that either Intel or AMD have only been super friendly with OCing folk when they are the performance underdogs? Or is it just me. I seem to remember Intel had a bunch of the OC type of event that AMD just did when they were coming out from the Netburst era.

Intel did have them at trade shows. Intel were also showing Conroe benchmarks especially lots of SuperPi (and if not mistaken breaking a SuperPi world record). AMD did the same with Deneb (pushing it to above 6GHz on extreme cooling) and breaking 3dMark05 record (which was later broken again by overclockers on Intel CPUs).

 

[thilanliyan]

Intel did have them at trade shows. Intel were also showing Conroe benchmarks especially lots of SuperPi (and if not mistaken breaking a SuperPi world record). AMD did the same with Deneb (pushing it to above 6GHz on extreme cooling) and breaking 3dMark05 record (which was later broken again by overclockers on Intel CPUs).

So both are only doing it when they need some goodwill from the enthusiasts? I'm not surprised.

 

[Idontcare]

So both are only doing it when they need some goodwill from the enthusiasts? I'm not surprised.

LOL, exactly, next we'll have some people putting 2 and 2 together and realizing that these companies only seem to want our money too

 

[Idontcare]

I believe that was some years ago, now days Mobile market is bigger than Desktop or server, and i believe it will be bigger than both of them together very soon.

http://www.investorvillage.com/mbthread.asp?mb=476&tid=10759150&showall=1

Intel Q2 2010 Server total revenue in $K= $2,235,818
Intel Q2 2010 Desktop total revenue in $K= $2,717,361
Intel Q2 2010 Mobile total revenue in $K= $4,341,669

AMD needs to be competitive in Mobile, thats where the money is now and will be in the near future, thats why they say Fusion is the future

In order to get that, they need to be compatitive in Server/Desktop too, because they will be using the same architectures for all three markets, BD will be used in Server, Desktop AND mobile (Trinity).

So i dont think that the performance of BD will be that low as ES benchmarks show.

Holy cow, I was curious about the Server numbers to see if there was a breakout because the $2B number looked small if Itanium is a $1B/qtr business...so I followed the link:

..........................Q211 (K_Units).....2Q11 ASP...........2Q11 Rev_K$
Itanium (Server)......25..................$1,350.00..............$34,373
Xeon MP (Server).....183................$1,113.04..............$204,047
Xeon DP (Server).....3,024..............$603.56................$1,824,966
Xeon UP (Server)....685..................$251.83................$172,432
Total Server..................................3,917$570.77.........$2,235,818

Itanium only shipped 25k units for less than $35m in revenue D:

If this is true, no wonder Oracle abandoned the Itanium marketspace (as did Microsoft), who can make software licensing revenue on that kind of volume?

 

[AtenRa]

Yeap, i guess Itanium is dead

 

[brybir]

Yeap, i guess Itanium is dead

I still think Itanium is used by Intel as a way to let their engineers play. I mean, the upcoming itanium is supposed to have the following:

"The processor will integrate eight cores and a total of 3.1 billion transistors on a die that measures 544 mm2, according to the program information released by the ISSCC.

Intel says the on-die cache grows to a combined 50 MB and the processor-to-processor links provide a bandwidth of up to 128 GB/s, while the memory bandwidth is 45 GB/s. The on-die cache seems to a bit smaller than the 54 MB that Intel discussed in the past. We should note that the 32 nm Poulson has a significantly smaller die size than the 65 nm Tukwila, which squeezes four cores in 699 mm2."


I mean, those Intel engineers designing various desktop and server CPUs probably dream of tacking on 50MB of cache just to see what happens. With Itanium, I am sure they generate a lot of engineering insight that can bleed into other projects (interconnects, cache design etc) that can then let those other dreaming engineers get ideas for future products.

 

[thilanliyan]

LOL, exactly, next we'll have some people putting 2 and 2 together and realizing that these companies only seem to want our money too

Lol. I thought I was just imagining things.

They should be constantly looking for enthusiasts' good will...not just when they're down!

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

They should be constantly looking for enthusiasts' good will...not just when they're down!

Wow you mean that we don't like enthusiasts? Here I thought we were doing a pretty good job in having the best enthusiast processor on the market in the Intel Core™ i5-2500K and then even having full time employee on the message boards to help with questions and pass along feedback from the enthusiast space.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[Vesku]

Christian,

It's not disappointment in the 2500K it's disappointment in the lack of a 2100K type $100 cpu for enthusiasts to try for 5GHz on and share their benchmark scores.

 

[BlueBlazer]

Christian,

It's not disappointment in the 2500K it's disappointment in the lack of a 2100K type $100 cpu for enthusiasts to try for 5GHz on and share their benchmark scores.

Aye to that, and can we have a bigger multiplier on a 2100K if it ever comes to fruition?

 

[lau808]

anyone have an idea why i3 doesnt have a k series? i always wondered that...

 

[Ferzerp]

Christian,

It's not disappointment in the 2500K it's disappointment in the lack of a 2100K type $100 cpu for enthusiasts to try for 5GHz on and share their benchmark scores.

There isn't going to be another celeron 300A....

You and I both know that.

 

[RussianSensation]

Christian,

It's not disappointment in the 2500K it's disappointment in the lack of a 2100K type $100 cpu for enthusiasts to try for 5GHz on and share their benchmark scores.

Comments like these always make me chuckle. $100 "enthusiast" dual core CPU? You are joking right?

Do you know how cheap a $225k quad-core 2500k is when it provides 95% of the performance in overclocked state to a $999 Core i7-990X? When was the last time you could purchase a $225 processor that could do such a thing? NOT in a long time.

X2 3800+ could do that but it cost > $130 more.

March 15, 2002
Processor pricing

Here are the prices AMD is officially charging its distributors in quantities of 1,000:
Athlon XP Prices (US dollars)

XP 2100+ 420
XP 2000+ 339
XP 1900+ 231
XP 1800+ 188
XP 1700+ 157
XP 1600+ 130

^ XP 1600+ couldn't overclock to 2100+ speeds, and became obsolete fast. In just 15-18 months we were rocking XP3000+. So again, no longevity here.

Pentium 4 2.4 "C"? No because C2D was 2x faster in a matter of 2 years. None of the Pentium II or III processors can claim to last for 3-4 years either. They all became obsolete very very quickly due to rate of progress at the time.

When was the last time you could buy a $100-150 CPU and make as fast as the top offerings and at the same time it would have the potential to be fast for another 3-4 years? Not in the last 10 years. I can't think of any on AMD or Intel side. A $100 "enthusiast" CPU doesn't exist and never did. The mighty Celeron 300A was $180 in August 1998. I don't think you need me to tell you how much hard drive, motherboard, RAM cost at the time. Also, adjusted for inflation, that's more expensive than $225 2500k today. Again Celeron 300 was 2x slower than the top CPUs just 2 years later.

A $225 2500k @ 4.5ghz+ will go down as the best enthusiast processor in a LONG LONG time, easily beating the $300 Q6600 and the XP2500+ (which became obsolete shortly). The only other CPU that comes close in recent memory in terms of longevity is the ~ $200 Core 2 Duo E6400 from 2006 which could crack 3.4-3.5ghz. Otherwise, perhaps the $284 Core i7 920 (but initially the platform cost was very expensive).

Really, a $225 2500k + $130 mobo + $40 8GB DDR3 is the best CPU+Mobo+RAM enthusiast combo designed in the last 10 years as far as enthusiast value is concerned imo. Nothing in the past even comes close to this value. Intel just served us a CPU as fast as their highest-end offering for 1/4 the price, and once overclocked, this guy is 40-50% faster than the overclocked X6 1100T. There will be nothing 2x faster than a 4.5ghz 2500k in the next 2 years. Just wow.

 

[Ferzerp]

When was the last time you could buy a $100-150 CPU and make as fast as the top offerings? Not in the last 10 years.

August-ish 1998

 

[Idontcare]

Wow you mean that we don't like enthusiasts? Here I thought we were doing a pretty good job in having the best enthusiast processor on the market in the Intel Core™ i5-2500K and then even having full time employee on the message boards to help with questions and pass along feedback from the enthusiast space.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

I hope no one gets that impression. The existence of the K-chips alone is proof that Intel is looking to meet the needs of the enthusiast market.

Intel could have just as easily elected to have no K processors for Sandy Bridge, make everyone wait for SB-E and LGA2011. But they didn't.

I know I'm thankful, was happy to pay $300 for my 2600K. (was a bit in awe at the fact that I spent more on my mobo ($360) and more on my SSD ($500) than the top of the line 2600K processor cost me )

 

[Vesku]

Not seeing your point Russiansensation, they've locked down the low end compared to even the previous "Core i" generation. No Sandybridge equivalent of a Pentium E4xxx clocked into the 3GHz range.

As in, not seeing anyone here poo-pooing the current Sandybridge Ks. Only nostalgia for sub $100 CPUs on Intel's fine manufacturing processes that could be OCed to absurd heights (amazing binning).

 

[IlllI]

Wow you mean that we don't like enthusiasts? Here I thought we were doing a pretty good job in having the best enthusiast processor on the market in the Intel Core™ i5-2500K and then even having full time employee on the message boards to help with questions and pass along feedback from the enthusiast space.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

do they pay you to be sarcastic too? this does not strike me as a very professional response

 

[Idontcare]

do they pay you to be sarcastic too? this does not strike me as a very professional response

This is not the Intel technical support forum, look around at the demographics served by this forum space...cynical and sarcastic are kinda the bare essential entry requirements regardless whether you are affiliated with Intel, AMD, Nvidia, or OCZ.

We love to do one thing around here, we love to hate. And if you ain't giving us something to hate then we'll go to extreme lengths to fabricate or find someone's fabrication of things to hate on