With all the talk of new Intel chips what about AMD?

[imperfectcircle25]

Im kind of a newbie to all this Intel vs AMD stuff. i dont pick one brand over the ther, whichever is performing better and is the better value at the time I am building a system is what I buy. Im currently running an AMD X2 chip and love it, its definitly got the goods over my brothers P4 3.2 setup even though it gives up 1.2ghz in clock speed. But the computer I had before this was an old P3 800mhz coppermine system that was built many years ago when Intel was king. So i dont take sides in the Intel/AMD thing.

Im just curious about what kind of chips AMD has waiting in the wings?? I know that the socket AM2 will be out soon and will support DDR2. But what will the next generation of AMD chips be like?? Will they basically be thesame K8 chips but with a smaller 65n process, slightly higher clocks and DDR2 capability?? Or are they going to release something differant all together. Ive heard rumors of quadcores, but i would think that would really be mainly for servers as most softeware cant even take advantage of dual cores yet. Anyone wanna comment?
thank

 

[Greenman]

It appears to me that because AMD isn?t saying anything, a lot of people are assuming they have nothing in the works. That would be world class foolish. I would think that AMD has been at least looking at ways to improve the A64 over the last couple of years, and when Conroe hits the street they will release an updated version at the very least.
If they have spent the last two years patting themselves on the back over how great the A64 is, and not working on their next generation part, they will take quite a beating in the market next year, and deserve it.

 

[BrownTown]

AMD can't just suddenly decide to release an updated cores, such things take years of design and testing. AMD will release AM@, and 65nm in Q4 2006 or Q1 2007 to battle Conroe. Any substantial updates to the core will be after that timeframe, i'm not sure when K8L was released, but it was only for server last i checked. It's highely unlikely that AMD has some secret new core up their sleaves that they will release anytime soon, if they did info would have leaked long ago.

 

[Greenman]

If thats true, and AMD hasn't been working on a new cpu or improvements to the A64, then Intel could very well take back the market share they lost to AMD. It would be a real shame to see AMD take that kind of fall, but if they have just been costing along for the last two years with no eye to the future then they deserve the beating they will take in the market.
I'd like to think that someone at AMD has considered the idea that Intel might be working on a new chip. It's not reasonable to assume that Intel would just stop working on new hardware, all those people in R&D have to be doing something.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
AMD can't just suddenly decide to release an updated cores, such things take years of design and testing. AMD will release AM@, and 65nm in Q4 2006 or Q1 2007 to battle Conroe. Any substantial updates to the core will be after that timeframe, i'm not sure when K8L was released, but it was only for server last i checked. It's highely unlikely that AMD has some secret new core up their sleaves that they will release anytime soon, if they did info would have leaked long ago.

That would be more true if it was a new architecture...greenman is suggesting more like tweaks to the existing architecture...If we know anything AMD has said hammer/opteron architecture can handle up to 8 cores....

Things they could surprise us with...pure speculation, but since we speculate a lot around here...here I go...

1) release quad cores early...would still lose the gaming end of it but could clean up in multimedia and CAD apps where SMP apps are quite prevalent..

2) 800DDR2 memory controller or perhaps going to DDR3...I dont see bandwidth as a big issue so the key is using the superior DDR3 which does not have the same latency penalty...

3) larger cache per core

4) more buffers

5) I have heard of adding another FPU...

 

[xtremejack]

I believe K8L was nothing but just a name used by Intel internally to denote next-gen AMD processors. Somehow this info was leaked to the Inquirer, and here today we have all kinds of rumours about a K8L.

 

[BrownTown]

im pretty sure its an AMD name, but its always possible that its all a rumor, but not to my knowledge, the term K8L came up waaay before the Inq article that refers to it having twice the floating point units.

 

[nyker96]

From IDF info AMD 939 will not be able to match Core processors even with the new DDR2 switch. So overall processor speed is gonna be pushed up by like 30-50% by the year endby Intel anyways. This will have to prompt an AMD response of some sort. If not, they could be in big trouble. However, they don't at this time have anything planned except a DDR2 switch on June 6.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: nyker96
From IDF info AMD 939 will not be able to match Core processors even with the new DDR2 switch. So overall processor speed is gonna be pushed up by like 30-50% by the year endby Intel anyways. This will have to prompt an AMD response of some sort. If not, they could be in big trouble. However, they don't at this time have anything planned except a DDR2 switch on June 6.

Is that information from roadmaps, or do you have an inside track at AMD?
After spending years as the red haired basterd child of the cpu industry, then climbing to the top in performance, it's hard for me to accept that they could make such a blunder. Could they really be stupid enough to not keep an eye on Intel? Or have they reached the limit of what the A64 can do? Guess we'll know in six months.

 

[xtremejack]

I think internally AMD does not call it K8L.

But anyways, I dont think the next Conroe-killer core will come this year. Most likely Brisbane which would be the "K8L" based core, would be pulled in from its 2007 launch.

Dont have too much expectations on AMD for now. Low expectations is always good, just like how we all had low expectations on Intel, and they did a great showing of Conroe.

Think about this, the development of a new core is a 3+ year effort. Even if AMD knew about Conroe earlier, it would have taken them a few months or quarters for planning a reactionary effort. Which means Q1 of 2007 would be surely the launch of their highly competitive next-gen core.

Just want to put things in perspective so people dont get too dissappointed. Competition is good, so always go for the best. Today AMD is the best, in 6 months Conroe most likely would be. 2007 could be a different story for both.

 

[imperfectcircle25]

I cant see AMD just sitting around idle and letting Intel take back the performance lead?? It doesnt really make sense for them to make the new socket AM2 simply to add ddr2??

 

[chilled]

They'll try to battle Intel with a series of speed ramps.

 

[GOREGRINDER]

i heard amd was goin for maximum gusto on the memory to ddr2/1066,... if that comes to see light of day on release,.. i think an almost raw 3x memory speed increase will make a current core soar like a eagle,.. look at the bandwidth they pulled out of ddr(1)400 afterall,.. you cannot forget amd's mindset towards technology

 

[Hulk]

Originally posted by: chilled
They'll try to battle Intel with a series of speed ramps.

Not with the current X2 core at 90nm they won't. They'll get 2.8GHz, maybe 3GHz, but that's it. And that won't be enough to take on Conroe.

 

[Brentx]

And I was thinking of buying a new PC around Christmas this year. I might actually have to go with an Intel based machine for the first time in 5 years... yikes. I really hope AMd has their crap together and is ready to battle Conroe with something, otherwise all this market share they got from the A64 will be lost.

 

[billcat479]

Ok, just how long has the AMD 64 cpu been out? Quite some time. My experience with working at Intel at least shows when they are working on one cpu core they have another research div. working on the next one before they even release it. AMD has had years to be working on a new core but right now they have no need to put it out. Intel still has what, up to about 5-6 months before this new cpu is even out from what I've heard and first only companies like Dull will be getting the lion's share and it will be a bit longer before people can buy this to build their own system, and AMD can still put out their current cpu's for another 6 months without much share loss if any. One thing that has been known is Intel still has a massive bottleneck with their cpu's sharing bus bandwidth to the point that will negate most of their performance edge in server systems or network systems, not sure which is more important in this aspect so AMD really isn't worried that much in this area and it's their real source of income. So I'd say they have at least a year with no worries whats so ever. AMD has other edges, other companies LIKE to work with AMD and do not like to work with Intel because of their long history of strong arm tatics. This has been giving AMD a lot of R&D backing not to mention the personel they have now at their company. They were more aware than anyone of what Intel was up to long before the release of the new cpu.
Another note, I'm def. not going to say anything about that test that this site and intel did, as it was a very poor motherboard AMD got stuck with while Intel had a top of the line system. Knowing Intel they wouldn't think twice about castrating the motherboard the AMD system used. But be that as it may and it was a good motherboard the differences were there, not enough that worries me as far as AMD's capaciaty to catch up and pass again. The delay of the AM2 might also be because they not only want faster memory but also to tweek the memory controller's latency and make it better. That is only pure guesswork so nothing should be put on that. Lets see when other reviews start popping up.
One thing is for sure as far as I'm concerned, I've seen what AMD has done for us, if it wasn't for them we would be paying very very high prices for cpu's and I'm going to continue to support them because if they get into trouble we all do. I'm not the type to jump ship on the first chance and play the turncoat card now. I play games and really the cpu has played a very small part in them as the video card takes up most of the work so the cpu isn't really that important. That's another thing that bothers be about these tests. It just seems a bit more than strange that the cpu alone would make this large of an impact even at different res. settings that further makes me want to wait and see what a AMD system tested on a well tried and tested Nvidia SLI motherboard can put out. One that intel has no way of getting their hands on it first. They know more than enough to change what comonents they need to to slow the system down. I wouldn't put an ounce of creedence to this but for the way intel has behaved in the past that keeps thoughts like this in the forfront. From that wacky report they came out with that pretty much has more lies than truth in it about their cpu's vrs. AMD's so I take what they say and do with little faith.

 

[IntelUser2000]

RD480 chipset is a poor performing motherboard?? What kind of BS is that?? Go look at a comparison between RD480 and RD580 and you can see that RD480 is sometimes EVEN faster depending on the motherboard. Even then, the differences are mostly 2-3%.

Sure, Intel has a big bottleneck with the FSB but that didn't prevent Yonah from performing almost like X2(pretty much equal you can say) did it??

1) release quad cores early...would still lose the gaming end of it but could clean up in multimedia and CAD apps where SMP apps are quite prevalent..

2) 800DDR2 memory controller or perhaps going to DDR3...I dont see bandwidth as a big issue so the key is using the superior DDR3 which does not have the same latency penalty...

3) larger cache per core

4) more buffers

5) I have heard of adding another FPU...

1. Intel Quad core Kentsfield pulled forward to Q1 2007.
2. DDR2 JEDEC timings are 3,4,5 and DDR3 is 5,6, and 7!!! Link: http://www.legitreviews.com/news/1790/

At least it tells we are not gonna see anything lowered in timings side. Another here: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29669

We are gonna hae to rely on pure memory speeds.

3. Uhh, the mainstream X2's aren't gonna have enlarged caches, its likely the FX's
4. Sure, usually another 1-2%
5. TWICE the number of FPUs on the K8L's at 65nm. It means Intel will have lead in every part for at least second half of this year. It's also debated whether twice the FPUs will be a good choice to add to an x86 arch and power consumption.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: nyker96
From IDF info AMD 939 will not be able to match Core processors even with the new DDR2 switch. So overall processor speed is gonna be pushed up by like 30-50% by the year endby Intel anyways. This will have to prompt an AMD response of some sort. If not, they could be in big trouble. However, they don't at this time have anything planned except a DDR2 switch on June 6.

Is that information from roadmaps, or do you have an inside track at AMD?
After spending years as the red haired basterd child of the cpu industry, then climbing to the top in performance, it's hard for me to accept that they could make such a blunder. Could they really be stupid enough to not keep an eye on Intel? Or have they reached the limit of what the A64 can do? Guess we'll know in six months.

Hahaha, sure AMD would appreciate that analogy.

To the OP: AMD havent really announced a "next gen" of chips, the K8 architecture will have to live a little longer until K10 comes along (k9 i believe is what theyre calling dual cores). Theyre not sitting on their hands, but just because Intel brings out a new architecture, dosent mean AMD will, the CPU industry is lots different from the GPU one. Intel have had to sit with an old architecture for the past three years and take a beating in almost every benchmark. Now is their time to be competitive.

So basically what AMD have coming:
AM2 - nothing big IMO, it support DDR2, whoopee!

Socket F - it dosent use pins i know that for sure!, personally i can see AM2 getting replaced by a varient of this rather soon, like 754 was replaced by 939, a varient of 940.

K10 - know nothing about it, could be somthing revolutionary and entirely new, as the K8 was basically just a K7 with an integrated mem controller glued on. Very good nonetheless.

 

[imperfectcircle25]

Ok so if AMD goes to 65n with 2.8-3ghzghz clock speeds, ddr2@1066, and a larger cache(2mb) would its performance be close to that of the Conroe?? Because none of what i mentioned should be out of reach for AMD in the next 6 months.

 

[TuxDave]

It's my understanding that since AMD is a much smaller company than Intel, that they can't afford to operate the same way that Intel does because Intel will simply outdo them in money and man power. So AMD must get any possible advantage possible. That includes keeping mums on whatever next generation processor they're developing.

 

[pkme2]

My only thought is Intel's chip architecture. What have they done to improve upon that, how can they keep coming out with new setups? Let us not forget that AMD revamped their chip architecture back then, and leapped-frog to where they are today.
I'm in the process of building my third AMD64, and do so with the confidence that I will have the best workstation that money can buy, for my graphic work.
Intel will always come out with something better, but thank goodness for AMD, I can afford to get a computer that I need.
This will be my last build and I'm happy with AMD.

 

[DrMrLordX]

As has been said before(I think by Duvie?), if AMD can't ramp their clock speeds up past 3 ghz as is speculated, their only choices are to strap on more l2 cache(not much help) and move aggressively towards quad-core designs(which shouldn't be too hard given the K8 architecture). That might hold AMD over until they either move to a 65nm process or shock us all by leapfrogging to 45nm with IBM's help(yeah, right).

 

[SubtleIntelFreak]

AMD is going to fold up their CPU business and become televangelists or something.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: SubtleIntelFreak
AMD is going to fold up their CPU business and become televangelists or something.

IM HEALED!!!!

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: SubtleIntelFreak
AMD is going to fold up their CPU business and become televangelists or something.

I think that pays better than CPU biz... Robertson has diamond mines in africa and one of the largest land holders in Va.