Sandy Bridge, what is it all about?

[Serraph]

Ok, I have been a bit absent from the computing scene recently, and I see this new Sandy Bridge tech has come out and everyone seems to be jumping on it. So I was just wondering if someone could give me the low down on this tech, and what it is all about, like, what are the benefits of this over current systems and the like.

Much appreciated, cheers!

 

[Mr-White]

Read this, it's a bit long but has loads of info

MW

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ok, I have been a bit absent from the computing scene recently, and I see this new Sandy Bridge tech has come out and everyone seems to be jumping on it. So I was just wondering if someone could give me the low down on this tech, and what it is all about, like, what are the benefits of this over current systems and the like.

Much appreciated, cheers!

Unless you need to upgrade now I would wait a few more months.

AMD Bulldozer is being released in April or thereabouts and AMD Llano a few months after that.

 

[Serraph]

Thanks for the link MW, i'll give that a read.

Im not necessarily looking to upgrade, i've just noticed a lot of people going nuts over Sandy bridge and as I've been out the loop for a while I'm just curious as to what the fuss is all about

So these will be the new AMD chips will they? What are the selling points of these chips? Any cool benefits over Intel or older AMD models?

 

[tbh]

So these will be the new AMD chips will they? What are the selling points of these chips? Any cool benefits over Intel or older AMD models?

Sandy Bridge is the first new architecture from Intel since Nehalem two years ago, hence the excitement; the main benefits appear to be greater per core performance and lower thermals coupled with lower power consumption.

Bulldozer is AMDs upcoming new architecture and should be a radical departure from previous designs with the focus being on a greater number of integer cores (as is my understanding at least).

 

[bulldog147]

It really crazy when everyones jump in and order sandybridge (more likely upgrade from old spec q6600) I cannot see if anyone want to upgrade to sandybridge from i7 920/950, if they did, it a waste of money and Intel would laughing off their face.

 

[Serraph]

Sandy Bridge is the first new architecture from Intel since Nehalem two years ago, hence the excitement; the main benefits appear to be greater per core performance and lower thermals coupled with lower power consumption.

Ah right, so just really a geneneral new architecture buzz, with the architecture containing the standard perks.

Bulldozer is AMDs upcoming new architecture and should be a radical departure from previous designs with the focus being on a greater number of integer cores (as is my understanding at least).

Oh right, so they are focusing more on the number of cores? What would this be like compared to Intels equivalent? I have never used an AMD product, so im not really sure how they compare.

 

[DragonQ]

Bulldozer will feature two 128-bit FMA-capable FPUs which can be combined into one 256-bit FPU. This design is accompanied with two integer cores each with 4 pipelines (the fetch/decode stage is shared). Bulldozer will also introduce shared L2 cache in the new architecture. AMD calls this design a "Bulldozer module". A 16-core processor design would feature eight of these modules, but the operating system will see each module as two physical cores.