AMD Bulldozer Finally!

[Bodom]

HardOCP is going to preview Bulldozer on the 16th of July:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1612784

Maybe now we can change the name back to 25 days t0 Bulldozer again lol

 

[pooey]

Supermicro 1U dual socket server with 2 x 16 core bulldozers shown at International Supercomputing Conference:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2080551/amd-demonstrates-core-bulldozer-server

Nothing exciting but it's nice to see it's getting shown.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I'm not comparing Llano to SB, I'm just wondering if there's something other than a difference in clock causing the rather large gap in TDP between low-end Llano and the higher-end models as they're all running the same silicon as far as I can tell.

What you need to realise with TDP is, its just that, its what they designed the chip to do, NOT what the cpu and gpu uses together.

As in, they have a cpu core that can hit 3.5Ghz, and a gpu core that can probably push 1Ghz, so they are basically artificially capping the performance for TDP.

IE a 45W version could be 1.9Ghz top speed and turbo to 2.5Ghz, but also has a decent gpu in, when the GPU is going full whack it can't also whack all 4 cores to 2.5Ghz.

The 35W version has a 1.5Ghz clock speed, so under the same, everything loaded at all the time, it won't break 35W instead of 45W. it will be the lower voltage at 1.5Ghz over 1.9Ghz that brings the power usage down.

This is where Llano is interesting though, clocking up cpu or gpu when they are required and knocking down the power usage of something that doesn't require it.

Overclocking Llano could be very interesting as if you can up the "tdp" you can increase how high turbo would go when the gpu is also under load or manually overclock and have some serious speed on the cheap and half decent gaming. I mean go from 400mhz gpu clock to 800Mhz or more and you'll see a big difference obviously.

What I'm getting at is, TDP used to be simply what the silicon would use at full whack, TDP now, for AMD, is a means to control the overall powerusage of various different chips.

Think about how a 6950 will use 150W with its default powertune setting but 200W with powertune set to use a higher TDP.

What they really should have done is introduced a new term for "package/designed power load" apart from TDP.

Essentially the TDP as we think of it normally, on a 6950, is 200W, and 150W is just where AMD set the chip to perform at.

 

[ng93]

interesting info

So if I understand you correctly in GPU intensive tasks llano will underclock the CPU and overclock the GPU and vise-versa in CPU intensive tasks? What would it do in tasks which equally stress the CPU and GPU?

 

[Final8y]

AMD demonstrates a 32 core Bulldozer server

CHIP DESIGNER AMD chose the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) to finally demonstrate a working Bulldozer system.

At AMD's ISC stand one could find several 2U and 4U servers built with older Opteron chips, but it was a 1U pizza box server made by Supermicro that housed two 16-core Bulldozer chips running live demonstrations of POVRay. This is the first time that AMD has publicly displayed its next generation Opteron processor, codenamed Bulldozer.

The chaps manning AMD's stand said that Bulldozer still has a Q3 2011 launch date and, judging by the fact that it has started to display working machines, we can assume that timeframe is not too optimistic. Asked whether AMD will be coming up with a Llano style Opteron featuring an accelerated processor unit (APU), AMD told The INQUIRER that "an Opteron APU still at least two years off".

Coming back to the present, Supermicro's 1U dual socket Bulldozer server packed in 32 cores, with space for an accelerator card. AMD said that other vendors are managing to put four sockets into a 1U server, resulting in a very impressive 64 scalar processing cores in just 1U.

Initially the chaps at AMD were not keen for us to photograph its naked server, however with The INQUIRER's winning smile the lid was lifted on the machine. One thing that surprised us was how cool the chips were running. We were able to touch the heatsinks with our bare hands. Given that this is a 1U server where cooling capabilities are stretched to the limit, that is a mighty impressive showing from AMD.

AMD was not willing to talk frequencies, cache sizes, cost or any other details without signing an NDA at this point. Although it wouldn't release exact thermal design power figures, AMD said that those will be the same as its Magny Cours Opterons'.

The 16-core Bulldozer chips should once again put pressure on Intel's Westmere EX processors, however Intel told The INQUIRER that it will be producing Sandy Bridge Xeons by the end of the year. And for AMD's Bulldozer, the litmus test will come not with Intel's Westmere EX line but next year, up against the Sandy Bridge Xeons. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2080551/amd-demonstrates-core-bulldozer-server


Damn its been posted already.

 

[Dark_Angel]

Because by the time i put everything i wanted on it that's how much it cost.

I'll be honest, this answer made me

 

[Sin_Chase]

Cannot believe these are still not on the market. Was interested to see how they were going to fair versus an SB build but if I had of waited I would have been pretty miffed by now

 

[steelwolf]

Cannot believe these are still not on the market. Was interested to see how they were going to fair versus an SB build but if I had of waited I would have been pretty miffed by now

Im waiting and miffed, I dont want to have to go to the dark side

 

[zxh800]

I'm jumping ship from the dark side if Bulldozer is half decent!

 

[drunkenmaster]

Cannot believe these are still not on the market. Was interested to see how they were going to fair versus an SB build but if I had of waited I would have been pretty miffed by now

I've been waiting for Ivybridge since the day it was announced, like 2 years ago, so miffed I might be a commadore 64 in anger.

As with anything else, it will be available when its available. Aside from the woefully inaccurately named thread which ignored the fact that at the time of posting, it was 90days from an announcement/being shown, which happened, who cares.

Honestly I've never waited for hardware, if I need something, I get it, if you NEED a faster cpu/gpu, get it, waiting helps no one. If you know for a fact a new, say GPU is 1 month away, thats one thing, but a new chip might be out in 4-6 months, its just daft.

Buy a Sandybridge setup in Jan, get a replacement in March, use it till August, and buy a Bulldozer, or use it till Q2 next year and get an Ivy, or use it till Q2 the year after and get an octo core Intel chip.

 

[Frozen_Texas]

Nice performance of Llano APU

The GPU in the LLano is vastly more capable than the one in Sandy Bridge ... it was frequently acheiving 50-200% higher frame rates in tests. Hence the difference. Also, Intel's TDP vis a vis AMD's is misleading. Intel's tends to be best possible case, AMD's worst case. Hence why in battery life tests (particularly under heavy load) the mobile LLanos actually outperformed significantly or matched similar Sandy Bridge stuff. Judging by LLano, AMD's 32nm process is pretty damned good.

Indeed, Llano has been reported to be "10x faster than 880G or 780G" and even broke a few IGP world records (3dmark vantage and other 3dmark benchmarks). Interesting


P.S. On the other side - I've heard we'll have to wait for BD much longer than expected

 

[Tute]

Cannot believe these are still not on the market. Was interested to see how they were going to fair versus an SB build but if I had of waited I would have been pretty miffed by now

I've been waiting but i'm not miffed at all really, i'd rather AMD got it right first time.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Getting it right and getting it on time usually should go hand in hand.

No point getting it right, late, then being trumped by another chip maker. If you abstract brand loyalty why would you intentionally wait for BD?

 

[Gripen90]

Waiting to see what Bulldozer can offer else I'm jumping on Core i5 2500K, to replace my old (but super reliable) Asus M4N82Deluxe (DDR2) with Phenom II X6 1090T.

 

[opethdisciple]

Question is this, take a phenom 2 six core add two cores to it, make it 15-20% more efficient clock per clock and then ask the question is this going to be competite against Intels SB and IB?

I think the answer is this:

In windows and multithread apps it will probably be competitive (Possibly including games which scale up to 8 cores)

But in apps which are more focused on raw core speed, it will probably still be behind the SB.

(Incidently I was dreaming about BD and some weird variations of an iphone 3 last night)

If BD mobo dont support PCI Ex 3, then Im wating for the x79.

If im going to upgrade, im going to upgrade to tech which will allow me to upgrade to pci ex 3 gpus etc etc etc....

(Oh and none of this 8x 8x pci ex lane nonsense)

 

[Hagar]

Getting it right and getting it on time usually should go hand in hand.
No point getting it right, late, then being trumped by another chip maker. If you abstract brand loyalty why would you intentionally wait for BD?

Better than getting it wrong early.

Currently it is a choice of one (Intel) so why would you not wait a month or two if you than have a choice of two. The only reason I can think of is if you are dissatisfied by your present performance and need desperately to upgrade.

 

[Brumboy]

Are they bringing out a new CPU laptop range based on BD?

 

[pmc25]

Question is this, take a phenom 2 six core add two cores to it, make it 15-20% more efficient clock per clock and then ask the question is this going to be competite against Intels SB and IB?

I think the answer is this:

In windows and multithread apps it will probably be competitive (Possibly including games which scale up to 8 cores)

But in apps which are more focused on raw core speed, it will probably still be behind the SB.

(Incidently I was dreaming about BD and some weird variations of an iphone 3 last night)

If BD mobo dont support PCI Ex 3, then Im wating for the x79.

If im going to upgrade, im going to upgrade to tech which will allow me to upgrade to pci ex 3 gpus etc etc etc....

(Oh and none of this 8x 8x pci ex lane nonsense)

Your analogy doesn't work. Bulldozer is the biggest change to x86 architecture since dual core chips were introduced (and it's a bigger change than that). It's a totally different concept to anything intel have or the preceding AMD chips. A phenom II with higher IPC and 2 more cores it is not.

PCI-E-3 isn't likely to be important until AMD 8xxx or 9xxx, or NVIDIA 7xx or 8xx cards. Though it seems likely that Komodo (early '12 Bulldozer revision) will have it.

 

[pmc25]

Are they bringing out a new CPU laptop range based on BD?

LLano will be updated to Bulldozer (as opposed to K10.5) cores in the first half of 2012. They showed a working sample of Krishna (??) at E3.

 

[djkav]

According to AMDs slides it can split 256bit AVX instructions over the two cores in a module, but I have no clue what that means in real terms to be honest. Anyone shed any light on that part? Or is that nothing to do with running threads?

IIRC it means that the FPU can do one 256-bit instruction, or two 128-bit instructions simultaneously.

edit: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20101026234515_AMD_Calls_New_FPU_Flex_FP_Defends_Dual_FMAC_Approach.html

My understanding is that BD can process simultaneously;
- 4x 128 bit operations,
- 2x 128 bit & 1x 256 bit operations,
- 2x 256 bit operations

Thats based on each integer core having 1 128 bit FPU, as I read in the design spec.