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AMD Bulldozer Finally!

Tute said:
I believe the 4-core BD actually has TWO physical cores, it just appears as four to the OS and is marketed as such. It's really a sort-of hyperthreading, but nothing like it. Hard to explain, you're better off having a read up yourself.
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AHH i see, this sounds more promising.

That will teach me to take a post as gospel.

Tbh the Intels are so easy and fast and pretty cheap, its going to take something special to get people to jump ship.
 
Dr. Pain said:
Why would that matter too much?

If it needs TWICE the cores, then surely by definition each core is half as fast as the intels.

Whats so wonderful about that? Unless the clock speeds are ramped through the roof, but I understood that that was halted years ago, and a more mature approach was taken with the Nehalem architecture heralding a new era?
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Read about Bulldozer.

It uses a module design which has a pair of cores with shared resources.

Anyway,if Bulldozer is designed to run at higher clockspeeds I don't see the issue as long as it can hit them.
 
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Two tightly coupled, "conventional" x86 out-of-order processing engines which AMD internally named module
(i.e., single-module → dual-core, dual-module → quad-core, quad-module → octa-core, etc.) Bulldozer family will lay emphasis on multithreading and multiple cores as well
Up to 8 MB of L3 cache shared among all modules on the same silicon die (16 MB for dual-die MCM), divided into four subcaches of 2 MB each, capable of operating at 2.4 GHz or more at 1.1 V [7]
Native DDR3-1866 memory support [8]
Dual Channel DDR3 integrated memory controller (support for PC3-15000 (DDR3-1866)) for Desktop, Quad Channel DDR3 Integrated Memory Controller (support for PC-12800 (DDR3-1600) and Registered DDR3)[9] for Server/Workstation (New Opteron Valencia and Interlagos)
Cluster Multi-threading (CMT) Technology [10]
Bulldozer module [11][12] consists of the following: up to 2048 kB L2 cache inside each module (shared between the cores in a module)
16 kB four-way L1 data cache (way-predicted) per core and two-way 64 kB L1 instruction cache per module, one way for each of the two cores[13][14][15]
Two dedicated integer cores
- each consists of two ALU and two AGU which are capable for total of 4 independent arithmetic and memory operations per clock per core
- duplicating integer schedulers and execution pipelines offers dedicated hardware to each of two threads which significantly increase performance in multithreaded integer applications
- second integer core increases Bulldozer module die by around 12%, which at chip level adds about 5% of total die space[16]
Two symmetrical 128-bit FMAC (fused multiply-add (FMA) capability) Floating Point Pipelines per module that can be unified into one large 256-bit-wide unit if one of integer cores dispatch AVX instruction and two symmetrical x87/MMX/SSE capable FPPs for backward compatibility with SSE2 non-optimized software

each module has 213 million transistors in an area of 30.9 mm² (including 2 MB L2 cache) on an Orochi die [7]
modules are operating at 0.8 to 1.3 V, achieving clock frequencies of 3.5 GHz or more [7]
11-metal layer 32 nm SOI process with implemented first generation GlobalFoundries' High-K Metal Gate (HKMG)
Turbo Core performance boost to increase clock frequency by 500 MHz with all cores active (for most workloads) and further, as TDP headroom permits [17]
Support for Intel's Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) instruction set, which supports 256-Bit floating point operations, and SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, CLMUL, as well as future 128-bit instruction sets proposed by AMD (XOP, FMA4 and CVT16),[18] which have the same functionality as the SSE5 instruction set formerly proposed by AMD, but with compatibility to the AVX coding scheme.
Hyper Transport Technology rev. 3.1 (3.20 GHz, 6.4 GT/s, 25.6 GB/s, 16-bit uplink/16-bit downlink) [first implemented into HY-D1 revision "Magny-Cours" on the socket G34 Opteron platform in March 2010 and "Lisbon" on the socket C32 Opteron platform in June 2010]
Socket AM3+ (AM3b)
- 942pin, DDR3 support
- will retain backward compatibility with Socket AM3 motherboards (as per motherboard manufacturer choice and if BIOS updates are provided[19][20]), however this will be unsupported by AMD themselves and any such support would be considered "experimental"; AM3+ motherboards will be backward-compatible with AM3 processors[21]. For the server segment, the existing socket G34 (LGA1974) and socket C32 (LGA1207) will be used.
Min-Max power usage - 10–125 watts
Bulldozer Module sharing levels Bulldozer module
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Bit of information there, there's more reading to be had in greater depth if you have a look. :)
 
Dr. Pain said:
Why would that matter too much?

If it needs TWICE the cores, then surely by definition each core is half as fast as the intels.

Whats so wonderful about that? Unless the clock speeds are ramped through the roof, but I understood that that was halted years ago, and a more mature approach was taken with the Nehalem architecture heralding a new era?
Click to expand...

you are failing to see the big picture, each Bulldozer module takes around about the same amount of silicon as one Intel core with its Hyper-Threading business, but function as two parallel physical cores, so each can process a thread at the same time with no issues unlike Hyper-Threading which tries to slot instructions into 'gaps' in the workload which can sometimes prove a negative thing rather than a positive. so Bulldozer will suffer from no such issue because it has two 'cores' if you will. each module is compared to a single Intel core (and HT) because they take up the same sort of space, so its all about best performance, most efficient use of silicon compared to best all round 'core' speed.

Bulldozer is geared more or less entirely toward multi-threaded performance, I have no doubt in my mind that the Intel processors will still be faster single core vs. single core, but in heavily multi-threaded programs the 'double' physical core count should pay off, whilst using almost no more die-space than the Intel with their Hyper-Threading. for gaming benchmarks, would expect games with strong single-thread performance will be faster on the Intel processors but games like Supreme Commander which makes good use of multiple cores, or console ports will probably run really well on Bulldozer.
 
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Zarf said:
Well, next generation of Xbox is out 2012/2013, that's looking very likely to be powered by an AMD APU based on a 6 or 8 core Bulldozer. With most games going multiplatform This should raise the ceiling somewhat on how much CPU power game developers take advantage of.
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i dont know about this, in my opinion (and how well they are still doing) we wont see a new Xbox till late 2013/mid 2014, and we dont know if they will go Nintendo Route (Cheap manufacture, but a lot of profit) or will go (AGAIN) with newer arquitechture but sold at a loss...

M$ and $ony already know that they can do cheaper consoles (without a big jump in performance) and get a good profit, after all, we all know the PS3 was sold at a loss to make the Blu Ray more popular, so in my mind (and unless they launch another kind of stuff to sell in their consoles) we wont see a impressive upgrade in the next consoles

And we are in times where upgrades arent as good as used to be, i clearly believe we wont see a jump like N64/PS1 --> GC/XBOX/PS2 --> PS3/360/WiiU
 
Faruko said:
i dont know about this, in my opinion (and how well they are still doing) we wont see a new Xbox till late 2013/mid 2014, and we dont know if they will go Nintendo Route (Cheap manufacture, but a lot of profit) or will go (AGAIN) with newer arquitechture but sold at a loss...

M$ and $ony already know that they can do cheaper consoles (without a big jump in performance) and get a good profit, after all, we all know the PS3 was sold at a loss to make the Blu Ray more popular, so in my mind (and unless they launch another kind of stuff to sell in their consoles) we wont see a impressive upgrade in the next consoles

And we are in times where upgrades arent as good as used to be, i clearly believe we wont see a jump like N64/PS1 --> GC/XBOX/PS2 --> PS3/360/WiiU
Click to expand...

I doubt Microsoft will put out a console with only a little bit of an upgrade they managed to get the 360 out pretty much on par with the PS3 in terms of performance and still not have to sell at a loss while also out pricing them all the way. Sony only had to sell at a loss because of blu-ray and I can see them making a not-as-powerful console because of that, but not Microsoft. Also remember when talking about selling at a loss they only need to cover the costs of making the console to make a profit off said console through games sales, online memberships etc.

When you think about it the graphics performance pushed out of a 360 or PS3 is great considering the power they have which is solely down to optimisation so crappy console ports may continue but that's not to say the graphics quality will not increase.
 
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AMD has now officially confirmed it: Bulldozers will be available in Q3 2011.

Edit: production begins in next month.
 
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