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AMD Bulldozer Finally!

I think that Llano should have come out on socket FM2, or that FM1 should have been what FM2 is going to become. I think that it's been pretty bad planning that AMD have done here.

Llano is, however, an OEM product really, for the PCWorld crowd. Whereas Trinity will possibly take the place that the Athlon processors reside in, in current lineups; that's not to say that it won't still be taken up by OEMs.

With Trinity and Piledriver coexisting on the same socket, we'll be back to the single socket platform allowing chopping and changing between processors, and upgrading without the cost of buying new boards.
 
the only problem (literally) that Llano has is price and locked multiplier, bring out a Black Edition Llano for ~£100 and AMD have a winner. ;)

the reason is the on-board graphics far surpass those on Sandy Bridge, and Llano has an IPC advantage over Phenom II, unlocked multiplier and 32NM would make them decent overclockers, also when combined with fast DDR3 their on-board graphics power increases, just from using faster memory. take those into account and overclock the CPU-NB as well and Llano is 'potentially' a little gem.

so to conclude, it needs price lowered and multiplier unlocked then AMD have that area of the market to call their own, both OEM and retail market. the reason its not FM2 is because FM2 probably isn't finalised yet, and would bring no improvement to the performance of Llano. :)
 
Noo, I don't think that they have a winner at all. The processor is pathetic. Athlon class processing performance possibly even holds back the graphics core. We won't know that until Trinity comes.
Higher IPC or not, it has no additional cache so suffers in performance compared to even Phenom processors, never mind Intel cores.

Anyway, I think that you may see the prices on par with Intel's with Trinity, but then the prices will drop due to competition.

FM2 may not bring performance enhancements, but it will bring a common platform, making FM1 a dead end in all likelihood.
 
don't think Intel can realistically compete in that area of the market since their solutions will always fall short of the tried and tested expertise that ATI bring to the equation.
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Not really, The Intel 3000 IGP only has 12EU's (Execution Units), taking up around 115M transistors. The IGP in Llano takes up somewhere around 400M transistors. The performance per transistor is pretty much equal, All Intel have to do to catch up or overtake is decide to up the transistor budget for their IGP's and throw in some more EU's.
 
its essentially the same core architecture as the Athlon II and the Phenom II (the only difference being the L3 cache on the Phenom II), larger L2 cache and improved front-end give Llano a 6+% IPC improvement over the previous cores. the only problem is it has no L3 cache, so the chances of noticing the improved core architecture are unlikely. the saving grace is the potential clock speeds of Llano, would imagine 4.0GHZ+ would be easily attainable with the new 32NM process, the question remains is how much is Llano hampered by the lack of a L3 cache? are their any benchmarks comparing a 2.5GHZ Llano and a 2.5GHZ Phenom II for example across the board..?
 
Gashman said:
its essentially the same core architecture as the Athlon II and the Phenom II (the only difference being the L3 cache on the Phenom II), larger L2 cache and improved front-end give Llano a 6+% IPC improvement over the previous cores. the only problem is it has no L3 cache, so the chances of noticing the improved core architecture are unlikely. the saving grace is the potential clock speeds of Llano, would imagine 4.0GHZ+ would be easily attainable with the new 32NM process, the question remains is how much is Llano hampered by the lack of a L3 cache? are their any benchmarks comparing a 2.5GHZ Llano and a 2.5GHZ Phenom II for example across the board..?
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It performs clock for clock around the same as an Athlon II. And an Athlon II is essentially a deneb core with no L3 Cache performance wise.
So, I'm confused how its IPC is better than Phenom II?
How far it can clock is irrelevant, unless it can outclock SB consistently.
 
L3 cache makes a lot of difference in office/desktop applications. Actually, it's more L2 that makes the difference, but L3 makes almost as much of a difference if the alternative for the CPU is to go off chip to the RAM. That's a very latency intensive, read slow, process; compared to on chip storage.
 
You know what? Screw waiting, could be here forever. Technology changes. Going to get an 2500k/2600k and just live with it. If it lasts me a year then it'll have done me proud. 2 years and that would be marvellous :D
 
kenmare said:
You know what? Screw waiting, could be here forever. Technology changes. Going to get an 2500k/2600k and just live with it. If it lasts me a year then it'll have done me proud. 2 years and that would be marvellous :D
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I really don't think Bulldozer is going to be that great anyway. Even if it is better, I don't think it will be by much.
 
kenmare said:
You know what? Screw waiting, could be here forever. Technology changes. Going to get an 2500k/2600k and just live with it. If it lasts me a year then it'll have done me proud. 2 years and that would be marvellous :D
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More like 4 years at this rate. Owners of Q95XX CPUs or equivalent hardly NEED to upgrade unless they have a professional reason (time is money) or do an awful lot of encoding etc. I think people over analyse tech a lot, and over justify what they buy. There's a lot of self delusion going on when it comes to hobbies

I find all the nerd rage funny - If you don't want to wait and see then go buy something else! Doubt I'll be upgrading CPU/board til the next iteration of Bulldozer/Sandy anyway, maybe the one after!
 
Martini1991 said:
It performs clock for clock around the same as an Athlon II. And an Athlon II is essentially a deneb core with no L3 Cache performance wise.
So, I'm confused how its IPC is better than Phenom II?
How far it can clock is irrelevant, unless it can outclock SB consistently.
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that is the exact reason it doesn't perform quite as well as Phenom II, because even though it DOES have an enhanced core (AMD said it would be improved over the previous generation, with more L2 cache and improved front-end), the problem is even though the cores themselves are FASTER than the cores used in Athlon II and Phenom II the gain is offset by the fact it has no L3 cache, which has been shown to provide sometimes 10% or more improvement vs. the same core without L3.

though there are some scenarios where a Llano should beat both Athlon II and Phenom II, things that don't utilise L3 cache so well.

have a look at this page too see the difference between a 'stars' core processor with and without L3 cache to see the problem Llano has. ;)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416.html
 
Gashman said:
that is the exact reason it doesn't perform quite as well as Phenom II, because even though it DOES have an enhanced core (AMD said it would be improved over the previous generation, with more L2 cache and improved front-end), the problem is even though the cores themselves are FASTER than the cores used in Athlon II and Phenom II the gain is offset by the fact it has no L3 cache, which has been shown to provide sometimes 10% or more improvement vs. the same core without L3.

though there are some scenarios where a Llano should beat both Athlon II and Phenom II, things that don't utilise L3 cache so well.

have a look at this page too see the difference between a 'stars' core processor with and without L3 cache to see the problem Llano has. ;)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416.html
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The Athlon II has no L3 cache... Llano performs the same as an Athlon II clock for clock. I don't get the "It's better" lark.
The only difference in reality between the Phenom II and Athlon II is the lack of L3 cache in the Athlon II's..

Llano doesn't perform clock for clock better than Deneb in anyway shape or form, nor does it perform clock for clock better than Athlon II.
 
does Intel price cuts not suggest that Bulldozer is indeed going to compete with their offerings? I mean if your product is better than the rival product then you put a premium on the price, so the only logical reason for Intel to lower to price of Sandy Bridge is that Bulldozer offers real competition which is great news for all involved.

the same doesn't apply with AMD though, because they are trying to take back their share in the market so need to price aggressively compared to Intel with Bulldozer. Phenom II has always been lower priced than equivalent Intel offerings and Intel think their premium is worth the gain in performance and efficiency. guess something has changed with impending release of Bulldozer. :)
 
Gashman said:
does Intel price cuts not suggest that Bulldozer is indeed going to compete with their offerings? I mean if your product is better than the rival product then you put a premium on the price, so the only logical reason for Intel to lower to price of Sandy Bridge is that Bulldozer offers real competition which is great news for all involved.

the same doesn't apply with AMD though, because they are trying to take back their share in the market so need to price aggressively compared to Intel with Bulldozer. Phenom II has always been lower priced than equivalent Intel offerings and Intel think their premium is worth the gain in performance and efficiency. guess something has changed with impending release of Bulldozer. :)
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No.
I think you're being overally optimistic.
Intel have no competition currently, they've got a lot of room I assume to lower the price, which would make BD's launch seem less appealing to those not already BD orientated.

I expect BD to be priced aggressively to compete price/performance wise, but won't have the same sheer performance of SB clock for clock. I do still however believe, the BD 8 core will be the better CPU out of the 2600k in 8 threaded app's.
 
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