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AMD Bulldozer Finally!
- Thread starter AceTK
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I'm confused as to how 3.6 is "turbo" if it works for all cores simultaneously... Surely that's just it's normal maximum frequency?
Or is it the marketing dept putting a positive slant on being able to have 4 cores at 4.2, but the cost is lowering the other four cores below their normal speed?
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I'm confused as to how 3.6 is "turbo" if it works for all cores simultaneously... Surely that's just it's normal maximum frequency?
Or is it the marketing dept putting a positive slant on being able to have 4 cores at 4.2, but the cost is lowering the other four cores below their normal speed?
Stock clock speed is 3.1GHz, all core turbo is 3.6GHz, however, the processor can also turn off half the cores, C6 sleep, and run the other half at 4.1GHz. Which is odd, because that processor is showing 4.2GHz.
Does no one remember the slides that said 1GHz overclock?
It's likely that Sandybridge getting competition will drive prices down.
Saying that OcUK dropping the price of 2500k and 2600k this week might get some with ants in their pants to decide now, certainly wouldn't be a very bad decision to grab one of those on sale now. It's unlikely BD will blow those CPU's away and at like half the price or something
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It's likely that Sandybridge getting competition will drive prices down.
Saying that OcUK dropping the price of 2500k and 2600k this week might get some with ants in their pants to decide now, certainly wouldn't be a very bad decision to grab one of those on sale now. It's unlikely BD will blow those CPU's away and at like half the price or something
Just to make my decision between a BD chip or Sandybridge far more difficult.
I'm kinda edging towards a Sandybridge chip now anyway, just because there's been so little said about BD, but we'll see, I guess.
See, that's it, I don't get why a frequency over all cores is labelled as a "turbo"... If it's all cores, then surely that's the actual "stock" frequency? The 3.1 only happens when you sacrifice some cores to boost others to 4.1.
I'm probably arguing semantics, but it does feel like marketing finding a way to tell us it's double-good-plus, rather than the truth that they're balancing performance and power draw because we can't have both together.
Either way it IS a good concept, both from performance and power perspectives, no arguments on that
No it willl have a stock frequency and then uses TDP remaining to turbo up, so the figure with all 8 cores with some form of load should be variable, thus you wouldnt be able to quote the 8 core active turbo as a stock frequency as in theory it should always be changing depending at what TDP the chip is currently at.
Well thats just my way of looking at how they said turbo works. Its not like the turbocore we have now on Thubans etc as that turbos up to a set figure.
Well thats just my way of looking at how they said turbo works. Its not like the turbocore we have now on Thubans etc as that turbos up to a set figure.
I think that this is the case.
So out of all of us excited about the BD launch, who actually has the potential to use all 8 cores? I've got maybe a couple of programs that would benefit, but I use them sparingly.
Guess it depends on which program ... I heard civ 5 uses more cores when played ... (obviously not tested with 8 since no one has BD yet).
dont know really - I just know I need an upgrade and Id rather it be AMD - hoping I dont have to wait too long.
this what i think
example 8150 has stock clock of 3.6GHz (4.2GHz via Turbo Core),
so 3.6ghz would be the base clock for all 8cores,.
if a app uses 6cores only then turbo will kick in and clock the 6cores to 3.8ghz~
if a app uses 4cores only then turbo will kick in and clock the 4cores to 4ghz~
if a app uses 2cores only then turbo will kick in and clock the 2cores to 4.2ghz
Last edited:
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AMD rep came out to dismiss the current crop of results doing the rounds.
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See, that's it, I don't get why a frequency over all cores is labelled as a "turbo"... If it's all cores, then surely that's the actual "stock" frequency? The 3.1 only happens when you sacrifice some cores to boost others to 4.1.
I'm probably arguing semantics, but it does feel like marketing finding a way to tell us it's double-good-plus, rather than the truth that they're balancing performance and power draw because we can't have both together.
Either way it IS a good concept, both from performance and power perspectives, no arguments on that
It's turbo because it only occurs when the processor is pushed, it uses the additional headroom in terms of TDP to increase the speed of the modules.
The 3.6GHz example is incorrect. All 4 modules and both cores per module will be overclocked.
I'm disappointed that it will be two modules overclocked to 4.1GHz as that means that you only have half the FP throughput.
Nope, not Civ 5. On my i7-950, Civ 5 seems to use about 2 cores, or 25% of CPU time; even if it is balanced across the four main cores (it seems to avoid using the virtual cores.)
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It won't have half the FP throughput, if you are only using 4 cores or two modules, thats because you aren't using more than 4 threads anyway, in which case, you can't use the other fp, if you have 8 threads, then all 8 cores will be used anyway.
As for whoever suggested overclocking only one core per module, not going to happen, power gating works that each module can be shut down completely, not each core, so 2 modules using all 4 cores will use a LOT less power than using 1 core in all 4 modules.
As for turbo, most people will be overclocking anyway, the interesting thing will be if turbo works well for overclocking.
Because if you can only set one top speed, the cpu might be stable with 4 cores running at 5Ghz, and 8 cores completely loaded, due to the extra heat and power, might not be stable beyond 4.5Ghz, would be nice to be able to have both happen rather than just set it to 4.5Ghz so its stable no matter the load.
As for turbo and the TDP, different threads will produce a different load in each individual core, some will be ultra efficient, use every part of the module every clock, interger and FP and use a huge amount of power, another thread might only use one interger issue per clock, no FP and use a lot less power.
In some situations with insanely heavy workloads that use every last bit of the core you won't get 3.6Ghz(for instance) on all 8 cores.
Basically theres a lot of variability, 100% load on a thread/core doesn't mean 100% of that core is being used. You could have 8 "light" threads using little of the core and not much power and huge overclock, another 8 "heavy" threads could be pulling a heck of a lot more power.