AMD Bulldozer Finally!

marms · 23 May 2011 at 10:35

Martini1991 said:
So you'd be fine with an 8 core Phenom II part?
It'll get spanked by a 2500k unless it's in app's that can use 8 cores.

You can't compare GPU's, as the games can use the shader cores.
EDIT : I prefer AMD CPU's. But I went for an intel fling using the 2500k, I had it prime stable at 4.8GHZ... My GD65 however broke, and I ran back to AMD using a 95W 1055T.
However, with the intel set up, in dawn of war 2, I've lost 40 FPS on average, my benchmark score was 100 on the Intel for average, 63ish on my AMD...
Faster cores is the answer at the moment, until games use more cores.

And can you see the difference between 63 fps and 100 fps when playing a game?

as905 · 23 May 2011 at 10:50

marms said:
And can you see the difference between 63 fps and 100 fps when playing a game?

yes a lot of people inc me will tell you 120fps is far smoother experience than 60fps + if your cpu can only manage 63fps now then imagine how it's going to handle future games ? (it wont last long)

MR.B · 23 May 2011 at 12:58

as905 said:
yes a lot of people inc me will tell you 120fps is far smoother experience than 60fps + if your cpu can only manage 63fps now then imagine how it's going to handle future games ? (it wont last long)

Theres no difference between 60fps and 120fps unless you have a monitor/TV that can do over 60hz, which most cant.
If a games minimum frame rate never drops below 60fps then you will never see any difference on a 60hz monitor as it's simply impossible.

JF-AMD · 23 May 2011 at 13:37

Vinni3 @H|H said:
JF-AMD, I don't know if you can answer this since you are a server man, but how come AMD has decided to stick with dual channel memory instead of moving to triple, or quad channel like Intel?

Have you seen a benchmark for triple channel memory vs. dual? Why would you want to be forced into buying DIMMs in 3's, but getting performance relative to pairs?

We'll have 50% more memory throughput for BD. Wouldn't you rather buy 2 DIMMs and get high bandwidth instead?

Then, after you have answered that, ask yourself what desktop workloads really take advantage of all of that memory bandwidth. You'd be surprised how often your memory bus is sitting nearly empty.

Practical technology for practical applications. Not technology for technology's sake.

clocka · 23 May 2011 at 13:47

I hope that they can release their AMD E2-3250 or A4-3350 to be used in a cheap board. Intel's H67 board start at £60.

Intel Pentium SKT1155 cpu's start at £50 so £110 for board + cpu. AMD's low end new processors will be around £50 too, i just hope their boards are cheaper than intel's H67 as £60+ for a low end board with modern connections such as sata6gbs and usb3 is rather expensive. G41 is only £30-40.

Will bulldozer have ATI stream support for doing encoding using the gpu?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 14:26

Here are some pictures of the mobile Llano processors:

http://diybbs.zol.com.cn/10/11_99123.html

The dual cores and quad cores seem to share the same die.

clocka said:
I hope that they can release their AMD E2-3250 or A4-3350 to be used in a cheap board. Intel's H67 board start at £60.

Intel Pentium SKT1155 cpu's start at £50 so £110 for board + cpu. AMD's low end new processors will be around £50 too, i just hope their boards are cheaper than intel's H67 as £60+ for a low end board with modern connections such as sata6gbs and usb3 is rather expensive. G41 is only £30-40.

Will bulldozer have ATI stream support for doing encoding using the gpu?

The AM3 motherboard for years have started from a much lower price point than either socket 1366,1156 and 1155. Motherboards are available from as little as £30 and you can get full mATX and ATX motherboards with SATA3.0 and/or USB3.0 and four RAM slots for between £50 to £60. You can get mATX and ATX motherboards with overclocking options and 4 RAM slots without USB3.0 or SATA3.0 for £40 to £50. This has been the case for yonks.

The H61 motherboards only have two RAM slots.

G41 motherboards are also for socket 775 not socket 1155.

DragonQ · 23 May 2011 at 14:29

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Here are some pictures of the mobile Llano processors:

http://diybbs.zol.com.cn/10/11_99123.html

The dual cores and quad cores seem to share the same die.

More unlocking potential then?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 14:31

DragonQ said:
More unlocking potential then?

clocka · 23 May 2011 at 14:35

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Here are some pictures of the mobile Llano processors:

http://diybbs.zol.com.cn/10/11_99123.html

The dual cores and quad cores seem to share the same die.

The AM3 motherboard for years have started from a much lower price point than either socket 1366,1156 and 1155. Motherboards are available from as little as £30 and you can get full mATX and ATX motherboards with SATA3.0 and/or USB3.0 and four RAM slots for between £50 to £60. You can mATX and ATX motherboards with overclocking options and 4 RAM slots without USB3.0 or SATA3.0 for £40 to £50. This has been the case for yonks.

The H61 motherboard only have two RAM slots.

G41 motherboards are also for socket 775 not socket 1155.

yes i realise G41 is SKT775 my point being intel's latest boards the 1155 are £60+ for H67, H61 don't have the modern connections on by default, all the latest technologies for an intel board aren't available for under £60.

I thought the new amd's used SKT FM1 not AM3?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 14:52

clocka said:
yes i realise G41 is SKT775 my point being intel's latest boards the 1155 are £60+ for H67, H61 don't have the modern connections on by default, all the latest technologies for an intel board aren't available for under £60.

I thought the new amd's used SKT FM1 not AM3?

If AMD can produce AM3 motherboards with a decent feature set for a relative low price, I would assume that the FM1 motherboards will not be overpriced outside of any initial price gouging. Remember, like Intel did with the socket 1155 and 1156 processors AMD too has moved more functionality onto their CPUs. This means the motherboards will require less chips than the the older ones.

clocka · 23 May 2011 at 15:14

yeah, the cost will have gone down for them but that doesn't mean the saving is passed on

G41 for £31 has an onboard gpu which costs money to make, H67 doesn't have a seperate gpu so you'd expect intel would price their boards pretty low but no competition from AMD has lead them to charge a lot for boards with modern connections like H67.

If AMD can charge £45-50 for their lowest cpu and £45-50 for a board with modern connections they'd sell a hell of a lot and still make a decent profit. I have a feeling they will charge £60+ for FM1 boards with modern connections though which would basically pricematch pentium 1155 + h67, intel's cpu's will likely be faster overall so the only reason for people to buy amd would be if their boards are cheaper.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 15:22

clocka said:
yeah, the cost will have gone down for them but that doesn't mean the saving is passed on

G41 for £31 has an onboard gpu which costs money to make, H67 doesn't have a seperate gpu so you'd expect intel would price their boards pretty low but no competition from AMD has lead them to charge a lot for boards with modern connections like H67.

If AMD can charge £45-50 for their lowest cpu and £45-50 for a board with modern connections they'd sell a hell of a lot and still make a decent profit. I have a feeling they will charge £60+ for FM1 boards with modern connections though which would basically pricematch pentium 1155 + h67, intel's cpu's will likely be faster overall so the only reason for people to buy amd would be if their boards are cheaper.

AFAIK,the Hudson D3 has both native SATA3.0 and USB3.0 support so all FM1 motherboards should have these as standard.

On top of this Llano will have a faster graphics chip especially in its quad core version too. TBH,we will get a clearer view of the pricing a few weeks after launch.

Theophany · 23 May 2011 at 15:26

pooey said:
Looking at what we know of bulldozer, it seems to me that they're mainly targeting the server market, I think people expecting them to be amazing allround desktop jobbies are going to be dissapointed.

Not really, their server offerings use Bulldozer modules in just the same way that Intel's server offerings use HyperThreading. I don't disagree that a lot of the Bulldozer information has been geared towards servers, but that is because AMD pushed information about Interlagos and Magny-Cours a long time ago and haven't officially started giving out information on Zambezi that isn't currently under NDA.

Zambezi will be an all-round desktop chip, no questions, no doubts. I thought as you did a while back, but it makes fiscal sense from AMD's perspective to give businesses their forthcoming products first as these likely make up the bulk of their sales. Comparatively, OEM vendors won't care so much beyond $ per unit per million and how that fits into their profit margins. The enthusiasts (i.e. us lot) are a much, much smaller market segment that is capable of getting information on future products without being spoon fed information by AMD.

So yeah, Bulldozer in the server market and Bulldozer in the home market will be targeted differently, but AMD are certainly not going to lapse on us. They've spent too many years as the underdog and they finally have the technology to level the playing field again, this is not an opportunity they are going to squander.

clocka · 23 May 2011 at 15:29

yeah the AMD graphics will kill intel's but gamers wouldn't want them anyway as its still not powerful enough for decent quality and res.

Cpu pricing has already been revealed but no motherboard prices yet, we'll prob find out on 1st june if not the 14th.

Yeah i think there are a small number of SATA3 and USB3 ports on all FM1 but HDMI, optical audio and other such things only go on the more expensive models usually.

Intel will probably have to lower their prices quite a bit over the next few months as a result of competition which is always nice

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 15:46

clocka said:
yeah the AMD graphics will kill intel's but gamers wouldn't want them anyway as its still not powerful enough for decent quality and res.

Actually for a lot of casual gamers the IGP will be great. I know quite a few people who use an HD4670 and this is still fine for many games like WoW,DragonAge,Civ 5,StarCraft II,the various L4D games,Portal II and a few others. The IGP on the core Llano CPUs looks like it will be as fast or even faster than an HD4670.

The thing is that if you add another £50 to £60 graphics card you are looking at a decent boost in performance too.

The dual core Llano CPUs have a 160 shader GPU which will mean it will probably be faster than the HD2000 and HD3000 IGPs too.

I tried the HD2000 on my Core i3 2100 and it could run a few games at medium settings like UT3 and L4D.

clocka said:
Cpu pricing has already been revealed but no motherboard prices yet, we'll prob find out on 1st june if not the 14th.

Yeah i think there are a small number of SATA3 and USB3 ports on all FM1 but HDMI, optical audio and other such things only go on the more expensive models usually.

Intel will probably have to lower their prices quite a bit over the next few months as a result of competition which is always nice

The Hudson D3 has six SATA ports and 4 USB3.0 as standard:

http://www.nordichardware.com/news/...attacks-intel-p67-with-hudson-d3-chipset.html

Of course I don't know whether there will be a cheaper reduced functionality version too. Some of the cheaper £40 to £50 AM3 motherboards do have HDMI and optical out so I would think that some of the cheaper FM1 motherboards would have this too.

Anyway,like you said a bit of competition will help lower prices a bit!!

arnoldma · 23 May 2011 at 15:58

is amd actually annoucing the fx cpus themselves at computex, or just the chipset for mobos?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 May 2011 at 16:06

It seems the specifications of the mobile Llano processors have been leaked:

http://translate.google.es/translat...ni-mobil-islemcilerinin-tamami-detaylandi.htm

It looks like the A4 dual core has 240 shaders.

Martini1991 · 23 May 2011 at 16:10

Rumour has it one E-tailer was to sell some BD CPU's tomorrow.
That's gone down the pan as a delay was mentioned.

clocka · 23 May 2011 at 16:17

why would they be selling them tomorrow? the announcement is on june 1st, laptops go on sale 7th june and desktops on 14th june.

Martini1991 · 23 May 2011 at 16:19

clocka said:
why would they be selling them tomorrow? the announcement is on june 1st, laptops go on sale 7th june and desktops on 14th june.

Just going on what I've been told.