AMD Expects Significant Performance Improvements with Steamroller Microprocessors

Lokken86 · 21 Apr 2012 at 23:44

Spenty said:
AMD will never catch up to Intel.

Just like AMD didn't catch up with Nvidia?

humbug · 22 Apr 2012 at 02:45

IB is a 5% performance increase over SB at best which is also down to a slightly higher clock (IB is SB DIE shrink) and will not clock as high as SB

PD is 15% IPC over BD, we can see that with the already tested PD based Trinity APU's (Which monsters Middle line nVidia mobile GPU's and utterly annihilates Intel's HD 4000 Graphics while at the same time giving the Battery longer life)

The stock clocks on the 8 core will also be 4Ghz and no doubt overclock much higher.

All in all PD could very well be 30% better than BD, i think it will go toe to toe with IB.

PermaBanned · 22 Apr 2012 at 02:53

Lokken86 said:
Just like AMD didn't catch up with Nvidia?

Or Intel didn't catch up with AMD?

MrH · 22 Apr 2012 at 03:23

Spenty said:
AMD will never catch up to Intel.

Honestly I don't even consider AMD an option these days.

Rroff · 22 Apr 2012 at 03:26

10-15% is not a significant performance improvement...

humbug · 22 Apr 2012 at 03:44

Rroff said:
10-15% is not a significant performance improvement...

And Intel's 5% is?

Your also forgetting about the 20% stock clock increase, that should amount to 30% or more, total.

Rroff · 22 Apr 2012 at 03:50

5% is pretty much non-existant gain wise. Anything under about 40% isn't particularly significant IMO if your spending a fair amount of money upgrading.

humbug · 22 Apr 2012 at 03:56

Rroff said:
5% is pretty much non-existant gain wise. Anything under about 40% isn't particularly significant IMO if your spending a fair amount of money upgrading.

I completely agree. But 40% or a little less and i would upgrade.

Its like GPU's, they only seem to gain 10% from one generation to the next generation... absolutely no point.

valkynaz · 22 Apr 2012 at 06:44

humbug said:
I completely agree. But 40% or a little less and i would upgrade.

Its like GPU's, they only seem to gain 10% from one generation to the next generation... absolutely no point.

Keep bringing on the upgrades!

The point is it makes previous generations cheaper which is advantageous to people such as me who want to buy a crossfire card for cheap

. Christmas just gone, a 6950 upgrade set me back £240. Now that the 7XXX series has been released, I can pick one up for £170, which will fall even more by the time I actually need an upgrade. Not to mention the advances in technology increases competition in the industry so undoubtedly us consumers will get better quality/performing products for lower prices.

Lokken86 · 22 Apr 2012 at 07:22

SLI and Crossfire have certainly come a long way. In the early days i was tempted to pick up a second 6600gt and go SLI but they cost the same as a 6800GT together (maybe a little more?) and yet the performance was almost the same. In the beginning there was no point in mid range duel GPU setups. Nowadays you can get say 2 6850s for 170quid and they can match the 7950 for 300quid. I think thats great so long as you don't mind tinkering a little.

edscdk · 22 Apr 2012 at 08:16

mmj_uk said:
That's inevitable really, as time goes on more and more cores will be utilised to the point where 8 cores is advantageous. Intel could have released an 8 core Pentium 4 and the same could have been said about that... "ahead of its time".

We'd all be getting much less performance right now though if both companies had stopped working on IPC in favour of more cores.

Most people only use a pc for Internet, email and word so would benefit from higher clock speeds / more efficient CPUs not more cores, dual maybe at a push quad but no more...

Troezar · 22 Apr 2012 at 08:25

AMD were ahead of the game with 64bit chips, I bought one but it was obsolete veggie it was ever fully utilised. Sometimes three world isn't ready and you have to wait for them to catch up

PCZ · 22 Apr 2012 at 09:37

humbug said:
IB is a 5% performance increase over SB at best which is also down to a slightly higher clock (IB is SB DIE shrink) and will not clock as high as SB

PD is 15% IPC over BD, we can see that with the already tested PD based Trinity APU's (Which monsters Middle line nVidia mobile GPU's and utterly annihilates Intel's HD 4000 Graphics while at the same time giving the Battery longer life)

The stock clocks on the 8 core will also be 4Ghz and no doubt overclock much higher.

All in all PD could very well be 30% better than BD, i think it will go toe to toe with IB.

AMD has a very long way to go to match IB.
Even if PD was 30% better than BD it would still not match SB/IB performance.

AMD need to resurrect Phenom and give it a make over.

Freddie1980 · 22 Apr 2012 at 11:37

PCZ said:
AMD need to resurrect Phenom and give it a make over.

The problem with that approach is AMD were already doing that for years and years. Phenom was more less the same design as the old Ahtlons with revisions to the circuitry, smaller manufacturing processes, more cores, more cache etc. There's only so much you can do with a design before you need to start from scratch again.

AMD does have a history of doing fouling up on new designs. The 2900XT was the first video card to use the VLIW architecture and was a laughing stock yet the same architecture that fell flat on its face first time around pretty much led AMD to eating up a lot of Nvidia's market share over the next 6 years. I'm sure when designing Bulldozer AMD's engineers had a long term strategy in mind and we will soon see Bulldozer siblings come into there own.

james_ati · 22 Apr 2012 at 11:49

I thought AMD had given up trying to compete with intel?

no_1_dave · 22 Apr 2012 at 13:39

Troezar said:
AMD were ahead of the game with 64bit chips, I bought one but it was obsolete veggie it was ever fully utilised. Sometimes three world isn't ready and you have to wait for them to catch up

The difference is when AMD released their 64bit CPUs they also performed better then Intels P4s so AMD64 had the performance crown. It didn't matter that you weren't benefiting from 64bit because that could be looked at as an extra. Then Intel released Core2Duo and AMD haven't caught up since.

Martini1991 · 22 Apr 2012 at 13:50

humbug said:
And Intel's 5% is?

Your also forgetting about the 20% stock clock increase, that should amount to 30% or more, total.

Ivy was never meant to be some massive gain over SB.
Also, Haswell will be Intels "significant improvement"

humbug · 22 Apr 2012 at 14:06

valkynaz said:
Keep bringing on the upgrades!

The point is it makes previous generations cheaper which is advantageous to people such as me who want to buy a crossfire card for cheap . Christmas just gone, a 6950 upgrade set me back £240. Now that the 7XXX series has been released, I can pick one up for £170, which will fall even more by the time I actually need an upgrade. Not to mention the advances in technology increases competition in the industry so undoubtedly us consumers will get better quality/performing products for lower prices.

The 5770 i have,- i have had since the end of 2009. i Paid £160 for it new, at that time there was not a single game it would not max at 1080P, even today it will max Dirt3 at playable frame rates (overclocked)
The only game where it really falls down on is BF3, to get the magic 50 - 60 FPS i can only play @ 1600 x 900 all high, no AA and 16x AF.

Its been such a trust worthy and powerful card all these years, but its getting old and starting to find its self no longer able to cut it.

Time for me to bid fond farewell to it and think about a 6950.

Yes i'm going to go AMD again as this one has been solid despite its age and running just about maximum clocks continuously for more than a year.

humbug · 22 Apr 2012 at 14:31

Freddie1980 said:
The problem with that approach is AMD were already doing that for years and years. Phenom was more less the same design as the old Ahtlons with revisions to the circuitry, smaller manufacturing processes, more cores, more cache etc. There's only so much you can do with a design before you need to start from scratch again.

AMD does have a history of doing fouling up on new designs. The 2900XT was the first video card to use the VLIW architecture and was a laughing stock yet the same architecture that fell flat on its face first time around pretty much led AMD to eating up a lot of Nvidia's market share over the next 6 years. I'm sure when designing Bulldozer AMD's engineers had a long term strategy in mind and we will soon see Bulldozer siblings come into there own.

Interesting you should say that

http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-may-be-preparing-phenom-ii-x8/

AMD May Be Preparing Phenom II X8

BIOS updates for mainboards made by Elitegroup Computer Systems and Jetway reveal that Advanced Micro Devices may be preparing a new line of multi-core microprocessors called Phenom II X8. Based on alleged specifications of the products, the new central processing units (CPUs) will be aimed at cost-sensitive segment of the market as x-bitlabs reports:

Based on CPU support list of Jetway HA18 mainboard based on AMD 9-series chipset and AM3+ socket, AMD is preparing a series of new microprocessors based on Zambezi design (Bulldozer micro-architecture, 4, 6 or 8 cores) of different revisions with rather low clock-speeds and with 95W thermal design power. Jetway lists the new processors as "engineering samples", but a well-known Japanese observer/blogger Northwood.blog60.fc2.com points to an alleged ECS A890GXM-A2 CPU support list that calls the chips as AMD Phenom II X8.

The list of AMD Phenom II X8 microprocessors includes four models:

AMD Phenom II X8 2420: 2.40GHz, 95W, ZD242046W8K43
AMD Phenom II X8 3020: 3.00GHz, 125W, ZD302051W8K44
AMD Phenom II X8 2520: 2.50GHz, 95W, ZD252046W6443
AMD Phenom II X8 2820: 2.80GHz, 95W, ZD282046W8K43
The "Phenom II X8" microprocessors can be actual early engineering samples of chips that now belong to AMD FX premium product line, however, listing of their support now implies that AMD is cooking something new.
Although AMD FX family does not play in the ultra high-performance segment of the market where microprocessors cost $400 or more, the Sunnyvale, California-based company clearly positions the chips as premium products. Therefore, the company is not interested in selling products with relatively low performance under the FX brand.

It is known that AMD does have a lot of Zambezi processors that have all cores functional, but which cannot work on high clock-speeds and therefore provide premium "FX-class" performance, but AMD is definitely interested in selling those chips. In a bid not to harm the appeal of the FX brand, the chip designer may sell low-frequency Zambezi processors with disabled Turbo Core dynamic clock-speed acceleration technology and/or cut-down L2/L3 cache under Phenom II X8 brand. AMD already sells some processors based on Llano APU design with disabled graphics engine under Athlon II and Sempron monikers, thus, a refresh of the Phenom II line should not be a complete surprise.

With low frequencies and without Turbo Core, the new eight-core Phenom II X8 will likely be considerably slower than the existing six-core Phenom II X8 processors based on Thuban design.

Not the Debian or Thuban architecture upgraded (DIE shrunk, increased number of transistors per core, updated mem controller) but a cut down Bulldozer! Translation = Kill the good Phenom II name, the FX name is now well and truly dead.

And for there next trick they will kill there XP name...

[Edit] aww poo, it seems true...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157432

Besides the fact that they are carved out of the same piece of silicon by disabling components, all AMD FX series processors, from the quad-core FX-4000 series, to the eight-core FX-8000 series have one thing in common: they're all "unlocked", meaning they have an upwards-unlocked base-clock multiplier, which makes overclocking them a whole lot easier. Take that away and what do you get? A new Phenom II processor line. That's right, it is learned that AMD has a new line of Phenom II processors, eight-core for now, that are being carved out of the 32 nm Zambezi silicon.

Intuitively branded within the new Phenom II X8 and existing Phenom II X6 markers, these chips feature relatively lower clock speeds, meaning they will be priced low, competitive with Intel's sub-$200 Core i3 and Core i5 processors. AMD will also tinker with Zambezi's caches. The new chips came to light when some motherboard manufacturers leaked them on CPU support lists of certain motherboards, on their websites. For now we're getting to hear about two eight-core models, the 2.40 GHz Phenom II X8 2420, and 3.00 GHz Phenom II X8 3020; and two six-core models, the 2.50 GHz Phenom II X6 2520, and 2.80 GHz Phenom II X6 2820. Relevant details are tabled below. It beats us why AMD didn't take the opportunity (new silicon) to label these "Phenom III".

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 22 Apr 2012 at 15:09

The CPUs seem to be Bulldozer based test samples used for motherboard validation. It seems the story was based on this thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?277951-Phenom-x8-indecisive-AMD

It is not the first time TPU has done either so take their article with a truck load of salt IMHO.

All the official roadmaps only show newer FX models which ended up being released.