Bulldozer Innovations Target Energy Efficiency

[HardOCP News]

For those of you that missed our post yesterday on the topic, AMD will be posting a series of Bulldozer articles during ISSCC this year on the company blog. Today's article talks about the importance of a computer's power efficiency. Here's a quote:

Obviously, if we want cooler more energy efficient computers, it all starts with a well designed CPU which produces 50% of the heat. The Bulldozer core implements numerous improvements that target super-efficient computation in all aspects of the design. These features build on and extend the foundational innovations that were discussed as part of the “Llano” disclosures made a year ago and covered in a prior blog.

 

[skruideli]

Hmm, there seems to be something terribly wrong with that pie chart. I see one "other" with 9% and right next to it is another "other" with 4% ?

While I am excited for what AMD has coming out, I must say that they should make sure they make their pie charts properly.

 

[thebaest]

I see one "other" with 9% and right next to it is another "other" with 4% ?

theres also a section for DDR, and Memory...
"Quick *8 year old son* im late for work and I need you to put a pie chart together... I dont care just put lotsa pieces of pie in it and make the CPU one a lot bigger than the others!"

 

[TwistedAegis]

Efficiency is well and good, but it better come along with substantial power gains. And I'm assuming a typical workload doesn't include gaming, because no way the GPU is only taking up 12%.

 

[J Macker]

Efficiency is well and good, but it better come along with substantial power gains.

Performance gains? Power increase? What are you really trying to say?

AMD better have another cat in the bag after all these delays.

 

[-Dragon-]

My biggest worry is this is leading up to (yet another) "our CPU may not be fastest but it's fastest per watt (in low end price ranges)!", leading (yet again) to another few years of the AMD forums huddling around crying and chanting that "our processor is good for the price!" and intel forums bitching about how intel, for the 4th quarter running, has announced zero price drops because frankly they don't have to. Gotta admit the price release earlier today was a bit disappointing and I don't even plan to build a new system any time soon.

 

[wtiger]

So is there a release date on this thing? It seems like we've been waiting 3 years for it's immanent release.

 

[Shakezilla]

So is there a release date on this thing? It seems like we've been waiting 3 years for it's immanent release.

It was been narrowed down to the vague Q2 window.

 

[amdgamer]

Whenever a company starts to talk about nothing but efficiency, I can't help but think that they are talking efficiency because they have no choice. Granted that AMD has always had the best performance per dollar ratio, but that doesn't mean much if you are a power user who wants to Fold for team HardOCP and dont' care too much for efficiency........

 

[jstnomega]

as others have already pointed out: DDR & Memory + Other & Other - ?

tell me about 22nm & smaller

 

[THRESHIN]

i'm willing to bet that the GPU load is a bit higher for most of us here

 

[skruideli]

Whenever a company starts to talk about nothing but efficiency, I can't help but think that they are talking efficiency because they have no choice. Granted that AMD has always had the best performance per dollar ratio, but that doesn't mean much if you are a power user who wants to Fold for team HardOCP and dont' care too much for efficiency........

This is true, however efficiency can be a huge plus on the server side of things. It can cut costs significantly, especially in data centers.

Efficiency may be a part of AMD's overall strategy as well, their video cards are more power efficient than nVidia's.

I do really hope that BD brings real performance competition to the table though.

 

[amdgamer]

This is true, however efficiency can be a huge plus on the server side of things. It can cut costs significantly, especially in data centers.

Efficiency may be a part of AMD's overall strategy as well, their video cards are more power efficient than nVidia's.

I do really hope that BD brings real performance competition to the table though.

I'm nervous and cautious at this point in time. Especially with the possibility of an 8 core/16 thread LGA2044 quad channel extreme edition processor at the end of this year from Intel, i'm just unsure how Bulldozer is going to fit in. Especially for gaming, I don't think they need to chase the ultra high end market, but I would hope that they will be very competitive at least in the mid-range. We know they will be very competitive at the low end, but this is HardOCP.

 

[Trimlock]

AMD is taking a note from their GPU side, smaller, vastly superior on energy efficiencies and cornering the market on prices. The biggest problem is they still need to be competitive, not the fastest just competitive.

 

[Benny Blanco]

Hmm, there seems to be something terribly wrong with that pie chart. I see one "other" with 9% and right next to it is another "other" with 4% ?

While I am excited for what AMD has coming out, I must say that they should make sure they make their pie charts properly.

Come on dude, whats wrong with you? One is green "other" and one is blue "other"

I, for one, welcome our new pie-chart overlords.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Whenever a company starts to talk about nothing but efficiency, I can't help but think that they are talking efficiency because they have no choice. Granted that AMD has always had the best performance per dollar ratio, but that doesn't mean much if you are a power user who wants to Fold for team HardOCP and dont' care too much for efficiency........

not true, efficiency is very important in the realm of F@H, why do you think a lot of people went to the SR-2 with xeons. you can produce 10 times the points for 1/4 of the power usage you see with everything else. otherwise if we didn't care about power usage and efficiency we would all be running gtx 580's and overclocked i7 920's or 980x's instead of the SR-2 rigs. then to top that off we would all be running non 80 plus cert PSU's because they were cheap which isn't the case since most of us run 80+ silver and gold cert PSU's.

theres a reason we have the PPD per watt numbers and charts.

 

[SixFootDuo]

Yeah yeah yeah ... ok, we get it, we get it., you wanna save a little money on power usage.

Ok, and?

Now, what's under the hood?

Those thoughts will be on the minds of lots and lots and lots of us when this thing comes out.

If AMD sat us down and asked us as a collective what we wanted, we would say speed. Efficiency, while important isn't exactly all that cool.

If Intel can make super uber duper fast CPU's, why can't AMD?

I really doubt that all the smart engineers work for intel and none at AMD.

 

[teletran8]

Well whichever company can do a 8 Core / 16 Threads Desktop CPU for under - 500.00 dollars first is where I'll be looking to spend my money when it comes to my next CPU purchase.

Even right now today the recently price dropped Intel Core i7-970 @ 599.99 - 6 Core / 12 Threads is appealing when it comes to Desktop CPU performance. But the Price 2 Performance is really WAY off so I'll hang tight with 4 Cores / 4 Threads for now which really does 90 percent of what I want anyway...but still it's nice to have the performance you want, when you want/need it (EVEN if you REGRET IT later!) in all areas of PC use. And not wait months for something to finally "show" up that meets your personal requirements.

Either way WE do NEED AMD in the marketplace or else we will go back to the mediocre speed increases (think Pentium 1-3 era in Retail stores, I think it was 66mhz in 94-95 and in 99-2000 there was a Pentium 3 450 mhz still being sold...lol! But they were good for their era's but when AMD released Socket A and then AMD 64 939 DANG!! That was a fun era!)

I believe expensive PC prices only favor one entity...Intel's company, not the enthusiast or general consumer who likes fast PC's (Remember Athlon 64 +3500 anyone?). Which maybe doesn't matter in this era or Direct X 9 titles/ (Shovelware, as far as I'm concerned DX9 is for PS3 not PC, but whatever) DX 10+/11 titles shouldn't be outnumbered today by DX9 on PC!! Sad era at the moment honestly. If AMD doesn't come through I see PC titles evolving slowly or more slow than ever. Who knows... maybe I'm miscalculating...

I just hope AMD does a great 8 Core CPU that outperforms the Phenom 6 Cores and adds more threads preferably 16, but we will all wait and see. Or a cost effective 6/12 thread. Maybe @ 300.00 - 350.00 dollars A nerd has to dream doesn't he?

 

[niconx]

So yea, energy efficiency is important and all that but what's the IPC on this thing? This is a desktop and server chip not a laptop or cell phone chip.

 

[teletran8]

Yeah yeah yeah ... ok, we get it, we get it., you wanna save a little money on power usage.

Ok, and?

Now, what's under the hood?

Those thoughts will be on the minds of lots and lots and lots of us when this thing comes out.

If AMD sat us down and asked us as a collective what we wanted, we would say speed. Efficiency, while important isn't exactly all that cool.

If Intel can make super uber duper fast CPU's, why can't AMD?

I really doubt that all the smart engineers work for intel and none at AMD.

If all we just needed/wanted was energy efficiency in the Desktop CPU market we all might as well be using Laptops 24/7.

I don't see that happening unless all PC game titles are Direct X 9, and everyone uses Facebook and E-mail...WAIT! WHAT?...LOL!

Good thing there is still a few (very few it seems to me) companies still pushing high end games/programs.

 

[amdgamer]

not true, efficiency is very important in the realm of F@H, why do you think a lot of people went to the SR-2 with xeons. you can produce 10 times the points for 1/4 of the power usage you see with everything else. otherwise if we didn't care about power usage and efficiency we would all be running gtx 580's and overclocked i7 920's or 980x's instead of the SR-2 rigs. then to top that off we would all be running non 80 plus cert PSU's because they were cheap which isn't the case since most of us run 80+ silver and gold cert PSU's.

theres a reason we have the PPD per watt numbers and charts.

I dunno, because a lot of those guys run some crazy overclocks that operate the processor well outside of the window of efficiency. I've been rather intrigued with the efficiency articles that tomshardware puts out everytime a new processor is released, and it appears that at some point you are going down on the efficiency curve due to vcore increases.

However I understand what you are saying as yes they care about efficiencies in that respect. Of course you cannot really compare CPU's and GPU's though as they are very different, and actually appear to do different science according to those work unit descriptions. I just want a damn ATI client to finally be released(a decent one).....

 

[kirtar]

If you're running a supercomputing cluster in which you are bound by a maximum power draw, efficiency is always nice. Not that any of us probably are, but it's just something to throw out there (it is on the business blog)

 

[teletran8]

It is rather genius if AMD can carve a (permanent) place in the market /(consumer conscience) for future years where they are THE most efficient CPU provider on the planet with comparable performance, being that there is a new era collective GREEN conscience...
developing in most civilized places on the earth.<--(where they will want to market and diversify, build rep. etc.)

If AMD can tap into that more than Intel in the coming years (and Intel got their booties whooped with teh Athlon 64 back in the day, they still scared and building fabs like a paranoid pot head needs food for their munchies. So they don't wish to lose the performance edge like they did in 2000+-2006.

Then I see AMD to be doing steady business with Servers and Green conscience PC consumers for years to come. Which will increase their stocks/quarter/annual earnings. Especially when AMD doesn't have the billions to go around building new fabs left and right like Intel is doing at the moment in their wake of years of monopolistic anti-trust business tactics. (IMO Intel they felt they had to employ to remain competitive with the mighty Athlon32/Athlon64 CPU's) (now on the brakes since November 09') Thank god, but damage has been done...

the AMD Highest Benchmarks+ better value AND BEST price+performance per dollar era that some once knew/ vaguely remember might end up being a one time in history of CPU's event.... Maybe that idea should just be laid to RIP?? Because GREED conquers all in USA? <-- lol I got sad there for a moment

 

[cyclone3d]

I just can't wait to see what AMD's multithreading can do vs Intel's Hyperthreading.

From the sound of it, you should be able to get around 80% speed of a real core with the partial core vs Intel's ~20% with Hyperthreading.

If this is really the case, and it seems to be, AMD should be very much on top for highly threaded apps.

 

[TechBoy]

I just hope to finally buy a AMD Cpu sometime in the future because Intel has been killing AMD and I am, was a AMD fanboy. But first and most importantly I am a price/performance fanboy and AMD has not been winning the $200` cpu price range.

 

[Jospeh]

uh-oh. If they are talking about power efficiency, I hope that doesn't mean bulldozer's performance is going to suck.

 

[DedEmbryonicCe11]

I just can't wait to see what AMD's multithreading can do vs Intel's Hyperthreading.

From the sound of it, you should be able to get around 80% speed of a real core with the partial core vs Intel's ~20% with Hyperthreading.

If this is really the case, and it seems to be, AMD should be very much on top for highly threaded apps.

What partial core? The "80%" that people are so confused about isn't a detriment... it's the lack of a benefit that BD can have when using only one core of a module.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

I dunno, because a lot of those guys run some crazy overclocks that operate the processor well outside of the window of efficiency. I've been rather intrigued with the efficiency articles that tomshardware puts out everytime a new processor is released, and it appears that at some point you are going down on the efficiency curve due to vcore increases.

However I understand what you are saying as yes they care about efficiencies in that respect. Of course you cannot really compare CPU's and GPU's though as they are very different, and actually appear to do different science according to those work unit descriptions. I just want a damn ATI client to finally be released(a decent one).....

yes some of us do run high overclocks, but due to the current crappy point system it amount of points you gain offset the added power usage. consider the fact that you gain 10k PPD on a bigadv WU going from 2.6Ghz to 3.6Ghz on say an i7 920 but only gain 30w that 10k PPD is worth the 30w. so going from 2.6Ghz to 4.2Ghz gains you 20k PPD and add's say 85w that 20k points for 85w of extra power usage is still worth it. now when it comes to standard SMP efficiency becomes even more important because gains are not as large as bigadv WU's. so the efficiency of bulldozer comes into play here since it will be capable of running bigadv WU's. so if you can get the same PPD say at 125w on a bulldozer as say an i7 980x @ 4.2Ghz pushing 200w which processor do you think is the better choice? just theoretical food for thought.

I just can't wait to see what AMD's multithreading can do vs Intel's Hyperthreading.

From the sound of it, you should be able to get around 80% speed of a real core with the partial core vs Intel's ~20% with Hyperthreading.

If this is really the case, and it seems to be, AMD should be very much on top for highly threaded apps.

except theres a huge difference from bulldozer's module config to hyperthreading. the modules each contain 2 cores per module. so it still has 2 physical cores with resources for each core. where the benefit comes in is single threaded applications since the single module can access all the resources within that module. so as far as multithreaded goes there shouldn't be any loss in performance like you see with hyperthreading and there should be a significant gain in single threaded performance.

 

[AtkinS]

theres also a section for DDR, and Memory...
"Quick *8 year old son* im late for work and I need you to put a pie chart together... I dont care just put lotsa pieces of pie in it and make the CPU one a lot bigger than the others!"

memory controller and the ddr chipsthemself.

 

[SLee]

From the sound of it, you should be able to get around 80% speed of a real core with the partial core vs Intel's ~20% with Hyperthreading.

If this is really the case, and it seems to be, AMD should be very much on top for highly threaded apps.

But a current Intel core is far stronger than a current AMD core, such that at equal clock speeds 4 Sandy Bridge cores with HT is roughly equal to 7 full AMD cores.

 

[SLee]

but still it's nice to have the performance you want, when you want/need it (EVEN if you REGRET IT later!) in all areas of PC use. And not wait months for something to finally "show" up that meets your personal requirements.

x86 pricing has always been non-linear regardless of whether Intel or AMD had the top performing CPUs.

Either way WE do NEED AMD in the marketplace or else we will go back to the mediocre speed increases (think Pentium 1-3 era in Retail stores, I think it was 66mhz in 94-95 and in 99-2000 there was a Pentium 3 450 mhz still being sold...lol!

You're talking about a nearly 7x increase in clock speed in 5 years; something that due to physics will probably never happen again.

But they were good for their era's but when AMD released Socket A and then AMD 64 939 DANG!! That was a fun era!)

Socket 939 went from something like 2GHz single-core to 3.2GHz dual-core.

I believe expensive PC prices only favor one entity...

It benefits whoever is in the performance lead; that's when AMD has made its largest profits.

 

[sc3252]

So is there a release date on this thing? It seems like we've been waiting 3 years for it's immanent release.

No, they have never said the release is only a quarter away for 3 years. You must be thinking of some video game. Anyways it was always either 2009(when it was 45nm) or 2011 when it became a 32nm part. They only revised their roadmaps once it became clear they couldn't do it on 45nm.

Here is a roadmap from 2008, and it shows 2011...
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_cpu_roadmap_update_2008/

 

[beto]

Whirring fans, hot air, oversubscribed datacenter power grids, short battery life &#8230; all of these are symptoms of our computers consuming too much power and generating too much heat. But while we are unhappy with these symptoms of excess power consumption, we typically aren&#8217;t ready to deal with a sluggish, unresponsive computer to solve it. We want all the performance of a high power processor without the nasty power-related side effects that tend to come with it. AMD&#8217;s &#8220;Bulldozer&#8221; CPU core design being discussed this week at ISSCC is all about breakthroughs in power efficient design that enable both high performance and cool, quiet operation.

(emphasis added)

It looks like they are paying at least lip service to "high performance" anyway. I too hope they aren't setting us up for another comparative let-down.

And finally, a next generation AMD Turbo CORE technology implementation that provides maximum compute speed when required, and throttles back to maximum efficiency when appropriate. Bulldozer implements a significantly more aggressive version of this capability than &#8220;Llano&#8221; with more details to be disclosed in the future.

What I want to know is what the heck does this mean? What am I missing here? How can Bulldozer "implement a significantly more aggressive version of (turbo core) than Llano"? THAN Llano? I thought Llano was Bulldozer. Isn't bulldozer the core that goes into Llano or no? So Zambezi will be Bulldozer but Llano won't? Jeebus, I thought I knew what was going on with these chips and the naming.

 

[Budzman]

Starting to get really bored with AMD.

 

[flexcore]

(emphasis added)
What I want to know is what the heck does this mean? What am I missing here? How can Bulldozer "implement a significantly more aggressive version of (turbo core) than Llano"? THAN Llano? I thought Llano was Bulldozer. Isn't bulldozer the core that goes into Llano or no? So Zambezi will be Bulldozer but Llano won't? Jeebus, I thought I knew what was going on with these chips and the naming.

Llano will have a modified Stars,K10.5h, core with Evergreen class graphics from what I have heard.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

(emphasis added)

It looks like they are paying at least lip service to "high performance" anyway. I too hope they aren't setting us up for another comparative let-down.



What I want to know is what the heck does this mean? What am I missing here? How can Bulldozer "implement a significantly more aggressive version of (turbo core) than Llano"? THAN Llano? I thought Llano was Bulldozer. Isn't bulldozer the core that goes into Llano or no? So Zambezi will be Bulldozer but Llano won't? Jeebus, I thought I knew what was going on with these chips and the naming.

what they mean by being agressive is the way its able to use turbo core on either module where as currently its only 3 core's at any one time on the x6 that can take advantage of turbo core. so i think what they mean is that the turbo core can switch between modules when ever needed. and due to the low clocks on Llano i'm guessing its set up like the old style where all 2-4 cores are turbo'd on demand and dropped when idle.

but thats all a guess at this point but i remember in the old slides there was something about how the turbo core can switch between modules and turn off modules when not needed to take advantage of much higher clocks on the active modules when in turbo mode.

 

[griff30]

I, for one, welcome our new pie-chart overlords.

I see what you did there...

So yea, energy efficiency is important and all that but what's the IPC on this thing? This is a desktop and server chip not a laptop or cell phone chip.

I agree, its like pulling up next to a 427 Selby Cobra in your Mini Cooper. Yeah you get more MPG in the Mini but the Cobra gets women wet on it's sound alone..

I just can't wait to see what AMD's multithreading can do vs Intel's Hyperthreading.

From the sound of it, you should be able to get around 80% speed of a real core with the partial core vs Intel's ~20% with Hyperthreading.

If this is really the case, and it seems to be, AMD should be very much on top for highly threaded apps.

Only benchmarks and gameplay will tell.
I wish the best for AMD's Bulldozer but when they start putting out pie charts declaring their superior efficiency, make me think that the Bulldozer is going to be a Phenom 3.
Even the name "Bulldozer" reminds me of a gigantic 300 pound bodybuilder..with a one inch "fuse". And just like the bodybuilder, it looks good on stage (or piecharts) but disapoints the women in bed (gaming)

 

[Mav451]

My biggest worry is this is leading up to (yet another) "our CPU may not be fastest but it's fastest per watt (in low end price ranges)!", leading (yet again) to another few years of the AMD forums huddling around crying and chanting that "our processor is good for the price!" and intel forums bitching about how intel, for the 4th quarter running, has announced zero price drops because frankly they don't have to. Gotta admit the price release earlier today was a bit disappointing and I don't even plan to build a new system any time soon.

Where did you hear about Bulldozer pricing?

 

[Spilly]

I hope they don't make them too efficient. My feet enjoy the extra heat!

 

[griff30]

Where did you hear about Bulldozer pricing?

He was talking about Intel prices. They haven't changed because they know AMD is in trouble due to: Buyout, Poor performance Bulldozer, whatever.