AMD Down 4 the Count? Future Map I vs A

M

MC FLMJIG

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 20, 2005
Messages
4,521
I currently have an AM2 and was very excited when I heard about AM2+ (tutu). However looking at this is kind of saddening for AMD. Maybe I was being overly optimostic but looking at this map put things a bit more into perspective.



Was speaking to Eclipse on how most reviewers are so off on their stuff but I'll post this as I thought it was interesting. Well, at least the map. If it is accurate.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips01047/

I suspect the forecast is optimistic on the Intel side, but even if you assume that 3Q 2007 ends up meaning 1Q 2008 for plenty of affordable ones to be around, it still should leave AMDers very, very unhappy.

We'll ignore the quadcores for today, and just focus on the duallies.

On the Blue Team, we see that the 45nm dually will have 6Mb of cache and run at default speeds of 3.5-4GHz, and do this with just 57 watts.

These numbers aren't spectacular, but they look at least OK for a process shrink.

On the other side, though, we see a second-generation 65nm AMD dually called Antares, but the core numbers are certainly not out of this world. In fact, they aren't even as good as the 90nm chips due out shortly.

There won't be a 45nm chip from AMD until late 2008 at best, so what you'll get is a 65nm CPU with just 1Mb of L2 for two CPUs (plus 2Mb of L3 tacked on), 2.9GHz at best chewing up 89W of power.

More ominously, if you look at the power ratings for Antares, it sure doesn't look good once you get past 2.7GHz: 24 extra watts just to get an extra 200MHz.
Click to expand...
 
Down but not out.

There are just too many folks who don't like Intel for whatever reason to see AMD be out of anything. They'll support subpar products that are slower (but clearly still fast), that use more power and put off more heat. Many are still happily buying X2's and etc. right now for example.
 
Donnie27 said:
Down but not out.

There are just too many folks who don't like Intel for whatever reason to see AMD be out of anything. They'll support subpar products that are slower (but clearly still fast), that use more power and put off more heat. Many are still happily buying X2's and etc. right now for example.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the prices... Christ, 150$ for an X2 3800 that can hit 2.5-2.8 guarenteed is a pretty nice deal. I would be hard-pressed to find a situation that needs MORE than that amount of power in the personal computing segment.

I really, really, want a C2D, but there's just so little oomph for my dollar right now... Ooo I can encode MP3s faster!
 
Donnie27 said:
Down but not out.

There are just too many folks who don't like Intel for whatever reason to see AMD be out of anything. They'll support subpar products that are slower (but clearly still fast), that use more power and put off more heat. Many are still happily buying X2's and etc. right now for example.
Click to expand...

Right but alot of people buying X2's don't want to re-buy ddr2 or a new motherboard along with their X2. This is why the same people won't buy AM2.

For example, for me to upgrade my colo machine 2 months ago: x2 4800+: $350
To upgrade it to a core2 (not including rebuying a barebones motherboard/1U combo) 6400 would be $200'ish for the proc but $400 in ram using the cheapest ddr2-667 ram I can find in the egg.

not worth it IMHO.

Now for new builds, I reccomend core2, esp when the person doesn't have ram already (or not much ram already) they want to move over.
 
This is what caught my attention -
45nm dually will have 6Mb of cache and run at default speeds of 3.5-4GHz, and do this with just 57 watts.
Click to expand...

Now this -
There won't be a 45nm chip from AMD until late 2008 at best, so what you'll get is a 65nm CPU with just 1Mb of L2 for two CPUs (plus 2Mb of L3 tacked on), 2.9GHz at best chewing up 89W of power.
Click to expand...

We already know c2d beats AMD period. Unles K8L is a beast then AMD is in serious trouble. Not only is Intel pumping out cooler and more efficient cpu's but they are affordable. A 6300 = $180 and that is only a few $ more than a Dual AMD and much faster. What caught my attention is that AMd doesn't seem like they have anything for the future that will "dethrone" Intel and that it will simply play catch up from here on in.
 
I was under the impression that kentsfield was going to be released before the year is out.
 
AMD is in serious trouble....look out the sky is falling....

We've heard this crap a million times before. You'd think that by now everyone (especially here) would know it's a see saw battle between AMD and Intel. AMD went how many quarters with a financial loss? And there still here!

Short of being bought out by someone, they'll be here for years to come.
 
*intel stockholder warning*

I dunno... AMD has soooo much more money today than it has ever had before (not to mention tons of OEM and corporate support!). People today actually know who AMD is!! Same couldnt be said 4 years ago...

Hammer/K7 arch will be left in the dust by Intel i'm thinking, but it would take years and years and years of nonstop Intel pwnage for AMD to go anywhere....

I suspect that AMD will be in contention for a very long time, and honestly, past 2008, nobody really knows who'll be the faster growing company (which is all that really matters anyway)
 
hmm....maybe AMD has been sitting on their hands, maybe the few years of handing Intel their ass, has made them complacent. But I am glad, there is stiff competition now, and maybe them loosing their performance crown, will help them get their act together. I doubt AMD is down for the count, but hopefully, K8L/Altair will deliver.
 
No one is saying AMD is going out of business. AMD will always be around, or some kind of competitor because Intel is not Microsoft and is smart enought to avoid all the legal woes MSFT went through.

I don't think AMD is done, as in no more, but it seems like Intel is flying on all cylinders and AMD is stumbling. Unless Altair and Antares is something out of the ordinary they are going to be laggards for some time. How long? Who knows. Intel also spoke of implementing something like a memory controller built in their chips (maybe) and if they did that it would give Intel an even bigger lead in power and efficiency.

Seems like it might be at least 3 years before AMD has anything topple or come close to topping out Intel.

Competition is good. :)
 
i know I like the competition... I got my x2 for the same price I paid for my opteron 144

this would not have happened with out intel getting back into the game with C2D...

My x2 at 2.5 daily and can hit 2.6 does what I need it to and my 2 GB of DDR500 cost me too much to let that go. and it still plays BF2 great.

until games start bogging down my system becasue my CPU is to slow or my ram is to slow, I am happy with my rig.

it is impessive how C2Ds can do superpi in 14sec and my x2 does it in 34sec...

but I dont really run superpi for fun, I play BF2 for that....
 
Adidas4275 said:
it is impessive how C2Ds can do superpi in 14sec and my x2 does it in 34sec...

but I dont really run superpi for fun, I play BF2 for that....
Click to expand...

QFT. Take that you superpi junkies!
:D
 
On the Blue Team, we see that the 45nm dually will have 6Mb of cache and run at default speeds of 3.5-4GHz, and do this with just 57 watts.
Click to expand...

These are great numbers to hope for, but I really don't think we will see them at launch. I just don't read the roadmap the same as you. I don't read it as "will". I read it as "hopes". We were all supposed to have 10GHz from Intel by now, remeber? It was even on their unofficial (just like this one) roadmap. What makes you think Intel will be able to massivly scale clocks (2.66 -> 4.0) this time around?

----

Let's look at the non-XE, non-FX, dual-core roadmap that was just presented:

Blue team's claim:
2 cores @ 2.66 "Conroe" ~65w (av) -> 2 cores at 4.0GHz "Wolfdale" ~57w (av)
1.34 GHz clock bump, 8w drop in TDP.

Green team's claim:
2 Cores @ 3.0 "Windsor" ~125w (max) -> 2 cores at 2.9 "Antares" ~89w (max)
100 MHz clock drop, 36w drop in TDP.

Just sit back, take your time and think about it. Look at the process change, clockspeed change, and TDP change. Now, tell me which team has presented the most reasonable and easily accomplished roadmap? Which team do you think will actually live up to their roadmap?

----

Let's do the same for quad core:

Blue team's claim:
2 cores @ 2.66 "Conroe" ~65w (av) -> 4 cores at >3.0GHz "Yorkfield" ~n/a w (av)
>340 MHz clock bump, unknown TDP change.

Green team's claim:
2 Cores @ 3.0 "Windsor" ~125w (max) -> 4 cores at 2.9 "Altair" ~125w (max)
100 MHz clock drop, no change in TDP.

Again, look at the core count change, process change, and clockspeed change. Which team do you think has the more reasonable roadmap? Which team do you think will actually be able to deliver?

----

I don't think it is a matter of AMD running out of steam, it is a matter of AMD having reasonable expectations of the future. Did you all forget what happened on the Conroe launch already? We were told unofficially (just like this roadmap) that there would be an XE @ 3.2GHz with a 1333MHz bus. We are still waiting for that.

Sorry, but this roadmap seems unreasonably skewed to me. It sounds like Intel is simply making big claims to impress customers. From the comments in this thread, it sounds like is it working....
 
I take any processor roadmap with a grain of salt. Just remember when Intel had plans to send out retail CPUs at stock speeds of over 4GHz and nearing 5GHz. They never made it.

I would assume that sharing L2 cache on cores has to decrease the bandwidth to a point.

You also have to realize that some processors come out of the blue that weren't even on the roadmap. AMD could pull a Core 2 Duo performance chip with some small innovation that becomes huge.

Regardless - roadmaps are stupid to follow as they never depict a schedule that is set in stone.
 
Arcygenical said:
Not to mention the prices... Christ, 150$ for an X2 3800 that can hit 2.5-2.8 guarenteed is a pretty nice deal. I would be hard-pressed to find a situation that needs MORE than that amount of power in the personal computing segment.

I really, really, want a C2D, but there's just so little oomph for my dollar right now... Ooo I can encode MP3s faster!
Click to expand...

Yup and still slower than mine unoverclocked:)

To hell with a 3800+ and I migght get a 42 or 4400 myself later on. I tried a bud's FX-60 before I bought a C2D instead. I like music, digital photo albums, encodes of DivX-Mpeg and then Games. 52 mins on C2D is much nicer than 1 hour 27 mins on the FX-60 for example. No, that doesn't mean 87mins sucks but that 52mins is just better.

Honestly though, that's not my point. That point was that there are simply those who'll never buy buy Intel as long there is an AMD for them to love=P Doesn't matter if AMD is slower, costs more as X2 did, bad move to a weak AM2, and many other off reasons.

Buying AM2 IMHO, was about as silly as those Intel Fans who bought i925 and etc.. with X2 was kicking its @$$!
 
Donnie27 said:
bad move to a weak AM2
Click to expand...
AM2 is hardly "weak", just the result of conroe coming out at the same time to make it look unimpressive. it's like calling s939 weak when it first came out. faster than the old platform, just not a lot ;)
 
I don't consider myself sheep, but I do feel like I am cost concious. That being said, I always go where the performance is => the cost associated with the products I am buying. I have never been set in one camp or another. Old skool, I had a dx4-100 because the intel chips were so much more expensive.

Then throughout, I've went with the flow. Pentium 233mmx, celery 300a@450 in an abit BH-6, 533a@800 with a bx-6rev2, XP 1700+ x/Ecs K7S5A, Xp2000+ w/Shuttle An35nUltra, barton 2800+@3200+ w/Shuttle An35nUltra. Now? E6400@3.4 w/Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3.

Even with video cards. I have tended to stay with Nvidia since the TnT2 (with dual voodoo 2's of course!). Then the 9x00 ATI cards started pushing the envelope and Nvidia dropped the ball, so I bought ATI for a while.

Truth is, brand loyalty is just not worth it in the long run. I don't plan on breaking the bank just because I dig a certain brand. Rest assured though, if they disappoint me once, I will have touble going back to them again.

My advice is to read the reviews thoroughly (several, don't rely on just one source), compare the benchmarks, and weigh the prices. I think you will find that doing your homework is quite rewarding in the end.
 
this kind of stuff makes me laugh....whats going on here is speculation on an unofficial roadmap...

so thats....speculation^2?

AMD isn't going anywhere. Lets wait until we see some new numbers from rev. B, barcelona, altair, k8l, whatever the fuck it's called.
 
AMD is teh doomed!! Also Nintendo is teh doomed!!

You always hear this crap on the internet. Worry when the stockmarket analysts start worrying.
 
I wish a third company would start making mainstream cpu's.
I want to see IBM start making a mainstream cpu like the Power6 Server Chip at 5.0GHz.
But somewhat slower and way cheaper and make intel and amd nervous...


Nevermind, I'm ranting
 
My next box will be an AMD box. Why? Because AMD is still the underdog in terms of company size/resources and I doubt anyone wants to go back to the days where Intel shoved their prices up your ass and you took it asking for more. They are both damn fast in my book, and both will allow me to do whatever I need to do with HONESTLY little difference between them. So I champion the underdog once more and help them to continue working towards a more equal playing field. I do not want to see the hard earned progress AMD (congrats) has made over the last several years tossed out because one chip generation just got released thats a little faster. They worked damn hard outdesigning Intel for several years and they deserve my money this round still.
 
The-One said:
I wish a third company would start making mainstream cpu's.
I want to see IBM start making a mainstream cpu like the Power6 Server Chip at 5.0GHz.
But somewhat slower and way cheaper and make intel and amd nervous...


Nevermind, I'm ranting
Click to expand...

DITTO
 
I personally am looking forward to 4x4. If I can get a dual socket platform with two dual core CPUs for the same cash I could get a full-blown Kentsfield platform I am sold - simply due to the fact that I can later (i.e. late 2007) upgrade all the machines to 8 cores. We always need more power, you know... :D
 
Wat does the average user do that we need 4 cores?!?!?

I can see for folding and if u do a ton of ripping and for servers... but for the average user?

If it included some physics in there and was 3 cores and 1 for that ok... but I think it just marketing plot to sucker ppl in.
 
To say AMD is down for the count is borderline idiocy, you're talking about a solid product, from a respected company, at a good price, that still delivers a great computing experience. I hate speculative analysis of a speculative roadmap.

Quad core processing is going to be the de facto, just from the hype alone. It doesn't matter if we'll use all 4 cores, or if the programmers blow their brains out because of the complications of 4 cores. People will blindly adopt it and love it, even if it doesn't deliver an outer world experience in relation to dual core. The hardforums will be awash with quad core systems. .

The faster they get released, hopefully the faster the dual cores drop in price, so that people like myself (broke as hell 90% of the time) will be able to snag one up.
 
QuimZ said:
To say AMD is down for the count is borderline idiocy, you're talking about a solid product, from a respected company, at a good price, that still delivers a great computing experience. I hate speculative analysis of a speculative roadmap.

Quad core processing is going to be the de facto, just from the hype alone. It doesn't matter if we'll use all 4 cores, or if the programmers blow their brains out because of the complications of 4 cores. People will blindly adopt it and love it, even if it doesn't deliver an outer world experience in relation to dual core. The hardforums will be awash with quad core systems. .

The faster they get released, hopefully the faster the dual cores drop in price, so that people like myself (broke as hell 90% of the time) will be able to snag one up.
Click to expand...

Best post I read in months... thanks!
 
Donnie27 said:
Honestly though, that's not my point. That point was that there are simply those who'll never buy buy Intel as long there is an AMD for them to love=P Doesn't matter if AMD is slower, costs more as X2 did, bad move to a weak AM2, and many other off reasons.
Click to expand...
And that's the sad part, if people keep buying AMD processors out of brand loyalty they are essentially allowing the company to not be competitive.

To say that AMD is down for the count or finished is very premature at this point, but don't give them any excuses to lag behind. If an Intel processor within your price range performs better than an AMD, then buy the Intel. If for no other reason then to benefit the competition, a competition that benefits us all.

And of course, it's pretty stupid to buy according to your current needs, as the requirements (both your own and the apps/games) will surely increase later on.
 
MC FLMJIG said:
Wat does the average user do that we need 4 cores?!?!?

I can see for folding and if u do a ton of ripping and for servers... but for the average user?
Click to expand...
Why are you so concerned about what this theoretical "average user" needs?
 
wizzackr said:
I personally am looking forward to 4x4. If I can get a dual socket platform with two dual core CPUs for the same cash I could get a full-blown Kentsfield platform I am sold - simply due to the fact that I can later (i.e. late 2007) upgrade all the machines to 8 cores. We always need more power, you know... :D
Click to expand...

Why?
 
Theli said:
And that's the sad part, if people keep buying AMD processors out of brand loyalty they are essentially allowing the company to not be competitive.
Click to expand...

I won't be buying out of brand loyalty, if Intel and AMD were reversed I'd do the same for Intel. I'm supporting the lesser of the two to keep a competitor in the game. And just because people still buy AMD, that doesn't mean AMD is going to sit back and say all is well. They've tasted what its like at the top, and they will fight to regain it, just as Intel did.
 
Theli said:
And that's the sad part, if people keep buying AMD processors out of brand loyalty they are essentially allowing the company to not be competitive.

To say that AMD is down for the count or finished is very premature at this point, but don't give them any excuses to lag behind. If an Intel processor within your price range performs better than an AMD, then buy the Intel. If for no other reason then to benefit the competition, a competition that benefits us all.

And of course, it's pretty stupid to buy according to your current needs, as the requirements (both your own and the apps/games) will surely increase later on.
Click to expand...

Here's an example!

Two DC Operons vs. One C2D.

Going by the above configurations actually it is not fair to compare both systems as the AMD configuration as got two dual core opterons and 4GB of RAM; but the fact is that even in this scenario Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme won many of the benchmarking tests. This actually shows robustness and efficiency the core microarchitecture of Core 2 Duo Extreme. If the same test were to be performed with Intel Xeon (woodcrest) based on core architecture then AMD Opterons would have been simply crushed.
Click to expand...

Yes and Tech-Report will back up these tests. So no I don't want to see Intel get Lazy because AMD has nothing competitive. No I don't want to see stagnation on AMD's part because F@n$ are telling them everything is OK! Yes that is pretty silly saying AMD is down for the count LOL!
 
OldPueblo said:
They've tasted what its like at the top, and they will fight to regain it, just as Intel did.
Click to expand...
I would think loss of sales would be far more effective as a motivator than the prestige of being on top.
Until the day comes when I can click and have a movie I've created instantly encoded and burned.
Click to expand...
Have you tried DivX Pro 6.4? I don't know if it was the upgrade in version or the upgrade in OS (Win2k -> 64-bit Vista) but my encoding speed (800kb/s) was raised from 50-60FPS to 250-300FPS. At that rate, an hour worth of video took just over 6 minutes to encode. :p
 
Donnie27 said:
Here's an example!

Two DC Operons vs. One C2D.
Click to expand...

Hold up, most of the wins posted on there are for one program, AfterEffects. Something tells me that it just can't take advantage of four cores, so while C2D obviously has a better way of handling whatever operations AfterEffects uses (Floating point I'm guessing), lets not just jump to the conclusion that because it's better in AfterEffects that one C2D is superior to two Opterons....
 
Theli said:
Have you tried DivX Pro 6.4? I don't know if it was the upgrade in version or the upgrade in OS (Win2k -> 64-bit Vista) but my encoding speed (800kb/s) was raised from 50-60FPS to 250-300FPS. At that rate, an hour worth of video took just over 6 minutes to encode. :p
Click to expand...


Wow, thanks for the heads up, that's really incredable, it seems that the program is offloading some of the workload to the GPU...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top