AMD Phenom Errata Patch Benchmarked

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Vertigo Acid

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The Tech Report takes AMD's Phenom for a spin to see how badly performance is affected by the recently issued TLB Errata patch. As reported earlier, problems in the TLB in AMD's Phenom processors are causing delays in release of the fastest processors, and performance issues for those already out. A ~20% difference in speed when patched is very significant, since AMD won't be patching the actual silicon with a new revision until sometime next year.

The BIOS-based workaround for the TLB erratum may achieve its intended result—system stability—but it comes at a pretty steep price in terms of performance.
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for the Q6600, this is a win...

At the price point of a Phenom 2.4 and a Quad 2.4, I'm not sure anyone would chose AMD over Intel...
 
what a piece of crap...

this is very upsetting for AMD fans...


please... give us a reason to like you again?
 
Very disappointing. We were all hoping the Phenom would give some actual competition performance-wise to Intel, but this doesn't seem to be the case. I REALLY hope they get their act together by April, otherwise I think I might regret selling my Q6600!
 
I was an AMD fanboy but I have been very very disappointed with AMD a of late. The phenom made my choice to switch over to a Core 2 setup that much easier.:rolleyes:
 
Drop the price 75 bucks and I will probably reconsider my AM2+ upgrade path. :mad:
 
Not to mention that at this[/u] point in time, there are far far more boards on the Intel side that you can run a quad core CPU on or start with a dual core and move up to a quad core. Pickings are slim on the AMD side right now. That of course will change as time marches on, but those looking for instant quadification (lol, I just George Bushed a word!) now, Intel is the honest route to follow. This issue here really isn't helping AMD. Could be worse though -- the CPUs could be exploding like notebook batteries... :eek:
 
messerchmidt said:
looks like the new rev of the phenom will put amd back into the game
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Yeah, in 2 months they'll have a 2.4GHz 120W processor and even later they will have a 2.6GHz 140W processor. :p It will still be clock for clock slower than Kentsfield and Yorkfield will be out by then. The slowest Yorkfield (2.6GHz Q9300) for $266 will be faster than the fastest Phenom.

Or maybe you meant the onslaught of 65nm K8s that are coming out next quarter. The fastest of those is a 2.9GHz model that will compare unfavorably to the $133 E4700.
 
I was planning on getting a 5000+ BE for a cheap solution to my 4800+ AGP 939 system that just crapped out. It seems like there would be no upgrade path for me on AM2, at least not for a long, long time.
 
I'm not an AMD fan by any means, in the past 15 years of building my own PCs, I've only strayed into AMD territory twice, and both times regretted the decision later. That being said, this is bothersome to me because without a fierce competitor, Intel won't have as much motivation to keep pushing the technology envelope.

Plus, now that ATI is part of AMD, if AMD fails they will likely take ATI with them, and again we lose a major competitor for nVidia. Look at what's happened in the GPU space. nVidia has gone unchallenged for over a year now, and they appear to be sitting back and enjoying the smooth ride. I'm truly amazed that in the year since I purchased my 8800GTX, the only thing faster is an 8800 Ultra, which is essentially an overclocked GTX. It's a shame that is happening in the video card space, it would be even worse in the CPU space.
 
JethroXP said:
I'm not an AMD fan by any means, in the past 15 years of building my own PCs, I've only strayed into AMD territory twice, and both times regretted the decision later. That being said, this is bothersome to me because without a fierce competitor, Intel won't have as much motivation to keep pushing the technology envelope.

Plus, now that ATI is part of AMD, if AMD fails they will likely take ATI with them, and again we lose a major competitor for nVidia. Look at what's happened in the GPU space. nVidia has gone unchallenged for over a year now, and they appear to be sitting back and enjoying the smooth ride. I'm truly amazed that in the year since I purchased my 8800GTX, the only thing faster is an 8800 Ultra, which is essentially an overclocked GTX. It's a shame that is happening in the video card space, it would be even worse in the CPU space.
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oh dont worry, neither the AMD or ATI brand name will cease to exist, ownership and direction may change, but worse comes to worse, someone with deep pockets will buy one or both and make things happen ;)
 
Ouch! Has the Intel issue been fixed yet? If so, what speed decrease is seen?
 
They should had just done what intel did.. put 2 opteron chips together way cheaper and better.. phailure amd phailure!*see failure can be spelled with ph too ;)*
 
It amazing how slow most sites have been to even report on this mess... [H] is only just now doing it.Scott raises many good questions with his 3 articles.Questions that AMD should step up,to answer for,asap.Like why they told reviewers that the NB would ship at a certain speed,but got the reviewers to test at a higher speed then is representative of retail chips.Shady behaviour...

I have never seen a huge product launch like this,so bungled and messed up.Even for AMD this is excessively bad.As the saying goes,'When it rains,it pours' ! Well,it seems to be hailing golf ball size chinks of ice over DAMMIT.

Oh and where the hell are the BE chips ? No seems to know anything about those,to bad
as they may be the one saving grace,to come out of the current quagmire that is Spider.
 
Well, the way I see it, AMD went with a much more difficult processor design, so I'm not surprised by errors or problems with early revisions. Honestly, when has any difficult engineering project been flawless the first time around?

That said, I think they should spend some time exploring a 65nm K8 dual die solution similar to Intel. If they did and succeeded, it would definitely give Intel a run for it's money. However, I don't think such a think can be accomplished on the current socket. I could be wrong, as Intel still uses 775, but I imagine it would be difficult. Also, on the flip side, AMD would probably be better off worrying about the next chip design rather than meddling with old stuff.

At any rate, AMD is cheap, so I think it'll do well with the Joe Consumer market.
 
Look, all CPUs have errata (apparently the quad Penryns are delayed because of an issue). But this is a crippling problem. AMD should never have shipped these CPUs, and they shouldn't be shipping them now.

The good news is that this will get fixed with a new stepping. The bad news is that Phenom still isn't as fast as Core 2, and Core 2 Quads have been shipping in volume for a long time. AMD is behind. Way behind. And they are going to fall behind further because of this issue.

Look, we need two compeititors in teh GPU and CPU space. But AMD shouldn't think for a second that we will buy their product just because it's AMD. My notebooks both have Core 2 T7300s, and my next desktop upgrade will probably be Core as well (right now I have one of those rediculously cheap Athlon 64 X2s). AMD needs to get back in the game, or it's going to be a very bleak 2009.
 
The main market for these is the Big companys heck I work for one of the big 7 Airlines, and we use AMD's for our SQL clusters etc. You can bet good money they will not be buying one that has a chance of locking up.

For example, our 800 kiosks check in thousands and thousands of people each day, and when is it most likely to hit? When it's working hard. I can see it now, 800 kiosk, 1000 gate readers all go belly up with a lock up. Nope Enterprize solutions will stya far away!

All of AMD's hard work to be on top in that market is going out the window. I can't see how AMD can survive now. I love them, but that is a BIG BIG hit!
 
AMD lied to reviewers about the northbridge speed
They mislead consumers into buying broken chips
They must be desperate :(

This sucks, I used to swear by AMD
 
I have only had one Intel CPU (Celeron 333) sense I bought a K6-2 500mhz system a long time ago. I have seen AMD pull ahead and I have seen them fall behind. Sure there behind now, but I am also sure that they will pull it together and make a strong comeback.
I also have been wondering where the AMD motherboards were, seems like there's 10 Intel board reviews for every single AMD board, and this has been going on for a while now. Even before this mistake by AMD I have decide my next major upgrade will be an Intel system, Intel's prices have fallen, there CPUs are only getting faster, and there's more and more motherboards to chose from, I am also sad to say I will be switching over to Nvidia as well. I have not been so faithful to ATI as I have AMD, I have switched back and forth with my video card choices, my last 2 or 3 cards have been ATI.
I really hope AMD/ATI pulls it together, I believe the competition between them and Intel/Nvidia is best for everybody. I don't think this is a nail in anyone's coffin, but it sure is a big hit in there wallet!
 
while all cpus may have errata, Considering this is a system locking, random occurence at full load occurence, it doesn't give you a sense of confidence using a system like that. While no progs may go full load quad, the thought that if you got near it and you lock up is disconcerting. Add to it unlike previous errata on most retail releases, this fix cripples the performance of the cpu making it worthless compared to it's price rival.

Currently and locally I find the Q6600 for $299, and the Phenom 2.3 for $305. It was already LOSING to the Q6600, now it's going to be crushed by it. Talk about going backwards.
 
Lets see what shakes out. It would be good for our $$$ flow if we have 2 CPU Companies out there.

One says Intel will be selling us high priced slower chips for a long time.

DM
 
I don't understand why AMD is so focused on Quad cores. Games are just starting to use 2 cores. You don't need quad cores to surf the internet, word processing, or e-mail. They could have stuck with dual core and clocked 'em higher, used the extra space for more cache, or just made them small & cheap. At least they would have excelled at something. What's the target market for their new chips? Uniformed buyers?
 
rabident said:
I don't understand why AMD is so focused on Quad cores. Games are just starting to use 2 cores. You don't need quad cores to surf the internet, word processing, or e-mail. They could have stuck with dual core and clocked 'em higher, used the extra space for more cache, or just made them small & cheap. At least they would have excelled at something. What's the target market for their new chips? Uniformed buyers?
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target audience? more is better. the competition has quad core CPU's. doesn't matter if they are utilized or not, but the same was said for dual cores when released, but look now, without dual cores even running Vista would be a less than appealing experience in many cases
 
rabident said:
I don't understand why AMD is so focused on Quad cores. Games are just starting to use 2 cores. You don't need quad cores to surf the internet, word processing, or e-mail. They could have stuck with dual core and clocked 'em higher, used the extra space for more cache, or just made them small & cheap. At least they would have excelled at something. What's the target market for their new chips? Uniformed buyers?
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Wow. I didn't know the only uses for a computer are games, surfing the internet, word processing and email. So it appears all that is needed is a super duper single core processor for gaming, and a 1Ghz processor machine for everything else.
 
Unfortunately, most people don't realise how well XP and Vista use multiple cores. When you open a new app it goes to the most available CPU. Since windows runs a trainload of processes and some people like to multitask fifty programs a quad is amazingly fast. I can see a healthy difference in desktop performance between my 6850 and Q6600. The Q6600 is faster for almost everything. Even some games are even in performance between them. And when I OC the Q6600 to 3.1Ghz, well, the 6850 gets its arse handed to it.

14000 points in 3dmark06 with a single 8800GT air cooled in a quiet case.

I'm quite happy.
 
Slade said:
Considering this is a system locking, random occurence at full load occurence, it doesn't give you a sense of confidence using a system like that.
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Intel does have bugs that locks up the system - the infamous one being F00F...
Although it's not load related, these things do happen.

AMD shouldn't have bought ATI - AFAIK ATI is run by idiots anyways. I used to like them for their open source 3d accel drivers for the really old Radeon, but their inability of writing drivers should be a major concern when AMD's toying with the Fusion idea.

They need a major shake down, learn some business tactics that Intel uses. Glue 2 K8s on a PCB if they have to - and frankly a 2 die on one socket won't be as bad on HyperTransport than on FSB. Fix up Phenom and/or get their next chip running.

Even if they have to bleed more cash, they should consider exchanging the bad Phenoms when the corrected Phenoms comes out. You just can't underestimate good will. I still choose Kingston RAM simply because of great customer service experiences. I know they're not the cheapest quality RAM around, but they were definitely the least hassle to deal with. Exchanging the Phenoms can buy enough good will - just enough to stop bleeding their customer base.
 
Didn't AMD release some code that can fix the problem at the OS level (Linux x86-64?) without the performance hit? If so, it's just a matter of MSFT pushing out a patch.
 
deeznuts said:
Wow. I didn't know the only uses for a computer are games, surfing the internet, word processing and email. So it appears all that is needed is a super duper single core processor for gaming, and a 1Ghz processor machine for everything else.
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Not the only uses, but those are areas they could have targeted and excelled at. They've always lagged Intel in manufacturing, so they need an angle. I assume that's why they bought ATI. I question the decision to try to go head to head with Intel on high performance quad core processors. Maybe you think that was the right decision, but they're getting their ass handed to them by Intel right now. Sad to see. I worry they won't be around long enough or have the R&D to invest and bear fruit from the ATI acquisition. Maybe if they excelled in one area - even a niche - it would have at least sustained them until they could come out with something big. I hope I'm wrong. Time will tell.
 
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