Any word about Kuma?

[Mr. Bluntman]

I remember hearing about the Phenom X2 processors being launched Q2 this year, but little else, and info on these parts since the Agena debacle has been non-existant. Anybody know any more facts (or rumors)?

 

[~El~Jefe~]

yup my thought exactly. i have been waiting for Kuma to build a new system. slightly faster than x2, lower power usage (on 939 presently), cheap high quality boards (intels board choices always suck) , etc etc.

Kuma was supposed to be out long time ago originally.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Well, after popping over to the Fud, I found this:

In our pleasant conversation with Leslie [Sobon] we learned that Kuma dual-core 65nm CPU is on schedule for Q2, and in company talk this usually means the end of the quarter. The new dual core CPU will launch as B3 stepping and those nasty L3 cache problems won’t be a part of the dual-core CPUs.

Toliman triple-core comes a bit earlier, but generally triple-core is a quad-core with one core disabled, probably the one that didn’t qualify well in the development process.

The 45nm dual cores are [due sometime] in 2009.

Many people here though "avidly" point out that it's best to take what Fuad says with a salt grain approximately yay big:

But more often than not he usually gets it within the ballpark. Theo "Reverse-Hyperthreading" Valich is another story though. At any rate, I'm pretty excited. I may just stick with AMD after all if the clocks and price/performance are on the money.

 

[~El~Jefe~]

No errors on the Kuma... that would be really nice/make sense.

That would be a perfect business machine chip as AMD has nice featured yet dirt cheap motherboards. Pair that with the new on board video's and you could build a 300 decent pc case and all.

I am wondering if and when tri-cores are comming out. I always notice on my 939 dual core machine that sometimes both cores are being taxed and a 3rd core would be really nice. I never could see 3 cores being taxed and a 4th needed. I dont encode crap that often and really, who needs to encode in a certain amount of time? Most are J.O.'ing to pr0n or asleep at keys while things like that are going on. If games really used all the cores properly, then that would be a new era but nay they dasnt

 

[Jakalwarrior]

I dunno, most of phenoms benefit sofar seems to be high highly multithreadded apps that use all 4 cores.. if there are only two there it may not be worth it.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I dunno, most of phenoms benefit sofar seems to be high highly multithreadded apps that use all 4 cores.. if there are only two there it may not be worth it.

I feel that if AMD fixes their northbridge speed problems and scaling issues, Kuma could possibly be a win, or give AMD a fighting chance in the dual-core market, but only if they come with 3.2GHz clocks and up. And if early indications are correct, we will be lucky to see 2.6GHz.

 

[zoku88]

yup my thought exactly. i have been waiting for Kuma to build a new system. slightly faster than x2, lower power usage (on 939 presently), cheap high quality boards (intels board choices always suck) , etc etc.

Kuma was supposed to be out long time ago originally.

Build a new system? I thought puma was a mobile platform..

 

[quadnad]

(intels board choices always suck)

I love how nobody bothers to correct this...

Anyhow, I think Kuma is still a little while off. If you're looking for a proper dual core upgrade, I'd suggest the E8XXX (8200, 8300, 8400, 8500). Much quicker, much more efficient power-wise, much cooler, and overclocks like a beast (vs anything AMD has to offer). Right now only the E8200 is at a reasonable price due to price gouging, but soon enough we'll see prices fall to their normal levels.

Have a read about this if you're interested to know how the dual core situation is right now.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I love how nobody bothers to correct this...

Anyhow, I think Kuma is still a little while off. If you're looking for a proper dual core upgrade, I'd suggest the E8XXX (8200, 8300, 8400, 8500). Much quicker, much more efficient power-wise, much cooler, and overclocks like a beast (vs anything AMD has to offer). Right now only the E8200 is at a reasonable price due to price gouging, but soon enough we'll see prices fall to their normal levels.

Have a read about this if you're interested to know how the dual core situation is right now.

QFT. Intel is going to be my next build this summer.

 

[harpoon]

Kuma at ~2.5GHz doesn't make any sense as it would be competing (and losing) against AMD's very own X2 lineup. Let's not even talk about Intel at this point, AMD needs to get K10 clockspeeds way up so it can at least beat it's own K8 products!

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Kuma at ~2.5GHz doesn't make any sense as it would be competing (and losing) against AMD's very own X2 lineup. Let's not even talk about Intel at this point, AMD needs to get K10 clockspeeds way up so it can at least beat it's own K8 products!

Agreed. AMD needs to get Kuma (like I said) over 3.2GHz to make an impact and be a viable upgrade solution.

 

[harpoon]

Agreed. AMD needs to get Kuma (like I said) over 3.2GHz to make an impact and be a viable upgrade solution.

Even if AMD managed to get 3GHz+ clockspeeds with Kuma, I think they'll also need to fix the IMC/L3 frequency, otherwise performance scaling would suffer, perhaps getting to the point where a 3.2GHz Kuma is no faster than a 3.2GHz Windsor 6400+!

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Even if AMD managed to get 3GHz+ clockspeeds with Kuma, I think they'll also need to fix the IMC/L3 frequency, otherwise performance scaling would suffer, perhaps getting to the point where a 3.2GHz Kuma is no faster than a 3.2GHz Windsor 6400+!

Let's hope so. I would love to keep AMD inside my system, however they need to earn that spot, and Kuma needs to perform, especially since I would need a new motherboard to support AM2+ processors.

 

[64bit_is_here]

ipc would certainly be more than an x2, atleast 15% on avg (even with those imc/l3 problems)

imc/l3 problems do suck tho. heres hoping a new chipset+b3 would fix those problems