Bulldozer Clocks leaked

[Zarathustra[H]]

Only "if" you speak of is the minuscule enthusiast market from which you base your perspective.

Agreed.

I think this is a point that many people on here forget. As computer enthusiasts we really don't matter to Intel or AMD.

The overwhelming majority of sales and profits come from sales to OEM's and sales of budget, low end parts. The CPU's aren't even designed with enthusiasts in mind. Usually enthusiast CPU's are thrown in once everything is designed just to get a little bit more money off of a platform, but in the grand scheme of things, I doubt we even make up a quarter of one percent of total CPU sales.

Look at AMD's CPU design categories right now.

1.) Low power APU's (Zacate, etc.)

2.) Budget/Mainstream computer APU's (Llano)

3.) Server market (bulldozer)

These three areas are where the money is, and as such these three areas are what they care about.

Make no mistake. Bulldozer is ENTIRELY designed for the server market. The AMD FX line of enthusiast level desktop CPU's is really an afterthought if even that. If they had to tweak the design in a way that would hurt desktop performance but benefit server performance they would do it in a second without even thinking about it, because as a customer group, we - the computer enthusiasts - don't really matter at all because there are so few of us.

 

[mesyn191]

IIRC the enthusiast market was thought to be worth around $1 billion a few years back. They do care about getting a chunk of that change so it is worth investing some real money to target that crowd.

BD is likely designed for the sever market first but that doesn't mean it can't be a decent enthusiast chip, even if AMD "only" does some by hand binning for the FX line for instance.

 

[Karndog]

So let's say BD will reach 5ghz clocks. So you have SNB and BD @ 5ghz, are you really gonna be concerned about the 10% performance deficit between the two when you are already blowing away any CPU you can purchase in retail.

It's gonna be interesting for sure and I wonder how Ivy Bridge will change the game.

Ordinary people wont be.. but [H]ard people will be but my guess is that for starters BD wont hit 5ghz on air, and the deficit will be more than 10%. Just a hunch.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

IIRC the enthusiast market was thought to be worth around $1 billion a few years back. They do care about getting a chunk of that change so it is worth investing some real money to target that crowd.

True, but as I recall, that estimate was for the enthusiast market as a whole. Not just CPU's (I could be recalling wrong though).

This includes monitors, video cards, ram, motherboards, cases, fans, water cooling setups etc. etc. etc.

The actual enthusiast CPU market, must be quite a bit smaller.

 

[TheBlueChanell]

Ordinary people wont be.. but [H]ard people will be but my guess is that for starters BD wont hit 5ghz on air, and the deficit will be more than 10%. Just a hunch.

I don't really care about Air. I'm sure a large percentage of users running SNB at 5ghz are using water or better. I was merely making a point. Also, it's possible. Thuban is getting to 4.2-4.6ghz on Air. I would say the 4/6-core BD variants could probably hit that magic 5ghz mark based on what we're seeing with 6 cores on 45nm. Though, die shrink or not it's a new architecture.

 

[Spooony]

Don't kid yourself. Intel has no sympathy for AMD. Did we forget Intel paying off OEMs to not use AMD CPUs? And consequently getting convicted for these practices on multiple continents?

Did we also forget Larabee and the abysmal failure it's been at the cost of $2 billion?

General market has been moving towards mobile (netbooks and laptops) for awhile, you really think Intel can compete with AMD APUs anytime soon? It's Intel who's behind. And with GloFlo's 32nm process in production they are even in the same fab process for the time being.

AMD has already shipped over 3 million Zacate APUs, and Llano numbers are looking really great apparently as well. Do you really doubt Bulldozer is going to do well in the server market?

Only "if" you speak of is the minuscule enthusiast market from which you base your perspective.

Games keep slipping in terms of technical advancement and requiring faster hardware each year, while APUs will only get more powerful. Vast majority of folks will be fine running Llano or Trinity next year. AMD is the only company in the unique position to provide competent CPU GPU solutions for the mainstream. And it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.

Only question is when will Intel catch up?

well the OEM thing goes deeper than what most have thought. Everyone was ask to comment about the matter except for the ones who matter. The Small system compilers. One site did some asking around and most of the Small compilers said they go with intel because they sent the reps out, the rep even contacts you after you received the goods and weeks and months after that just to check up on you. Now is that unfair business or good business practices. They said Amd reps didn't even have the decency to go out personally to them doesn't matter how small intel did. Then they also mentioned about shipping and some of the Amd heatsinks that were a bit off size and the good mostly end up being damaged due to that which cost them money.
That's why we don't see those huge heatsinks pcs anymore just for interest sake to minimize possible damage during shipment.

Intel couldve killed off Amd if they wanted to. All they had to do was to compete on the low end but they didn't. It would not benefit them and lead to more lawsuits than anything else on a regular basis being a monopoly. They need other manufacturers and on the software side programmers to help sell their hardware. They want to keep gaming community using pcs and software designers writing programs for pc. Especially ones to use their hardware to full potential. Manufacturers tend to go where the money is and where they're selling and are not reluctant dancing to a one man show.
But it doesn't matter if Amd is faster nor slower all that matter is that they stay competitive in some segment of the market to give us consumers a wide choice of bang for buck hardware to choose from. The gpu industry is a fine example of that. Lots of cards from 20 usd up to 600usd. Affordable for everyone

 

[Spooony]

I don't really care about Air. I'm sure a large percentage of users running SNB at 5ghz are using water or better. I was merely making a point. Also, it's possible. Thuban is getting to 4.2-4.6ghz on Air. I would say the 4/6-core BD variants could probably hit that magic 5ghz mark based on what we're seeing with 6 cores on 45nm. Though, die shrink or not it's a new architecture.

that has got to do with the low voltage leaks it has. But in doing that you abandon the people you use to sell your hardware. The extreme overclocking community. Sandy they're stuck on 58. Only cpu that manage to give you killer runs is costing almost a 1000usd. Then its not every 1000usd chip thats able to give you that. Its a hit or miss afair where extreme overclocking became a very pricey affair. Most were hoping for sandy to change that it didn't. Which means if Amd can produce a chip good enough to beat Intels Nehalem line up and don't have a cold bug you can see all those records swinging back to Amds side. They don't need to be faster than SB clock for clock they just need to be close enough and withstand sub zero that's all

 

[TheBlueChanell]

that has got to do with the low voltage leaks it has. But in doing that you abandon the people you use to sell your hardware. The extreme overclocking community. Sandy they're stuck on 58. Only cpu that manage to give you killer runs is costing almost a 1000usd. Then its not every 1000usd chip thats able to give you that. Its a hit or miss afair where extreme overclocking became a very pricey affair. Most were hoping for sandy to change that it didn't. Which means if Amd can produce a chip good enough to beat Intels Nehalem line up and don't have a cold bug you can see all those records swinging back to Amds side. They don't need to be faster than SB clock for clock they just need to be close enough and withstand sub zero that's all

I'd like to think that given Phenom 2's performance under cold, Bulldozer would at least carry on the legacy.

 

[TeeJay]

Yeah I'm guessing AMD is concerned about power and heat, hence the highest base clock has the lowest turbo core frequency...I so wanna see one of these get OC'ed so [H]ard!