What Were They Thinking

[quimby999]

The BD is a failure only in that it does not live up to expectations or AMD hype. After waiting 4 years for this, it isn't what People expected and it puts AMD way behind Intel with thier SB cpu and the soon to come Ivy s will put AMD even further behind.Number of cores and speed don't mean everything if each of the cores is showing asr inferior to the competitors.AMD swung and missed , they may sell a lot to those that jumped and bought without seeing or comitted to buying the hardware to support the CPU sight unseen, its probaly a good idea to wai ttil a CPU is released til you jump.First impressions are leading to BD as being precieved as a failure out of the gate and will take a miracle to ever change this perception, Not the first time a tech release has been seen as a failure without ever having a chance to prove itself. he main issue being failure to live up to expectations.

 

[larkin]

... over the next days and weeks I would like to see some technical explanations for the more pronounced shortfalls, maybe even from AMD directly.

Ok, so this isn't from AMD directly but it is from someone who has been following BD for over 5 years and claims to be the first to use the code name "Bulldozer" publicly.
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/10/17/why-did-bulldozer-underwhelm/

In this article titled, "Why did Bulldozer underwhelm?", he says the underwhelming nature of BD is a case of death by 1000 cuts; however, he points out high cache latency as accounting for many of those cuts.

If you look at some of the details, a few things stand out. First, the cache latencies as measured by Michael Schuette in the Lost Circuits article, are in a word, horrific. L1D caches are 1 cycle slower than Phenom/Stars, and the L2 cache is 25-27 cycles, 10-12 slower than it’s predecessor. It may be twice as large, but it is shared by two cores, and is almost twice as slow. Sharing of resources may have some very nice benefits, but in this case, the downsides are, well, crippling.

Part 2 of the article continues here
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/10/17/bulldozer-doesnt-have-just-a-single-problem/

He has some outstanding insights into other areas which may explain the lack of performance. He ends with a somewhat optimistic outlook for the next, or next next generation AMD.

AMD used phrases like ‘forward looking architecture’ and other buzzwords when talking about the new chip to the press, something that is never a good sign. We agree with the idea, but not for the same reasons. To us, Bulldozer looks like a very raw attempt to change how things are done, to once again step out of the box. Even with the extremely long gestation period, there clearly wasn’t enough time, but there is reason to believe the foundation is solid.

This is so far the best explanation I've seen of what AMD was thinking with BD.

 

[ndt]

To answer the thread question: THEY WEREN'T THINKING AND WENT BY FEELINGS AT THE TIME OF DESIGN. Sometimes I wonder if it was a female who created the BD design or final decision(s) behind closed doors.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Sometimes I wonder if it was a female who created the BD design or final decision(s) behind closed doors.

Way to be a prejudiced, stereotyping chauvinist ass.

You win today's "Why Zarathustra has lost faith in humanity" prize.

 

[aphasia]

To answer the thread question: THEY WEREN'T THINKING AND WENT BY FEELINGS AT THE TIME OF DESIGN. Sometimes I wonder if it was a female who created the BD design or final decision(s) behind closed doors.

Way to be a prejudiced, stereotyping chauvinist ass.

You win today's "Why Zarathustra has lost faith in humanity" prize.

lol

as my mother used to say, 'got nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.'
course if that were the case, these boards would be awfully barren.

if you absolutely, positively have to stereotype, at least paint a positive one. not brave enough to offer an example here, don't feel like being a target myself...