Will AMD's Bulldozer plow through Intel's Sandy Bridge?

[eastmen]

Trouble is lots of sales don't help much if you don't make much profit on each sale. AMD has both smaller economies of scale than Intel and is forced to sell it's top end processors at midrange prices.

I just don't see that as sustainable. Either AMD manages to take the high end or intel slowly cuts off their air supply.

Amd could still be making good money. 5k a wafer with 100 good chips with an asp of $100 is a 10k . I bet with thier ability to go all the way down to dual core cpus from 6 core cpus they have a much better yield of chips to sell .

 

[Mackintire]

The only thing AMD Bulldozer will be doing is bulldozing its own grave next to the Phenom. Intel has AMD beat even in the price/performance segment at this point.

The Phenom II is barely equivalent to Core 2s. I just don't see AMD hopping over two generations of development over Intel at this point. At best AMD got lucky with the Athlon 64 vs the Pentium 4, since the Pentium 4 was a failed experiment. Other than that brief period in history AMD CPUs have always lagged behind Intel equivalents.

You do realize that if the Phenom II at a 200mhz advantage is equal or superior to the core 2 chips as long as hyperthreading is not involved. Of course once you add in power consumption, heat output and overclockability the Core2 looks a lot better.


Bulldozer is expected to have a similar IPC to the first gen i7 chips. Bulldozer is also designed for higher clock speeds 3.4-4.0ghz.

I would suggest that release clock speeds of 3.2-3.6ghz for the base clock and Turbo speeds of 3.6-4.0Ghz

So the 2600k processor will be faster per clock but as I mentioned on another thread. In a highly threaded "6+ thread" environment Bulldozer will most likely destroy a 2600k chip.

 

[drescherjm]

You do realize that if the Phenom II at a 200mhz advantage is equal or superior to the core 2 chips as long as hyperthreading is not involved. Of course once you add in power consumption, heat output and overclockability the Core2 looks a lot better.

core2 does not have hyperthreading.

In a highly threaded "6+ thread" environment Bulldozer will most likely destroy a 2600k chip.

And the problem again for AMD is there are not very many applications that can use 6+ cores effectively. Some video apps do but it will be years before a majority of applications will.

I would suggest that release clock speeds of 3.2-3.6ghz for the base clock and Turbo speeds of 3.6-4.0Ghz

This would be great for me if they can do that since I can actually use the extra cores at work and at home. I would pay $500 for a 4 module / 8 core 3.4 GHz cpu with single thread the IPC of i7.

 

[Dan_D]

You do realize that if the Phenom II at a 200mhz advantage is equal or superior to the core 2 chips as long as hyperthreading is not involved. Of course once you add in power consumption, heat output and overclockability the Core2 looks a lot better.


Bulldozer is expected to have a similar IPC to the first gen i7 chips. Bulldozer is also designed for higher clock speeds 3.4-4.0ghz.

I would suggest that release clock speeds of 3.2-3.6ghz for the base clock and Turbo speeds of 3.6-4.0Ghz

So the 2600k processor will be faster per clock but as I mentioned on another thread. In a highly threaded "6+ thread" environment Bulldozer will most likely destroy a 2600k chip.

The problem with that last part is going to be the same thing we see with 980X chips currently. Especially compared to the Core i7 2500K/2600K. The situations where the extra cores come in handy are going to be rare. Exceedingly so when the processor is used for a desktop machine. Essentially it won't help you at all where gaming is concerned. Unless you are heavy into video editing or folding, I dare say the extra two cores are virtually useless. On the AMD side grabbing a Phenom II X6 makes sense because it's cheap enough to get those extra cores. So why not? On the Intel side those extra cores are going to cost you big time. Unless you've just got money to burn there is just no need for it.

Now in three years who knows? We are finally starting to see real benefits to quad cores in some applications including games. In a few more years the extra cores found in the 980X may come in handy but by then I'm sure you'll be able to get the same number of cores or more for way less money.

 

[cyclone3d]

If programmers would learn to use multithreading properly, then we would start seeing programs that could scale almost linierly with the number of CPU cores.

The greatest problem with multithreading is having to and/or choosing to use locks in the code instead of programming in such a way to avoid locks wherever possible.

One big problem is that a lot of "programmers" take the easy way out and just take the approach of "if it works it is good enough".

A large majority of the code I have looked at is horribly inneficient. Some of it is easily modified to double the speed with just a few simple changes.

 

[eastmen]

The problem with that last part is going to be the same thing we see with 980X chips currently. Especially compared to the Core i7 2500K/2600K. The situations where the extra cores come in handy are going to be rare. Exceedingly so when the processor is used for a desktop machine. Essentially it won't help you at all where gaming is concerned. Unless you are heavy into video editing or folding, I dare say the extra two cores are virtually useless. On the AMD side grabbing a Phenom II X6 makes sense because it's cheap enough to get those extra cores. So why not? On the Intel side those extra cores are going to cost you big time. Unless you've just got money to burn there is just no need for it.

Now in three years who knows? We are finally starting to see real benefits to quad cores in some applications including games. In a few more years the extra cores found in the 980X may come in handy but by then I'm sure you'll be able to get the same number of cores or more for way less money.

I don't know , it seems alot more stuff need more cores

Video encoding
Video editing
Gaming (dragon age , supreme commander , witcher , civ 5)

Gaming will start to use more cores this year also . Alot of sites are still using crysis for cpu scalling tests forgeting it was a 2007 game. Hopefully this year we see more big named games using multi cores so we get a fresh cycle of benchmarks.

 

[matteos]

I will always buy AMD even if its slower than Intel. I guess that makes me a fanboy, but you gotta support the underdog.

 

[sirmo]

The problem with that last part is going to be the same thing we see with 980X chips currently. Especially compared to the Core i7 2500K/2600K. The situations where the extra cores come in handy are going to be rare. Exceedingly so when the processor is used for a desktop machine. Essentially it won't help you at all where gaming is concerned. Unless you are heavy into video editing or folding, I dare say the extra two cores are virtually useless. On the AMD side grabbing a Phenom II X6 makes sense because it's cheap enough to get those extra cores. So why not? On the Intel side those extra cores are going to cost you big time. Unless you've just got money to burn there is just no need for it.

Now in three years who knows? We are finally starting to see real benefits to quad cores in some applications including games. In a few more years the extra cores found in the 980X may come in handy but by then I'm sure you'll be able to get the same number of cores or more for way less money.

You make valid points.

Lowering the barrier of entry on quad and octo core CPUs will push developers to develop apps which better utilize x number of cores. We're heading in that direction regardless of what AMD does. Single core performance is still important of course but single core hasn't been able to keep up with moore's law for awhile now.

With Bulldozer AMD and BD's modular design AMD seams to be better positioned for this switch.

Quad core performance chips are currently the sweet spot even though many multi threaded apps don't use more than two cores yet. But that will change. Not because of AMD but because that's where we're headed.

When AMD first released consumer grade 64bit CPUs most applications or operating systems couldn't take advantage of it either.

If Bulldozer delivers i7 level of single thread performance and more cores than Sandy Bridge can offer for the price. You can bet it will be a huge success.

For Enthusiasts who only care about the absolute highest frames per second figure in Crysis it may not seem that way. But for a lot of other people Bulldozer may be a better choice.

Price Conscious Enthusiasts, Mainstream market, Video Transcoding and Server business. That's where the money is anyways.

 

[Dan_D]

I don't know , it seems alot more stuff need more cores

Video encoding
Video editing
Gaming (dragon age , supreme commander , witcher , civ 5)

Gaming will start to use more cores this year also . Alot of sites are still using crysis for cpu scalling tests forgeting it was a 2007 game. Hopefully this year we see more big named games using multi cores so we get a fresh cycle of benchmarks.

Supreme Commander, like Lost Planet and the Witcher can use more threads but once the resolution scales upward it still becomes more GPU limited that CPU limited. I can't speak to Dragon Age. I also can't speak to how Civilization 5 runs. Video encoding and editing are things not done to large degrees by the average consumer. While I do some video encoding from time to time I don't do enough to justify the purchase of a Core i7 980X. I'm sure most people feel the same way.

I will always buy AMD even if its slower than Intel. I guess that makes me a fanboy, but you gotta support the underdog.

No you don't. I buy whatever provides the best performance at the time I'm ready to make my purchase. Plain and simple.

 

[matteos]

No you don't. I buy whatever provides the best performance at the time I'm ready to make my purchase. Plain and simple.

But you've also got to consider the upgrade path, while no one knows for sure what is going to happen in the future, AMD makes the effort to make things somewhat backwards compatible, Intel changes their platforms. Plus AMD is cheaper, 1055t at $200 that I can overclock by almost 1 ghz in an hour means more money for a better videocard. Bulldozer might not be faster than sandybridge but I bet it is better for the money

 

[matteos]

Cost vs. performance is fine, but this isn't [F]rugal|OCP. Its [H]ard|OCP!

LOL, I just saw your sig, no doubt you will disagree with me

 

[Rizen]

But you've also got to consider the upgrade path, while no one knows for sure what is going to happen in the future, AMD makes the effort to make things somewhat backwards compatible, Intel changes their platforms. Plus AMD is cheaper, 1055t at $200 that I can overclock by almost 1 ghz in an hour means more money for a better videocard. Bulldozer might not be faster than sandybridge but I bet it is better for the money

AMD isn't cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215&cm_re=core_i5-_-19-115-215-_-Product

i5-750 will crush a 1055t and is priced the same.

The only time AMD is cheaper is if you don't want to change sockets. If you are replacing your motherboard and are willing to overclock (probably the overwhelming majority of this board), Intel is much faster for the same money. I don't see how anyone can argue this.

Backwards compatibility is overrated anyways. You can get a great x58 board for $200 now and the LGA1156 boards are even cheaper.

 

[sirmo]

AMD isn't cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215&cm_re=core_i5-_-19-115-215-_-Product

i5-750 will crush a 1055t and is priced the same.

The only time AMD is cheaper is if you don't want to change sockets. If you are replacing your motherboard and are willing to overclock (probably the overwhelming majority of this board), Intel is much faster for the same money. I don't see how anyone can argue this.

Backwards compatibility is overrated anyways. You can get a great x58 board for $200 now and the LGA1156 boards are even cheaper.

Any benchmark which actually uses all the 6 cores of the 1055t shows a significant lead in favor of the 1055t.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6

It's even faster than a Core i7 860 in those benchmarks. For transcoding video I would pick a 1055t any day over Intel's offerings (for the price). And for what it's worth 1055t will work on Bulldozer AM3+ motherboards.

 

[Dan_D]

Cost vs. performance is fine, but this isn't [F]rugal|OCP. Its [H]ard|OCP!

LOL, I just saw your sig, no doubt you will disagree with me

I understand your perspective but I don't share it. For me money isn't a huge issue where computer parts are concerned. For the most part I simply buy the best performing hardware available. All other concerns are secondary. About the only thing I generally don't buy are Extreme Edition CPUs. Really until the Core i7 980X Extreme Edition came out there wasn't any value in the EE line. You were able to hit the same maximum clock speeds on $300-$500 CPUs. Essentially you were paying $500 to $700 more just to have an unlocked multiplier. While that's extremely nice to have it's not usually worth the price in my book. Especially not when I buy motherboards that tend to be great overclockers anyway.

Concerning motherboards and backwards compatibility, it's a nice idea but that has drawbacks as well. Generally speaking the older boards won't overclock the new CPUs that well and they won't support newer technologies as they emerge. As an example: Boards from two years ago don't support USB 3.0 and SATA 6G. Also boards for AMD processors tend to be fairly inexpensive anyway so buying a new one isn't as big a deal as it would be to drop $300+ on a high end Intel board every couple of years. I see people change out expensive boards just to get USB 3.0 and SATA 6G support or simply because some other board overclocks a lot better than their last one. So I don't think people have that much of an aversion to buying a new board. The people who do either don't have a lot of money to spend on such things or are just cheap bastards. If you don't have a lot of disposable income to spend on computer hardware then I'd have to ask what the hell you are doing buying $200+ processors you don't need? That's another discussion entirely but my point is that buying a new board for $100 to $170 once every year or two shouldn't generally be that much of an issue. Not if you've got enough disposable income to replace your processor, video cards etc.

Some will argue their situations and reasons for it but I don't want to get into a big discussion about it. It's just my take on the situation.

Back to the hardware, from an engineering standpoint I think the desire to retain compatibility with older motherboard holds AMD back to some degree. You are talking about using voltage specifications that are two years old or more. They'd be able to get better thermals and use less power (in theory) if they were to redesign the platform. I'm not an electrical engineer by any means, but given what I've seen of the VRD specifications on Intel's side of things it seems reasonable. Intel keeps lowering voltages, improving the specifications, etc. I'm not sure but it may simply be that redesigning the platform requires resources AMD doesn't have to spare. I don't know.

Generally speaking the AMD processors are good enough for most uses and certainly seem like a good value for the money. Generally speaking I'd say the motherboards and chipsets on Intel's side of things are better. Better layouts, faster SATA / RAID, more RAID options, (in terms of stripe sizes, etc.) and better tools for those. You also have the option to use Intel's networking through PHY, etc. So the platform is typically slightly more expensive, but the price premium in the mainstream space is shrinking. And while you may pay $50 or $60 more for a quality Sandy Bridge board than the average AM3 motherboard, the CPU's are similarly priced. The Core i7 2500K should be around $230 right now if you can find one. Overclocked it destroys any Phenom II, even the X6 in anything you'd ever use at the desktop level for 95% of users. Why buy less when you can get more for the same money?

Just a quick comparison.

Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition =$229.99.
ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 Motherboard =$174.99

Intel Core i5 2500K =$230 (When available)
ASUS P8P67 Pro =$176.99

Intel Core i7 950 =$199.99 (Microcenter B&M only)
ASUS Sabertooth X58 =$199.99

None of this is bottom dollar type hardware, and I know that if you want to go for absolute bottom dollar AMD is in the end cheaper. The hardware I chose to list is what I think the typical enthusiast would probably be looking at between the two and the cost is fairly close. Intel's been hammering at the mainstream and lower end market segments for a while now. AMD isn't the value it used to be. If Bulldozer isn't significantly faster than the newest Core i7's, or it isn't at least on par with last generations Core i7's, then AMD will be in real trouble. If Bulldozer beats Sandy Bridge, then they can charge what they like. If it doesn't beat Sandy Bridge then I fear they'll have to sell them really cheap to sell them at all. Potentially at low margins which won't allow them to make a profit on them. And hell Core i7 950's can be had at Microcenter for $229.99 to $199.99. There are plenty of solid X58 motherboards Like the Sabertooth X58 which can be had for around $200.00. In the end you don't save that much with AMD right now. Not unless you drop to the lowest end up the spectrum.

Any benchmark which actually uses all the 6 cores of the 1055t shows a significant lead in favor of the 1055t.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6

It's even faster than a Core i7 860 in those benchmarks. For transcoding video I would pick a 1055t any day over Intel's offerings (for the price).

Using that article the Core i7 920 and mildly overclocking it gets you the same if not better performance because they've got slightly more clock speed head room. At least in two of the three benchmarks. In other words the difference between them isn't that far apart at stock clocks. There is also the Core i7 950 which can be had for $200 if you've got a Microcenter near you. Really when you break down the costs you can have much more system for $30 to $50 more or even for the same price depending on the exact hardware you choose. I just don't see any real reason to buy AMD right now unless your just a fan. Hopefully Bulldozer mixes things up but they've just got to leap frog three generations of Intel CPUs to do it. The bar is set very high right now.

 

[pxc]

It's even faster than a Core i7 860 in those benchmarks. For transcoding video I would pick a 1055t any day over Intel's offerings (for the price). And for what it's worth 1055t will work on Bulldozer AM3+ motherboards.

What? The 1055t loses to the i7 860 in first pass divx and in x264 encoding. It's a few percent faster only in second pass divx encoding.

I haven't encoded a divx video in years. What's the point when x264 is available?

 

[kirtar]

The Core i7 2500K should be around $230 right now if you can find one. Overclocked it destroys any Phenom II, even the X6 in anything you'd ever use at the desktop level for 95% of users. Why buy less when you can get more for the same money?

:3
I'm assuming that was just a typo since the 2500K is i5. Or was it? You referenced the i7 2600K later, but I thought that was going to be $317 or so

 

[Dan_D]

:3
I'm assuming that was just a typo since the 2500K is i5. Or was it? You referenced the i7 2600K later, but I thought that was going to be $317 or so

Yes, I meant i5.

 

[Perilous]

I will always buy AMD even if its slower than Intel. I guess that makes me a fanboy, but you gotta support the underdog.

I'm from North East Ohio, I tend to always side with the underdog.

 

[sirmo]

Transcoding / Encoding is one area where I think the Phenom II X6 is a better piece of hardware. However when making your choice, you just need to be honest about how much of that you do vs. everything else. If you start your encoding late at night then go to bed I'm going to go out on a limb and say that encoding performance may not actually mean that much to you even if you do a lot of it. However if you do it all the time while using the machine then you want to go with more cores each and every time.

I tend to edit my own videos and often times I keep encoding the video over and over again to achieve the perfect balance of quality, size and aspect ratio of the video. Out of all the CPU intensive tasks I do on the computer that's actually the only one where I would be able to tell a difference in having a slightly faster CPU, since it's a very time consuming task. As opposed to for example difference between 75 and 90 FPS in a game.

I do recognize that it is a specific type of computing not many people are faced with.
I am also a developer and multithreaded compiling absolutely benefits from more cores, together with server apps.

AMD also shows a pretty significant edge in Linux. I've seen benchmarks in which tri-core cache stripped Phenom II 710 beat i7 920s in certain benches. For instance:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_lynnfield&num=9

I wish more reviewers benchmarked Linux.

 

[pxc]

I'm from North East Ohio, I tend to always side with the underdog.

So which VIA processor are you going to be buying? What? Those have performance disadvantages and you can get something better within your budget?

Shopping must be a real exercise. It's easy for me. I see something, AMD or Intel for CPUs, nvidia or AMD/ATI for graphics cards, and I judge the product by its merits, including cost and performance. I buy all 4 and have for years.

 

[TheBlueChanell]

In my opinion Bulldozer needs to be surpass Sandy Bridge, it needs to contend in some way shape or form with LGA 2011/Ivy Bridge or whatever it's going to be called.

Llano needs to be the SandyBridge competitor. Hopefully it will pan out this way.

 

[matteos]

"i5-750 will crush a 1055t and is priced the same."

i5 hardly crushes the 1055t, plus you have two extra cores, maybe not an issue for most, but for instance my wife likes to watch Netflix whilst I game, with 6 cores that is not an issue even on games like BFBC2 which love more cores.

Check out where the i5 750 is on here.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

DanD.

I understand your perspective and Intel have reduced their prices since I bought my PC stuff. intels prices were at least $100-$200 more for an equal performing chip compared to the 1055t. But to me, I've always had AMD, and I see Intel always with the big market share... I can't stand monopolies, Intel charge $1000 for a processor because it remains unchallenged. Without AMD I dread to imagine what they would bill you for even their shittier end of the spectrum. To me that means I have to remain with AMD since the average person on the street buys Intel without thinking about it.

 

[Wiseguy2001]

core2 does not have hyperthreading.
And the problem again for AMD is there are not very many applications that can use 6+ cores effectively. <snip>
I would pay $500 for a 4 module / 8 core 3.4 GHz cpu with single thread the IPC of i7.

I agree, while this is shaping up to be a good server chip, but it will only be great (and appeal the the enthusiasts) if they can IPC up.

If programmers would learn to use multithreading properly, then we would start seeing programs that could scale almost linierly with the number of CPU cores.

The greatest problem with multithreading is having to and/or choosing to use locks in the code instead of programming in such a way to avoid locks wherever possible.

One big problem is that a lot of "programmers" take the easy way out and just take the approach of "if it works it is good enough".

A large majority of the code I have looked at is horribly inneficient. Some of it is easily modified to double the speed with just a few simple changes.

Locking resources only when necessary isn't rocket science. I think that as the number of cores greatly increases, even the worse 'programmers' will have to think about taking threading seriously to get the desired performance.

It's not quite that simple though, there as are tasks that can't be broken down and must be executed sequentially. There's also a limit to how many cores can effectively be used before certain threads become bottle necks and all the message passing and idle waits brings everything to a halt.

 

[pxc]

In my opinion Bulldozer needs to be surpass Sandy Bridge, it needs to contend in some way shape or form with LGA 2011/Ivy Bridge or whatever it's going to be called.

Llano needs to be the SandyBridge competitor. Hopefully it will pan out this way.

Initial CPUs in socket LGA 2011 will also be Sandy Bridge models later this year. In 2012, it's likely that Ivy Bridge will use the same socket.

Llano was made using a "K10.5" core, and since it lacks a L3 cache, should have performance similar to Athlon II X2 and X4 processors, possibly with minor performance improvements. Performance will not be competitive with even Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad clock for clock.

 

[Dan_D]

I understand your perspective and Intel have reduced their prices since I bought my PC stuff. intels prices were at least $100-$200 more for an equal performing chip compared to the 1055t. But to me, I've always had AMD, and I see Intel always with the big market share... I can't stand monopolies, Intel charge $1000 for a processor because it remains unchallenged. Without AMD I dread to imagine what they would bill you for even their shittier end of the spectrum. To me that means I have to remain with AMD since the average person on the street buys Intel without thinking about it.

That's not exactly true. Since the Core 2 came out Intel has offered processors at prices which competed fairly well with AMD's offerings. Yet they offered more performance, not less. You haven't needed to spend $100 to $200 more for an equally performing chip in some time. In fact I don't think that's been the case since the Athlon came out. Going further back than that Intel charged less than AMD did during the Pentium D and X2 days for almost every processor in their lineup. Intel still had the $1,000 Pentium 965 Extreme Edition, but they also had the Intel Pentium D 820 which was around $150 and overclocked like mad making it an incredible value compared to many of the X2 processors.

And let me remind you that When AMD had the faster performing Athlon 64 and Athlon X2 processors they charged $1,000 for FX branded models. Intel does not simply charge $1,000 for processors simply because they are unchallenged. Intel charged just as much for Extreme Editions as AMD charged for FX CPUs even when the latter was a better performer. Both AMD and Intel charge what the market will allow for their products. Both AMD and Intel have several models to choose from each of which is targeted at specific price points. They monkey with the prices in order to make their processors the better value at a given price point. It's one of the reasons why their retail channel and retail prices are so fluid.

Your statement is akin to being angry that Chevrolet makes a Corvette ZR-1 that's $115,000 dollars, when all you can afford or are even interested in is a Ford Focus. In other words; Who gives a shit about Intel making processors and charging $1,000 for them? They also make processors which can be had for a 10th of that price and everything in between. They aren't raping you if you aren't buying it.

 

[pxc]

Just for lulz http://www.anandtech.com/show/2287

The first page and the Bulldozer page should hit the funnybone just fine.

For those who still don't understand how late these products are, and when it would have been competitive, read. Core 2 was the shock and Core i7 was the unexpected awe. I'm sure you'll figure out where BD sits nowadays and why AMD doesn't show it.

 

[matteos]

That's not exactly true. Since the Core 2 came out Intel has offered processors at prices which competed fairly well with AMD's offerings. Yet they offered more performance, not less. You haven't needed to spend $100 to $200 more for an equally performing chip in some time. In fact I don't think that's been the case since the Athlon came out. Going further back than that Intel charged less than AMD did during the Pentium D and X2 days for almost every processor in their lineup. Intel still had the $1,000 Pentium 965 Extreme Edition, but they also had the Intel Pentium D 820 which was around $150 and overclocked like mad making it an incredible value compared to many of the X2 processors.

And let me remind you that When AMD had the faster performing Athlon 64 and Athlon X2 processors they charged $1,000 for FX branded models. Intel does not simply charge $1,000 for processors simply because they are unchallenged. Intel charged just as much for Extreme Editions as AMD charged for FX CPUs even when the latter was a better performer. Both AMD and Intel charge what the market will allow for their products. Both AMD and Intel have several models to choose from each of which is targeted at specific price points. They monkey with the prices in order to make their processors the better value at a given price point. It's one of the reasons why their retail channel and retail prices are so fluid.

Your statement is akin to being angry that Chevrolet makes a Corvette ZR-1 that's $115,000 dollars, when all you can afford or are interested in is a Ford Focus. In other words; Who gives a shit about Intel making processors and charging $1,000 for them? They also make processors which can be had for a 10th of that price and everything in between. They aren't raping you if you aren't buying it.

Check out price vs performance
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html#cpuvalue

Generally AMD have the best bang for the buck. When you factor into that you have a good chance at being able to upgrade your processor without having to switch anything else a year or two down the line then to me it's a bargain. Obviously that is not a pressing concern for most people here on this forum. At work I have a Mac Pro, (which is a dual quad core - $5000 I think it cost new and it is almost two years old... And it is substantially slower than my PC at everything, which cost me roughly about $1200 Technology moves so quick that to me it makes no sense spending more than you have to. If you have the money that a $1000 processor is a good idea than great, go for it.

My other point, I'm not angry about Intel or expensive processors. I am saying that if there was no competition then all Intel processors would be considerably more expensive, simply because there would be no alternative. If AMD were the larger manufacturer I would buy Intel... My instinct is to support the underdog. AMD comes nowhere near close to having the profit margins and resources of Intel, so I feel that they need my support.

 

[Rizen]

Any benchmark which actually uses all the 6 cores of the 1055t shows a significant lead in favor of the 1055t.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6

It's even faster than a Core i7 860 in those benchmarks. For transcoding video I would pick a 1055t any day over Intel's offerings (for the price). And for what it's worth 1055t will work on Bulldozer AM3+ motherboards.

In games the Phenom's lose badly. Who on this forum is regularly using software that uses 6 cores? Most of the software that is heavily multi-threaded at this time isn't likely to be run by people who are building budget computers. Most people on this forum are gamers, and for them the Intel CPUs are far and away a superior option.

 

[Rizen]

"i5-750 will crush a 1055t and is priced the same."

i5 hardly crushes the 1055t, plus you have two extra cores, maybe not an issue for most, but for instance my wife likes to watch Netflix whilst I game, with 6 cores that is not an issue even on games like BFBC2 which love more cores.

Check out where the i5 750 is on here.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Look at gaming benchmarks and the results reserve. The two extra cores are nice, but what are you running that makes use of them? Very few if any games scale beyond 4 cores.

I would say that for most users the i5 chip is a better purchase, and for gamers this is especially true.

 

[sirmo]

Just for lulz http://www.anandtech.com/show/2287

The first page and the Bulldozer page should hit the funnybone just fine.

For those who still don't understand how late these products are, and when it would have been competitive, read. Core 2 was the shock and Core i7 was the unexpected awe. I'm sure you'll figure out where BD sits nowadays and why AMD doesn't show it.

Hammer (Athlon 64/Opteron/K8). Was late as well: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,56315,00.asp

It came out in late 2003 (early 2004) as opposed to 2002.

That didn't stop it from being an absolute success in which AMD more than doubled their market share. If what you posted is any indication we may have another Hammer at our hands

 

[Dan_D]

Check out price vs performance
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html#cpuvalue

Generally AMD have the best bang for the buck. When you factor into that you have a good chance at being able to upgrade your processor without having to switch anything else a year or two down the line then to me it's a bargain. Obviously that is not a pressing concern for most people here on this forum. At work I have a Mac Pro, (which is a dual quad core - $5000 I think it cost new and it is almost two years old... And it is substantially slower than my PC at everything, which cost me roughly about $1200 Technology moves so quick that to me it makes no sense spending more than you have to. If you have the money that a $1000 processor is a good idea than great, go for it.

My other point, I'm not angry about Intel or expensive processors. I am saying that if there was no competition then all Intel processors would be considerably more expensive, simply because there would be no alternative. If AMD were the larger manufacturer I would buy Intel... My instinct is to support the underdog. AMD comes nowhere near close to having the profit margins and resources of Intel, so I feel that they need my support.

I just showed that this isn't necessarily the case. The upgrade path argument is debatable (from the enthusiasts perspective anyway) but if you need a new motherboard, processor and RAM today, the difference isn't that large at mainstream price points. The performance gap however gets quite large in many situations with Intel dominating pretty much everything. Transcoding / Encoding is the one area where the Phenom II X6 close the gap or even manages a slight victory when comparing stock processors.

As for your statements about competition, I hear that all the time and I think it's wrong and incredibly short sighted. Yeah, Intel used to charge more for it's CPUs than AMD did when AMD processors weren't competitive at all. That was back in the mid-1990's. Consumer electronics continue to get cheaper and cheaper. With the exception of video cards and to a lesser extent motherboards, cases, and power supplies, this reigns true with the entire computer industry. The market will not tolerate mainstream processors being well in excess of $300.00. Though I could argue that due to inflation prices are pretty much the same if not less than they used to be on even those items. People don't generally buy PC's over $1,500 or even $1,000 anymore. The margins just aren't there for Intel to charge prices like that for anything but higher end and server parts where there is still margin to play with. Without AMD we would probably see longer development cycles but I don't think pricing would be all that much different than it is today. People expect and require $600 PC's and as long as that remains true Intel can't charge the outrageous prices of the 1990's.

 

[matteos]

Look at gaming benchmarks and the results reserve. The two extra cores are nice, but what are you running that makes use of them? Very few if any games scale beyond 4 cores.

I would say that for most users the i5 chip is a better purchase, and for gamers this is especially true.

Depends how you use your PC. I have mine hooked up to everything, it powers music in another room along with Netflix streaming on the TV, my missis can listen to music from another room changing it with her phone or she can watch TV while I game, if I had a bigger place I could think of plenty more uses.

 

[sirmo]

People expect and require $600 PC's and as long as that remains true Intel can't charge the outrageous prices of the 1990's.

If it wasn't for competition vs AMD you really think Intel wouldn't be pushing Itanium and Netburst arch down our throat right now?

Intel would probably be charging us the same prices for the CPUs but they would be Atoms instead of i-5s.

 

[matteos]

I just showed that this isn't necessarily the case. The upgrade path argument is debatable (from the enthusiasts perspective anyway)

Fair enough, I guess I am arguing from the position of somebody who is not a hardcore enthusiast

Without AMD we would probably see longer development cycles.

So it is a good thing we have AMD, otherwise we would still be using P4's

 

[pxc]

That didn't stop it from being an absolute success in which AMD more than doubled their market share. If what you posted is any indication we may have another Hammer at our hands

The large difference, and something I mentioned above ("AMD doesn't show it"), was that AMD was showing SledgeHammer to everyone, and previewing performance over a year in advance. Anyways, K8 was released on April 22, 2003. If it was late, it was 4-6 months late, not 2 years late. And it competed with a gigantic Intel blunder, Netburst.

1) SB as competition is very tough, netburst was very weak
2) 4-6 months late << 2 years late
3) performance is likely so terrible, AMD doesn't even want to show it a couple of months before a hazy release period. just to repeat, BD still does not have a release date.

 

[bdavis24]

Depends how you use your PC. I have mine hooked up to everything, it powers music in another room along with Netflix streaming on the TV, my missis can listen to music from another room changing it with her phone or she can watch TV while I game, if I had a bigger place I could think of plenty more uses.

i would love to know how to make a setup like that..

 

[sirmo]

The large difference, and something I mentioned above ("AMD doesn't show it"), was that AMD was showing SledgeHammer to everyone, and previewing performance over a year in advance. Anyways, K8 was released on April 22, 2003. If it was late, it was 4-6 months late, not 2 years late. And it competed with a gigantic Intel blunder, Netburst.

1) SB as competition is very tough, netburst was very weak
2) 4-6 months late << 2 years late
3) performance is likely so terrible, AMD doesn't even want to show it a couple of months before a hazy release period. just to repeat, BD still does not have a release date.

First hammer desktop CPUs (clawhammer) didn't start appearing until 2004. In fact here is one of the first Athlon 64 benchmark reviews. http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/1211?cPage=7&all=False&sort=0&page=5

Note the date of the article being one week before the end of the 2003.

I bought one myself as soon as they became available and I remember it was 2004. If Bulldozer comes out in April, it will be about the same as Athlon 64 as far as how late it is compared to the roadmap you linked. The roadmap you linked didn't even have a quarter noted down, meaning it was a loose estimate.

Release dates aren't usually set till 1 month before the release. They should be showing preliminary benchmarks fairly soon. Like they did with Zacate few months ago.

Why do you hate on AMD so much, though?

Zacate is amazing so far. It completely blows Atom out of the water, why not give them a benefit of the doubt for once?

 

[pxc]

First hammer desktop CPUs (clawhammer) didn't start appearing until 2004. In fact here is one of the first Athlon 64 benchmark reviews.

Zacate is amazing so far. It completely blows Atom out of the water, why not give them a benefit of the doubt for once?

From your link:

when AMD pushed back its Hammer series of processors until the second half of 2002.

It says nothing about ClawHammer in particular and it was always the plan to release SledgeHammer first. That said, 4-6 months late is a fair estimate from the last delay. K8 was released in April 2003.

Why bring up Zacate? I've made no mention of it in this thread and I praised the low power Ontario in the Fusion thread a few posts down. The C-50 CPU is not as fast as the N550 when Ontario is scaled down to 1GHz/8W, but it's close enough. Ontario's GPU of course is a lot faster than the slow GMA 3150. I mentioned both things in that thread. If you meant my comment about Llano, it really uses a version of the K10.5 core, believe it or not. That was announced long ago and was done to mitigate risk. That puts Llano X2/X4 in Core 2 Duo/Quad territory at best, with the possibility of higher clock speeds to make up for clock for clock performance deficits. Again, really consider how late these products are and you'll start to see the problems AMD is facing.

 

[matteos]

i would love to know how to make a setup like that..

Simple, but lots of cables. My receiver powers two sets of speakers, so surround sound in the living room, and second set of speakers in bedroom, there's a bunch of apps for android that control different Software so you can control music and other things on your phone from another room. If shes watching Netflix streaming I can game at the same time. Unfortunately with Win 7 I have yet to figure out a way to split multiple sounds (i.e game sound through headphones and movie sounds through speakers). I used to be able to do this with XP, but even though I have onboard sound and a soundcard I have yet to figure this out). It will happen as it is only recently Silverlight got fixed so Netflix remained fullscreen when you were doing other things on PC, so I have yet to work out multiple sound channels, but it isn't often I need to do this.

Anyway, sorry for thread hijack. I set up a new thread here about the topic http://hardforum.com:80/showthread.php?t=1574787
For the sound issue, as it would be cool to solve this

 

[Rizen]

Depends how you use your PC. I have mine hooked up to everything, it powers music in another room along with Netflix streaming on the TV, my missis can listen to music from another room changing it with her phone or she can watch TV while I game, if I had a bigger place I could think of plenty more uses.

Yes, that is my entire point. Most people, even most enthusiasts and gamers on this board, don't need 6 cores. Even what you have described doing, I doubt it would fully saturate a 4 core Intel or AMD CPU. Netflix isn't intensive, music playing on my computer takes less than 3% of the CPU while listening to FLAC, and most games don't use more than 2-4 threads on my i7.

Given that the nature of software is not likely to change in the next 6 months (look at how long quadcores have been out and how much market adoption that has gotten so far), I don't see AMD CPUs being at a huge advantage for having additional cores yet.

Therefore, given the choice between 6 cores, or 4 cores where each individual core is 20-30% faster, for most users the latter is a better choice, and more so if you are gaming. If you do a ton of media encoding or make use of software which is very heavily multi-threaded, that may not be true.

Please don't misconstrue this as me downplaying multi-core CPUs, as I realize that the future is heading in the direction of more and more multithreaded applications. But the software is not there yet, and looking at history and software development timetables, if AMD is banking on beating out Intel by throwing more and more cores at the the problem without also making large strides forward in efficiency and IPC improvements, they will be at a disadvantage for a while.