bit-tech.net

What? I can't tell if they're being intentionally cryptic or if it's just bad engrish.

Probably still a NDA or something so not allowed to say anything definite....does sound impressive though.

That would mean Intel are giving us a lot more multipliers than expected if this is a generic SB chip, or that the K chips really will be worth their money.

I guess more details are needed before we know for sure, but I am assuming the latter since the former would make no sense (why limit overclocking the FSB just to give everyone more multipliers?).

At least they all got their suffixes correct. Interestingly cryptic, hmmm.... interesting.

;)

Originally Posted by Skiddywinks
That would mean Intel are giving us a lot more multipliers than expected if this is a generic SB chip, or that the K chips really will be worth their money.

Let's hope so and let's hope if it is the K series that the premium isn't too exorbitant.

Well, knowing Intel and their habit of gouging the enthusiast with the EE series in the past....

If that is serious.. that's pretty amazing.

"sure you can get to 5GHz, but we'll only let you run at 3GHz unless you sell me an arm and a leg." -Intel

will you pussies stop whining about a product that's not even here yet!

/rant

More ontopic, 5GHz zounds nice :)

Who says its a intel cpu. could be a ARM

;)

We can't infer shipping multipliers or clock speeds, or indeed anything at all about a product you can buy, from this because there's no info on the chip used. The chip could be an unlocked and selected Engineering Sample. Is it representative of retail?
Regardless, it is looking good.

Originally Posted by [USRF
Obiwan]Who says its a intel cpu. could be a ARM

;)

I wish!
I see the jk, but being serious he says it is 4 core/8 threads, and ARM doesn't thread.
In fact, they take the AMD approach and say SMT is wasteful.

Originally Posted by Adnoctum
I wish!
I see the jk, but being serious he says it is 4 core/8 threads, and ARM doesn't thread.
In fact, they take the AMD approach and say SMT is wasteful.

The ho-har over SMT is part marketing part pipeline approach.

SMT is DIFFICULT to qualify - so some companies just say it's not worth it to avoid bothering. IBM has had its own version for as long, if not longer than Intel too and Nvidia's Fermi cores are 'dual-issue' as well.

Intel was supposedly meant to launch P4 with SMT but dropped it for 2 generations. Core launched without SMT and got it two generations later as well, but it arguably didn't really need it as it used a more efficient sub-20 pipeline though (iirc). Also, Intel has pumped a ton of research cash into branch prediction and data pre-fetching since P4 days (afaik, maybe before) which helps keep the pipeline full for SMT. AMD's branch prediction claims to be 'not as good' and didn't need to be with K8's brute force method of low-latency memory controller and dual channel DDR, but it's having to get better. I've no idea about ARM, but AMD is SMT-ing its transistor intensive FPU for Fuzion since it claims when it's locked to one core it's usage is only about 40%.

Atom also benefits from SMT even despite its short pipeline because of its in-order architecture - ARM could have done the same with its CPUs which would certainly have benefited its more recent A8s, but I bet they are patented out of the market and/or don't have the engineers for it. AMD certainly didn't used to have either and I doubt that has changed with staffing cuts in recent years.

/brain dump

Doesn't mean that a processor goes to 9 billion MHz that is faster than a Pentium 2.
Also, this is probably the highest end model CPU, with Unlock Premium card that will cost 300$ to unlock even more the CPU to access these speeds.

wow less than 7 second pi.. that's a engineering sample too- retail will probably be better

I can't remember where I saw it, but I believe ARM's argument was over power usage and cache access problems. They said SMT uses 50% or so more power than if you had just added a second core. I'll see if I can find a link.

On paper, I like AMD's module approach to the Bulldozer with the sharing of under-used resources and utilising die space and power to where it can make more use. Very exciting times

Like you said, I think development resources stops AMD from doing it themselves. It is one of those last 5% architecture features that would soak up more development and research time and resources than it would be worth. Of course, it could be a engineering cultural thing, and AMD truly sees little benefit in it.

Edit: It took some finding, but I found the Goodacre (ARM) article on multi-threading. It's a bit older than I thought, 2006, so perhaps things have changed.
http://www.design-reuse.com/articles/13914/the-design-dilemma-multiprocessing-using-multiprocessors-and-multithreading.html

Originally Posted by thehippoz
wow less than 7 second pi.. that's a engineering sample too- retail will probably be better

If Sandy Bridge isn't in a mature state and ready for release right now, then something has gone very wrong. Hi Cookie wouldn't be working with early development samples. The rest of the time until release should be for partner qualification work and tweaking, not chip/process development.

I am starting to feel the upgrade itch though.

sure and for $1200.00 you can get this amazing chip that will smash super pi but run games 5 fps faster than a stock $300 AMD.

but unless you run super pi 24/7 then be my guess.

hmm interesting....

yeah that's true.. if it's the overpriced extreme- that would suck though if the chips have that much overhead sitting there locked.. is it confirmed they are doing away with ocing?

dout it will be any faster than the current top end unless your willing to pay.

ill be intrested to know how much faster the locked processor is compared to the i930.

in gaming its near enough irelivent as any cpu built in the last 3 years would do for what its worth

considering that sandy bridge is currently known to not overclock, i find it very unlikely thats what it is. i have no doubt that a company like gigabyte would find a way to overclock sandy bridge, but not this early.

Considering Intels cheapest CPU can run games 5fps faster than a $300 AMD then there's hope for Sandybridge.

4 core 8 thread? maybe an highly overclocked i7 with hyperthreading on?

THAT would rip though superpi

Maybe 5.2ghz is with a cold air setup. Or would the die shrink to 32nm and optimizations really equate to another 1ghz in clock speed?

Originally Posted by Kaihekoa
Maybe 5.2ghz is with a cold air setup. Or would the die shrink to 32nm and optimizations really equate to another 1ghz in clock speed?

not 1GHz difference, 200MHz:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/06/03/lynnfield-overclocks-to-5ghz/1

Déjà vu?

He could be talking about absolute SPi 1m hitting 7 secs, rather than SPi 32m hitting 7 minutes.

And that line in this article is misleading - if he's referring to SPi 32m, then 7m is the air WR, not the absolute WR, which is seemingly implied here at bittech

yeah he's talking super pi @1m.. that rig is twice as fast at calculating pi than my old 3.3ghz e6600 (16 sec 1m pi)

my g6950 @4.24ghz does a 10 sec pi.. just to give you an example of what your looking at with the new chip :o

*edit I'm talking about the 1.5xs version which doesn't thread but shows miliseconds.. I dunno about the other mod that threads over cores- if he's using that one.. not too impressive http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/366/Super_PI_Mod_v1.5.html

I pulled sub 11s times on an E8500@4.5 (air) the news is really not that interesting.

I'm holding on to my new Q9550 (@3.75) until there is some actual gains in gaming.

If you want gains in games you need to upgrade you GPU.

Sure there are some games that are cpu limited like SC2, supreme commander etc, but most games are gpu bottlenecked not cpu.

There are numerous other reasons to upgrade like lower heat and power, better overclocking, faster encoding performance faster rending etc.

Some people do more than just play games!

Originally Posted by Krayzie_B.o.n.e.
sure and for $1200.00 you can get this amazing chip that will smash super pi but run games 5 fps faster than a stock $300 AMD.

but unless you run super pi 24/7 then be my guess.

hmm interesting....

This is funny, there are games that show a huge difference between even the 1090T and the 920/930.

Far cry 2, Civ 5, SC2 etc all games that are cpu bottlenecks but run much faster than 5fps you claim. Fan boy much?

Hmm just example. I switched from C2D 2.4 (1066 ver) to i7 920 (ignoring OC capability right now).

Supreme Ruler 2020 (I admit game not for everybody) is extreme example of ridiculously-CPU-heavy game. Between C2D and i7 at stock speeds in this particular game difference in speed is like comparing original 1980s Fiat Panda and Aston Martin DB9 for example.

I do have one more for you. Star Wars Empire at War with Phoenix Rising mod. You get like 200-300% boost in speed when you switch from C2D to i7. Loading biggest map dropped from over 2 minutes to less than 40 seconds. Maybe CQ9550 is a bit faster than original C2D, but still it can't compete with i7 when it comes to sheer brute force of computing power (benchmarks are for nerds).

Just run BOINC on C2D/CQ and i7 for (e.g.) a month. Nehalem eats older Core for breakfast.