AMD Phenom and Quad Core Opteron

^^(a little off topic don't you think)

Waiting is a pain. But so is no play.

Originally Posted by Kipman725
dude you do know its as bad as America here, just people are less vocal?

the foods not as cheap/nice aswell.

Haha, I'm just glad to get out of this country and explore the world. Besides isn't blair's last day in office June 27th? :(

Sorry off topic, haha, love AMD


Sidenote: Ill take over parliament with R-E-S-P-E-C-T....E. (anyone get that? haha)

Originally Posted by bjrcboy
In all honesty I've been a AMD fan boy since I built my first computer. Even though the Intel core duo's do a wonderful job, AMD is still better for the money IMHO. Its just like when I use to work at circuit city, people would buy a 7800 over a x1600 just because it had a bigger number. Oh how I wish all the ignorant people in the world would be informed!

huh? ur opinion is wrong. and no, im not an intel fanboy. bought amd before c2d...and almost got tired of waiting to buy my current rig and went amd again. but im glad i didnt. i still say the only reason to do a full upgrade on amd is if your goal is quad core. otherwise, c2d is the way to go.

I think AMD have taken so long to come out with a new chip is because Intel have obviously patented there C2D Architecture like crazy, so AMD had to start bottom up while doing that they reliased the fault with the Intel chip and built the quad-core. AMD will succed if this quad-core Phenom chip is cheap, if it can match the Core 2 Duo in price then we will see AMD on top.

Originally Posted by culley
....while doing that they reliased the fault with the Intel chip and built the quad-core. AMD will succed if this quad-core Phenom chip is cheap, if it can match the Core 2 Duo in price then we will see AMD on top.

i wouldn't really say so, amd's main architecture hasn't really changed much

the difference is, AMD's architecture scales very way, intel's really doesnt, in fact intel's suffers badly

Originally Posted by completemadness
so your going from bush to blair ? talk about failing downwards :p but seriously, i cant see how blair is better in any way then bush

well realistically it will be bush to brown - some men consider this an aim ;)

Well....I think this is putting a life expectancy on my main rig now...

Looks good, we might finally have an intel killer...

Originally Posted by Brooxy
Looks good, we might finally have an intel killer...

Intel will eventually pwn AMD, then AMD will do it again. Its a natural cycle and hopefully there will never be a winner - no good without competition.

Great article btw, can't wait to see benchmarks and pricing, it could be the next system upgrade for me perhaps on launch... cost dependant!

The benefits of an AM2+ platform over an AM2 platform will no doubt be very small in single socket systems. HT2.0 doesn't struggle all that much for bandwidth on the current processors. I reckon we will see maybe a 5% improvement on AM2+ over AM2.

AMD haven't been slow because Intel has patented stuff... its just not like that. They have been slow because it takes a damn long time to design a new chip and they killed the original K8 successor project off. Something about designing a massively parallel chip or something. Unless i am thinking of the wrong thing.

As for a redesign not incremental improvements... this thing is a HUGE leap. Native quad core, split power planes, l3 cache, improved HT, aditiional and wider SSE units, OoOE etc. etc. There are probably as many architectural improvements here as with Core to Core2.

allowing not only per-core clock frequency adjustment like AM2 CPUs, but now per-core voltage adjustments as well.

I believe this is incorrect. Isn't it 2 power planes, one for the cores and one for the northbridge rather than one for each core?

You're confusing core enhancements with voltage planes:

AM2 CPUs have per-core clock frequency adjustments but only a global voltage value with a single plane voltage. If one core is clocked down but the other is running full pelt, both will still be full voltage not saving much power.

AM2+ allows for split plane voltage between cores and northbridge, however the new architecture has been optimised for completely independent P-state adjustments on a per-core basis: if only one core is 100% load it'll be full MHz/full voltage, while the other cores will sit in a lower mhz/voltage state.

Their new mobile CPUs (info coming friday ;)) have gone even further to include a triple plane voltage instead allowing for even more independent sleep states.

Originally Posted by Kamakazie!
The benefits of an AM2+ platform over an AM2 platform will no doubt be very small in single socket systems. HT2.0 doesn't struggle all that much for bandwidth on the current processors. I reckon we will see maybe a 5% improvement on AM2+ over AM2.

It's not just about a speed bump, it's about a technological improvement allowing further native instructions for power states and I/O between chipset-CPU and CPU-CPU as well. It's also about building for the future: if your whole CPU architecture team (from mobile to server) is working with the same technology then you're more people available to optimise it.

Regarding AMD's implementation of Quad-core... we can see from the facts that it should be a more efficient system, but isn't it just going to fall down in the same way as Intel's Quads in real-world performance, simply because Quad isn't all that useful yet?

What I mean is that, yes, AMD's solution is more efficient than Intel's but realistically-speaking, how many Quad-core users ever see all 4 cores being used, or how much of a realistic benefit have Quad-owners seen over Dual?

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I'd hate to be talking out my arse here, but from what I've seen, Quad core is still of little benefit over dual-core in all but the highest-end of applications designed for it, and very few games actually make use of a multi-core setup.
The only game I can think of off the top of my head which properly supports multi-core is Supreme Commander, and from what I've read in the SupCom forums and seen in benchmarks, the 2nd, 3rd & 4th cores are still barely utilised in a game supposedly optimised to take advantage of it.
I don't know the ins and outs of load-balancing and can't claim to have understood everything in this article, but is an improved quad-core system going to overcome that problem?
I don't think so...

I'm currently running a single-core A64, while waiting to build my C2D dual-core rig, and I'm curious to see how much of a performance benefit I can attribute to having a 2nd core, as opposed to having a faster chip overall (though how I'll determine that is anyone's guess).

I'm no Intel Fanboy, I'm a hardware mercenary, I'll use whatever performs best for my budget, but I can't help but feel that AMD's claims to superiority in Quad-core architecture are no more than a marketing gimmick with no real-world benefit to the average high-end gamer or enthusiast for the foreseeable future.
Sure, Quad-core may help in folding, 3d rendering and video production, but I see a lot of 'hardcore gamers' out there convinced that having 4 cores will give them Bazillion-squared frames per second, when that doesn't seem to be the case, exaggerations aside.
Obviously, if nobody made the move to quad-core then neither would the developers, so I'm not saying that nobody should go Quad, I just can't see the quad-hype being justified.

I can't claim to know the topic in-depth, so someone with more knowledge on the matter: please correct me if I'm wrong.

(Sorry for the lengthy post :o )

That's why Phenom is directed at workstation and ultra enthusiast. Sup Com is highly threaded and is still CPU limited with GTXs on full pelt at high res. There will be need for it at some point. Yet again, it's NOT about using all your resources to the fullest all the time, it's about having stuff spare just in case you need it.

Surely you want stuff out in preparation for the future? You can't say that four cores won't be necessary in the future? I think you need to exist on a dual core system for a while until you realise what the extra power at your disposal can afford.

We generally run multiple stuff at once, it's not all about multithreading.

Originally Posted by Zurechial
Regarding AMD's implementation of Quad-core... we can see from the facts that it should be a more efficient system, but isn't it just going to fall down in the same way as Intel's Quads in real-world performance, simply because Quad isn't all that useful yet?

What I mean is that, yes, AMD's solution is more efficient than Intel's but realistically-speaking, how many Quad-core users ever see all 4 cores being used, or how much of a realistic benefit have Quad-owners seen over Dual?

as most multicore things are primarily aimed at the server market first, its still incredibly useful

In a server environment, a lot of what you do is maltreated, so it doesn't matter how many cores, because if you have your accounts package pumping out payslips - able to do 1 payslip per core, there is a direct increase in speed with each core

OK so the home user may not see a benefit - yet, but personally, i would like quad core
I can keep all windows processes on core 1, i can put media center on core 2 and i can put games / F@h on cores 3 & 4

ATM there isn't a big incentive to go multi-core because applications aren't coded that way yet, and some applications don't even benefit from it

It's not all about multithreading though! It's about doing more, simultaneously.

EDIT: Like you say: folding, windows, etc (although you'd probably use your GPU to fold as it's far faster).

If you do two things and those two things are multithreaded you'd benefit from four cores. If you do three things and one of those is multithreaded you'd again benefit from three cores.

How many people surf the web/download/listen to music/watch a video/virus scan or any number of stuff at once? I sure as hell do, and I can't live without at least two CPUs.

I have noticed the difference with my Q6600 over my mums E6400, especially when multi-tasking. I was ripping a dvd with dvdshrink, doing a spybot scan, watching tv and on msn all at the same time with no drop in performance, in task manager I could see the different cores loading up, was quite cool actually, and no way near maxed, BUT i know i can do it, and more :)

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
If you do two things and those two things are multithreaded you'd benefit from four cores. If you do three things and one of those is multithreaded you'd again benefit from three (four) cores.

How many people surf the web/download/listen to music/watch a video/virus scan or any number of stuff at once? I sure as hell do, and I can't live without at least two CPUs.

i agree with you 100%, having dual core is most definitely a boost, however, Windows XP and dual core is pathetic, swapping processes evenly across the cores, completely wasting time doing so (well I'm assuming this severely adversely affects performance, maybe with an AMD proc with shared cache it doesn't matter as the nature of "multiprogramming" means programs are swapped in and out of the CPU's registers thousands of times a second)

Personally i still only run a virus scan at night or something though, because your going to start thrashing your HDD if your trying to do things and scan at the same time (as its going to be very IO intensive)

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
It's not all about multithreading though! It's about doing more, simultaneously.

That's fair enough, as I said, I was looking for clarification on the issue as much as anything else. :D

I knew that multi-core is useful for server environments etc, I just think there's a lot of misplaced hype in the gaming-hardware market, where a lot of gamers think they need a quad-core, or that they'll see immediate in-game benefits with one, whereas I don't think the truth is quite as simple as that.

I think Multi-core is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but it'd be nice if the developers started to make better use of it in games. Until then, the benefits of multi-core extolled by AMD and Intel just seem a bit misleading to the gaming-enthusiast market.

I think the jump from an A64 3500+ @ 2.4 to a C2D E6600 is going to be too significant in terms of sheer performance for me to determine how much of that increase is coming from the newer technology and how much is coming from the dual-core advantage.
I'll trust in your greater wisdom and believe that there's a good portion of it coming from having a 2nd core. :p

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
It's not just about a speed bump, it's about a technological improvement allowing further native instructions for power states and I/O between chipset-CPU and CPU-CPU as well. It's also about building for the future: if your whole CPU architecture team (from mobile to server) is working with the same technology then you're more people available to optimise it.

My comment had nothing to do with the other benefits of AM2+ over AM2. I was merely answering the general query of AM2+ vs AM2 in performance terms.
I myself have an AM2 mobo and will almost certainly be purchasing a Phenom X4 so long as MSI update the bios for it.
I am well aware of the split power planes and increased I/O bandwidth. Just that increased I/O bandwidth will, like i said, probably have <5% performance hit on single socket systems. Which is more than acceptable for me until either i upgrade to an AM2+ mobo.
I am still wondering if the AM3 cpus will have a dual DDR2/DDR3 memory controller so that they will drop in to AM2+ mobos for a similar upgrade path to what i am planning now. This would be brilliant for the incremental upgrade!

OK, I was just highlighting that it's more than performance though ;) in addition to your post :D

AM3 will be DDR3 only from what I gather, just like AM2 over 939.

Originally Posted by Zurechial
I think Multi-core is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but it'd be nice if the developers started to make better use of it in games. Until then, the benefits of multi-core extolled by AMD and Intel just seem a bit misleading to the gaming-enthusiast market.

dual core is definitely good, being able to put your game onto 1 dedicated core, with no other things interrupting it

But yes, ATM more then that seems a little wasted (unless you run a MCE pc or other things in the background)

However, its a bit of a chicken/egg scenario, if people don't go multi-core games wont, and if games don't people wont

But as supreme command proves, multi-core is here, and valve are working on source to get that multicore, and many more new games are multicore as well

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
OK, I was just highlighting that it's more than performance though ;) in addition to your post :D

AM3 will be DDR3 only from what I gather, just like AM2 over 939.

:D

Yeah that is what i had been hearing too from various sites, but nothing official so i was still hoping :)
I guess it would be pretty silly to add that many transistors and complexity to the memory controller for such a small number of people. It would probably decrease performance some what as well, maybe slightly higher latencies.

Just skimmed the article for now but I plan on going back and reading this. Everytime something like this comes out, it just reminds me of just how outdated my current PC is. Hell, I've not managed to upgrade to a 64bit CPU let alone a dual core CPU and now quad core are on the way out in the near distant future. I haven't been able to afford new hardware in years so I just kind of quit being on top of current technology completely when it comes to PCs. From what I skimmed of it though, it seems like good stuff and hopefully it'll knock the prices of a good dual core system down enough for me to be able to pick one up.

Hell, the new workstation we got at work a week ago is faster then my home PC by a marginal sum. That's pretty fricken sad.