Details on AMD Bulldozer: Opterons to Feature Configurable TDP

59 Comments

View All Comments

• SanX - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  Nice job with the tests. They show exactly what i say AMD FP is twice faster then Intel.
  
  I used Lahey 32bit code, and as you can see our results are completely consistent - mine with E8400 at 3.8GHz and yours QX6700 at 3.2GHz
  
  And they are consistent in 64bits: with gfortran_64 i have a bit faster execution on my Intel then on 32bit Lahey and the result is around the same as yours on your i7 3.6GHz
  1 4.01s
  2 2.04s
  
  Will add here AMD 64bit result as soon as kick kids from the games but as we see we can not expect much different conclusion: on stock clocks AMD FP is twice faster then Intel.
  
  45nm AMD Phenom is by the way is easily overclockable by 25-45% or 3.5-4.1 GHz. When overclocked to the same clocks as Intel, AMD is even more then twice faster.

• BSMonitor - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  Completely talking out of one's arse.........

• BSMonitor - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  Idk, after years of AMD cpu domination, Intel was more than happy to let everyone talk about Conroe, benchmark it to the public. So much so that it drove up prices of the things when they finally were released.
  
  The reverse is true now, and I just don't see the same enthusiasm from AMD on Bulldozer. Maybe these 8-cores will be on par with 2600K ?? But Intel is still holding onto 6-core Sandy Bridge.
  
  Me thinks AMD has another Phenom on its hands. Big, low clock speeds, weaker than expected performance. Eventually, AMD is going to have to improve the performance of it's cores, not just keep adding more crappy ones.

• saneblane - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  i think it's quite clear to everyone that amd went on a whole new level with this design, soo much so that it is even hard to understand how much core the processor actually has. like JF amd said people buy processors not "cores". so if bulldozer die size is smaller than a sandy bridge and use less or equal transistors then amd made the better processor. what we have to look at now is not cores anymore amd could have split 1 large core into 3 instead of 2 and we would be hearing the same arguments, about 3 core vs a single core. what we need to watch is how both companies used the real estate of the die, and who used less and accomplish more made the better cpu.
  and i fully expect an intel processor to copy bullldozer in the near future. cross licensing sucks

• erikejw - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  Cliff notes:
  1. Don't run the Intel 320 SSD in any machines that needs perfect reliability or any kind of mission critical software.
  2. Back up all data on current drives immediately.
  
  I post it here so maybe some Anandtech guy can address the issue since they seem to be unaware of this for some months reported issue.
  
  Concearning reliability of the the Intel SSD 320 (and perhaps the 510 too).
  
  Huge number of complete data losses for users.
  Intel finally admits the problem exists.
  
  Power failure, instant shut downs causes the issue.
  
  No reliable information about if it is a firmware issue, design problem(bad design), hardware problem(controller etc, at least running this spec).
  A simple firmware update is most likely to solve the issue eventually
  
  Erik
  
  -------------------
  -------------------
  
  "“Be wary of the new Intel SSD 320 series. Currently, there's a bug in the controller that can cause the device to revert to 8MB during a power failure. AFAIK they have not yet publicly announced it, and won't have a firmware fix ready for release until the end of July.”"
  
  ---------------------
  
  http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=11858...
  
  --------------------
  
  http://www.fudzilla.com/memory/item/23447-intel-co...
  etc

• BSMonitor - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  What does this have to do with AMD Bulldozer?

• Toadster - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  search for "Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager"

• MilwaukeeMike - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  It's what TDP stands for, and I don't think it's in the article. (it's the amount of heat, measured in watts, that must be dissipated by the heatsink to keep the CPU operating safely). I had to stop reading on page two and leave AT.com to go find the answer. Please explain your acronyms... it's really annoying to read about something and feel too dumb for the article. , and it's never a good idea to give readers a reason to leave your website. :)

• GaMEChld - Saturday, July 16, 2011 - link

  The joy of tabbed browsing.

• ajlueke - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link

  The sad part about the reality we currently face is there really hasn't been a large increase in CPU performance since the Nethalem launch nearly three years ago.
  
  AMDs release of the Phenom II line kept them in it, as they were able to offer lesser performance, but at far less cost. SandyBridge changed all that. While again, it doesn't really perform that much better than the high end Nethalem's launched three years ago, or that much worse than the 990x, it is far cheaper than those $999 price tags. SandyBridge by performing as good as the old high end chips and being priced much lower really eroded any reason at all to buy/build an AMD based system at the enthusiast level.
  
  Bulldozer, with a street price reported to be around $300 needs to be faster than SandyBridge and needs to launch sooner in Q3, rather than in Q4 (October). If it is only on parity, then the reality would be that AMD was finally able to develop a chip that matches the performance Intel had three years ago. With Ivy Bridge, the successor to the high end throne, set to ascend in Q1 2012 would it then take AMD another three years to match that performance? Seems as though they are falling further and further behind. But, this is all speculation. I suppose we'll see what tomorrow brings.