Wednesday, December 14th 2011

AMD Gives Bulldozer 6-core a Speed-Bump with FX-6200

AMD launched its AMD FX processor family with two eight-core parts (FX-8150, FX-8120), a six-core part (FX-6100), and a quad-core one (FX-4100), apparently a newer, slightly faster six-core FX processor is just around the corner, the FX-6200. Since all AMD FX processors are unlocked out of the box, the FX-6200 is essentially a speed-bump. Out of the box, it is clocked at 3.80 GHz, with 4.10 GHz maximum TurboCore speed. It features six cores, 6 MB total L2 cache, and 8 MB total L3 cache. Its TDP is rated at 125W. In a presentation to retailers sourced by DonanimHaber, AMD pitched the FX-6200 to have about 10% higher performance at Mainconcept HD to Flash conversion, than the FX-6100 (3.30 GHz nominal, 3.90 GHz max. turbo).
Source: DonanimHaber
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79 Comments on AMD Gives Bulldozer 6-core a Speed-Bump with FX-6200

#76
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
Hustler6 cores my ass...

Try 3 cores with a pimped up AMD type hyperthreading.
no different then Intels scotch tape method.
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#77
dezz
blibbaYes, Bulldozer has 8 "cores", but it shares a lot of resources between them. So, in workloads reliant on those shared resources, it'll perform like a quad.
The second sentence here is not true! Yes, the 81xx has only 4 FPU's (one per module), but those FPU's has the double of resources than the old FPU's in PhII's. And the new one is more clever, as well.
This is why you see Phenom x6 beating it in some threaded applications.
What applications are you talking about?

It's simple: BD's single core performance is worse than that of PhII's, but it has more cores. So, it performs worse in less-threaded applications and better in well-threaded ones. (In case the clocks are similar.)
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#78
blibba
dezzWhat applications are you talking about?

It's simple: BD's single core performance is worse than that of PhII's, but it has more cores. So, it performs worse in less-threaded applications and better in well-threaded ones. (In case the clocks are similar.)
With clock speeds the same, there are quite a lot of multithreaded applications where BD suffers vs. Phenom x6. Even with it's clockspeed advantage, however:



Notice that this application can clearly make good use of 8 threads - the HT enabled i7 thrashes the otherwise near-identical i5.

Another example is F@H. Also, notice that Microsoft's Windows 7 patch today acknowledges this point - it makes sure that tasks are spread between BD modules to avoid bottlenecks.
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#79
dezz
blibbaNotice that this application can clearly make good use of 8 threads - the HT enabled i7 thrashes the otherwise near-identical i5.
Hmm, surprising. But I don't think it is because of shared resources, as compiling is an integer task. Of course, there is only one front-end per module, but that's not an issue in other cases. I think the cause must be the relatively slow caches.
Another example is F@H.
Hmm, even more surprising, as F@H is floating-point intensive, where the BD is not bad at, otherways. Probably it's the caches, again.
Also, notice that Microsoft's Windows 7 patch today acknowledges this point - it makes sure that tasks are spread between BD modules to avoid bottlenecks.
We don't yet know what that patch does. Some say it's indeed packs the threads on as lesser the number of modules as it can to allow Max. Turbo Core to kick in more frequently. (Which would be a bad idea, I think, as there is more to gain with utilizing only one core per module, in case of only a few active threads.)
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