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AMD Introduces World's First Comprehensive, Cutting-Edge PC Platform

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what about teh energy efficiency?
 
I'm still surprised here everyday.... even by the people who have rediculously large post counts (it seems some just open their mouth with no filter at all). I'll admit, mostly I enjoy just reading the forums and add only a little bit here and there but that's because half of the time I get tired of reading either unsupported claims or reading comments from supposed 'gurus' who think they're always right and throw out more biased and very poorly supported posts and get pissy when anyone says otherwise.... Ok, enough of the morning bitchyness. AMD's first dual core chips were actually signle die, two cores (the 4200, 4400, 4600, and 4800... unless you are talking about the Athlon MP's which were actually two CPU sockets). I can see where a true quad core, single die chip could help when implementing an L3 cache as I keep hearing AMD may start implementing. Latency times, while not that much different, will be better by connecting the four cores through internal traces rather than routing through the PCB to the L3 (if they start this). Additionally, a multi-threaded app that relies on data sharing between threads may also benefit in this same way as data does can be routed over AMD's interconnect bus (can't think of the name off the top of my head... something crossbar maybe) rather than through the PCB traces to a second two-core die. The performance hit there is really neglibilbe as shown by the performance of Intel's quad core setup against AMD's quad cores. Where "true quad core" will bite AMD in the ass is there are more chances for producing a faulty quad core on a signle die chip rather than two dual-core, single chips. I know they are thinking of releasing tri-core chips (most likely a quad core with a bad core disabled) but that's new territory where I have no idea how successful or how much demand there will be. Just some thoughts to roll around.
 
DanTheBanjoman said:
Like I said, a company. This could be any company including Intel, IBM, Shell, Air France or whatever.
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Oh, I know. It's just, man... the avatar, OK? Even with the little joke put in there, you gotta admit it could rub someone the wrong way... ;)
 
Nice response Beer and I agree with you. Its been that way for awhile now. The numbers Ive seen (as posted on these forums and linked) have shown AMDs EE processors to be quite low.
 
I am very dissapointed in AMD. Thier new chips are slow, have bugs, and are stable at 2.8ghz and no more. Perhaps newer steppings and revisions will come out that fixes these problems, but the fact of the matter is... These chips don't show any benefit over Intel chips, so I guess Phenom won't be my new processor for now, and I wait some more. The AMD performance era is officially over.
 
erocker said:
I am very dissapointed in AMD. Thier new chips are slow, have bugs, and are stable at 2.8ghz and no more. Perhaps newer steppings and revisions will come out that fixes these problems, but the fact of the matter is... These chips don't show any benefit over Intel chips, so I guess Phenom won't be my new processor for now, and I wait some more. The AMD performance era is officially over.
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From what I've read from the reviews from Tom's Hardware and Anandtech, the 9500, 9600, and 9700 aren't aimed to take the performance crown from Intel. Also, you have to look at it this way, this is AMD's first attempt at a quad-core in the desktop segment. I think its fair to say that the first that come out aren't going to be top notch competitors against Intel who has had quite some experience so far in making their quad-cores high performers. In due time, AMD will get it right.

But my reaction to these performance numbers certainly did disappoint me somewhat. I think they either need to bump up the cache per core to about 1mb for a total of 4mb, OR they seriously need to start increasing the clocks on these processors. 2.4-2.6ghz being the highest they can deliver? Come on, thats just baby talk. And I hope your right about those new steppings/revisions.

Another thing that ticks me off is that they aren't going to get the 9700 out before the end of the year. However, you can't really blame them for trying to release a product without any defects.
 
You guys are crazy, and yeah, its technically a real quad core as everyone else has said, four cores on a single die, not two cores on top of each other. That said, i do remember reading somewhere of an actual advantage of having two cores sandwiched on top of each other, vs four cores on a single die, but i don't remember where. On a side note, yeah, this is mostly a marketing thing, as there isn't really such a thing as a "PC platform" its just all the components are made by the same company, but who know, maybe it will increase interest in the gaming community.
 
no need to get tiffy and throw in the towel erocker. that is an excellent point made about this being AMDs first Quads. They 2.6ghz part is on a nice platform with intels 2.66ghz part. However, I also see the need for them to up the cache and increase clock speeds to 3.0Ghz +. Granted, back in the day, they didnt need to do that, but in todays market, they are gonna need to do that. Also, would be nice if they catered to the OC community like Intel has done.
 
I think they either need to bump up the cache per core to about 1mb for a total of 4mb, OR they seriously need to start increasing the clocks on these processors.
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Well...
Phenom's L3 cache and North Bridge work on the same power plane, one separate from the rest of the CPU. Socket-AM2+ enables the use of two separate voltages, one for the L3 cache/NB and one for the rest of the CPU, whereas Socket-AM2 motherboards run the entire chip at the same voltage. The original plan was for Socket-AM2+ motherboards to run the L3 cache/NB at a higher frequency than the rest of the chip, unfortunately it looks like AMD wasn't able to make that happen.

Currently, the L3 cache/NB on these chips runs at a fixed frequency that's actually lower than the rest of the CPU frequency: 2.0GHz. We tested Phenoms running from 2.2GHz all the way up to 2.6GHz, and in all cases the L3 cache and North Bridge ran at 2.0GHz. We're not sure if this will ever get fixed, but it's somewhat disappointing as it was supposed to be a major reason for upgrading to Socket-AM2+ (but it's good news for current AM2 owners).
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http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=4

It´s really a stony way AMD has to walk these days. :cry:
 
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The only review I saw that was even somewhat well put together seemed to be at anandtech, Tom's said they were reviewing a 9700... I think they meant to put 9900 on there? Other than that the numbers look like they vary a lot from review to review. Tom's used an old Asus M2N, at least Anand used a new chipset. Then LegitReviews used the 790 chipset and somehow scored way differend on crysis?? Has anybody else noticed it at all? It's kinda hard to believe any of the numbers... They are all lower than intel, thats for sure, but I dunno we can pray for better in 08 I guess. I think they need to make the cores themselves better...
 
Basard said:
The only review I saw that was even somewhat well put together seemed to be at anandtech, Tom's said they were reviewing a 9700... I think they meant to put 9900 on there? Other than that the numbers look like they vary a lot from review to review. Tom's used an old Asus M2N, at least Anand used a new chipset. Then LegitReviews used the 790 chipset and somehow scored way differend on crysis?? Has anybody else noticed it at all? It's kinda hard to believe any of the numbers... They are all lower than intel, thats for sure, but I dunno we can pray for better in 08 I guess. I think they need to make the cores themselves better...
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that is the common thread
 
Meh, you win some, you lose some.... I figured it would have got the job done a lot better (the Phenom) since its a new arcitecture... blah blah blah, you know? I'd still say its a pretty good chip. Intel saw it coming, thats why their slowest quad is so cheap. Oh well.

Whats with the memory bandwidth scores anyways? Nvm, probably has to do with slower Mhz--slower memory controller, duh. Man, they just need to get more Mhz out of em. And maybe add abou EIGHT more mb of cache, haha. Maybe the new core on the Athlon X2 will be improved, cheaper, and run at higher clocks? Who knows...
 
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I would have thought the integrated memory controller would be a plus for AMD. I havent seen many favorable reviews supporting that. This first revision seems to be just an intro period. Im hoping next quarter brings some minor architectural changes, adjustments, better oc capabilites and better results. For their first foray, it doesnt look bad at all.
 
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