AMD Zambezi ''Bulldozer'' Desktop CPU Roadmap Revealed

[NdMk2o1o]

History have shown that a new architecture is never going to work as well as intended (R600, P4 HT, Fermi, Phenom 1 etc)

Wow you just completely disregarded Athlon, Core, AMD5 series was said to be a "new architecture as was i7 (although regardless they are all built on previous technologies of a sort)

 

[Fourstaff]

Wow you just completely disregarded Athlon, Core, AMD5 series was said to be a "new architecture as was i7 (although regardless they are all built on previous technologies of a sort)

That is true, but then again, it brings to the tally of 50% at best. Still not impressive enough. If you are referring to the AMD's ATI5xxx series in the graphics card, its just another step in the evolution of the R600, they did not design it from scratch. And from what I remembered, the i7 is derived from the server processors. So, all in all, its just the Core2 processors and the ix processors which are done right the last few years.

 

[bear jesus]

Great to see that 1866mhz is the standard of the new cores as that should hopefully mean getting over 2ghz would be much easier than he current generation AMD cpu's

I really can't wait to see how they do against sandy bridge even if I'm unsure if i can wait long enough, but worst case is a buy something from sandy bridge and find out i should sell it and go with a bulldozer core... at least i could keep the ram

 

[Tatty_Two]

I intend to upgrade to this next year when released, probably just a 6 core offering, I am very pleased with the system I have now but I have had it for 18 months and it's been far too long since I used AMD so I need a change, things look good so far.

I will be interested however in how their 6 core offerings compete with the current Intel Gulftown models because if they are close, it's fairly certain that Intel will remain competative with their future releases.

 

[TheMailMan78]

No new socket? Well that just sucks. This is starting to smell of fail.

 

[Lionheart]

I just jizzed in my pants, is that normal

 

[Frick]

No new socket? Well that just sucks. This is starting to smell of fail.

Why?

 

[btarunr]

True, but then again, we have seen previews of the Sandy Bridge and its going to be a tall order for Bulldozer to "bulldoze" Intel.

There is potential for AMD to do that, it has done that in the past. Think of it as the Ashes, with Intel being the Aussie team.

 

[Lionheart]

There is potential for AMD to do that, it has done that in the past. Think of it as the Ashes, with Intel being the Aussie team.

hahahahaha nice one, Aussie team cry too much

 

[Fourstaff]

There is potential for AMD to do that, it has done that in the past. Think of it as the Ashes, with Intel being the Aussie team.

Sincerely hope that's the case, competition is always everybody's friend. I just don't have much faith in AMD right now.

 

[bear jesus]

No new socket? Well that just sucks. This is starting to smell of fail.

That's a lie

existing socket AM3 processors are forwards-compatible with AM3+ (Zambezi's socket)

AM3+ is a new socket (yes i do know what u meant though)

 

[1Kurgan1]

True, but then again, we have seen previews of the Sandy Bridge and its going to be a tall order for Bulldozer to "bulldoze" Intel. Pricing may be the saviour this time round tough. History have shown that a new architecture is never going to work as well as intended (R600, P4 HT, Fermi, Phenom 1 etc) so I am not going to get my hopes high. Zacate previews looks good, I must admit.

Edit: can 1 Bulldozer module handle 1 thread, or 50% of the module will be idle?

Pricing is what matters here, it's like the 980X to 1095t comparisons. It's obviously not at all a fair comparison, to either chip as the audiences are far different, the 980X is faster, and the 1095t is easier to obtain. And with this being a tech site, even here 980X's are rare, I mean don't get me wrong, I like to look at the top dog reviews for all of the best hardware out there, but I can't think of anytime in the foreseeable future where I would be able to justify a $1000 processor. I'd rather see them in the $200 - $350 range, and able to do everything great, like my 1055t, I love the thing and I got it day 1 for $150.

Modules contain two integer cores. Each integer core has its own integer pipeline, so they can simultaneously execute 2 threads (unlike hyperthreading which can handle 2 threads, but has only 1 set of integer pipelines, so it really only executes one thread at a time.)

We will not market modules, we will only market cores; modules are how the designers lay out the processor, but that will not be part of the marketing or naming.

It seems we have a lurker, right from AMD, nice to see

 

[JF-AMD]

So if I have 1 thread, then I can only use 1 integer pipeline?

Correct. Just like every other architecture out there.

Splitting a thread over multiple integer cores would create a scheduling nightmare. You'd spend so much time going back and forth over the two cores that you would lose cycles and efficiency.

Imagine this scenario:

A+B=C
C*4=D
D+E=F
F*G=H
H+I=J

It is all incredibly linear. You could take A+B and run it on one core, but the second core handling that thread would have to wait to get C, so you lose a cycle for that second core. Then you do C*4 on the second cycle, but that second core is still sitting idle. But you probably lose a cycle of overhead now because the second core is saying "do you have anything for me"? The checksum to sync the two cores takes a cycle, so now you are at 3 cycles and you have only run 2 instructions on the 2 cores, and one has sat idle 100% of the time.

Obviously you can see where this goes nowhere. Fast. The only place it would work is if a thread was extremely parallel, but there will still be some checksum/synchronizaiton that will eat up overhead and create latency/inefficiency.

So then you think, well, if we have inefficiency and pipelines sitting idle, why not use SMT to load multiple threads on a single core and take advantage of the pipeline gaps/stalls?

Then you are breaking up all of the threads across multiple cores, creating gaps in pipelines and then trying to load multiple threads to fill in those gaps. Definitely not efficient.

It seems we have a lurker, right from AMD, nice to see

I am not a lurker, I contribute

 

[cadaveca]

I'll be back in this thread in April, 6 months from now, when these cpus launch.

Toodles!





EDIT:, yeah, I'll give you that, JF-AMD, you are always on top of the Bulldozer threads, not quite lurking, and I personally appreciate the info.


But ya know, I'll take the contribution of a board and a few cpus...

 

[JF-AMD]

I have stacks of processors on my desk right now. But if I start giving them away, I'll get hammered with requests. Plus, they are server processors

 

[1Kurgan1]

I am not a lurker, I contribute

I meant more of a lurker in a good way, you're to AMD as Batman is to Gotham Seldom seen, but banishing evil when you are seen. It's just really nice to see some sort of representation from a large corporation actually taking part in our forums, nice to know you guys do care what we loonies think.

 

[cadaveca]

I have stacks of processors on my desk right now. But if I start giving them away, I'll get hammered with requests. Plus, they are server processors

Heh. Well, when you want a unbiased opinion of those cpus, you know where to send them.

I personally don't care if it's server or desktop...I just need a board with an included PCI-E 16x slot. Those Tyan G34 boards with 4x PCI-E slots seems right up my alley, actually.

It's really the entry price that has most of us stay away from server-based products, even though they seem to be built for a far greater workload. For me, really, it's the memory pricing.

Anyhow, crunchers need cores.


But if you find some of my posts from 5-6 years ago, you'll see that i was posting aobut every house having a server, and then using "thin" clients to actualyl access that server and it's grunt. If that server with 4x vgas could run 4x games...served to various parts of my house, man, I'm in. I know the grunt is there...could get 24 cores, and 4x vgas...

I've got 4 kids, so need 6 PCs. But 6 full-size pcs genreate alot of heat, and suck back alot of power, too.

House is already wired for it, too. All i need is to dump a server into the mechanical room, ethernet and such is all there and waiting.



Oh, and I'm special, you know. Just because you help me out, doesn't mean others are special too...

Don't let the fact that I'm special in the head deter you. Heck, I knew who you were before anyone else here. LOL.

 

[JF-AMD]

Wow, never heard it explained that way. I am just selfish. When people post rumors and lies about my products I can either stamp it out quickly online or spend the next 3 months fielding emails from the press and sales guys where I have to refute the same stuff over and over and over.

 

[cadaveca]

Wow, never heard it explained that way. I am just selfish. When people post rumors and lies about my products I can either stamp it out quickly online or spend the next 3 months fielding emails from the press and sales guys where I have to refute the same stuff over and over and over.

We appreciate it. Really. I personally think you're doing the right thing.


Now, where's my cpus?

 

[Steevo]

I need a better clocking chip for my water loop, so I can send my 940 to my parents (they are heating their house with a even crappier 9850). I only use AMD systems after dealing with underpowered stuttering Intel systems that I have to put video cards in anyway.

Plus ATI raped me on a X1800XT, big time, and my ass still hurts, I sold it to a work intel build for $50 a short while later. Then I coudn't even fold on it.

 

[bear jesus]

I need a better clocking chip for my water loop, so I can send my 940 to my parents (they are heating their house with a even crappier 9850). I only use AMD systems after dealing with underpowered stuttering Intel systems that I have to put video cards in anyway.

Plus ATI raped me on a X1800XT, big time, and my ass still hurts, I sold it to a work inel build for $50 a short while later. Then I coudn't even fold on it.

Sounds like you have had some pretty bad luck.

I admit if the 8 core bulldozers (or something from sandy bridge) overclock well on water it will be enough to push me to my first custom loop.
I have been loving the H50 but it's hardly water cooling compared to a custom loop with a nice fat 480mm rad

 

[Steevo]

3.71 isn't bad really. My parents 4XXX series card was on par with my old 4850 untill memory became the factor. but they could use the extra CPU horsepower, and I could use it rendering video. Last night a "CCC video took 40 minutes as it wasn't running on the GPU, but on the CPU."

The poor support, and broken promises type of continued fucking is starting to piss me off. Unless AMD comes out with something great I will have a Intel/Nvidia machine, Adobe acceleration, faster CPU based rendering, better memory support. I spent money again and again and each time the promises ATI/AMD make are broken, CCC GPU based encoding? Sure for a few formats that there are freeware converters everywhere for, so I can convert that already small mpg onto my phone. How about something hard like the ability to hardware render M2TS from my canon? Nope, gotta run that on the CPU. Oh yeah, its slower than two series old Intel chips. That is unless you want to purchase this software, and oh, it only works on some things, so you still need all these other codecs that don't work together and cause issues.


You want to accelerate videos and upscale them with the hardware you purchased? That costs extra.

 

[bear jesus]

3.71 isn't bad really. My parents 4XXX series card was on par with my old 4850 untill memory became the factor. but they could use the extra CPU horsepower, and I could use it rendering video. Last night a "CCC video took 40 minutes as it wasn't running on the GPU, but on the CPU."

The poor support, and broken promises type of continued fucking is starting to piss me off. Unless AMD comes out with something great I will have a Intel/Nvidia machine, Adobe acceleration, faster CPU based rendering, better memory support. I spent money again and again and each time the promises ATI/AMD make are broken, CCC GPU based encoding? Sure for a few formats that there are freeware converters everywhere for, so I can convert that already small mpg onto my phone. How about something hard like the ability to hardware render M2TS from my canon? Nope, gotta run that on the CPU. Oh yeah, its slower than two series old Intel chips. That is unless you want to purchase this software, and oh, it only works on some things, so you still need all these other codecs that don't work together and cause issues.


You want to accelerate videos and upscale them with the hardware you purchased? That costs extra.

It seams like no matter what you do every company will find a way to accidentally screw you over, i admit the only reason i can be so happy with AMD is i don't really do ha much with my computer, right now some gaming is he only thing that puts any of my hardware to use the rest of the time it's just watching video and poking the net.

I really hope that whatever brands your next upgrade involves that things work out better than they have been for you.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

Here I made this:

We can only hope...

 

[OneCool]

I have stacks of processors on my desk right now. But if I start giving them away, I'll get hammered with requests. Plus, they are server processors

A maaan!!!


I wanna build a server