AMD - Bulldozer Chitchat

[Domestic_Ginger]

Thought I would try and get all the BD news together on one thread.

Release date is the 20JUN11 according to a documentseen by xbitlabs.

Shipments of AMD FX-series high-end desktop microprocessors will commence on the week of June 20th, 2011; Supplies of A-series APUs will begin on the week of July 4th, 2011, according to industrial sources. As expected, AMD's Bulldozer central processing units for desktops will become available earlier than Llano APUs.

Line up looks to contain 8/6/4 core models but no single module/dual core chips atm.

Based on a document seen by X-bit labs, AMD plans to release four eight-core AMD FX8000-series chips, two six-core AMD FX6000-series microprocessors and two quad-core AMD FX4000-series central processing units (CPUs). The amount of quad-core and dual-core A-series APUs will be eleven, if the plans do not change.

[nibbler]

How many cores is 8 modules?

[Domestic_Ginger]

16 cores. 2 cores/module AFAIK.

[Queelis]

Well, IMO it's more of a 1.5 core, since it's not completely doubled, and if a process requires integer operations as opposed to floating point (it's one unit of the one, and two units of the other, right? I can't remember now, which), performance might not be all that good.

[badass]

Well, IMO it's more of a 1.5 core, since it's not completely doubled, and if a process requires integer operations as opposed to floating point (it's one unit of the one, and two units of the other, right? I can't remember now, which), performance might not be all that good.

It's the opposite way around
2 integer units, 1 splittable Floating point unit. So a module can do twice as many simpler FP operations as complex ones.

[badass]

They are resurrecting the FX branding. Here's hoping that's because they are faster than anything intel has to offer!

[dfour]

They are resurrecting the FX branding. Here's hoping that's because they are faster than anything intel has to offer!

+1 on that. Im looking forward to upgrading

[DanceswithUnix]

Well, IMO it's more of a 1.5 core, since it's not completely doubled, and if a process requires integer operations as opposed to floating point (it's one unit of the one, and two units of the other, right? I can't remember now, which), performance might not be all that good.

Well AMD were claiming 80%, so that would make it 1.8 cores.

Also the shared SSE unit is supposed to be faster than the one in the Phenom II so there is a bigger pot to share from.

Whilst this is their answer to hyperthreading, it costs more in silicon than hyperthreading and should give back more in performance to balance that cost out.

[Blaineoliver]

1.6 is 80% per core.

[shbris]

stupid question, but bulldozer will run on AM3 socket right?

[Domestic_Ginger]

AMD have said no.

Vendors have said yes and have released 800 chipsets they claim are bulldozer ready with a flash. The AM3+ socket has one more hole than the AM3. look below the filled hole to the bottom left. Obviously there is no chance unless you have the newer socket. If yo udo update an older chipset it may lack some features.



This has been a hot topic recently; my take is wait and see.

real world technologies article from late last year haven't had the time to finish it.

[Pob255]

It's going to be like am2+ was, ie then new socket will still except the older am3 cpu's as well as the newer ones, however the older socket will not except the newer cpu's

The big issue I think is going t be the delay before they are out, if only they could of got the bulldozer out sooner while intel was still in a corner over the p67 chipset issue.
They could of raked in sales like the ati arm of the company did with the 5xxx series cards while nvidia struggled to get fermi working, granted the window here was far smaller.

[scaryjim]

It's going to be like am2+ was, ie then new socket will still except the older am3 cpu's as well as the newer ones, however the older socket will not except the newer cpu's

Not exactly, because you can use an AM2+ CPU in any AM2 mobo with a suitable BIOS. This is very much the reverse thinking to AM3: AM3 allowed newer CPUs to slot into the older mobos, but prevented older CPUs slotting into newer mobos. AM3b allows older CPUs to slot into newer mobos, but prevents newer CPUs slotting into older mobos.

I'm intrigued to see that AM3 actually has one more hole than AM2 (looking at the keying on the bottom left corner) despite the CPU having less pins. If bulldozer AM3+ CPUs use that pin that will also guarantee that they won't fit in AM2/+ boards (do they even have a hybrid memory controller, or are they DDR3 only?).

There are lots of AM3 boards currently available running on early AM2 chipsets (like the GeForce 6150, which was one of the first AM2 chipset AFAIK) so I see no reason why Bulldozer wouldn't run on earlier chipsets, given that AMD haven't pulled any extra functionality on-die yet (I believe they plan to do this for future APUs, but haven't with the first run of Bulldozer). The only thing I can think of that might affect performance is the HT speed, although obviously you'd hope the 900-series chipsets have more features than the 800-series...

[Domestic_Ginger]

I presume by AM2+ CPU you mean PIIs with only the DDR2 memory controller; ie a 940. I think alot of the cross compatability was down to both a DDR2 and DDR3 memory controller onboard.

AFAIK and from the roadmap Bulldozer will be DDR3 only.

[Ricco]

it seems to be taking an age for these, now SBgate seems over, think ill just got for a 2600K instead of waiting.

[scaryjim]

I presume by AM2+ CPU you mean PIIs with only the DDR2 memory controller; ie a 940.

All the original Phenoms, and the Athlon X2 7x50s (which are based on the original Phenom), were AM2+ CPUs too. AM3s were backwards compatible thanks to the hybrid memory controller, which was a stroke of AMD genius IMNSHO. I believe the PII 920 / 940 had the hybrid memory controller too (I can't imagine AMD did a full die redesign on an otherwise identical architecture *just* to remove the DDR3 capability of the memory controller), but since there are very few AM2 motherboards with DDR3 memory slots it's hard to confirm / refute that...