AMD - Bulldozer Chitchat

[tarqueen]

I'm hoping the 6 core version is just an 8 core with one of the modules disabled with the possibilty of unlocking it. 8 cores for the price of 6 would be pretty cool.

[dfour]

I'm hoping the 6 core version is just an 8 core with one of the modules disabled with the possibilty of unlocking it. 8 cores for the price of 6 would be pretty cool.

We can dream but I would be very suprised if that where the case.

[Pob255]

@scaryjim, I forgot there where actual am2+ cpu's, I was thinking more along the lines of AM2+ motherboards being able to use both the old AM2 cpu's or the new AM3 cpu's, the simple fact that you can get the new motherboard while keeping your current am3 cpu is the sort of backwards compatibility AMD does rather than the intel route of "changing the socket so it's not backward compatible, even though it could of been backward compatible without any major issue" (as proved by the ASRock p67 socket 1156 motherboards)

I'm hoping the 6 core version is just an 8 core with one of the modules disabled with the possibilty of unlocking it. 8 cores for the price of 6 would be pretty cool.

Sorry I doubt it, mainly because of the modular nature of the design, my understanding is that the design means they can just chop an 8 module chip in half to turn it into two 4 module chips.
Which should mean that after they fab a wafer they can just cut it up, chopping out any dead modules and gaining far greater flexibility over how many cpu's of what module size they can make out of each silicon wafer.
I may be wrong there though, just my limited understanding of it and heck it make economic sense.

[tarqueen]

Sorry I doubt it, mainly because of the modular nature of the design, my understanding is that the design means they can just chop an 8 module chip in half to turn it into two 4 module chips.
Which should mean that after they fab a wafer they can just cut it up, chopping out any dead modules and gaining far greater flexibility over how many cpu's of what module size they can make out of each silicon wafer.
I may be wrong there though, just my limited understanding of it and heck it make economic sense.

If that's right then that seems pretty smart design on AMD's part. That would really cut down on waste hopefully keeping costs low.

I'm not really expecting per core performance to be on par with what Intel can do but if it's close enough and you can get 6 cores for the same price as 4 from Intel then I think i'll be sold.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here are the first pictures of the box art:

http://www.amdforum.se/artikel/exklu...och-fx-4-1025/

Looks like the 4 module processors have an unlocked multiplier.

[Domestic_Ginger]

They're really going on that unlocked thing in the sales pitch.

Some more from xbit:-

Clicky

[scaryjim]

... my understanding is that the design means they can just chop an 8 module chip in half to turn it into two 4 module chips.

...

I may be wrong there though, just my limited understanding of it...

The big problem there is that all 4 modules of an 8 core chip share one lot of L3 cache, memory controller, HT3.1 link etc., so you can't just hack a 4-module chip in half as each half wouldn't have a full complement of those shared resources!

My guess is that 6core chips will be 4 module chips with one module disabled. How AMD will do that is anyone's guess, but let's not forget that Bulldozer introduces modular power-gating, so it's quite possible they'll simply permanently turn on the power gate to one faulty module. If they can do that physically at the hardware level I doubt it'd be possible to unlock that module thereafter. I'm hoping that the 2 module chips will be fabbed separately, but given that the Phenom II X2s are X4s with 2 cores disabled, I'm not hopeful. Of course, being able to completely power-gate the inactive cores should make the lower-end Bulldozer chips more energy efficient that the lower end Phenom IIs, as the disabled cores shouldn't cause any power leakage at all if they're properly gated...

DG: The image you've used for your link isn't showing for me, but I've had a look at the linked article. Interesting to see that the IGPs in Llano APUs will be on a rising scale: a 160-shader IGP isn't going to be earth shattering at the bottom end, but 320 and 400 shaders in the higher level APUs should give some pretty impressive graphics performance.

[Domestic_Ginger]

The shaders strike me as a something giving a good tradeoff for not having to have too many cores; (okay the duals only have 160 Why not have a 320 shader dual core?). This to me has traditionally impacted things like distributed computing and video encoding.

Hopefully we will see a nice competitive market while AMD bleeds the new architecture. Unfortunately the top of the line BD chips are not positioned above the SB ones; this could possibly be an indicator of performance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Unfortunately the top of the line BD chips are not positioned above the SB ones; this could possibly be an indicator of performance.

Unless AMD is being aggressive with its pricing. When the Phenom II X4 955BE it offered comparable performance to the Q9550 but was priced lower meaning Intel cut the price of the Q9550 massively. The Phenom II X6 1055T offered comparable multi-threaded performance to a Core i7 and Intel responded by dropping the price of the Core i5 750 and many retailers dropped the price of the Core i7 920 too.

If AMD want to gain market share they would need to offer better performance than the comparable Intel processor at a lower price.

[DanceswithUnix]

1.6 is 80% per core.

I guess the exact multiplier depends on just how well your actual problem scales, but AMD state 80% of the overall performance compared to a traditional 2 core (not 80% per core).

http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/754#6

Mind you, after applying the usual pinch of salt to these figures 1.6 might be closer to reality

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is the web-page that Domestic_Ginger linked to:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...Bulldozer.html

Here is some more info:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis..._Revealed.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It looks like some more AM3+ motherboards based on the current chipsets have been released by Asrock and Gigabyte:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...&postcount=453

[yaiko304]

Source from a Hong Kong website.

There will be two 8 Core model: FX-8130P and FX-8110, both have 8MB L3 Cache and 8MB L2 Cache ，FX-8130P is 125W TDP and FX-8110 will be 95W TDP 。

6 core model named FX-6110(6MB L2 Cache) and 4 core named FX-4110(4MB L2 Cache) ，both have L3 Cache and are 95W TDP .

But i can't find any about the speed on all model yet.

3D Mark Vantage CPU Score Screenshot

the picture have site watermark, dont know can i post directly. So try the link. Btw that Zambezi is a 4 core version, outperform the i7 2600k with no doubt.

[Biscuit]

Source from a Hong Kong website.

There will be two 8 Core model: FX-8130P and FX-8110, both have 8MB L3 Cache and 8MB L2 Cache ，FX-8130P is 125W TDP and FX-8110 will be 95W TDP 。

6 core model named FX-6110(6MB L2 Cache) and 4 core named FX-4110(4MB L2 Cache) ，both have L3 Cache and are 95W TDP .

But i can't find any about the speed on all model yet.

3D Mark Vantage CPU Score Screenshot

the picture have site watermark, dont know can i post directly. So try the link. Btw that Zambezi is a 4 core version, outperform the i7 2600k with no doubt.

I really hope these benchies are not BS!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is some more info about Llano:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/18/a...ease-computex/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=269136