AMD - Bulldozer Chitchat

[watercooled]

Maybe the good silicon is going to the mobile parts for now? Besides that I can't see any reason they would do it on mobile but not desktop.

[scaryjim]

Isn't second generation Turbo Core meant to switch off cores??

That won't help much if the silicon needs 1.7v to run stably at 3.2GHz: power draw scales exponentially with voltage so you'd very quickly run out of TDP headroom as your power draw across the die would still rocket, even with cores power-gated (and of course the higher your voltage the more heat you generate so the more the transistors leak - requiring more voltage and generating more heat! It's a positive feedback loop ).

As we don't know the electrical properties of the die we can't really tell, but my guess would be that 2.9GHz is running on the ragged edge of stability at acceptable vcore. Otherwise, there is no conceivable reason to deny the desktop parts the Turbo Core functionality.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suppose with 1.45 billion transistors which are more tightly packed than in Sandy Bridge there are limits to what can be done in a 100W TDP. It will be interesting to see how far Llano can be overclocked and how high overclocked power consumption is going to be.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

HardOCP has tested the mobile Llano with some modern games:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._series_apus/1

It seems for a lot of Llano laptops some of the more demanding games will run fine with an A8 APU in Crossfire with a discrete GPU. With better drives Crossfire performance should improve quite a bit IMHO.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some more details about Trinity:

http://www.techpowerup.com/147471/Ne...rocessors.html

http://legitreviews.com/news/10896/

[badass]

Llano, compared to a Core i5 goes from being a very weak CPU with a GPU that wipes the floor with the Intel chip to having a very weak CPU with graphics that that deny intel the right to call what they have on hteir CPU a GPU.

@badass: I don't see how it's a 'very weak CPU'. It's not meant to be an i7 killer, it's still a K10 derived chip and they've done a very impressive job with power draw and transistor density. I.e. instructions/watt. Just because it doesn't wipe the floor with a 2600k doesn't mean it's pointless. For the mainstream it's more than enough, and as AMD showed by delaying Bulldozer in favour of this, mainstream is more important to a chip maker than the few enthusiasts or those who are mislead by a salesman into thinking they need a 980X for web browsing.

I never mentioned an i7. This is a mid range CPU as is the i5. Unless AMD really goes for the budget end on their top Llano APU's then it's a valid comparison.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I never mentioned an i7. This is a mid range CPU as is the i5. Unless AMD really goes for the budget end on their top Llano APU's then it's a valid comparison.

Llano is targetted towards the Core i3 and Pentium processors.

Bulldozer is targetted towards the Core i5 and Core i7 processors.

Anyway,in multithreaded applications it seems Llano is still faster than a Core i3.

[badass]

Llano is targetted towards the Core i3 and Pentium processors.

Bulldozer is targetted towards the Core i5 and Core i7 processors.

Anyway,in multithreaded applications it seems Llano is still faster than a Core i3.

If their top Llano costs less than £110 inc VAT then I agree. They compete with the Core i3. More than £120 and they are clearly in i5 territory.

[watercooled]

You're getting discrete-class performance for that price too, don't forget.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If their top Llano costs less than £110 inc VAT then I agree. They compete with the Core i3. More than £120 and they are clearly in i5 territory.

TBH,considering a Phenom II X4 840 and an HD5570 GDDR3 can be had for around £128,it would make sense if the A8-3850 is less expensive after the initial price gouging at launch.

The 65W A8-3800 looks quite interesting though.



I suspect the A8-3800 will have similar performance to the 65W Phenom II X4 910e:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha..._635_pii_910e/

[scaryjim]

... More than £120 and they are clearly in i5 territory.

Is that i5 + a half decent graphics card, or just i5?

With decent memory these things have the graphical oomph of a 5500-series GPU, and the CPU power of a lower-end Athlon II X4 / Phenom II X4. So you need to add £50 on to the cost of the i5 to get equivalent graphics, at which point you're looking at < £150 and they're a good deal, because you *can* play modern games on them without a discreet GPU... unlike the i5.

I agree cat, I like the look of a 2.4GHz quad core + a 5550 in a 65W TDP budget. Very impressive. And I suspect the A6-3600 will find its way into a lot of system integrator systems.

I suspect, as with all tech, there'll be an early adopter tax to figure in on release.

[badass]

You're getting discrete-class performance for that price too, don't forget.

Is that i5 + a half decent graphics card, or just i5?

With decent memory these things have the graphical oomph of a 5500-series GPU, and the CPU power of a lower-end Athlon II X4 / Phenom II X4. So you need to add £50 on to the cost of the i5 to get equivalent graphics, at which point you're looking at < £150 and they're a good deal, because you *can* play modern games on them without a discreet GPU... unlike the i5.

I agree cat, I like the look of a 2.4GHz quad core + a 5550 in a 65W TDP budget. Very impressive. And I suspect the A6-3600 will find its way into a lot of system integrator systems.

I suspect, as with all tech, there'll be an early adopter tax to figure in on release.

All I said was that the GPU on LLano was immensely powerful compared to the Intel one and that the CPU cores are weak in comparison.
Jeez mention anything that could even slightly be seen as negative about anything AMD make and people get all defensive.

Regardless of what anyone says, that is a fair comment.

[Blackmage]

If their top Llano costs less than £110 inc VAT then I agree. They compete with the Core i3. More than £120 and they are clearly in i5 territory.

All I said was that the GPU on LLano was immensely powerful compared to the Intel one and that the CPU cores are weak in comparison.
Jeez mention anything that could even slightly be seen as negative about anything AMD make and people get all defensive.

Regardless of what anyone says, that is a fair comment.

Yep, I agree with the above it's all about pricing. Due to the lack of CPU performance. If priced well it will be a winner, I was beaten with a stick in Llano A3800m thread.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Now some people over on Bit-tech are saying that Llano based laptops are slower for gaming!! I like how one said that the Llano IGP was the same speed as an HD5450!!

They are comparing a GT540M and Core i3 laptop to a Llano A6 and HD6750M laptop for around £500. One talked about how the Core i3 would be better for rendering(WTF??) and for image editing. The funny thing is that the Llano laptop had a much faster 7200RPM hard drive(instead of a 5400RPM drive in the Intel Core i3 laptop) and more system RAM too.So basically it will be quicker in day to day use due to the faster hard drive. The HD6750M is the same GPU found in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro as the fastest GPU.

Of course the fact is that even Microsoft Office is gaining from GPU acceleration:

http://www.guru3d.com/news/microsoft...tion-detailed/

Yet,it seems Apple is fine selling loads of laptops with ancient CPUs supplanted by a discrete graphics card.

The funny thing is that the HD6750M is much faster than a GT540M:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43958.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.41715.0.html

Once AMD works on the asymmetrical Crossfire drivers you are looking at better gaming performance.

[Terbinator]

Now some people over on Bit-tech are saying that Llano based laptops are slower for gaming!! I like how one said that the Llano IGP was the same speed as an HD5450!!

They are comparing a GT540M and Core i3 laptop to a Llano A6 and HD6750M laptop for around £500. One talked about how the Core i3 would be better for rendering(WTF??) and for image editing. The funny thing is that the Llano laptop had a much faster 7200RPM hard drive(instead of a 5400RPM drive in the Intel Core i3 laptop) and more system RAM too.So basically it will be quicker in day to day use due to the faster hard drive. The HD6750M is the same GPU found in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro as the fastest GPU.

Of course the fact is that even Microsoft Office is gaining from GPU acceleration:

http://www.guru3d.com/news/microsoft...tion-detailed/

Yet,it seems Apple is fine selling loads of laptops with ancient CPUs supplanted by a discrete graphics card.

The funny thing is that the HD6750M is much faster than a GT540M:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43958.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.41715.0.html

Once AMD works on the asymmetrical Crossfire drivers you are looking at better gaming performance.

Stopped reading there.

Edit: Light image editing on a laptop i could understand, but for image rendering a tasty GPU could be used by certain programs anyway - in which case the Llano would be brill, no?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Stopped reading there.

It is a bad habit,although they got a dose of Moose whether they liked to or not!

Edit: Light image editing on a laptop i could understand, but for image rendering a tasty GPU could be used by certain programs anyway - in which case the Llano would be brill, no?

Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone that!!