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AMD Unveils Barcelona Quad-Core Details
mikemuch writes, "At today's Microprocessor Forum, Intel's Ben Sander laid out architecture details of the number-two CPU maker's upcoming quad-core Opterons. The processors will feature sped-up floating-point operations, improvements to IPC, more memory bandwidth, and improved power management. In his analysis on ExtremeTech, Loyd Case considers that the shift isn't as major as Intel's move from NetBurst to Core 2, but AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together."
"Intel's Ben Sander laid out architecture details of the number-two CPU maker's upcoming quad-core Opterons."
;)
Talk about dual processing being grafted on...
the memory controllers now support full 48-bit hardware addressing, which theoretically allows for 256 terabytes of physical memory.
256 terabytes should be enough for anybody.
AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together.
So Intel's Ben Sander claims that AMD's claim is that Intel claims that their dual-cores grafted together qualify as quad-core technology? That's not confusing at all.
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"In his analysis on ExtremeTech, Loyd Case considers that the shift isn't as major as Intel's move from NetBurst to Core 2, but AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together."
BUUUUUUUUUURNED
Next week: Intel responds by telling us how fat AMD's mother is.
Quad core? Bah! That's only 4.
Wake me up when they have a processor that goes to eleven.
I thought Ben Sander worked for AMD.
Intel Talks Up Power Savings
Common sense is not so common
"AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together."
:)
So a Siamese twin is not really a true twin because they are two persons grafted together?
"AMD Unveils Barcelona Quad-Core Details"
It's the processor that runs like a dog with no nose!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
As for the quad-core thing, it's the same story all over again. Intel rush out a solder-together-two-chips job to beat the competition to market, and then the actual innovators come out with something coherent that works more efficiently etc.
I'm not saying the AMD will necessarily be better. What I'm saying is I don't care who gets to market 2 months earlier. I want the better chip, and I can live with the mystery for a few weeks.
Although, frankly, I can barely afford to eat having just built a decent Core2Duo rig, so I won't be investing either way just yet...
Meta will eat itself
AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together
Note to AMD: We don't care about the implementation details. We care about performance, cost, and power consumption; the clock speed, cache sizes, and how cores talk to each other is irrelevant.
For all I care, Intel's "quad core" processor could be using a team of psychic circus midgets.
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Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, capital city of Catalonia and the province with the same name. It is located in the comarca of Barcelonès, along the Mediterranean coast (4123N 211E) between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs. As capital city of Catalonia, Barcelona houses the seat of the Generalitat de Catalunya and its Conselleries, the Parliament of Catalonia and the Supreme Court of Catalonia. Barcelona has a Mediterranean climate, with mild winters and hot, dry summers. January and February are the coldest months, averaging temperatures of 10 C. July and August are the hottest months, averaging temperatures of 25 C. Barcelona, Wikipedia
Some one at AMD was thinking on his summer vacations?
I find it very hard to get excited about AMD's developements. I love them, I love their CPUs but the chipsets I end up with on motherboards I've previously owned have always been dodge and hard to get working in Linux. Maybe I just have bad luck?
AMD: 4=4
Intel: 4=2x2
Where do they hire these guys?
-Nano.
Looks like someone RTFA a bit wrong. Ben Sander works for AMD. He is one of their media presenters. Here are a few of the events he has done: http://www.cpd.iit.edu/cpd/events.htm http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r4/chicago/foxvalley/meet. thru.mid2005.html
http://www.instat.com/FallMPF/06/conf1.htm
http://mtv.ece.ucsb.edu/MTV/index_files/program-mt v.txt
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I care. I think this kind of tech is cool. If you read into it a bit, it gives you a decent enough idea of how much better it will perform. It's not always accurate, but it's usually correct.
And, accorting to the article, this was all coming from the mouth of an intel person, not AMD.
I won't buy any AMD processors anymore until AMD clears its socket plans and guaranties a minimum of 3 year availability for processors on a socket. See also http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19821 5&cid=16242757.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
The article here http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061002PR207.html states the AMD quad-cre will be out by Q3 2007. Thats quite a long time coming.
Don't bother about buying these any time soon
My Blog | Badsh
"but AMD claims that its quad core is true quad core, while Intel's is two dual-cores grafted together."
I'm sure that this was true about intels early dual-cores, if they've done it again then we can expect some truely awful performance from their quadcores...
Can anyone please shed some light on the difference (for the user) between a true quad-core and a dual dual-core processor? I expect a quad-core can be cheaper because it is more integrated, but is that it?
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
You want the latest and greatest features, but you aren't willing to cope with changing your hardware to keep up?
CPU manufacturers don't change interface designs for fun. It costs them time and money to design a new interface. They do it because the market demands new technology.
Besides, looking at recent history, Socket A, 940 and 939 have had roughly 3 years. Socket 754 was a red herring that no one in their right mind should have bought if they were looking for platform longevity.
If you compare AMD's socket strategy to Intel's (http://www.tom.womack.net/x86FAQ/faq_time.html), AMD look pretty good at developing platforms with good "socket longevity"
CPU manufacturers don't change interface designs for fun. It costs them time and money to design a new interface. They do it because the market demands new technology.
Show of hands: Who's been demanding new CPU technology? What percentage of the "market" has already gone to dual-core, and is clamoring for quad-core to run their apps?
You don't think maybe a manufacturer would push new technologies out the door to get new sales do you? "..the market demands.." my ass.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's clear both AMD and Intel are speeding up their processors, but didn't they both say that they were going to focus more on features like Vanderpool and Pacifica virtualization? Whatever happened to Vanderpool/Pacifica for normal chips? Have they given up plans to produce those chips or are they going to be shipped "real soon now"?
Hey, I thought dual core was better than single core. So shouldn't two duals be better than four single cores? - so AMD is shooting its own marketing foot? ;-)
I won't buy any AMD processors anymore until AMD clears its socket plans and guaranties a minimum of 3 year availability for processors on a socket.
I suppose that means you won't buy an Intel chip either. Look at what happened with Conroe. Core 2 Duo uses a socket with the same name as the P4 socket, the same number of pins too. But guess what? When Conroe came out there were less than a handful of reasonable boards out of the hundreds of models out, that would actually support it. The voltage requirements changed slightly, the BIOS requirements changed, and the end result was that upgrading to Conroe on a given board was hit or miss. I fail to see how Intel's MB upgrade situation is any better than AMD's. It sounds to me like you're falling for Intel's game: "We kept the socket name and number of pins the same, so that means we have better socket longevity." Sorry, but I'm not falling for it. I've read too many horror stories on the forums from Conroe upgraders that thought they could use their current P4 boards.
Don't get me started on Intel's TDP scam either (AMD's = max, Intel's = average). AMD may not always have the best tech, but I find them to be a much more straight-forward company, with fewer sneaky games designed to trick customers.
And why are we posting a story about AMD's tech said/written by an Intel employee? Sounds like it was biased before it even started to me.
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Intel's QC is really an MCM, or multi-chip-module. That means they have literally grabbed two Conroe (Core 2 Duo) chips off of the assembly line, and mounted them in a single package. From the outside it looks like a single chip, but inside, it has two, separate peices of Si, connected over the FSB. That is the problem: the two chips are connected to the same bus. A single chip presents one electrical load on the bus, and two chips present two loads. This means that the speed of the bus needs to be dropped. That is why kentsfield will have a slower bus speed than normal chips. If you think about it, this is the exact opposite of the situation you want. You have just added a core, so it would be nice to add more bus bandwidth. Instead, the Intel solution lowers the overall bus bandwidth, not to mention that it is a shared bus. The two cores fight each other over a very slow external bus, and this creates a performance bottleneck.
When all four cores are on a single peice of Si, all sharing a L3 cache, the chips don't need to fight over the external bus as much. The cores can share information between them internally, and do not need to touch the slow external bus to perform cache coherency and other synchronization. Also, true QC chip presents one load to the outside bus. This means that the bus speed does not need to drop because of electrical load.
There are many people who don't care how the cores are connected as long as the package works. The point is that the way the cores are connected have a direct impact on performance. We'll be talking about Intel vs. AMD cache hierarchy in 2007 when AMD uses dedicated L2 and shared L3 while Intel uses only shared L2. Expect cache thrashing on Intel's true QC chips with heavily threaded loads when it comes out. Next I'll hear people say that the cahce doesn't matter as long as it works. As long as it works for what? Single-threaded tiny-footprint benchmarks like SuperPi or Prime95? How about a fully threaded and loaded database or any other app that will actually stress more than the execution units?
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You don't think maybe a manufacturer would push new technologies out the door to get new sales do you? "..the market demands.." my ass.
It is just an expression. It is a shorter way of saying "If a compelling product is not produced the market will preferentially buy a competitior and drive business down."
The market will buy dual-core if they think there is a benefit. Even if they have no need for the feature, if they think it will benefit them, they will buy it. Technically not a demand, but close enough from the point of view of the producer.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Maybe I'm biased. I work in the High Performance Compute sector and we can never get enough CPU cycles!
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =191008,00.asp
Intel's got more FAB capability than AMD.
When a new (smaller) lithography fab comes on line, Intel uses that to produce their 'high end' chips. So when 'high-end' chips are being built in the newest fab, there's 'excess' capacity in the fab that was 'high-end' last week.
So what's a girl to do?
You use the 'excess capacity' to build more chips and you glue them together to make a quad-core.
In the mean time, the newest fabs are building the high margin *EXTREME* CPUs, and a few months later, they start building the *TRUE* quad-core CPUs.
Get real kids, the Intel *TRUE* quad-cores have already taped-out. They're scheduled to go into production on the newest fab -- but in a few months.
This is how you make the fabs pay for themselves. You can't just junk two or three multi-billion dollar fabs every 18 months. You've got to keep them in production.
This is why Intel get's their first quad-core onto the market before AMD.
The use the 'old' fabs to build dual core chips that are two single-cores glued together, or quad-core chips that are two dual cores chips glued together. And then a few months later, HEY PRESTO! they roll out the *TRUE* quad-core chips.
Well, yeah. AMD was starting with a superior processor to NetBurst to begin with. If they haven't advanced as far over their previous designs as Intel has, perhaps it's because they didn't have as far to go to start with. Pretty stupid remark overall by Loyd IMHO.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I always felt the IBM AS400 had a nice scheme with its revolutionary large address space at the time. Not only did every byte -- possibly even bit -- of main RAM memory have a unique address, but so did all the attached mass storage devices. With this type of addressing, one could bring that same type of architecture to the desktop.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Let's get over the Intel bashing kids.
Intel has already taped out the quad CPU on a die. It will be popping out of the 45nm fabs RSN.
But if you really want a quad-core *NOW*, you can buy the MCM version *NOW*.
This is how it works. Production shifts from the 'old' fabs to the 'new' fabs based on margin. The newest fabs build the highest margin parts. The older fabs build the lower margin parts.
So Intel cranks out dual core CPUs on the older fabs, glues them together, and beats AMD to the market with the first quad CPU x86 in a socket. Then a few months later, the quad-core on a die parts start popping out of the newest fab -- and Intel then beats AMD to the market with 45nm parts (that run faster and cooler than AMDs 60 nm parts).
Got it?
Are you going to crack open your quad core Intel and suddenly be disappointed because they didn't put all the cores on one wafer of silicon?
I think two dual cores in one socket is as good as one quad core in one socket, everything else being equal.
I think we should complain to AMD that they didn't do eight cores, because intel already made four cores (true or not). AMD is just throwing around insults to cover up the taint of being a "me too!"
In the end I think we will just let sales numbers talk for themselves. And unless AMD's offering is significantly cheaper or better or something, the extra time Intel will have on the market will make them the clear winner in this competition.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You do know that Intel's *TRUE* quad-core CPU has taped out and will be rolling out of the 45nm fabs don't you?
It's getting very boring hearing the same old blathering about "Intel doesn't build a true dual-core".
Oh wait, Intel *DOES* build a *TRUE* dual core -- that was last weeks blathering.
Haven't you noticed that Intel has already told you that their road map is to build MCM versions on the 'old' fab lines (hence beating AMD to the market), and then a few months later build single die versions on the new fab lines (hence beating AMD to the market for lower power and higher speed single core devices)?
Yeash
Who cares? Really.
If Intel has quad-core released within the next two months, and AMD's quad-core solution is more than 6 months away, this just sounds like sour grapes. I'm not an Intel fan-boy or an AMD fan-boy. I follow processor because I like technology. AMD had the best processor before Core 2. Now Intel has the best. AMD is running behind Intel, and it looks like they will drop further behind in the next year. I have no doubts that AMD will recover, and in a few years, retake the performance crown. But they don't have it right now.
As I said, who really cares if it's four cores on one die, or two two-die cores? Only the most extreme zealots will give a damn. And they were already AMD fanboys, just looking for an excuse to decry Intel's offerings. Yes, eventually, AMD's quad-core offerings will most likely be superior to Intel's. But when they're 6 months (or more) behind, does it matter?
Does it matter that GM will be releasing a super-environmentally-friendly fuel cell car in five years when you can get a Prius now?
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Why adding more and more cores? Add other things too inside the microprocessors, like, memory, etc. Why not SOC?
Rule of thumb I have used... stick with Abit motherboards I've had no issues either chipset (nVidia/VIA). For a second choive I go with Gigabyte, third MSI.... I typically do not look at others unless I need a dual-proc or more board.
I've had no major issues with linux on amd based chipsets since the old K6-2 days. The K6 series were less expensive and in that day with linux I could get equal to or better performance over their Win-Tel comparables. Unfortunately the bestbuy managers that were employed as middle managers in many of the "high tech" companies in the mid-late 90's were too sold on catchy names a swag...
Athlon was AMD's major leap forward and the gamers pounced, AMD64 was another layer and smart IT professionals valued the more affordable 64-bit procs... now once again AMD is poised to innovate... (though most manufacturers are still stuck on the OLD pentium buzz word some are throwing AMD procs in their boxes)...
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
beezly, YOU deserve all the cycles you want. But you are hardly the "market" they're talking about. If they'd said "beezly demands..." or "The High Performace Compute sector demands..." I wouldn't mind so much.
I remember setting up a Beowulf cluster for some friends in Linguistics. They needed a sick amount of computing power and just couldn't afford a Kray.
You are welcome on my lawn.