AMD Announces Triple-Core Phenom Processors

MojoKid writes "AMD has officially announced their triple-core Phenom multi-core processor offering, suggesting a triple-threat of processors, from dual-cores to triple-cores and native quad-cores coming to market this year. While the term symmetric multi-processing (or SMP) suggests a balanced approach of multiple cores in an even number of engines working together on a single workload, AMD offers that an odd number of processors can slice at that workload just as efficiently. Time will tell how this architecture will scale amongst various multi-threaded applications and real-world usage models. AMD is definitely moving to make use of these quad-cores that don't quite make the cut by testing them fully as triple-cores and realizing some revenue, rather than throwing them away."

Comments

2^n = 3, where n belongs to Z is not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. Is this even possible?

I was under the impression that all CPUs must be added in integer powers-of-two, of which 3 is not.

Re:2^n = 3, where n belongs to Z is not possible

[Peet42]

I suspect this is a sneaky marketing ploy; they'll have a steady stream of quad-cores coming off the production line where one core doesn't pass all the required tests; now all they need to do is disable the faulty core and box it as a triple-core. :-)

Re:2^n = 3, where n belongs to Z is not possible

[johnw]

My car has a 3 cylinder engine.

Lister have been making 3 cylinder (and 2 cylinder, and 1 cylinder) diesels for years.

Fourth Core Unlocking

[kiehlster]

So when does the race to unlock the fourth unused core on a triple-core processor start? What's Next? Hard drive platters?

Re:Fourth Core Unlocking

[level_headed_midwest]

There are a few possibilities:

1. The core is there and locked off via microcode like the extra quads on a cut-down GPU (e.g. Radeon x1900GT vs. x1900XT) and can be enabled with a microcode flash.
2. The core is there but the fuses that connect it electrically to the rest of the die are blown, so it is there but not able to be enabled.
3. The core was never there as the die only has three cores in it in the first place- you have a fully-functional piece of silicon, so there is nothing extra to enable.

Either way, it's really long odds you'll get a free core enabled. Nobody has been able to even upward-unlock the K8's multiplier and I know for a fact that is set in microcode (some guys on ExtremeSystems got a JTAG and found that out but not how to change it.) They will probably use the same method they used to disable one core on a dual-core die and sell single-core Manchester and Toledo-die chips and AFAIK nobody has unlocked any of those. I bet they have a few of the X3s be X4s with a bad die, but the X4 is a darn big chip at nearly 300 mm^2 and the cost reduction by using a native 3-core die would be mighty attractive to them so I guess that most will be #3 then.

Single, double, triple, and quad

[Bryan Ischo]

Wouldn't it make sense to sell any part that had at least one working core? Meaning that if in making quad-core chips, W% of them ended up only having one working core, X% had 2, Y% had 3, and Z% had four, wouldn't it make the most sense to sell all of these chips?

This implies that they have a way to use all four cores independently. Maybe they can't; maybe one core is "special", like the "master" core that has to be working for anything to work. Also this implies that the cores can detect that their sibling(s) aren't working and switch to a mode in which the sibling is not used at all.

Also, a question - when a core doesn't function properly, is it somehow disabled completely so that it doesn't use any power? Or maybe a core that isn't being fed any instructions doesn't use any power anyway?

Manufacturing Yield vs. Marketing Perception

[G4from128k]

This is an interesting business strategy that plays to AMD's ability to sell partially-defective quad-core dies (confirmed by AMD in http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9780049-37.html). It should let AMD increase revenues per wafer, offer a nice mid-performance product, and play some product mix games with clocking -- selling a processor as either a higher speed triple-core or a lower-speed quadcore chip. And there's no reason why core count must be powers of two or even or anything.

Yet I can't help but wonder if customers will think twice about buying a 75% functional chip. It will be interesting to see how AMD spins this and how customers receive the product.

Re:Nothing new here.

[n dot l]

Sort of. Each core can run two threads at the same time (but both threads share the same cache, if I'm not mistaken) so it's somewhere between a hyper-threaded triple-core processor and 3 dual-core processors.

Re:I wonder how many GHz these can crank out

[Seumas]

Quite good, perhaps, but for less money you can certainly get better performance out of Intel. As much as I have loved AMD for the last decade, Intel is completely eating their lunch at the moment and Phenom and Barcelona are not going to save them. We can only hope that in the next couple of years, they have something in the pipeline that rescues them and their less than 15% market share, before someone gobbles them up.

Re:Business as usual

[TMonks]

I wonder if you could build a whole computer from factory rejects. It's been a while since I've done any PC building (switched to mac a few years ago), but I was always of the understanding that if you're not buying top-shelf components, there is a pretty good chance that it is a factory reject of a better component. This is especially true with CPU's, of which the slower processors are just faster processors that didn't make the cut and are systematically underclocked until they pass. Same thing with graphics cards, thats why you can usually buy a cheaper card and open pixel pipelines, overclock, etc, until you have the top-of-the-line. Factory rejected RAM gets the company's "value" brand name slapped on it. Can't say that I would ever want to buy a factory-rejected hard drive or power supply, but to each his own...

Re:Nothing new here.

[Osty]

Sort of. Each core can run two threads at the same time (but both threads share the same cache, if I'm not mistaken) so it's somewhere between a hyper-threaded triple-core processor and 3 dual-core processors.

It's still three cores on a single chip, and thus "triple-core". The architecture and functionality of an individual core doesn't matter, so long as it's capable of working as a single core (thus the PS3 is not an "8-core" or "7-core" system, since the Cell units are not functional as independent cores).

A very real reason for using triple-core

[inflex]

In theory with triple core, each processor is only 1 step away from the other processor (consider a triangular setup). With Quad core or greater there's either more bussing or more delays.

Without seeing further details I sincerely doubt that these are quad-core chips with one dud core. I suspect AMD has actually used their technical brains here and given us the fastest non-(overly)complex multi core setup.

Of course, if it's the bean counters in charge, then it's possible it's a failed quad core (though I still have doubts).

AMD's bad decisions..

[cyberjock1980]

So everyone's talking about how much pain AMD is in. Bleeding cash 24x7. So they've spent money on R&D for a 3 core processor!? Are you kidding me? Did they REALLY think there's gonna be a big market for three core computers!?

This seems like almost as bad of a decision as Intel made going with Netburst. The difference being Intel could afford to make a big mistake. AMD doesn't have that luxury, and their new luxury might be going bankrupt. Sure, Intel went with Netburst because it solved several technical problems at the time. But what problems does this solve for AMD? It seems like it would have been more cost conscious to design the 4 core, and if one core fails then just enable the 3 cores.

But seriously, what market is this really gonna be useful for? People generally are in 2 categories. Surf the net, check email, maybe some light gaming(in which case a dual core is plenty). Or a power user, playing some of the most advanced games in the world(in which case a quad core is what they buy). Where's the user that does both and isn't going to spring for a quad core, yet go buy those $50+ games every month? It doesn't make sense to me.

Re:With apologies to the Onion

[Tribbin]

But intel can't do 3-core by design right?

Re:For the cleanest, most comfortable shave ever!

[TheRaven64]

Heck - I would love to see a Lisp-machine based on current technology. I could even help design one. I thought Lisp machines were originally stack-based, which was hard to extract ILP from, which resulted in the death of the architecture. The last Lisp machines were Alphas with a pure software Lisp implementation. I'd be really interested in how you would plan on building a Lisp machine with current technology. Possibly go for simple in-order cores and make a Termite-machine, rather than a pure Lisp machine?