Erratum Plagues Quad-Core Opterons, Phenoms

theraindog writes "Errata are not uncommon with new processors, but a problem with the TLB logic in AMD's quad-core Opteron and Phenom processors appears to be quite serious. The erratum is so severe that AMD has issued a 'stop ship' order on all quad-core Opterons. AMD has also blamed this bug for the delay of the 2.4GHz Phenom, despite the fact that the erratum is unrelated to clock speed. A BIOS-based workaround for the issue has been made available to motherboard makers, but it apparently carries a 10-20% performance penalty. What's more disturbing is that AMD knew of the erratum and the potential performance hit associated with fixing it before it launched the Phenom processor. Hardware provided to the press for reviews did not include the fix, conveniently overstating Phenom performance."

Comments

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus concludes another episode of Short Answers To Stupid Questions.

This doesn't have to be so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD can turn this into a PR boon to one-up Intel at the "Green" initiatives. All they have to do is repurpose the uncut wafers of these chips as solar panels and then retile the outside of all their buildings with the panels. This will save money on their energy bills and they can even start a new Ad Campaign:

"AMD Outside".

Re:This doesn't have to be so bad

[youthoftoday]

SOMEONE's been waiting a long time to say that

Cue the intel jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

In 3.... 2... 0.9999921341...

Re:Cue the intel jokes

[nmb3000]

Some of the (obligatory) Pentium jokes were pretty funny. From a text file I've had laying around for quite a while:

--------------

Intel's new motto: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"

Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people.

Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?
A: A mad scientist.

Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A: The warning label.

Q: What do you call a series of FDIV instructions on a Pentium?
A1: Successive approximations.
A2: A random number generator.

Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply is to:
        1) Divide
        2) Round
        3) Random
        4) All of the above

Q: What algorithm did Intel use in the Pentium's floating point divider?
A: "Life is like a box of chocolates." (Source: F. Gump of Intel)

Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got
    585.999983605.

Q: According to Intel, the Pentium conforms to the IEEE standards 754
    and 854 for floating point arithmetic. If you fly in aircraft
    designed using a Pentium, what is the correct pronunciation of "IEEE"?
A: Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!

Q: Did you hear about the new "morning after" pill being developed as a
    replacement for RU-486???
A: Its called RU-Pentium. It causes the embryo to not divide correctly.

TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM

    9.9999973251 - It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
    8.9999163362 - It's Close Enough, We Say So
    7.9999414610 - Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
    6.9999831538 - You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
    5.9999835137 - Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well
    4.9999999021 - We Fixed It, Really
    3.9998245917 - Division Considered Harmful
    2.9991523619 - Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
    1.9999103517 - We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
    0.9999999998 - The Errata Inside



Worth a laugh anyway :)

Re:Bummer

[the_humeister]

Hmmm... I suppose that I should disconnect this Phenom-powered computer running Windows from this nuclear power station I'm working at...

Re:in real life...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to hear how you couldn't get into Yale and now have to attend the local community college. Now that that's out of the way: no pickle, extra cheese and I want my chocolate shake in the commemorative cup! Large isn't big enough for me!

Re:Bummer

[forkazoo]

Wow, bad times for AMD. They're losing the war against intel, and now have another set back. A 20% performance penalty is simply unacceptable for any processor. The fact that it is for brand new ones makes it an even bigger slap in the face for consumers.

Well, AMD doesn't sell used processors, as far as I'm aware, so where else would AMD have problems than in brand new processors? I mean, seriously, if a bug was found today in 1 GHz Durons that required a slowdown to work around, the headline wouldn't be "AMD Processor has bug," it would be, "AMD QA fucking incompetent, take years to notice problem with processor." You would rather they just ignored the problem until they came out with something newer so that the problem wouldn't be in a brand new processor?

What's more disturbing, blah, blah ,blah

[Hanging By A Thread]

Everyone makes crap these days and releases it anyway. It has to kill or injure people and be recalled before it's truely "disturbing"....

Relax everything's fine!

Borat says "I buy Pentium Core Duo, neighbor can not afford he buys AMD Phenom everyone knows it's for girls, Great success!".

Re:What???

[alshithead]

"I'm a geek an all. But, I've never heard of erratum."

Mod me down, call me troll, but please don't claim to be a geek if you can claim to never have heard of erratum or errata. That's as bad as not knowing what a bug is or calling a PC case and its contents a hard drive.

Here's a heartfelt suggestion...read more.

Re:Bummer

[scottv67]

What if you were doing scientific computing? 20% drop could mean a lot of time for a calculation. I use to run calculations that would take months...

Just thinking out-loud here: Did you trying pushing-in the Turbo button?

Good thing they bought ATI

[Chris Snook]

At least in the graphics world, "faster and usually correct" is acceptable.

Re:Good thing they bought ATI

[n dot l]

Nah. Not "usually". GPUs are correct...for a given value of correct, that is. I mean, have you seen the massive error bars the DX/GL specs attach to the meaning of "correct" or "conformant"? Kind of hard to miss that mark when your target is the size of a large barn and you get to shoot from a point of your choosing - including the inside.

I swear, an implementation based on a five year old with a red, green, and blue crayon would probably satisfy a good portion of the GL spec...

</hyperbole>

Re:Bummer

[poopdeville]

What are we trying to do here, compute pi to 14 million decimal paces in 5 minutes or less?

That's not that many digits... It wouldn't take even 5 minutes on a Core 2 Duo.

Re:They did

[bakes]

AMD admitted there were errors in the early Phenom CPUs back before launch. They also said that the performance of the new chips would be 'phenominimal'.