AMD's 4x4

[Krusty]

I agree that AMD's idea looks promising, but then so did Prescott....

I'm a conservative person by nature, mind you. This explains my inclination to wait.

How much are one of those motherboards going to cost, anyways?

[handy169]

that i dont know.. from press releases mb and 2 dual core FX chips are gonna be under $1000 so i can only speculate on the breakdown of what each is gonna cost .

[Schutt]

Ahh now i think i got it.

They are more closely coupled than current server systems, since they use a better crossbar switch / Hyper Transport and still have individual memory with full bandwidth to be better than core2 processors.

Two processors are sceduled to cost the same as one quad... so a nice price drop compared to the current amd prices.

Well we will see how good that turns out once they are pited against conroe quad and other dual socket boards. Should give the intel FB-Dimm crowd some trouble.

[handy169]

i like how someone put it in a comment :

http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/10/intel-kentsfield-general-observations.html
 
Intel execs lacks the basic IQ. Pat Gelsinger made himself a total retard by typing "I hate AMD" on screen. It's despicable behaviour.

As I pointed out, Conroe fatally wounded Intel and Kentsfield will finish the job. AMD can sell a few hundred K8L now, but it doesn't do it. Why? Because AMD is smart . The few hundred K8Ls will make all other processors worth little. That's what Intel is doing here. With Conroe, AMD basically takes the mainstream market, 95% of Intel's processors are total junk because of Conroe. Now, with Kentsfield, Conroe will be reduced to a $150 chip and Pentium D will be sold at $65, and Athlon X2 will take the sweet spot.

The high end market is tiny. AMD only makes 10000 FX CPUs per quarter. The money is in the middle, and DELL is selling millions of X2 CPUs. I noticed that Alienware is hyping the 4x4 right now. Expect DELL to go 100% AMD by the end of 2008.

AMD is having a major capacity problem right now, once FAB36 finishes ramp by the end of year. Intel will be half dead.
 
 
and someone else commented:

People like to talk about price war, they forgot the most important factor in a price war is cost.

AMD's cost per chip is $50 below Intel. When AMD sells a CPU at $100, it laughs to the bank with $59 gross profit. When Intel sells a chip at $100, it loses $40. Just look at the head count, AMD has 10K people and is taking 25% of the mkt. Intel has 100K people.

AMD will soon cross 33% mkt share and approach 40%, leaving Intel and 55%. At that point, Intel will sustain $2.5 billion losses per quarter and will have to raise prices trying to stay afloat, but AMD is ramping up like crazy. If I were Hector Ruiz, I will sell chips at cost just to BK Intel.
 
and another

It's very simple, just try compute Intel's revenue due to the effect of Conroe. On one hand, you have about 10% Conroe chips selling at $200, on the other hand, you have 90% chips selling at an average of $80, most of them selling at $35 (celerons). Your ASP drop to about $90, a massive drop from the $150 Intel used to enjoy. The Pentium used to be a premium brand, now it's crap. Customers lost confidence in Intel, because they now know Intel was lying to them on Netbust and Hyperthreading.


DELL went AMD because of Conroe -- that should be good enough hurt.

You say Conroe will ramp up. However, by the time Conroe reaches 50% of Intel's production. AMD's K8L will frag Intel real good.

[Kev367th]

Two bits -

Schutt - I think I'm right in saying Intel are dropping FB-Dimms

Krusty - Yes 4 cores on on die would be faster, IF they were coupled using something like HT, but Kentsfields are using the FSB same as the dual core Pentiums.

First naitive quad core won't be available until 2Q 2007.

Both companies up and coming four core offerings are kludges.

Handy -
You don't have to upgrade it to 2 x K8L's, it will quite happily take only one leaving the other socket free for an FPU, GPU (ATI buyout?) or a few other goodies that are to arrive around the same time as the K8L.

It is expected the K8L should outperform Conroe, but as no-one has actually got their hands on one, who knows.

As Skuzzy says until something actually arrives on the market, you don't know.

[edit] Few reviews of the Kentsfield out there v an FX62, so basically 4 core v dual core. The FX62 is only on average 15% slower.
Strangely not one of them put it up against a 2 x dual core Opteron system which would give a clearer indication of which is better at handling multithreaded multitasking.

Still expect Conroe to keep the single thread speed crown.

[Skuzzy]

Originally posted by handy169
actually skuzzy .. the 4x4 has dual memory busses.. so kev is very right.. and our are so very wrong in that matter.  each chip will be able to access one of the 2 banks of memory up to 2GB each.

If the motherboard has paths laid out for each bus.  If the motherboard does not have disctinct paths laid out, then you are facing normal bus contention just alike a single bus does.

Just because the CPU has a dual bus, does not mean the motherbaord will automatically have it.  Without a dual bus implemented in the motherboard, you cannot have two devices reading/writting data from/to other devices.  It is quite impossible.

Now, each bank of dual channel RAM has an independent bus.  However, if both busses are tied to common for both CPU busses, then you are back to square one with bus contention like a single bus CPU.

If you tie each of the independent channels of the dual channel bus to each bus of the CPU, then you lose the ability to fetch more than 32 bits of data at a time.  Contention would be down, but performance might as well.

Just have to wait and see the production parts.  Enough of this marketing stuff.  Marketing very rarely has much basis in reality.

And prices do not mean much right now.  Intel and AMD are always bouncing prices around depending on what the other does.

[handy169]

kev-

oh i agree that right now when single and dual cpu's are talked about conroe wins no issue there.  but to do so .. they are comparing 4mbs of cache to chips with only 512k cache to 2mbs of cache. so you can see where the advantage is placed. cause cause the clock speed of each chip is really that much faster but the conroe has twice to 4 times the cache to help process and based on my experience when proccesses seti number you boost your production about the same number at the same clock speed. like comparing a when used a pentium 4 with only 256k and i used a athlon XP at the same clock speed with X2 the cache (512k) low and behind the athlon won by simular numbers.  also look at the Xeon Version of the conroe.. its has 8mb to 16 mbs of cache and compared to 4mbs and 2 mbs and it beats its badly just as bad even though its basically the same core. and that being the case if i was gonna build a system and had the money i would build it around the woodcrest and not the conroe.  another thing is that everyone is under the notion that the 4x4 is for the average joe. its not its for people that have the money to spend as will be the intels 4 core flavor.

[Skuzzy]

CPU clock speeds stopped being the real performance measure when the original P4 shipped.  It was clocked much faster than the previous P3, but ran slower.  It had a larger cache as well, but still ran slower.

It's about the overall architecture.  AMD has always been pretty lean and mean when it came to thier design, which allowed them to execute instructions in fewer T-states than a comparable Intel CPU.  That is where AMD has had the advantage for some time.
With Conroe, Intel really put the hurt on AMD in a couple of key areas.  

1)  The process.  The smaller process means more chips per die, which directly translates to lower costs.  This is hurting AMD in a big way, and you will see that impact in the next few quarters as AMD's net profits start to ramp downward.
This will continue until AMD can get to 65nm, or lower.

2)  Clock per clock, Conroe executes instructions in fewer T-states than a comparable AMD.  Basically, Intel has taken the leaner, meaner approach to Conroe and beat AMD at thier own game.  AMD got caught napping and it will hurt them.  The large cache in the Conroe is more for marketing than anything else.  Performance gains drop as the cache gets larger.

3)  Now Intel has a much cooler running CPU than any comparable AMD part.  Cooler is lower power is higher overall reliability.  With the Prescott CPU, Intel proved it could build a CPU which generated so much heat it killed motherboard components in the nearby vicinity.  While AMD is not nearly as bad, they are headed down the road if they do not get thier process shrunk.

None of this is neccessarily my opinion, but pretty much tangibles.  Right now, Intel is slapping AMD around pretty badly.  With the next release of CPU's, who knows.  When they ship, we can form more objective opinions about them.

[Kev367th]

Next few quarters will indeed be interesting.

One point I'll disagree with Skuzzy -
AMD still makes a profit on CPU's, Intel is losing $ on every CPU they sell, so AMD can still cut prices, Intel are already below the break even point.

65nm - By years end 30% will of AMD will be on 65nm, supposedly.

For most people a 4 core solution is not needed anyway.

I might find one useful though -
FSDS v3
PSP
FSRepaint
All running simultaneously when doing FS2004 models.

Will wait for real world benchies first though.

It might all come down to availability - AMD have been hoarding the FX's for the 4x4 and hope to have enough to launch it 'en mass'.

[Schutt]

I have seen a CPU-Z screenshot where CPU-Z mistakes an overclocked QX6700 for an QX6900. My guess is that we will see an QX6900 some time in the near future.

[Mini D]

Originally posted by Kev367th
One point I'll disagree with Skuzzy -
AMD still makes a profit on CPU's, Intel is losing $ on every CPU they sell, so AMD can still cut prices, Intel are already below the break even point.

I missed this statement earlier. It is, without a doubt, complety wrong.

[Kev367th]

4x4 is out for me with a motherboard costing $480, on top of that the CPUs, memory, and vid card, thats insane.

Oh well at least my choices are easier now -
Conroe or AM2, suppose it will come down to which will end up having the best quad core performance.

Just waiting on 4 core Conroe v opty 4 core or 4x4 benchies.
Should give a decent indication of what the 2007 AMD quads will do.

Willing to have a not speed crown AM2 if the quads will show a decent boost.

[Nomak]

Originally posted by Schutt
.......
That is at stock speed. Now others might say they can overclock their AMD / Intel Pentium D, but nothing currently available overclocks like a conroe, giving it eaven more performance advantage.
So the Intel you listed is faster, eaven a cheaper conroe is faster AND leaves money for other stuff.......

 

You and I spoke about this briefly in another thread.  I am not trying to rehash that.  However, since you obviously know alot more about this than I do I was wondering......

I have a Pent D 805.  It is a dual core.  Its out of box clock speed is 2.66 gig.  I am currently running mine @ 4.0 gig.  Thats an overclock of like 1.4 gig.  Can the conroe's be overclocked to that level?

Also ...... please forgive my ignorance here..... How can my 4 gig pentD be slower than a 2.1 gig conroe?  I assume there is alot more involved than the "Rated clock speed"  however if you could help me understand this I would appreaciate it.

Originally posted by Schutt  

4 Graphic cards in one system? Cool but i can't eaven afford the best single GPU graphic card and it is not worth it combining 2 or more graphic boards which are not top of the line. The gain of getting one better chip is much higher.

I agree completly.  I spent quite a bit more money for a true 2x16 PCIE board.  I am currently running a 7900gt that to be honest with you is more that fast enough.  My original plan was to add another 7900 once the first one was paid for.  Right now I just dont see the need.

Edit.... I should have read the entire thread before posting.  Skuzzy adressed some of what I was asking about.  I will leave it up anyway if you would like to comment Schutt.

Dave

[Schutt]

Originally posted by Nomak
You and I spoke about this briefly in another thread.  I am not trying to rehash that.  However, since you obviously know alot more about this than I do I was wondering......

I have a Pent D 805.  It is a dual core.  Its out of box clock speed is 2.66 gig.  I am currently running mine @ 4.0 gig.  Thats an overclock of like 1.4 gig.  Can the conroe's be overclocked to that level?

So you run your pentium D at 1.34GHz faster than rated, which is 50 % overclock considering its rated 2.66GHz. The conroes get up to 60%, whereas the slowest conroe is way faster than your processor when both run on default.
Also the conroe runs with 65Watt standart, bringing the overclocked one to 100 Watt. The old Pentium D run on 95 Watt or more default, bringing overclocked ones to 130-150 Watt.

Originally posted by Nomak

Also ...... please forgive my ignorance here..... How can my 4 gig pentD be slower than a 2.1 gig conroe?  I assume there is alot more involved than the "Rated clock speed"  however if you could help me understand this I would appreaciate it.

First, look at one core. Modern processors need more than one clock for each instructions. I dont have the numbers at hand but i think pentium D needs like 16 steps per instruction and conroe 12. As i say, the numbers are off, i am sure someone knows the exact numbers. Point is the pentium D needs a lot more steps per instruction than the conroe.
Now this is not a problem, since the instructions are worked through in a pipeline, that means that 16 instructions are executed at the same time in the pipeline. Now if one instruction in stage 14 turns out to have a result which causes a big jump (to a diffrent place of code) all instructions that are already in the pipeline get thrown away.
Additionally, instructions that dont rely on each other get executed in parallel, up to 4 in parallel. The get assigned to their processing units and the result gets put in order after processing.

Conroe has a much shorter pipeline, resulting in less penalty for jumps (which happen to occur quite a lot). Also conroe has a better prediction of jumps (and starting processing code where it might be continuing)

Conroe has a faster memory interface.

Conroe is better at processing instructions in parallel.

Now, looking at both cores, conroe has a shared L2 cache and each of the cores can access the full cache. That has the advantage that if the application running one core needs a big cache and the other one is ok running  a small one they will share it unevenly, maximizing performance.

Further, more important, each of the processors can access the data right away because he knows if its cached. On Pentium D it first needs to check if the data is cached by the other processor.

So a 3GHz Conroe processes the applications faster than a 4.5GHz Pentium D.  Vision that like a high school boy trieing to solve a math problem and a guy with master degree in math trying to solve the same. Wile the master guy is older and slower he still has the solution long before the boy. At least usually.

Originally posted by Nomak


I agree completly.  I spent quite a bit more money for a true 2x16 PCIE board.  I am currently running a 7900gt that to be honest with you is more that fast enough.  My original plan was to add another 7900 once the first one was paid for.  Right now I just dont see the need.

Edit.... I should have read the entire thread before posting.  Skuzzy adressed some of what I was asking about.  I will leave it up anyway if you would like to comment Schutt.

Dave

When you need more 1 8800GTX will do far better than two 7900GT.

[handy169]

KEV>

keep in mind the 4x4 platform isnt for your casual computer user. be prepared to spend 1000+ for chips. reports have surfaced that the 2 chip combo will be equal too or less then the cost of one dual core conroe chip. so you will get 4 cores (AMD)  for the price or 2 cores (intel)  if things go as planned .. also keep in mind that when the K8L comes out it will be able to be replace the 2 cores with 4 cores giving you 8 cores. and the K8L will be a true 4 core core procosser