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"Torrenza" systems will accept both multi-core, accelerators, or "Fusion" processors
AMD sheds more light on accelerated processing projects

This week at CeBIT 2007, AMD revealed more details about its "accelerated computing" platform, codenamed Torrenza. AMD's goal behind Torrenza is to create a platform where application-specific processors can interact cost effectively and offer better performance than a general purpose CPU, while remaining compatible with off the shelf platforms.

AMD guidance revealed this week that future processors will also have integrated "accelerators" embedded into them. A Torrenza system will have at least two sockets, and both will accept accelerators and accelerated CPUs.

One accelerated-processor project on AMD plate, slated for 2008 under the codename Fusion, and combines a dedicated GPU or GPU accelerator onto the same package or even the same silicon die as the main CPU. AMD has already set the ground-work for Fusion processing with its Stream Computing initiative -- utilizing ATI-based graphics adaptors for heavy number crunching. 

Other Torrenza ready projects are also coming to light.  Clearspeed announced its CSX600 math-coprocessor plug-in last year, with the stated intention of creating a socket plugin version for Torrenza.  Los Alamos National Labs is currently building the world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner, with Opteron and Cell processors on the Torrenza platform.

Torrenza is not just locked within the compounds of the CPU sockets. According to AMD, Torrenza systems will accept accelerators in a PCI-Express interface too, allow for multiple application specific accelerators to access system memory and processor functions directly.  Mercury systems announced a PCIe plug-in accelerator late last year.

While Torrenza is well on its way to seeing daylight, Intel is also working on its own open architecture platform. Notorious for keeping its CPU platform a closely guarded technology, Intel indicated that it was working on a competitive technology to AMD's HyperTransport, dubbed CSI, allowing direct CPU and memory access.

Intel guidance suggests the company will announce its Torrenza competitor sometime in mid-2008.

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By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 7:54:03 AM , Rating: 5
...if you've been watching AMD over the past year or so, the potential of Fusion and Torrenza has been quite clear for a while.
(I posted this a couple days back, in a different forum... got blasted for it to... sigh. Perhaps not all applicable to Fusion / Torrenza, most is.)

****
I truly applaud Intel's 'Athloning', the Athlon with c2d. However, it's really not that revolutionary of a chip... You make a P3 with a far smarter / efficient decode engine, and a fatter / wider set of RISC pipes, and voila a fast short pipelined chip. Kudos, and see Barcelona will be the same, with some other tricks up its sleeve.

These chips are made possible thru very very sweet production techniques. All Intel's core dev teams have done is incremental optimizations of a short piped RISC chip... Kudos, but it is manufacturing prowess and money that are their greatest assets. If both companies were still at 90nm, AMD would be far more competitive with Intel even with a c2d chip. You'd see relatively similar clock ceilings, and not the runaway over clocking Intel has granted the many of us (myself included) with any c2d. In fact I would say AMD has a far better 90nm process then what Intel had. You have to when you can't just go build a Fab out of petty cash.

C2D Wins, but don't think its because the fundamentals behind the chip are truly special, its simply a lot of money, and a lot of medium delta re-spins. Many different cores came and went as mobile processors to come out with the c2d. This time they managed to fix the last of the bottlenecks, and make a truly balanced and properly functioning chip. Remember Pentium M? Honestly a far better processor then anything Netburst gave us, however its achilles heel: High Bandwidth Media transformation / encoding. This wasn't truly fixed until the last iteration of this line: the C2D.

Next;
Fusion: The CPU world as we know it is heading for change. AMD with the acquisition of ATI in their fusion concept can drop 2 R600 cores, and 2 Barcelona+ cores onto 1 die, and drop two of these into a much maligned Quad FX mainboard (yes, or pretty much any Dual or Quad socket Opteron mainboard as well).
Wonder why 45nm and fusion is so special for them?

Anyone see the terraflop in a box performance? Realize then we are talking roughly double that performance plus 4 cores of Barcelona+ goodness. Bring your 8 core C2Ds to the table, we'll race for pink slips.

Fusion isn't about graphics... It might be in a desktop consumer market targeting OEMs or others :). But as has been pointed out ad nauseum, it's about servers. With Servers, it's about stream processing, and specialized processors / co-processors. There is a reason AMD opened up Hyper Transport technology; more chips made for their platform, more options, more specialized blades, and clusters / nodes.

The future is not simply who has the fastest General Purpose CPU, the future is in what platform can I leverage to be most efficient with my workload? The one for which I can only drop in Intel C2D derivatives? Or the one that I can drop some stream processors, cell derivatives, encryption copros, etc. into?

I for one can't wait to see the latest server benchmarks with AMD's “Close to Metal” SDK, and a few R600 boards, or soon multicore R600 Stream processing boards. Can a 6ghz quad core C2D match that floating point monster? Anyone who remembers IO cards can attest to the evolution of boards to parts of a piece of silicone... Can't wait to get my dual quad core fusion chips. 4 Barcelona+ cores, and 4 R600+ cores in two sockets. All those folding PS3's better watch out.

Fusion is only about graphics for consoles, set top PC's, etc. Its really about creating heterogeneous cores with which to customize performance. It's not necessary for business PCs. Business PCs will have full system on a chip designs. OEMs will love this. AMD is already leading there as well CPU/NB on a chip.. add video... and come on, like an SB is hard to mold into the equation. Give me a break.
(Note: Intel created, then abandoned a system on chip years ago... but not quite the same beast we speak of here, [Timona or some such?])

All of which is so much easier with the purchase of ATI!

Now onto the difficult short term reality. AMD needs cash. Yes Fanboys, and Girls... Send your cheques to Dr. Ruiz care of... You get the picture. The delays, I bet you anything, are due to cash issues. FABs are expensive! Slow 65nm rollout; lack of cash... delayed R600; cash, and possibly frictional adjustment issues with integrating two firms of that size. AMD needs money now more then ever. However, I think Intel is praying no one buys them as an investment opportunity. Give AMD a solid financial footing, and a hands off investment group... and Intel will continue to lose market share. Furthermore, AMD will be more dangerous to them then ever.

The other side of the coin:

I notice everyone jumps on the new $266 QuadC2 promised to be at a store near you in the near future. Does anyone else but me realize that Netburst chips still make up a terrible amount of Shipped Intel CPUs? As bad as AMD's ASP is, Intel hurts there own inventory value with ever price gouge. This is why AMD is not doing as badly as it could be. I also would hazard that the coming of cheap C2Qs coincides with enough of Intel's CPU sales being Core based that completely torching the old inventory won't wound them as badly as it would today. However, with Allendale, and cheap cheap cheap C2Ds they are hurting themselves, as well as AMD.

C2Ds aggressive pricing is one of the main reasons their revenues are down. Last I checked nearly 50% of Intel's shipments were not C2Ds... So 50% is getting given away so Intel can fight a price war with AMD. Deep pockets? Yes. Happy shareholders? Maybe a stretch. AMD needs to stay in the middle of the sandwich, which they are doing, until Barcelona hits server side at the least. Then ASPs can marginally increase for AMD, whilst they fight intel on the low and mid end where OEMs buy millions of chips.

AMD still sells every chip it makes. Period.

End result: AMD will retain, if not gain market share, until Intel depletes its massive inventories of Non-C2D chips. Then the pain comes for AMD, unless Barcelona can be fast enough in certain high markup segments to boost ASPs while AMD matches Intel in the mid to low end cheap 65nm X2's made by Chartered, vs cheap 65nm C2D (and derivatives) made by Intel.

45nm..... Is the next massive advantage for Intel, but again... CPUs are not sold anywhere near cost, so undercutting the sales of 65nm C2Ds in price by trying to leverage a slight cost decrease from 45nm (per die)Penryn, will just serve to hurt their ASP even more. So 45nm will more then likely be high end. This means we have to ask hat will AMD have high end at that point? Can they leverage it to raise ASP, while still competing in the low to midrange price war?

In reality, the game is changing, and AMD has been one to move before Intel on game changing solutions. Raw manufacturing capacity has always been Intel's strong suit. C2D is not a deviation of this, C2D is a company spending billions on a design team to keep working till they got it right. It took many P-M iterations to get to C2D. Arguably something that wasn't to far out of their reach when the first P4 rolled out to the first stupid buyer who honestly thought 1300mhz P4 > 1000mhz P3...

AMD brought SIMD instructions to FP processes before Intel.
AMD Licensed Alpha EV-6 bus topology, better then Intel.
AMD brought On die MC before Intel
AMD produces and sells Stream Processing Cards, w/SDK (faster then Intel's General purpose CPUs)
AMD Went the C2D route initially (Short and wide, while Intel went Marketing with Net Burst.
AMD Adopted a more advanced Point to Point Bus topology with HT. Intel still hasn't.. (Want to count the years between Athlon MP and when Intel Finally fixes its multi cpu platform?)

Night / or Morning to you all. :)




By BLOfelt22 on 3/18/2007 9:31:52 AM , Rating: 2
Very well thought out and equally well worded post. I can't imagine why anyone would flame it but I guess everyone is entitled their opinion. Only time will tell and I do believe that AMD has been in worse situations before. We'll just have to see.


By just4U on 3/18/2007 2:36:48 PM , Rating: 2
I have a question. Amd has been able to license Intel instructions and such over the years right? IF HT is a open standard can't Intel just use that eventually? Why complicate things further by creating your own thing when there is already a standard in place?

Just curious here!


Moderated
By Darkskypoet on 3/18/07, Rating: 0
By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 7:27:22 PM , Rating: 5
No its not.

Seriously, Intel has a lot of its 'mojo' from its design / implementation prowess. Taking tech from an 'inferior' firm after downplaying pretty much every tech brought forward from said 'inferior' firm hurts that image.

However not having any response to the currently available, and shipping HT tech (allowing for other firms to create chips to drop onto Opteron boards) leaves Intel out of a new and growing market. Thats not fanaticism!

I am saying the question is which does more damage: Waiting for another year plus to have a standard to bring to market, thus letting HT gain mind share and development dollars. Or, simply adopting the HT spec, thus giving AMD more legitimacy.

Neither is desirable vs Intel having had a competing standard 2 years ago.

(I am starting to become amused by your consistent down rating of decent posts. You really ought to stop attaching fanboyism / fanaticism to any post you for some reason do not seem to like)

Intel has lost ground, this is not speculation. Or are you unaware that AMD server market share has been growing? Especially in terms of 4 and >4 socket implementations.

Are you also unaware at the industry support now behind AMD HT, something that even 4 years ago would have been almost impossible due to AMD's lack of Server penetration. Sigh.

zsdersw please do not read any Intel is dying, etc. crap into my posts. Relative change in position between the two companies has been favoring AMD.

This necessarily shows Intel as losing some of the immense power it had relative to AMD in the past. HT, is part of this. Or are you saying it is not?


By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 7:40:24 PM , Rating: 1
First, I cannot rate your posts down because I've participated in this story's comment section.

Second, I am not addressing the question of image. I was addressing your apparent belief that Intel will necessarily lose market share whether they use HT or their own technology; that there is no hope for Intel to either increase market share or hold what they have.

Third, don't raise issues that I'm not arguing with you about.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 10:30:16 PM , Rating: 2
Well then, as I am new here, I apologize. As I am not a neophyte, I also realize the existence of multiple accounts per IP is allowed, so I am not going to pursue that any further.

Secondly, I am not saying will, or won't. I am saying have, and is still happening. Nor am I saying that they cannot take back market share, or that there is no hope. Please, quote the no hope wording from the post. I am saying that they are losing, and are behind in this venture because they have nothing comparable out.

I am saying quite clearly that to adopt HT after maligning AMD tech so much is bad for image, and secondly that coming to market so late hurts the initial uptake of this technology by other CoPU vendors.

Either way, adopting late, or coming to market late hurts market share. This should be elementary. I fail to see how "no hope" is read from that statement.

There is a reason AMD is losing enthusiast market share, because Barcelona is late. If I, aparently an AMD fanatic, am building C2Ds for myself, and clients, (left, right and center) obviously in the market in which I dwell, C2D is the leading chip. However, if AMD had Barcelona right now, it would be a much more difficult choice.

Since it isn't; we can see what happens when you come to market late with a competitive technology. You lose market share. Thankfully in this case for AMD, it is much simpler to create a CPU that doesn't rely on massive industry support for success. Whereas a new platform (like an HT competitor) requires such support, and as such needs more lead time to again become competitive, and to be developed for.

(For your benefit, more lead time, and more time in general does not equate to "no hope". Just wanted to clarify that)


By Viditor on 3/19/2007 9:17:07 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
When your posts are absent of any balancing good news on the Intel front, the tone of your posts quickly becomes one of anti-Intel, pro-AMD

Or it a post that is correct...often times there IS no balanced good news from Intel or AMD (that we know of...).


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 10:13:47 AM , Rating: 1
There's always a way to balance it out.


By gonchuki on 3/19/2007 12:30:22 PM , Rating: 3
may be it's me, but i see it balanced taking into account that he states and remarks AMD's fault for being late in the market with Barcelona.
You are just trying to obscure things and point your own fanatiscism with those comments.


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 2:39:08 PM , Rating: 1
That is the only example of balance.


By Yawgm0th on 3/18/2007 3:39:49 PM , Rating: 2
Using a technology developed by your main competitor isn't a great PR move, especially with fanboys waiting to jump on a little piece of information like that.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 7:54:02 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly... However, my post pointing such out was moderated down... Sigh. So I replied with gusto :)

I always thought the posts that were moderated down, were full of AMD is L33t & Intel Sux0rs... but it seems otherwise intelligent posts share that fate as well on this board. Sigh.


By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 8:02:30 PM , Rating: 1
A fancily-worded version of fanaticism is just as likely to get voted down just as much as a less eloquent version.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 9:16:45 PM , Rating: 2
So somehow pointing out the surprisingly obvious fact that AMD has been / is taking server market share from Intel, and part of that is due to HT and the working consortium behind it, is fanaticism? That is rather funny. I think your down moderating of intelligent factual posts is more akin to fanaticism, then my noting fairly obvious trends.

You disagree then that Intel adopting HT, late, will do no harm to their 'superior' mind share? Also, that by being a late adopter they would then have more ground to cover development wise in a shorter time frame?

Or that the delay in adopting a new point to point, somewhat open standard for interconnect has done no harm to their higher end server platforms?

Really? Let us know what you think about this. I mean it is one thing to call out 'fanaticism!!', and yet another to post an alternative for the readers to evaluate.


By Viditor on 3/19/2007 9:19:34 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with you about anything

But you are most certainly taking him to task over something you supposedly have no opinion about...


By coldpower27 on 3/19/2007 3:58:13 PM , Rating: 2
That's the thing you keep calling it "Intel adopting HT" but Intel isn't adopting a standard AMD had a hand in developing, they are working on their own solution aka CSI. It may do some of the things and in some of the same ways, but it's Intel standard and they have control on what they wish to do with it.

Companies buy products that perform, the purpose of a point to point connection such as HyperTransport or CSI, is to alleviate a potential bottleneck in processor to processor communication as well as to the main memory.

Intel made a choice, which would harm them more, giving props to AMD by developing and using HyperTransport, essentially saying they accept AMD as an actual equal OR hold out till they can develop their own solution that achieves the same goal with the con of having reduced performance on their high end server platforms?

Intel chose the latter decision and we will have to see if it hurts very much as what was pointed out 4P+ Servers aren't majority of systems sold.

What AMD did though with HyperTransport by releasing it as an open-standard is indeed a good decision for AMD and comes with it's own set of advantages. But AMD did this only because it believes in the long run this will do more good then harm to themselves.

And you have no evidence as to whom is down moderating your posts, just because someone has the ability to fire a gun, doesn't mean they are the ones that did.


By Locutus465 on 3/18/2007 10:17:44 PM , Rating: 2
My guess is partial pride, as far as to do so would be to admit that AMD matters. Another part is fear that it might put them at AMD's mercy... You are right though, it would make life better for consumers.


By Samus on 3/19/2007 10:28:31 AM , Rating: 1
Intel is too proud to license AMD technology. AMD is practical enough, and knows it must, license Intel technology to survive.

Intel is like an American auto manufacturer. They're too proud to look at their competition and see that the direction they're going in is the correct one, and they should just 'stay the course' and keep with their old habbits.

We've all seen what 'staying the course' has gotten us recently.


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 10:52:45 AM , Rating: 2
The likening to American auto manufacturers is not a very good analogy.. and neither is "staying the course" (i.e., Iraq).


By ZmaxDP on 3/20/2007 2:25:16 PM , Rating: 2
An analogy is only as good as it's intent. If the purpose of the analogy was to compare the insular business practices of Intel to GM for instance, it is a fine analogy. If he was trying to compare the manufacturing process of C2D microprocessors to a Suburban, then it was a pretty bad one. However, I think he meant the former. Most analogies hold only as far as their intent.

As for "staying the course," the effectiveness of such an analogy is that it makes a complex situation more understandable to people who aren't as familiar with it by using a much more familiar situation. I'm not familiar enough with Intel's mentality to claim the analogy is accurate. But, it is effective. If you're claiming it is inaccurate, please give us some reasons rather than just rejecting it. Anyone can say "you're wrong." It takes intelligence to say why. I like posts that take the time to give reasons rather than just make rejections.

So, I would claim that your entire post was "not very good." I would also say the same of your previous posts in response to DarkSkyPoet. Since the original post was moderated, I can't really say whether your claims of "fanboyism" are justified. However, from reading the remainder of the posts he comes off looking opinionated but somewhat informed. You come off looking contrary and vindictive.

If all you come here for is to tell other people that they're wrong, don't bother. You're acting like opinions are static, and you treat the people who have them like they are wrong (or like something is wrong with them = you're a fanboy). Most people understand that an opinion is not static, and changes as we gather more information about a topic. The entire purpose of Anandtech, Dailytech, and most forums in general is to EDUCATE and INFORM people. People are supposed to post on these forums to SHARE information. DarkSkyPoet was at least doing that. Whether is it commonly known or not is a moot point in my OPINION. All you've proven capable of so far is telling people they're wrong.

According to the U.S. Census bureau, there are roughly 6,583,491,227 people living on the planet earth. Every single one of them could have said what you've said so far. In the future, try to add some value to your posts beyond what 6,583,491,227 other people could add.

That's all...


By coldpower27 on 3/19/2007 7:59:27 PM , Rating: 2
That's the luxury of being the top dog, they can afford to wait until they develop their own solution.

The "correct" one? What AMD has done with their HyperTransport is a good thing, but it isn't the only means of getting to the finish line. Intel can get there using it's own methods.


By Schmeh on 3/18/2007 5:23:44 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Fusion: The CPU world as we know it is heading for change. AMD with the acquisition of ATI in their fusion concept can drop 2 R600 cores, and 2 Barcelona+ cores onto 1 die, and drop two of these into a much maligned Quad FX mainboard (yes, or pretty much any Dual or Quad socket Opteron mainboard as well).
Wonder why 45nm and fusion is so special for them?


A chip die with 2 R600 cores and 2 Barcelona cores would be the largest cpu ever. The R600 is rumored to be well above 600 million transistors, so 2 of the is over 1.2 billion. The current dual core K8 chips are roughly 227 million transistors, so even if we say the Barcelona has the same number of trasistors as K8 (which it won't) this brings us to a total of 1.4 billion transistors. Conroe at 65nm (with 4MB of cache) is roughly 300 million transistors and 143mm^2. At 45nm you could fit roughly 600 million transistors in that same 143mm^2. This means that the chip you described would be more than double that size at around 300mm^2.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 7:51:22 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, granted. I will correct r600 to r600 like. The idea though behind integrating stream processors into the standard CPU is valid, and will drastically increase many types of operations. Considering these can be utilized as a special type of FPU.

R600 was successfully created at 80nm, however now die shrunk to 65nm, with a full memory sub-system, etc. Much of the memory control architecture (read ring bus) would be superfluous when considering the CPU variant has most of the north bridge implemented already. Thus any sort of integrated version utilizing r600esque cores would necessarily see a transistor reduction from the initial consideration of > 1.4 billion. This reduction, and unified design of the merged cores might bring us to a sub 1 billion transistor count. Seeing that 600+ million transistors was doable at 80nm, 45nm should allow ~1 billion transistors.

Further to that, in rethinking some things. We are assuming a monolithic core, a la barcelona... Not a pieced together core a la C2Q... All bets are off if packaging of glued cores is considered.

Regardless, I tip my hat to your informative post.


By Schmeh on 3/18/2007 9:56:18 PM , Rating: 2
It occured to me that you meant a R600 like core, but I wasn't sure. I think torrenza could potentially have an impact on certain markets, but I am not sold on the idea that it will have a major impact anytime soon on most markets or end users. The problems that something like torrenza faces are the same problems that a chip like the STI Cell face. Outside of graphics processing, media encoding and compression/decompression, there really isn't a whole lot that the average user does that can be accelerated by heavy parallelization or stream computing.

As I said I can see it in the being used in markets like HPC and scientific computing, but I am just not sold that this will do much for the average user for quite some time (10+ years).


By Viditor on 3/19/2007 9:35:28 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think torrenza could potentially have an impact on certain markets, but I am not sold on the idea that it will have a major impact anytime soon on most markets or end users

Soon is relative, but there are many things that Torrenza offers for end users...for example a PhysX coprocessor.

You need to remember what Torrenza and Fusion actually are...

Torrenza = cHT...that's it. The coherent HT link to the cache just like other CPUs get in a multi-chip board has been opened up to coprocessors.

Fusion = Torrenza on-die. It's basically including the graphics coprocessor into the die itself.

These sound fairly simple, but if you think about the stages you bypass by doing all of this, you can see just how powerful this simple process will be, even for main stream (though more so for servers!).


By KillerNoodle on 3/20/2007 1:03:17 PM , Rating: 2
quote:

Fusion = Torrenza on-die. It's basically including the graphics coprocessor into the die itself.

Correct, but the Fusion's main target will most likely be for the scientific industry, while they will need graphics it will not be #1 in all cases. Co-processors in the form or Math, Physics, or even Cryptographic co-processors are going to be the top sellers.

What is even more impressive is the way the "co-processors" or "Accelerators" are implemented. Be it Just Torrenza with the socket, chipset, or add-in implementations (Add-in including the HTX[HyperTransportX? a slot for HT interaction?] or the PCI-ex slot add-in) the options will provide for a number of routes to implement these accelerators. Then with the added Fusion it provides that final jump to the on die accelerator.

I fear that the Fusion implementation is the worst if it is unchangeable. It will hinder upgrade-ability since you have to buy a new processor and co-processor at the same time instead of one or the other. Think of when AMD made the switch from DDR to DDR2. It required a new processor instead of just new memory and motherboard = costly. Then again these aren't going to be aimed at the budget sector for quite sometime but one would hope that they look to the future and plan on where they want to go with the series.

Example of what fusion might entail for product options
AMD F6400P AMD F6600P
AMD F6400M AMD F6600M
AMD F6400C AMD F6600C
AMD F6400G AMD F6600G
AMD F6400G2 AMD F6600G2
AMD F6400_ AMD F6600_
With each of the trailing letters representing a different co-processor and the 6XXX numbers are representing the speed of the general CPU. This will get very troublesome, let alone the implementations and the different API that each co-processor will need.

I foresee Headaches ~:-/


By ZmaxDP on 3/20/2007 2:49:57 PM , Rating: 3
I think we're undervaluing the Torrenza part of the equation here. I thing that Fusion has a lot of possibilities, but I doubt that AMD or Intel would be interested in having more than one or two versions of a given processor grade. It is likely that the Fusion strategy will be used on things where there is a predictable high demand. One likely candidate is system on a chip. Another is a processor with a major FP boost. But I don't think they'll make a list of every conceivable possibility for a processing core and then try to produce every possible combination thereof.

That is what Torenza is for. You can premier a new core variation as a single die that connects vie Torrenza. If that particular core sees high enough market demand to justify it then AMD can transition it to the Fusion strategy. Otherwise, they can keep making money of niche markets for the remainder of the options.

In other words at worst you'd see:

AMD 6400 General Purpose
AMD 6400 FX Gamer Edition (physics, AI co-proc)
AMD 6400 SC Scientific Calculations (FP co-proc)
AMD 6400 CR Cryptography (who knows)

Point being, it is more likely that they would identify target markets and create a fusion CPU for the market. The particulars (2 physics co-processors, two AI co-processors, and 4 AMD K10 6400 Cores) would be covered in the specifications. Still a lot of choices, but more self-evident. Even then, it is likely the cryptography variant would just be Torenza based. Same goes with anything that might need upgrading separate from the general purpose CPU.

I just doubt that Torrenza is going to vanish into the mists and that Fusion will rule all...


By coldpower27 on 3/19/2007 3:38:47 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
A chip die with 2 R600 cores and 2 Barcelona cores would be the largest cpu ever. The R600 is rumored to be well above 600 million transistors, so 2 of the is over 1.2 billion. The current dual core K8 chips are roughly 227 million transistors, so even if we say the Barcelona has the same number of trasistors as K8 (which it won't) this brings us to a total of 1.4 billion transistors. Conroe at 65nm (with 4MB of cache) is roughly 300 million transistors and 143mm^2. At 45nm you could fit roughly 600 million transistors in that same 143mm^2. This means that the chip you described would be more than double that size at around 300mm^2.


You also got to keep in mind transistor density. Even on the 45nm node something to that extreme is highly improbable. Barcelona is coming in on 283 mm2 with 463 mil transistors on the 65nm node. On the CPU side perfect optical shrinks do not happen and are at least 10% higher then the perfect shrink so your looking at around 60% the size of the 65nm version for Barcelona at 45nm node. On the 45nm node Barcelona would be about 170mm2 each, 2 of those would be 340mm2 and that only covers the CPU's. The rumored value for the R600 is 700 Million or so a bit more then the G80.

AMD's Fusion would likely be something on the magnitude of 1 R600 Core and 1 Barcelona on the 45nm node, which would still be quite the interesting product.

Remember it has to be viable and not super costly to produce.


By kilkennycat on 3/18/2007 10:02:16 PM , Rating: 2
Night to you too...

Don't forget to pick up some Cryo-cooling and some AMD stock on the way out.

AMD may have ambitions in the direction of full-integration of CPU and high-end graphics cores, but they do not have the process technology to curtail the consequent heat-generation, and will not for quite some time. IBM has not yet announced a large-scale working RAM on their 45nm process... the first step in process validation. Intel had their 45nm RAM ~ December 2005 and full processor functionality ~ December 2006. Intel's hafnium-gate process is expected to waste 20% less of the total power in transistor leakage compared to their 65nm process.

The keys to the large-scale integration game are held by those who come up with excellent large-scale production yields in power-conserving process-technology. Intel currently holds all those keys. And they are showing significant interest in moving to much higher levels of multifunction integration.

The reasons why Intel will be aggressively cutting prices through 2007 is three-fold; 1. excellent 65nm yields, 2. "assist" in extending AMD's cash crunch by ensuring that AMD cannot rapidly recover development costs by charging premium prices for their next gen-CPU parts, (with nVidia already putting pressure on development-cost recovery in AMD's Dx10 GPU business..) 3. significant confidence in a smooth and rapid transition of the existing designs to the higher-performance and more cost-efficient 45nm process. All part of the current Intel 'tic-toc' approach to process and device development.. first transition existing successful designs to the new process (with only minor architectural tweaks) and rapidly ramp yields...e.g:Penryn on 45nm... then crank out brand-new architectures ( inc. multifunction-integration..) on that now-mature process. Rinse and repeat for the next process iteration.


By Tom Tom on 3/22/2007 7:54:02 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni...

You may be underestimating how far along IBM and AMD are with 45nm.


By Tsuwamono on 3/18/2007 10:49:00 PM , Rating: 3
dont worry about it dude, i get flamed for intelligent thought constantly on boards. Just ignore the ignorant and keep going. thats what i do.


By osalcido on 3/19/2007 3:39:42 PM , Rating: 2
"If both companies were still at 90nm, AMD would be far more competitive with Intel even with a c2d chip"

Umm both companies are now on a 65nm process.. and Intel still holds a big performance advantage.

I see whining about Intel being "better only cause their bigger" in your post..... yeah so what's your point? Intel is bigger. This is not news. That's why Intel is Intel and AMD is on it's way to being the next Cyrix


By crystal clear on 3/20/2007 3:55:58 AM , Rating: 2

Fusion-" GPU technology will eventually be incorporated into the CPU as ONE CORE AMONG MANY" Or, for that matter, what kind of cores?

Then the next logical step- "SOFTWARE"

It will mean NEW SOFTWARE to handle/manage all these CORES???


By Visual on 3/20/2007 4:54:08 AM , Rating: 2
and why exactly is your post green and locked at 6 and i cant vote it down?
it is exactly as relevant to the topic as any other "AMD rocks more than Intel", even if you're right about what you say in it.


By dsumanik on 3/20/2007 2:06:17 PM , Rating: 2
Although your post is well written, and informative, i think you are living in somewhat of a pipe dream...id love to agree with you but i can't, reality is getting in the way.

I love AMD, i own a dual core x2 and even compared to C2D im sorry it still has alot of processing power, we are so spoiled now with the chips coming out these days., you simply cant go wrong with amd, intel, nvidia, or ati.

Its incredible, and the competition has fueled it all and made it cheaper for everyone.

You seem to downplay the inportance of the current state of thnigs, regarding intels market share, technical superiority, and ability to litelrally waste billions till they make something better,

Shrugging of the desktop segment saying that it is not that important and that fusion is about the power to optionally have specialized processors to crunch mega FP numbers so you win the folding@home trophy of the year and have a 16 socket enterprise server to kick intel's behind...is a very narrow and isoloted point of view.

Fast desktop CPU/Platform is the most important segment, period.

Why?

Fusion sounds great, it'll probably rock.

But teraflops, dual cpu's/gpu's and a massive pile of marketing speak wont hide the fact that its a very long way off still, especially for AMD, intel could pull off something like that in a year or so if it really wanted to, but AMD has troubles producing enough yields to keep up wth a single architecture, and will continue to do so until it gains more market share...its like a chicken and the egg syndrome.

Never mind producing enough for something ambitious as a multi socket, specialized purpose processer, integrated multi core/gpu platform, something revolutionary and far different than any platform in previous existence.

Then gettting the YIELDS, for it.

It is definately possible, and will for sure happen...AMD isnt going anywhere....

But

Its a long ways away.

And quite frankly to all of us it sounds and looks great....but to the average joe on the street...they just want a COMPUTER.

that works.

they want email, internet, games, and music...how it is displayed or handled..they really dont care.

We are like 5%, the computer nerds.

My uncle?

No idea what fusion is, and proably wouldn't be able to understand and even more likely...WOULDN'T EVEN CARE...if i tried to explain to him.

Same with my boss, my girlfriend, my grandma, my best friend. They know that a fast computer is better though, and they hate waiting for email, downloads, or "opening" things.

ANd thats the problem, they just want a fast computer, they dont care how it works..and when it comes down to it, very few of even the readers of this site will be dealing with multi core/ multi socket > 4 CPU server platforms, from either AMD or Intel.

It is my job daily, and im telling you 95% of the businesses out there use the cheapest, (take IBM for example, they use 10 year old second hand technology for their clients regularly.) and for the most part insufficient technology they can to run thier business.

So...servers, thier benchmarks, specialized processors, folding, floating point prowess and platforms will be of little consequence to the majority of business consumers, and of no importance to the average joe.

A corporate client wants something that works, for half the cost you quote them them, even if it is slower and or/possibly insufficient.

They just want to buy a fast computer that works, for around a thousand bucks.

In order to win our hearts and their dollars,

AMD needs to either be cheaper, faster, or both than intel.

its very soon to be the exact opposite for AMD unfortunately.

Thats how they got here with X2, and where they need to focus and win with barcelona.

GO AMD!


By Turismo on 3/20/2007 3:20:54 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with most of your analysis of AMD. Your analysis is very thorough and informative, it is a pity more people do not post with such skill.
I whole heartedly believe that AMD is far from finished and that within a few months will show signs of vigor once more. AMD has seemingly always been on the very cusp of innovative activities, and until recently, Intel would simply follow AMD's lead. AMD has a history of being "on its last breath", so I am not concerned about the rhetoric or hysteria being bandied about currently.
Simply put, AMD's current development projects (e.g.- Torrenza,Fusion,etc.) show very innovative and pro-active solutions to modern computing needs and wants. Intel has a history of offering ill-performing products coughed up by a bloated R&D department content with mediocrity. Until Paul Otellini took the helm as CEO in 2005, Craig Barret (1998-2005) put out what? P4 w/ Netburst and the PIII. One good, one bad. As of the end of 2006, Intel has 94,200 employees and per employee revenue of $378,981. AMD had 16,000 employees and per employee revenue of $466,938. Which company does better on a per employee basis?
So, from 2000 to 2006 P4 won the race to nowhere, which allowed AMD to introduce a better chipset. AMD saw an opportunity and capitalized on it. They offered better performing and more efficient CPU's. If there is no competition in the marketplace, what real incentive would Intel have to come up with C2D? They may have, they might not have. Without the "push" from AMD to make a superior product, would C2D be in its current form (cache size, bus speed, etc.)? I doubt it. We would have some new iteration of the P4 with some slight tweaks, some spit & polish and a fancy ad campaign from Intel to top it off.
In ending, AMD is far from done and we can expect some very positive things from them in the near future.


By Hawkido on 3/20/2007 4:32:31 PM , Rating: 2
Wow Green! I haven't seen that before. One more vote and you'll go PLAID!

Ludicrous Speed!

It just shows what we think of your post, it was well worded and informative. This type of post should never be flamed, only commented upon or added to.


By Visual on 3/21/2007 10:42:38 AM , Rating: 2
yeah but it is a cheat
i couldn't vote him down. i mean, even before i commented in this thread, i didn't have the voting links on his post. had them for every other post...

i guess he is speshul...


By Visual on 3/21/2007 10:48:49 AM , Rating: 2
wow, a hax! i think i just managed to downvote him, and after i had posted my comments too!

now, does some dailytech security guru need detailed hints about how? or will they realize on their own that simply not showing a link doesn't mean users can't visit that link...


By Hawkido on 3/21/2007 4:27:51 PM , Rating: 2
LOL I don't think he (the OP) hacked it. I think it was a special status. I think the author can permanantly vote someone's post to 6. While I don't doubt you downvoted it, cause I look like an idiot saying it was green. I don't see why you downvoted it... It was probably one of the best constructed posts I have ever seen. Most posters are blithering idiots like me.


By Visual on 3/22/2007 8:40:18 AM , Rating: 2
Heh, the admin gives out the green ratings, yes. And I wanted to downvote it just because despite its great information it still sounds like 'AMD rox Intel sux'.

I shouldn't have been able to though... the admins have been alerted and will fix this up eventually.


Intel not open yet
By Viditor on 3/17/2007 7:13:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
While Torrenza is well on its way to seeing daylight, Intel is also working on its own open architecture platform

While this may be true, if it is then Intel must be well behind at the moment. In order for success as an open platform initiative, they will need to release the specs to developers well in advance (remember that AMD opened HT up to the Consortium almost 2 years prior to release, and Torrenza/Fusion is about the same). This is important because it takes a couple of years for developers to actually implement the new design...




RE: Intel not open yet
By Thorburn on 3/17/07, Rating: 0
RE: Intel not open yet
By Viditor on 3/17/2007 9:57:02 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
AMD do not own Hyper-Transport, its an open standard owned by a consortium

That was my point...AMD did own HT, but they released it as an open standard to the Consortium for development. The theory being (which did work well) that by giving away the IP of HT, development for the standard would happen very quickly and in a much wider number of applications.
This is also what they have done with Torrenza...Torrenza is the coherent HT (which AMD had kept the rights to) that allows for direct connection into the cache rather than the HT controller on the CPU.


RE: Intel not open yet
By DallasTexas on 3/18/07, Rating: -1
RE: Intel not open yet
By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 8:37:51 AM , Rating: 2
"Intel is already talking to some of the smaller companies working on accelerators about plugging into CSI and offering them a chance to play outside of the Opteron-only realm.

"There are a number of partners around CSI which we will talk about when we talk about CSI next year," Gelsinger said."


RE: Intel not open yet
By Viditor on 3/19/2007 9:46:26 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Intel is already talking to some of the smaller companies working on accelerators about plugging into CSI and offering them a chance to play outside of the Opteron-only realm

But CSI isn't an open license (unlike Torrenza and HT)...and that is a problem for developers.

It's the old story about open and closed architecture...
PCs are open architecture, and Macs are closed.
Mac makes some excellent product, but if you want to develop for Mac you must first get their approval on each product.
With a PC, you can develop whatever you want...this is FAR faster and cheaper to do, hence the difference in sales between Mac and PC.


RE: Intel not open yet
By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 10:18:30 AM , Rating: 2
There's also Geneseo.


AMD to release a "8 CORE SYSTEM 2H 07" ??????
By crystal clear on 3/20/2007 3:35:23 AM , Rating: 2
This is some serious stuff- AMD

Game developer conference 2007

Massive Multi Core Processors & Gaming.

http://developer.amd.com/assets/GDC2007_Multicore_...

SEE PAGE 12 & 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Quad FX Platform

"Upgradeble to an 8 CORE SYSTEM 2H 07"

Unquote-

1) This could be a very serious challenge to INTEL.

2) There are rumours of Apple MAC PRO to come up with a
8 CORE SYSTEM.

3) Then is Apple now trying to forge a relationship
with AMD???

4) A new line of MACS with AMD CPUs??????????
in addition to the Intel line up???

5) Whats more important than Apple is "AMD with 8 cores!!"




RE: AMD to release a "8 CORE SYSTEM 2H 07" ??????
By Jkm3141 on 3/20/2007 9:42:15 AM , Rating: 2
Hey think about it for a second, what is inside the Mac Pro current 4 core systems? Two Wood crest DUAL core server CPU's. This might be a little speculative but I'm thinking you could just drop in 2 clover town QUAD core server cpu's and then have a magic 8 Core Mac Pro you were talking about.


By ZmaxDP on 3/20/2007 3:06:09 PM , Rating: 2
Not speculation. Fact. Heck, Anandtech has an article about it...


"but Intel is not far behind"
By crystal clear on 3/18/2007 12:42:26 AM , Rating: 2
"but Intel is not far behind"

Nothing in your article indicates that-
"but Intel is not far behind"

You quote this-

"Notorious for keeping its CPU platform a closely guarded technology, Intel indicated that it was working on a competitive technology to AMD's HyperTransport, dubbed CSI, allowing direct CPU and memory access."

Unquote-

Then what you write- "but Intel is not far behind"-

IS PLAIN GUESSING.

Sorry no offense meant- need more supporting material to endorse your claim.




Amiga
By defiantsf on 3/18/2007 7:55:43 PM , Rating: 2
Isn't this architecture the essence of the original Amiga design, sans the open standard/industry support and core-level integration?




By wetwareinterface on 3/18/2007 10:42:34 PM , Rating: 2
some people are saying stream processing won't help joe average as it only accelerates video and scientific computing etc...

well that is the future of the business amd is trying to move towards. the convergence of living room video watching and computer usage is comming fast. ati saw this and moved into producing video decode chips for hd tv's as fast as they could leverage their existing media decode functions in their radeon line to a single purpose chip. amd saw what ati had done and recognized the potential market share they'd have and bought ati out. amd knows the war for the living room is comming and the faster they get going the more they can capture the market as intel did in the cpu business in the late 70's early 80's. being the big name brand in set top box decode chips and integrated cpu/gpu tech is what amd wants. they don't want to be the runner up in p.c. cpu markets they want to be number one in providing hd entertainment chips and multifunctional set top box cores. that is the big market of the future, every one sees it from microsoft wanting to be the founder of the underlying software licenses that drm and hd media run on, to wanting to build the name brand all in one set top box you use in the living room also. sony is also in the game to take the living room. ps3 and cel are there as well as blue ray to get in on the ground floor. that is why microsoft made a big show of not supporting blue ray but hd dvd instead. they want sony to fail and are not doing anything that might strengthen sony's bid to the living room dominance as MS is trying the same game.

this never escaped amd's notice which is why they are trying to put all in one cpu/gpu/stream processors together. they want the living room to run on their chips. they aren't in the least concerned about the p.c. space as it will eventually die out. system on a chip with good graphics and floating point performance and integer performance = all in one set top box p.c. replacement/game console replacement/ media player replaceent/ etc...

this is the future amd is trying to bank on, as well as sony and microsoft and intel. viiv was an early concept, rough model of this new set top / p.c. / living room convergance.




By Cogman on 3/17/2007 7:06:58 PM , Rating: 3
What are you talking about? I rated you down because your post makes little sense.

As far as my opinion goes, I will alway want to see AMD do well. After all, the more AMD puts into there architectures, the more Intel will put into theirs (yay Capitalism). I hope that AMD is not putting too much stock into this innovation, It has the potential to be a large success or a large failure (if price and speed are right, it has a good chance of being a success).

On the other hand, they will have no choice but to stick to it if Intel stick with their answer to AMD's innovation. Either way, it should be pretty interesting to see what comes out of the thinking box.


By Targon on 3/18/2007 6:11:16 AM , Rating: 4
Since the K8, AMD has shown that they are focused on an "entire platform" approach when it comes to improvements and innovation. While the Athlon was a great design, it was pretty much "just" a CPU with a connection to the system bus that was different from what Intel had. With K8, a LOT changed for the better.

With K8, and HyperTransport, AMD shifted from being very much focused on only CPU improvements to a more system oriented focus. The CPU to system bus design has it's limits, and AMD started to work around that by adding a memory controller to the CPU. The fusion concept extends this by adding video instructions to the CPU, it will improve overall performance for graphics.

Intel has indicated for a WHILE now that they are working on their own follow-up to copy what AMD has come up with. This puts Intel behind in my book, and if you look at what Intel has come up with, there hasn't been a lot that improves the overall system architecture. Ok, PCI Express, but new slots arn't a terribly new idea in the industry. Intel doesn't have an integrated memory controller, even one kludged together from their chipset group. They don't have their response to HyperTransport, and they certainly have stuck to the old "CPU-Chipset-everything" design for far too long. Even their bus speeds have shown fairly little improvement considering how long Intel has been in the business. They stuck to 33MHz for ages for example, and how long have we seen the 800MHz bus speed now? Even though there are SOME processors that use a faster bus speed, it's not universal from Intel.


By SexyK on 3/18/2007 8:38:31 AM , Rating: 3
lol, way to list off all the "old" technology Intel is "still" using. Too bad Intel's old, outdated platform is the highest performing available and in many cases leaves AMD's "new" and "superior" platform in the dust.


By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 8:45:01 AM , Rating: 2
Targon is also the same guy/girl who poo-poo'd Conroe when it first came out because it is basically a derivative of the P6.

He/she never mentions, though, that AMD's new chips are basically derivatives of older chips as well.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 4:05:00 PM , Rating: 2
Actually... Where platform matters, in higher socket count servers, AMD does still hold an advantage. The C2D superiority makes this difference completely unfelt in Single and dual socket servers. However, the higher end, 4, 8 socket, etc. is still dominated by AMD for performance. As well, it opens up for more possibilities for the near term future. The ability to simply drop semi autonomous processing units of varying design and manufacture compliant with an HT iteration makes the superiority of the platform for the future, while presently, it allows a much more linear progression of performance for higher socket / core count server implementations.

Its very easy to point to a situation where platform matters little (in the areas where AMD is superior) and say platform doesn't matter. It is much more useful to look at where the superiority is important, and compare implementations.

Even back with the Athlon MP, in many cases, it was better then the Intel conterpart because of the point to point nature of its connectivity. This, when leveraged properly, could make the inferior Athlon MP seem far better then its faster Intel competition on a tradition style FSB.

No doubt C2D > K8. However, this means that to continue the efficient feeding of such powerful CPUs, one must ensure higher bandwidth per socket in an Intel solution vs the AMD solution. This is not the case in Higher socket count implementations. As such, we castrate the higher IPC C2D by feeding it thru a smaller, higher latency tube. Whereas NUMA and HT continue to feed K8 at a higher rate as Socket count increases.

Thus, as I stated earlier, a much more linear performance curve is attained by AMD when adding sockets, then what Intel can manage with a similar socket count. This will only become more acute as each Intel proc's performance increases.

You are however correct when comparing a low number of sockets, as the limitations of Intel FSB tech is able to support full feeding in Single and some Dual Socket configs.


By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 4:32:34 PM , Rating: 2
4S+ servers are a relatively small market in terms of numbers. Dollar-wise it's big.. but as a share of the entire server market, it's pretty small.


By Darkskypoet on 3/18/2007 7:35:45 PM , Rating: 2
True... Numbers are small. But as you pointed out, profits are high. I feel more importantly for AMD is the legitimacy factor of leading a high end server market. This was unthinkable not too long ago.

Acceptance in Corporate / Scientific world is very important. Leading the 4S, 4S+ market gives AMD that very important legitimacy with the right people / firms. As did leading the workstation, desktop, and pretty much all aspects of the server market; during the Netburst era, got them where they are today.

As remarked upon further down, this increase by AMD has come at the expense of Intel. Intel, as of yet, has not responded to this 'platform' supremacy, and as the numbers show are continuing to lose ground in this Important mind share / profit sector.


By zsdersw on 3/18/2007 7:49:12 PM , Rating: 2
If Intel's solution (CSI) proves to be better or at least equal to that of AMD, there's no reason to expect any more losing ground to take place. At that point, the economies of scale that Intel's manufacturing advantage can provide will tip the scale in their favor.


By Darkskypoet on 3/19/2007 4:23:46 AM , Rating: 1
Economies of scale advantage Intel, only exists if Intel (itself plus partners) can best AMD and all consortium partners in the mfg capability challenge. As Intel is larger then AMD, it requires less partners then AMD to perhaps have some sort of mfg advantage. However, as AMD has many others behind them, Intel does not automatically get any "relative" economies of scale benefits, If everyone but Intel looks to be using, or licensing HT, advantage AMD.

This is why being first to the party with a new technology is best, you can choose to share it with many, and cement it as a standard .

But finally you are getting to the heart of the issue. Since AMD has the likes of many of the other semiconductor players behind them as part of the HT Consortium. Its not just Intel vs. AMD anymore. AMD has many friends, and they are all developing for HT. Not CSI.

Perhaps finally you'll get that Intel can have CSI all it wants, whenever it finally comes out, and it still doesn't instantly deprive AMD and partners of the years they have ahead of Intel in this field.

Again, to clarify for you; Not never catch up , Not no hope for Intel . Even when CSI debuts; Advantage AMD for having had a spec and mature platform to develop for, and many firms with shipping, installable products for, and implementations of, Hyper Transport .


You know zsdersw, you are starting to seem like an Intel Fanatic. Sigh.


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 5:52:44 AM , Rating: 2
I'd definitely like to know how you know that Intel has no one developing for CSI who's also developing for HT.

Intel has partners developing for CSI. We haven't been told who, yet, because Intel has not talked at length about CSI. Do you honestly think Intel doesn't have its act together on this; have all the pieces in place to make CSI a success?


By Viditor on 3/19/2007 9:40:08 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Intel has partners developing for CSI. We haven't been told who, yet, because Intel has not talked at length about CSI

The problem is that they need EVERYONE developing for CSI, not just a few partners...they should have learned this from the Itanium fiasco.


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 10:15:00 AM , Rating: 2
How do you know that "everyone" isn't?


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 5:59:43 AM , Rating: 3
If responding to notoriously one-sided pro-AMD posts is Intel fanaticism to you, then by all means think whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me.


By zsdersw on 3/19/2007 2:42:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
if you really think he is doing biased comments, plese explain and write something more


I have.. perhaps *you* should read the entire thread.


By PrezWeezy on 4/3/2007 1:57:08 PM , Rating: 2
You do realize that the BlueGrape3 I believe it is, which was reported on here if I'm not mistaken, is supposed to be 3 times faster than the RoadRunner...and it's built on Intel 7000 and 5000 sequence processors. Hundreds of them. FSB has advantages, and I realize you didn't post it, but the IMC is simply AMD's solution. Intel will be comming out with Nahlem soon, one version will have an IMC, the other wont. At that point we can get some actual benchmarks on if it truely makes a difference or if the platform is the difference.


By Visual on 3/20/2007 5:00:30 AM , Rating: 2
you rated him down? guess what... no, no you didn't.
you commented, so you unrated him back up :p


By dicecca112 on 3/18/2007 5:12:51 PM , Rating: 2
Has nothing to do with fanboyism. Either way your post makes no sense.

I think its good idea by AMD, I'm all for greater performance in certain areas. Hell if they can come out with a product that is great in certain Distributed Computing Programs, I'd go back to them. But as long as Intel has better performance I'll stay with them


"You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling." -- Peter Moore, 24 hours before his Microsoft resignation











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