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Hardware AMD Bumps AM2 Launch Date
Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - April 19, 2006 2:05 AM
Print 65 comment(s) - last by saratoga.. on Apr 28 at 12:51 AM
June 6, 2006 didn't fit AMD's schedule

We just got official confirmation from motherboard and chipset manufacturers in Taiwan -- AMD has moved the official launch date of Athlon 64 DDR2 up two weeks to May 23, 2006. AMD roadmaps have previously put the AM2 launch at June 6, 2006 (during Computex 2006), but since motherboards and CPUs are already completed, the launch will be pushed up. AMD insiders tell us Conroe's launch date was also a factor in pushing the AM2 launch date up, though even we do not know the exact date Intel's Conroe will launch.

AMD's latest advisories claimed the following:
  • May 16, 2006: Global announcement of Energy Efficient Processor roadmap and pricing
  • May 23, 2006: Global announcement of Socket AM2 and new desktop product availability and pricing
  • May 31, 2006: Global announcement of AMD LIVE! desktop system availability

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reverse hyperthreading?
By sadffffff on 4/19/2006 3:35:29 AM , Rating: 2
i wonder if reverse hyperthreading will make it into the release? hope so, it sounds interesting.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/04/17/amd_revers...




RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By Knish on 4/19/2006 3:37:51 AM , Rating: 2
It's BS.. I am not a computer engineer or anything, but from everything CE engineers have told me, AMD just has to increase the pipeline width to get the same results. i think there was a bad translation


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By MDme on 4/19/2006 12:49:02 PM , Rating: 3
you have a point about widening the pipeline. but it is exactly this point which make R-HT (reverse-hyperthreading) not BS and in fact may be feasible. "IF" AMD can make the two 3-wide cores appear as a single 6-wide core then it may translate to improvements. although this analogy would make two 2.0 ghz 3-wide cores into one 2.0ghz 6-wide core and not a 4.0Ghz 3-wide core in the process.

although a 4.0 Ghz 3-wide core might sound tempting. :)


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By saratoga on 4/19/2006 4:35:39 PM , Rating: 2
"but it is exactly this point which make R-HT (reverse-hyperthreading) not BS and in fact may be feasible. "

How can you say that? We don't even know what it is. That link says nothing at all about what it does or how it works.

" "IF" AMD can make the two 3-wide cores appear as a single 6-wide core then it may translate to improvements. although this analogy would make two 2.0 ghz 3-wide cores into one 2.0ghz 6-wide core and not a 4.0Ghz 3-wide core in the process. "

I doubt thats what Reverse HT would do, since that is complete horse shit and could not actually be built. At least not in the sense you're thinking. The best you could do would be to build a 6 issue core, and give it two way SMT, and then call it two 3 issue cores. Of course, thats not so much "reverse HT" as it is "actual SMT" :) And yes, I am a computer engineer.

My guess is the actual system is just some sort of speculative execution that runs ahead of the main thread to prime the cache. Sun looked into such a system a while back. Its doable, but wastes enough power that I doubt it'd be very attractive unless you had a very low power system that wasn't ramping in clock speed like you wanted (which might be the K8, but I kind of doubt it).


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By MDme on 4/19/2006 5:18:44 PM , Rating: 2
"How can you say that? We don't even know what it is. That link says nothing at all about what it does or how it works."

That's true, we don't know what it does. There are only speculations about it. What is said about it though is that it tries to use two cores to emulate one core. That being said, it may be indeed speculative execution but it is also possible that it may be making 2 cores appear as one wider core.

"I doubt thats what Reverse HT would do, since that is complete horse shit and could not actually be built. At least not in the sense you're thinking. The best you could do would be to build a 6 issue core, and give it two way SMT, and then call it two 3 issue cores. Of course, thats not so much "reverse HT" as it is "actual SMT" :) And yes, I am a computer engineer."

you are entitled to your own opinion whether it can be built or not. Oh and Mr computer engineer, if they built ONE six-issue core how can they give it SMT if it only had ONE core to begin with. ??? They can build two 3 issue cores and add SMT to the TWO cores but that is almost no different from current dual core CPUs.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By niknot on 4/19/2006 6:39:09 PM , Rating: 5
SMT refers to presenting the functional units of a core as separate logical processors. This allocation of execution resources can be done concurrently to compensate for a lack of ILP in the code being scheduled or sequentially to hide stalls caused by dependencies. There is no contradiction in providing SMT to a single-core processor. That however wouldn't be "reverse hyperthreading," it would be SMT.

Making a parallel execution engine appear to the software being run as a sequential execution engine isn't in of itself novel. That is what superscalar cores do already. A lot of hardware is added to decode, re-order, and speculatively execute instructions in parallel and present state that appears to be modified sequentially. As everyone knows--and this is the motivation of SMT in the first place--in certain types of code there is little ILP that can be obtained and functional units are left underutilized. Working with a simulator and sample code an engineer can model the effects of issue-width on the number of cycles necessary for executing code. When performing this modeling the engineer will find that while the size of the circuitry grows quadratically with issue width, performance does not. For typical code, as the issue width tends toward infinity, the rate of improvement tens toward zero. Naively increasing the issue width thus won't solve any problems, because the code being executed doesn't contain sufficient ILP.

Taking two n-issue cores and naively adding the necessary scheduling and re-ordering hardware to make them appear as a single core will never provide the same performance of a 2n-issue core. You're reducing the space complexity of an actual 2n-issue device, at the cost of genuinely sharing the same resources. At the lowest-end you'll waste a lot of resources performing speculative execution that will be thrown away 97+% of the time. Somewhere in the middle you'll schedule work on both processors realizing that functional units on both are going to be underutilized because of limitations in scheduling and re-order possibilities caused by both cores sharing only some state. At the highest end you won't pretend to be a single processor but will instead present logical processors to the operating system where some of the functional units of one of the physical processors will be scheduled and the results re-ordered as if they belonged to the other physical processor. This way the functional units in the second processor are not wasted prematurely when there operating system has work for them to do. This is necessarily less optimal than SMT on a 2n-issue device, but the cost of producing the device is lower in design and manufacturing.

What AMD has in the future is a problem: their cores are probably going to trail Intel's by 15%, and they have only so many resources to devote to remaining competitive and designing future products. While enjoy a commanding performance and power dissipation lead for years, AMD has only enjoyed small increases in market share that could evaporate more rapidly than it was obtained if Intel suddenly starts just being better. They cannot financially afford that sort of problem.

What AMD has, is a multicore process that is working quite well for them. What they also have, is that a lot of the software people use isn't aggressively multithreaded. Even if they can't obtain 2x improvements in performance in these programs through scheduling and synchronizing work on two cores, perhaps they can obtain enough to remain competitive with Conroe on computationally-intensive tasks with a lot of ILP. If AMD's is doing anything but tossing feces on the wall in hopes of preventing post-IDF rumors from sabotaging their future, it's probably that.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By rpsgc on 4/19/2006 5:57:20 AM , Rating: 2
It's for K10 (or whatever it's called).


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By slyczar on 4/19/2006 7:55:19 AM , Rating: 2
I believe K8L is what you were thinking of.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By Spoonbender on 4/19/2006 8:13:26 AM , Rating: 2
Sounds like nonsense to me. It's like trying to drive two cars at once to go faster, rather than just make a bigger, faster engine.

*If*, and this is a big if, AMD and Intel has struggled with it for a decade or more, they can extract more parallelism from x86-based programs than ~3 instructions per cycle, the cheap, efficient, easy and simple way of taking advantage of this is to make a wider core. Just like Intel is doing with Conroe, but even here, they're only widening it from 3 to 4, and they don't expect all 4 ports to be fully utilized even.

The difficult, inefficient, slow, expensive and wasteful method is to force two cores to execute the same thread "in parallel". So called "reverse hyperthreading".
Sounds like something an AMD fanboy came up with because everyone knows Intel = evil, so anything they do is bad, and so if AMD does the "reverse", they'll do good.
Just a shame it doesn't make sense.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By hstewarth on 4/19/2006 9:23:44 AM , Rating: 1
It does sound like something that a Fanboy would come up with. In a lot of ways Hyperthreading is the early form of Dual Core.

This reverse hyperthreading if possible sounds more like joining of ALU's between two cores as one.

In time the best solution for performance is for soft developers ( especially game developers ) to designed their code more multi-threaded. It sounds like Oblivion is such a game that is more multi-threaded.

On the AM2, I think the pre-views have be so-so so far and not very impressive. I thinking AMD desiring to launch it early because they know when the Conroe comes out things will seriously change. So if they can get some buyers before the Conroe, it would mean more money for them.

Just my opinion..


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By ZmaxDP on 4/19/2006 7:16:12 PM , Rating: 2
Not to knock the criticism, but "drive[ing] two cars at once to go faster, rather than just make a bigger, faster engine" isn't that crazy. Ever heard of drafting? Also, there are some concept cars with multiple engines in one car.

According to your analogy, a car is a logical core. An engine is a physical core.

Dual Core = Two cars with one engine each.
Single Core = One car, one engine.
New Thing = One car, two engines (or the two cars, two engines welded together at the bumpers.)

Like someone noted earlier, if they can gain 15% speed increase (or 15% efficiency increase) by "reducing the air friction" and "reducing weight" then they have made up for Conroe's gains on single threaded apps. (Obviously, two engines one car is ideal here)

To me it seems as if the trick is going to be finding a way to make it run both ways depending on the application demands.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By Steve Guilliot on 4/25/2006 12:55:59 PM , Rating: 2
There's no point in trying to hyper-analyze an analogy that doesn't apply.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By Chadder007 on 4/19/2006 9:13:31 AM , Rating: 2
OH snap....that sounds pretty cool.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By crystal clear on 4/19/2006 10:57:34 AM , Rating: 3
Cottection its X86- a french website.
They do not give their sources to prove reliability of the news.Sounds just a theory thrown in to create some news.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By crystal clear on 4/19/2006 10:59:10 AM , Rating: 2
sorry typing error it should read Correction.


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By daschneider on 4/19/2006 11:39:09 AM , Rating: 2
You can't keep throwing parallel resources at a single threaded program and expect to get performance improvements. Combining two cores into one logical core may improve performace slightly but probably no where near the 2x cost of the resources.

Read up on Amdahl's law for the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law


RE: reverse hyperthreading?
By glennpratt on 4/20/2006 6:05:51 PM , Rating: 2
Umm, you do realize, the cost is already paid. The extra core(s) are already there. This will do nothing for good multithreaded app... assuming it's even real.


Here is the deal
By milnerw on 4/19/2006 9:54:02 AM , Rating: 2
Right im going to lay it down nice and simple ye...

Granted Conroe or what ever looks pretty good on paper but still not one analyst has seen one.... or its real life performance and for AMD to make the jump to AM2 and DDR2 support for no REAL peformance gain doesnt make sense either.

Now this is my theory!

AMD switched to AM2 because now is about the right time to prepare for un upcomming new core. I do not belive they would release a new socket type for any other reason than this since sockect 939 is not really strained in anyway by the current processors. So if AMD release a new socket 6-9 months before the release of a new core it means that people will be ready for an easy transition to a new core (weather its better than conroe or not). I also cannot see why AMD would be spending 6 billion on upgrading and making a new plant to produce more of the current core "Athlon 64's" when they dont really have a production shortage as it is? (correct me if im wrong)

Now Intel have the power and money to produce something quite special with its conroe core and its seems like they will do just that but in contrast they must be shaking in their boots about why AMD has decided to upgrade its dresden facilitys with a casual 6bn.

peace out! hope you all can see where im comming from.

+ im not an AMD fanboy its just the way i currently see it




RE: Here is the deal
By Phynaz on 4/19/2006 10:07:11 AM , Rating: 2
If AMD had a new core ready to go in six or nine months they would screaming it from the rooftop to counter Conroe hype. The idea is to freeze the market and create FUD about your competitors product.


RE: Here is the deal
By milnerw on 4/19/2006 10:21:42 AM , Rating: 2
even so it could be another hidden wonder like the secrecy behind ati's 9700 when it 1st hit the shops.


RE: Here is the deal
By steller2k on 4/25/2006 6:51:30 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If AMD had a new core ready to go in six or nine months they would screaming it from the rooftop to counter Conroe hype. The idea is to freeze the market and create FUD about your competitors product.


Not neccessarily, AMD has a commanding lead right and shipping near as many CPUs as they produce then rumor of a substantially faster chip on the horizon would nearly freeze the sales of their most lucrative products: FX-60, X2 4800+, etc. Bear in mind that AMD has been extremely tight lipped about future plans and has had a near 4 year run with their current crop of processors. As some one else has said, it took them this long to gain marketshare: they are going to be careful not to shoot themselves in the foot. On the other hand, they have had that amount time to come up with something better and I'm not just talking dual-core as that was the plan for the K8 core from the start. I wouldn't be surprised to see something waiting in the wings from AMD, though what that is, or more importantly when that is; I have no idea.

The time for AMD to make the news with something truly new is just before, during, and after the Conroe launch. Provided it lives up to the hype (which I hope it will, we could use a new round of aggressive price cutting). All the better to steal Intel's thunder.

So far as that goes, the sooner the better, I think my SK8N is getting ready to die on me and I've been hanging on for too long waiting for the "next big thing."


RE: Here is the deal
By Zanfib on 4/19/2006 10:19:55 AM , Rating: 2
That's more like your conspiracy theory then just a theory...
I guess all the media people have been lying to us about AMD and Intel's plans? Better get your tin-foil hat out...


RE: Here is the deal
By xsilver on 4/19/2006 10:30:15 AM , Rating: 2
amd had always been struggling in terms of production power compared to intel, they really needed this 6bn fab --

it gives them 350mm wafers which will save them heaps of $$$
what you're thinking is that that their shrink to 65nm in '07 will boost their performance substancially -- we'll just have to wait and see


RE: Here is the deal
By dgingeri on 4/19/2006 11:11:56 AM , Rating: 2
AM2 is partly to prepare for the upcoming quad core chips, but not entirely. it is also to allow for the use of DDR2 memory, which should come down in price very shortly to the point where DDR2-800 is cheaper than DDR-400. Most importantly, it will be a mildly faster platform for cheaper. That is what we are looking for, isn't it? The motherboards and ships will come down in price quickly to be as cheap as socket 939, and the full systems will be cheaper and perform as well, and better in some areas, compared to the socket939. Let's face it, they are not in business to satisfy us, the enthusiasts who upgrade individual parts, they are in business to build full computers for the masses that perform better than the competition at better prices. That is the whole point. AM2 is not a change made for us, but for the masses.


RE: Here is the deal ( actual whats more likely )
By hstewarth on 4/19/06, Rating: 0
RE: Here is the deal ( actual whats more likely )
By meson2000 on 4/19/2006 12:40:32 PM , Rating: 1
This is a joke right? Conroe is Intel's attempt to provide a distraction from AMD's upcoming AM2 processors. I wouldn't put too much faith in a lone article on a french news site as proof that AMD is attemping to steal Intel's thunder..... Sorry, you have to try harder next time....


RE: Here is the deal ( actual whats more likely )
By Phynaz on 4/19/2006 12:48:31 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Conroe is Intel's attempt to provide a distraction from AMD's upcoming AM2 processors


Yeah, Intel is going to spend billions to make a distraction?

Congrats, you are one of the few people who can leave me speechless.


By glennpratt on 4/20/2006 6:00:24 PM , Rating: 2
No, the development is good. Trying to get out questionable benchmarks long, long before any product will be available... thats a distraction play. The point is, that IS what Intel is doing, AMD might be too, or some crackpot in france made it all up to get some hits.

It is funny that he leaves you 'speechless'. Thats pretty cool.


RE: Here is the deal ( actual whats more likely )
By hstewarth on 4/19/2006 4:53:28 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
This is a joke right? Conroe is Intel's attempt to provide a distraction from AMD's upcoming AM2 processors. I wouldn't put too much faith in a lone article on a french news site as proof that AMD is attemping to steal Intel's thunder..... Sorry, you have to try harder next time....


No.No.. Actually you got it all it all wrong. AMD announcement is distraction from up and coming Intel Conroe's processors. Conroe is when thing really change. A new Era of CPU's are coming.

Of course you will never agree with me on this one.. so we must agree to disagree on it.

Time will show the difference. I truely expecting that the performance on Dual Xeon 5160 (3Ghz Woodcrest) that I planned to build this summer to be 3 to 6 times ( likely more ) than my current 3.2Ghz P4. Keep in mind Woodcrest is different level of machine than Conroe's. Conroes will be the fastest desktops around, but the Woodcrest ( Xeon 5160 ) will make the Conroe look slow. Especially with SAS drives, FD-Dimms and dual indepenent bus. Likely we will not see this level of performance on desktop until 2008.


By glennpratt on 4/20/2006 6:03:14 PM , Rating: 2
Man, this sounds like religious prophecy. It's a freakin processor... we'll see when we see. By working yourself up into a tizy, you just play into thier hands.

Just try to keep a level head.


By hstewarth on 4/25/2006 12:28:52 AM , Rating: 1
Actual not. It just a good feeling that something is finally happening in advancement of computer chips. The last year or two has been really dry with advancements.

Wonder why I still have AGP on my systems.


.
By hans007 on 4/19/2006 8:07:31 AM , Rating: 3
i've read conflicting reports that k8L is quad core's code name, or a k8 with a faster fpu.


reverse hyperthreading is not going to work. if you could even devise an algorithm that would split a thread onto 2 cores then, we'd have seen this technology on compilers already. and we havent. youc ant just take a thread, and by some magic spread it around. the idea that you can split a thread into 2 threads (which is basically what "reverse hyperthreading" would be) is idiotic. like the logic is impossible.

the only reasonably decent theory was that the 2nd core would be used to calculate the next instructions in the thread based on a guess which is sort of like branch prediction.

there is no magic cure to threading. i have had to read and understand countless things about writing threaded code and it is really up to the software developers to plan ahead. if the code is not written with that sort of plan then its screwed.




What about speculative execution?
By nrb on 4/19/2006 8:18:14 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
if you could even devise an algorithm that would split a thread onto 2 cores then, we'd have seen this technology on compilers already.
Well, we kind of have, in compilers intended for the EPIC architecture. Suppose you have a possible branch coming up in about 20 instructions time. The problem is: if we have to wait till we know for certain which branch we go down, we have to stall the pipeline until the decision has been made, which costs a lot of clock cycles.

Traditionally one has to try and predict which way the program will branch in advance , and proceed on the basis of that prediction. Sometimes the chip will get it wrong, which stalls things for quite a long time.

But if you have access to a second CPU core, you could start to evaluate both branches simultaneously, one on each core. Once the result of the branch-conditional calculation comes out of the pipeline you can choose which of the two CPUs will keep going, and which will just abandon what it was doing. This gives you the equivalent of 100% branch prediction accuracy.

Itanium does actually work like this, although I think it needs some intelligence in the compiler. Could something similar be done on the fly?


RE: What about speculative execution?
By HammerFan on 4/19/2006 9:18:00 AM , Rating: 2
That idea about computing both branches of a prediction sounds like a very neat way of boost AI performance in games. With more cores, more branches can be predicted. Perhaps with technology like this, we will begin to truly see dual-core performance shine where it previously had not.


RE: What about speculative execution?
By hstewarth on 4/19/2006 10:09:31 AM , Rating: 1
The best way to achieve better multi-core performance is for applications to better multi-threaded in designed. This not only helps with multi( not just dual ) core cpus but also with dual and multi cpu computers.

Trying to make dual cores work as single core will likely cause more overhead than hyperthreading itself.


RE: What about speculative execution?
By nrb on 4/19/2006 11:19:25 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The best way to achieve better multi-core performance is for applications to better multi-threaded in designed. This not only helps with multi( not just dual ) core cpus but also with dual and multi cpu computers.
Well, obviously , yes, but a CPU can't dynamically recompile existing applications to make them multi-threaded! It's conceivable that something like speculative execution could squeeze a little bit more performance out of a single-threaded app. AMD have certainly got to do something .


RE: What about speculative execution?
By saratoga on 4/19/2006 4:40:11 PM , Rating: 2
The problem with such a scheme is that it massively increases power consumption, and by way more then you gain in performance (since at best you're just going to avoid the occasional branch mispredict but effectively double power consumption to do it). And at this point, performance is mostly limited by power consumption, so it doesn't pay off.

You'd do better with a wider core, or a deeper pipeline if you have that kind of power to throw away.


RE: What about speculative execution?
By glennpratt on 4/20/2006 6:08:30 PM , Rating: 2
The other core is already there! You think they are adding another core, just to strap this on it?


By saratoga on 4/28/2006 12:44:14 AM , Rating: 2
Think this through. The other core is added at the expense of clock speed to accelerate multithreaded loads. Speculative execution improves single threaded performance but requires a second core to not be used for a second thread. It also doesn't improve it as much as just not having a second core and upping clock speed would.

So whats the point? Help out people who bought a dual core chip even though they shouldn't have? Intel has the right idea here: keep power as low as possible and use that to RAMP UP THE CLOCK.


RE: .
By Araemo on 4/19/2006 4:56:45 PM , Rating: 2
I think it's less impossible than you think.

But it would blur the line between wether or not it's two seperate cores or one core with 'hyperthreading'.

Essentially, this would NOT be possible if the cores were using an external interface to talk to eachother.

There are already dual core CPUs that share cache.. you just need to set it up so they can share registers, and this could be doable. Would it be worth the trouble? I can't help but think it won't, except in the case mentioned below about calculating both branches instead of just prediction... and even that is of questionable importance.

For the record, 'branches' in code are much more low-level than flowchart 'branches' in AI. AI would do better by running each 'AI' as a separate thread, and let the CPU's paralellism run as many as possible. (When discussing AI for many in-game characters being simulated at once, anyway.. For one large 'true' AI, I don't have a clue.)


RE: .
By saratoga on 4/28/2006 12:50:11 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think it's less impossible than you think. But it would blur the line between wether or not it's two seperate cores or one core with 'hyperthreading'.


I think you overestimate your understanding of how complicated parallel processing really is.

quote:
There are already dual core CPUs that share cache.. you just need to set it up so they can share registers, and this could be doable.


I don't even know what to say. Sharing registers is the least of the concern here. HT can already do that just fine. Hell there have been machines doing that for years. The problem is, once you have two cores, how do you exact useful work from one thread on both cores? Essentially, the answer has been "you don't".

Or at best you do some hack like speculative execution or have one prime up the cache. Neither is all that appealing though if you're concerned about heat.

quote:
For the record, 'branches' in code are much more low-level than flowchart 'branches' in AI. AI would do better by running each 'AI' as a separate thread, and let the CPU's paralellism run as many as possible.


Well, the branches on a flow chart are often implemented as a single cpu branch, so I don't know about that. I'd say they can be more complicated, but typically, an if statement can be mapped directly to a branch (or at least a few compares and then a branch depending on the machine and how powerful it's instructions are).


good or bad?
By Spoelie on 4/19/2006 3:03:23 AM , Rating: 2
I guess we can shove the theory of last minute surprises out the door, and the performance we saw in the preview articles are the final word. While this may disappoint some, at least AMD promised to be more forthcoming about their future plans after AM2's launch. So I guess that's the thing to look forward to :)




RE: good or bad?
By Chadder007 on 4/19/2006 8:54:21 AM , Rating: 4
They still currently have the fastest CPU availible.


RE: good or bad?
By bob661 on 4/19/2006 11:19:14 AM , Rating: 2
I have to agree with Chadder. I will reserve judgement on Conroe until it gets tested by AT and other reputable sites. It would be nice to have other choices though.


RE: good or bad?
By Phynaz on 4/19/2006 12:43:54 PM , Rating: 1
Still in denial, eh bobby?


RE: good or bad?
By coldpower27 on 4/20/2006 1:39:46 AM , Rating: 2
Most people want to enjoy the last days of AMD's reigns as performance champ till the bitter end I guess. :P


RE: good or bad?
By Furen on 4/20/2006 3:49:42 AM , Rating: 3
Well, AMD DOES have the performance crown right now. Yes, I know it looks like it'll get its ass handed to it by Intel's Conroe but the fact that Intel felt the need to show performance previews so far in advance should tell you something about what it has on the market currently. I was actually quite surprised to see these performance previews so early, since (it seemed to me) it looked like a desperate damage-control measure rather than a cool and calculated decision that we've come to expect from Intel (example, x86-64 was in Prescotts from the very beginning but Intel decided to try to stay the course and only embraced it after it looked like there was no other choice, and reluctantly at that, yet here they are basically saying "our current products may suck but look at our future ones").

I must say that I've pretty much lost interest in single-socket and two-socket systems (though 2-way Clovertons could be interesting, if they can outperform Opterons--which may not be the case)...


damn it, i'm lost
By lethalchronic on 4/19/2006 3:37:31 PM , Rating: 2
I've been saving for an AMD system for a while. In a P4 vs. Athlon64 world AMD wins, but I'm just not stupid enough to dismiss Intel with P4 tag teaming conroe into intel's corner. I have no doubt that conroe will squish AMD when it is released but I can't help but think that AMD will return with some bigger guns pretty soon. i just can't see AMD just bending over and accepting it and then just walking away with their collective heads down and a bloody lip. i mean after all we can all admit that AMD has come a long way from it's humble beginings.




RE: damn it, i'm lost
By Regs on 4/19/2006 10:22:37 PM , Rating: 2
It's tradition in the microprocessor business that the first one out is supposed to dominate the market.


RE: damn it, i'm lost
By Tsuwamono on 4/26/2006 8:05:11 PM , Rating: 2
AM3 will be released in 2007 says many sources. Hang in there and wait for AMD to continue spanking intels big behind as usual.


LOL@Conroe
By Rampage on 4/22/2006 3:20:54 PM , Rating: 2
LOL@ Conroe.

We'll be seeing the same thing that happened with Northwood. Gains, but nothing out of this world. Just a minor performance lead like NWood vs AXP.

Stay faithful Intel fans ;) You are going to continue to need it!




RE: LOL@Conroe
By josmala on 4/27/2006 4:23:42 PM , Rating: 2
What makes conroe revolutionary its SSE.
5 SSE incstructions per cycle and 4 instructions decode is nothing to sneeze upon, when K8 can do 1.5 SSE operation per cycle. And decode 3.

Conroe is huge improvement over current situation for Intel.

The situation right now is that AMD beats intel hands down, for 6 months after conroe K8L comes and we don't know how much that helps amd.

Now. I'm interested in conroe, my current and previous PC had AMD processors for obvious reasons but conroe probably changes situation for my next pc.


RE: LOL@Conroe
By saratoga on 4/28/2006 12:51:46 AM , Rating: 2
I don't believe it can do 5 per cycle. And even if it could, theres not enough bandwidth to sustain that since the cache is only 256 bits wide. I think the real issue limit is something like 2 or 3 per clock even if the FUs can handle more, but I don't really remember.


Virtualization?
By Bonrock on 4/19/2006 3:19:55 AM , Rating: 2
Will the first Socket AM2 CPUs have virtualization support? If not, when will AMD bring their virtualization technology to market? I'm planning to replace my current computer with a dual-core Athlon 64 system soon, but I would like the new computer to support virtualization.




RE: Virtualization?
By Bonrock on 4/19/2006 5:08:16 AM , Rating: 2
Never mind. Just read Anand's article where he says that the Socket AM2 Athlon 64 CPUs will indeed have virtualization. Sweet!


Date Changed --
By Morpth on 4/19/2006 11:54:37 AM , Rating: 4
YOU mean they pushed up the launch date for reasons other than their chosen date was 6/6/6 ?




What's so difficult to understand?
By redbone75 on 4/19/2006 2:22:41 PM , Rating: 2
If I'm to understand this correctly, logically actually, AMD has been trying for some time to get AM2 performance at least up to par with socket 939. Now that they've done that it's safe to go ahead and release AM2 in order to garner some sales before the release of Conroe. That seems to be the only logical reason to push up the release date. Intel has already attained serious performance out of Conroe and they still have quite a while to tweak it before it's released in Q3, unless they decide to move the release date up to stifle any sales AMD hopes to gain with AM2. Why can't the AMD fanboys just give Intel its props? It's been, what, 3 or 4 years since A64's release, so to think that a company with the resources Intel has would not come up with something impressive is misguided to say the least. AMD can counter with some kind of marketing campaign touting the energy efficiency of their upcoming 65TDP parts, but when was the last time anyone has seen a serious marketing anything from AMD? And for all of the "AMD still has the fastest processors right now" and "I won't be convinced with Conroe until I see some real benchies from Anandtech" comments, go right on ahead and stay faithful. The rest of us who want that next serious jump in performance will continue to look ahead while looking back at you all. Intel has finally answered, and in a big way. Exciting times are ahead, because everyone will be waiting to see what AMD will counter with, including myself. I'll just have a Conroe in my machine while I'm waiting. Peace.




By defter on 4/19/2006 2:45:46 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
AMD can counter with some kind of marketing campaign touting the energy efficiency of their upcoming 65TDP parts


That wouldn't be very successfull campaign since ALL normal Conroes will have 65W TDP.


15%??
By Danthemanz007 on 4/21/2006 5:28:27 AM , Rating: 2
Yes you missed something, AMD's cores are maxed out and 65nm is still a long way off for them.
There is no way AMD can get a 15% clock increase across the board in 3 months...




RE: 15%??
By JAT on 4/24/2006 10:26:38 AM , Rating: 2
Well, AMD just launched 3 GHz Opteron. Also AMD Chips have no heat-problems, so they can easily get at least 3.4 without using any special cooling.


Conroe release earlier
By trivik12 on 4/19/2006 9:21:13 AM , Rating: 2
According to rumors AMD pulled forward AM2 release bcos Conroe is releasing in June. AMD will have to decrease prices once Conroe releases and they are trying to squeeze as much as they can until then. Exciting times for the consumers. Hope people are sensible and wait for conroe before buying AM2 or conroe as they will get best bang for buck.




RE: Conroe release earlier
By hstewarth on 4/19/2006 10:12:46 AM , Rating: 1
AMD is also attempting to attract attention from the Conroe.

Just remember with Conroe, the Pentium 4/D lines end and new Conroe/Woodcrest/Merom line just begins


Reverse Hyperthreading? Intel Mitosis
By Fox5 on 4/19/2006 10:44:46 AM , Rating: 2
Apparently Intel already has been working on reverse hyper-threading technology, and it sounds like a brute force method. You just use the second core to do calculations that may or may not be dependent on previous ones, and if they are then you just throw them away and are no worse off (performance wise) than you were before.

And I think Sun has something similar in some of their workstations too.




Missing Something?
By shaitaness on 4/20/2006 7:01:25 PM , Rating: 2
I'm not a "fan" of either Intel or AMD and will buy from the Company that has the better performing processor but I wonder why people are making so much of a 20% increase.

The way I see it, AM2 appears to add about 2-5 percent improvement in game benchmarks (with the higher percentages coming in the important benchmarks like Doom 3 and Fear). Assuming that AM2 as it gets tweaked offers about 5%, is it that hard to believe that AMD will have scaled CPU speeds 15% by the time that Conroe comes out?

I know that the Conroe chip wasn't an extreme edition and that it may be possible for Intel to scale performance more but the 20% gap just doesn't seem that huge to me (particularly if AMD remains competitive with its current processors and announces a next gen chip that is better than Conroe right around Conroe's release).

Am I missing something or being unrealistic?




Reasoning
By dnd728 on 4/22/2006 11:40:38 AM , Rating: 2
"This week I got an iPhone. This weekend I got four chargers so I can keep it charged everywhere I go and a land line so I can actually make phone calls." -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg



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