AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[8350rocks]

Finally, the PS3 had 6 CPU cores (SPE's) for development, and the 360 had three CPU cores with 2-way SMT, giving both current gen consoles 6 CPU contexts to work with. And the same PC games that ran on 6 cores on the consoles use 2 on the PC. There's a reason for that. You will never see the low-level, fine grain control you see on consoles make their way over to the PC. I can guarantee ever CoD game this generation uses 6 cores on the consoles, likely at 100%. On the PC, 2. Same for every other title out there. I can not WAIT for Novemeber, because I will be doing nothing but posted "I TOLD YOU SO" when people find that graphical quality didn't jump, and we're still stuck on two main threads and maybe a worker thread or two.

To me, people are fooling themselves just like they did before the BD launch.

Wanted to address this...

Considering that the consoles are now actual x86 cores with OoO execution and lots of other nifty things...I think you'll be surprised how well threaded next gen games engines become...even on the PC.

 

[juanrga]

These consoles are much less powerful than most computers today.

And still some game developer will be launching titles only for console, because most PCs are much less powerful.

That would be true about five years ago but I'm beginning to think it's no longer the case. Most PC's today are fairly decent machines, that's why the slump in PC sales this year. The newer consoles will definitely perform better then most PC's, largely due to console hardware level optimizations that aren't present in the PC universe.

Three months ago:

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-no-next-gen-fifa-14-on-pc-because-users-have-low-spec-machines/0117297

These consoles are much less powerful than most computers today.

And still some game developer will be launching titles only for console, because most PCs are much less powerful.

Realistically because of hardware uniformity and less headache.

There are some things the consoles can do that a PC cannot yet...primarily because of the architecture tweaks and modularity...though in terms of raw horsepower, the 8350 paired with a 9970 would be roughly double the TFLOPS, if not more.

Yes a 8350+9970 combo has more raw horsepower, but note that I used italic font to emphasize the word "most". According to last Steam stats less than a 0.3% of gamers have a 8350, and the number of those with graphics performance comparable to the new 9970 must be of one tenth. Therefore about a 0.03% or so of gamers must have something as fast as a 8350+9970.

Taking into consideration Windows overhead and fixed specs, the 2 TFLOP PS4 will perform as a PC with a raw performance of about 4 TFLOP (this is for native optimized games not cheap ports).

Most PCs are much less powerful than 4 TFLOP.

 

[esrever]

Physx will not run on AMD GPUs. Any software implementations would be at cost of the efficiency of the hardware. AMD doesn't need a physics engine since its up to the devs to either implement one or license one. For a dev to choose to use physx is unimaginable in the current situation. If nvidia could have just done gpu physx in software, why wasn't it in the ps3 or 360?

Are you sure? What about those benchmarks where they used PhysX for AMD GPU's to test it vs OGL?

NVIDIA choose to implement PhysX via a CUDA, which AMD doesn't support. For AMD to support PhysX, they would have to support CUDA, which they will NEVER do. Likewise, because NVIDIA owns the license, AMD can't get access to the source to re-implement via DirectCompute.

Older drivers you could force a split AMD-NVIDIA configuration, with AMD as the main GPU, and NVIDIA doing CUDA, but NVIDIA now does a driver check to prevent that.

Then how do people do these PhysX testing on AMD and likewise...? There are still benchmarks for it today. If what you're saying is true, then wouldn't there be no benchmarks?

wtf are you even talking about? physx does not run on AMD GPUs. Any game running physx with AMD gpu in it is doing it on the CPU.

 

[palladin9479]

Three months ago:

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-no-next-gen-fifa-14-o...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Did you seriously just use EA as a standard for something? Really ... EA?
I'm trying to keep a straight face here, it's EA.... the company that pretty much defined consolitis.

 

[griptwister]

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

 

[esrever]

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

AMD hasn't said anything. At this point they haven't even officially saying gpus are coming.

 

[blackkstar]

now!.. if true this completely re-shuffles the deck

[RUMOR]Microsoft Xbox One Could Possibly Feature a Powerful Discrete GPU Core Stacked Inside the APU

http://wccftech.com/rumormicrosoft-xbox-possibly-feature-discrete-gpu-core-stacked-main-soc/

http://misterxmedia.livejournal.com/

"Stacked" i don't believe it... but a kind of "mobile" similar GPU (768sp) part at 853Mhz in Xfire config is possible ... MSFT hasn't disclosed nothing about their "move" engines inside the "Main SoC" either, and for those that didn't pay attention, one of the best possibilities that hUMA/HSA has besides easier programing, is that it makes a pretty good seamless Xfire (half) protocol only by itself.

But of course PS4 could have it to( its also hUMA/HSA in large extent)... only doubt seriously it will be only ~$400 if it does.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/06/amd-fx-8350-review/4
gimp uses 1 core so it shows this advantage. Thats why in some games you see amd cpu get like 70fps at a higher clock then an intel cpu that gets like 130fps as the double ipc is in work.

edit: find realworld tasks that use 1 core that intel is not 2x faster with ivy bridge or haswell at same clock. Prove me wrong then if you think I am wrong.

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

If Tahiti is ROP bottlenecked and AMD is increasing ROPs by 50%, then I think we might see some hurt put on Titan.

 

[esrever]

come next year, all non-nvidia sponsored games might look like this. AMD probably doesn't even need a new card in that case.

 

[juanrga]

I can guarantee ever CoD game this generation uses 6 cores on the consoles, likely at 100%. On the PC, 2. Same for every other title out there. I can not WAIT for Novemeber, because I will be doing nothing but posted "I TOLD YOU SO" when people find that graphical quality didn't jump, and we're still stuck on two main threads and maybe a worker thread or two.

To me, people are fooling themselves just like they did before the BD launch.

BF4, not still next gen, but already recommends to use a quad or a hexa core CPU

 

[8350rocks]

now!.. if true this completely re-shuffles the deck

[RUMOR]Microsoft Xbox One Could Possibly Feature a Powerful Discrete GPU Core Stacked Inside the APU

http://wccftech.com/rumormicrosoft-xbox-possibly-feature-discrete-gpu-core-stacked-main-soc/

http://misterxmedia.livejournal.com/

"Stacked" i don't believe it... but a kind of "mobile" similar GPU (768sp) part at 853Mhz in Xfire config is possible ... MSFT hasn't disclosed nothing about their "move" engines inside the "Main SoC" either, and for those that didn't pay attention, one of the best possibilities that hUMA/HSA has besides easier programing, is that it makes a pretty good seamless Xfire (half) protocol only by itself.

But of course PS4 could have it to( its also hUMA/HSA in large extent)... only doubt seriously it will be only ~$400 if it does.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/06/amd-fx-8350-review/4
gimp uses 1 core so it shows this advantage. Thats why in some games you see amd cpu get like 70fps at a higher clock then an intel cpu that gets like 130fps as the double ipc is in work.

edit: find realworld tasks that use 1 core that intel is not 2x faster with ivy bridge or haswell at same clock. Prove me wrong then if you think I am wrong.

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

If Tahiti is ROP bottlenecked and AMD is increasing ROPs by 50%, then I think we might see some hurt put on Titan.

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

 

[blackkstar]

now!.. if true this completely re-shuffles the deck

[RUMOR]Microsoft Xbox One Could Possibly Feature a Powerful Discrete GPU Core Stacked Inside the APU

http://wccftech.com/rumormicrosoft-xbox-possibly-feature-discrete-gpu-core-stacked-main-soc/

http://misterxmedia.livejournal.com/

"Stacked" i don't believe it... but a kind of "mobile" similar GPU (768sp) part at 853Mhz in Xfire config is possible ... MSFT hasn't disclosed nothing about their "move" engines inside the "Main SoC" either, and for those that didn't pay attention, one of the best possibilities that hUMA/HSA has besides easier programing, is that it makes a pretty good seamless Xfire (half) protocol only by itself.

But of course PS4 could have it to( its also hUMA/HSA in large extent)... only doubt seriously it will be only ~$400 if it does.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/06/amd-fx-8350-review/4
gimp uses 1 core so it shows this advantage. Thats why in some games you see amd cpu get like 70fps at a higher clock then an intel cpu that gets like 130fps as the double ipc is in work.

edit: find realworld tasks that use 1 core that intel is not 2x faster with ivy bridge or haswell at same clock. Prove me wrong then if you think I am wrong.

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

If Tahiti is ROP bottlenecked and AMD is increasing ROPs by 50%, then I think we might see some hurt put on Titan.

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

Haha, that puts 9970 performance at 108 frames in the Splinter Cell bench that was posted earlier.

I'm not a religious man, but I'd call it David slaying Goliath.

As for Steamroller, Seronx is claiming on OCN that desktop FX class CPUs are delayed because Steamroller B (bdver3b) started development in June 2012 after bdver3a was cancelled as it wasn't competitive enough with Haswell.

It was announced early August 2012 that Keller was back at AMD. Maybe I'm a dreamer but it looks like AMD is just going to push back Steamroller and give us something that has Keller's hands all over it, which means great things if you like AMD and long, sleepless nights of hot flashes, sweating, and nightmares if you're hajifur.

 

[jdwii]

" sleepless nights of hot flashes, sweating, and nightmares if you're hajifur."

Ha ha but that power consumption though

 

[8350rocks]

" sleepless nights of hot flashes, sweating, and nightmares if you're hajifur."

Ha ha but that power consumption though

Remember, when JK was at the helm for Athlon64 AMD was better in pure performance and power consumption...

*sigh* that was the good old days...when K8 kicked the crap out of everything, doing anything.

 

[griptwister]

Haha! blackkstar, love that David and Goliath reference.

To be totally honest, I have the feeling as to why AMD is delaying and being so, "Hush hush" about everything is because they're cookin' up sumfn' fierce. But then again if I'm wrong, they're probably doing absolutely nothing.

Considering they're not discontinuing support to AM3+, Officially. I think we might see a new socket (AM4 possibly, or a AM3+ refresh?). I personally think we might see excavator and DDR4 this time next year... or maybe Steamroller on a smaller process?

I get the feeling AMD is looking to give Intel a wedgie here soon. Lol. (or would it be an atomic wedgie? *budumtss*)

 

[8350rocks]

If steamroller FX is genuinely a JK masterpiece like Athlon64...then Intel had better have something much better than a 5% improvement cooked up for their next architecture leap...

Athlon64 redefined the PC industry and sent Intel scrambling for 5 years to catch up.

 

[griptwister]

If steamroller FX is genuinely a JK masterpiece like Athlon64...then Intel had better have something much better than a 5% improvement cooked up for their next architecture leap...

Athlon64 redefined the PC industry and sent Intel scrambling for 5 years to catch up.

Those who I(ntel)gnore history are doomed to repeat it! Lol, possibly. We shall see.

 

[noob2222]

now!.. if true this completely re-shuffles the deck

[RUMOR]Microsoft Xbox One Could Possibly Feature a Powerful Discrete GPU Core Stacked Inside the APU

http://wccftech.com/rumormicrosoft-xbox-possibly-feature-discrete-gpu-core-stacked-main-soc/

http://misterxmedia.livejournal.com/

"Stacked" i don't believe it... but a kind of "mobile" similar GPU (768sp) part at 853Mhz in Xfire config is possible ... MSFT hasn't disclosed nothing about their "move" engines inside the "Main SoC" either, and for those that didn't pay attention, one of the best possibilities that hUMA/HSA has besides easier programing, is that it makes a pretty good seamless Xfire (half) protocol only by itself.

But of course PS4 could have it to( its also hUMA/HSA in large extent)... only doubt seriously it will be only ~$400 if it does.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/06/amd-fx-8350-review/4
gimp uses 1 core so it shows this advantage. Thats why in some games you see amd cpu get like 70fps at a higher clock then an intel cpu that gets like 130fps as the double ipc is in work.

edit: find realworld tasks that use 1 core that intel is not 2x faster with ivy bridge or haswell at same clock. Prove me wrong then if you think I am wrong.

Lol, I thought AMD already stated that their HD 9970 is with in 10% of a GTX Titan? So wouldn't that = a GTX 780 OC'd? Le gasp! At a better price point too!?!

If Tahiti is ROP bottlenecked and AMD is increasing ROPs by 50%, then I think we might see some hurt put on Titan.

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

Haha, that puts 9970 performance at 108 frames in the Splinter Cell bench that was posted earlier.

I'm not a religious man, but I'd call it David slaying Goliath.

As for Steamroller, Seronx is claiming on OCN that desktop FX class CPUs are delayed because Steamroller B (bdver3b) started development in June 2012 after bdver3a was cancelled as it wasn't competitive enough with Haswell.

It was announced early August 2012 that Keller was back at AMD. Maybe I'm a dreamer but it looks like AMD is just going to push back Steamroller and give us something that has Keller's hands all over it, which means great things if you like AMD and long, sleepless nights of hot flashes, sweating, and nightmares if you're hajifur.

This kinda confirms what xbit said last november, though they were more blaming it on GF's lack of 28nm yields. The SR APU was always going to come before the high end server/DT chips. AMD needs money just as much as they need some High Performance parts to keep the masses interested. Money is in the APU, leading the way to develop HSA programming.

GF likely being unable to produce both APU and high end at the same time on 28nm, one of them is going to have to wait. For how long, thats unknown. The factors that affect that are how fast are the APU selling and how fast GF can fill orders. In the meantime, since its delayed, why not go back and improve it so when it comes ...

One thing I did like about RR, he killed AMD's stupid marketing gimmicks. Now if AMD can produce a high end product that gives Intel some true competition, they will be caught with their pants down instead of AMD saying "we are going to pull your pants down, get ready to pull them back up."

The unfortunate side-effect of shutting up the marketing gimmicks ... things are actually too quiet about what AMD is actually doing. Kaveri is on the verge of being released and we don't even have ES benchmark leaks.

 

[juanrga]

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

34% faster than 7970 normal or Ghz?

As for Steamroller, Seronx is claiming on OCN that desktop FX class CPUs are delayed because Steamroller B (bdver3b) started development in June 2012 after bdver3a was cancelled as it wasn't competitive enough with Haswell.

He is also saying us that Kaveri is 8-core and that Steamroller maximum freq. is "~2.4 GHz" (because he says us "Steamroller doesn't maintain the high frequency engine") and other stuff that only exists in his imagination.

 

[8350rocks]

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

34% faster than 7970 normal or Ghz?

As for Steamroller, Seronx is claiming on OCN that desktop FX class CPUs are delayed because Steamroller B (bdver3b) started development in June 2012 after bdver3a was cancelled as it wasn't competitive enough with Haswell.

He is also saying us that Kaveri is 8-core and that Steamroller maximum freq. is "~2.4 GHz" (because he says us "Steamroller doesn't maintain the high frequency engine") and other stuff that only exists in his imagination.

Reference 7970 I would assume, the write up I saw was unclear...however, it could very well be the GHz card. When it comes from AMD though, it's typically referring to the reference card.

However, even the reference 7970 was 925 MHz with 975 MHz turbo. So the performance gap wasn't huge between the 2.

 

[de5_Roy]

GF likely being unable to produce both APU and high end at the same time on 28nm, one of them is going to have to wait. For how long, thats unknown. The factors that affect that are how fast are the APU selling and how fast GF can fill orders. In the meantime, since its delayed, why not go back and improve it so when it comes ...

i assume glofo is reluctant as amd seems to be the only customer for their 28nm hpp process, everyone else orders for mobile-optimized processes. i've always questioned it's production-readiness.

The unfortunate side-effect of shutting up the marketing gimmicks ... things are actually too quiet about what AMD is actually doing. Kaveri is on the verge of being released and we don't even have ES benchmark leaks.

i've read about kaveri demo laptops and demos so far, but no numbers. it was just last year, amd wouldn't shut up about trinity, the intel fake-out vs trinity running dirt3 was so much fun. seems like forever ago.
historically, well.... since zambezi and llano, amd launched new apus in may-july and performance cpus in october-november. hopefully something will trickle out next month.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Hmmm... there must be something big going on... AMD is really clearing house. Also, I noticed Newegg doesn't have the ASUS 990FX R 2.0 Gen 3 listed anymore... I'm starting to buy this, "AMD is moving the FX to the FM2 Platform."

If steamroller FX is genuinely a JK masterpiece like Athlon64...then Intel had better have something much better than a 5% improvement cooked up for their next architecture leap...

Athlon64 redefined the PC industry and sent Intel scrambling for 5 years to catch up.

Those who I(ntel)gnore history are doomed to repeat it! Lol, possibly. We shall see.

@Griptwister, LOL.

Nostalgia time!
Athlon 64 mmm, oh how I love you 3200+ and X2 3800+. Speaking of nostalgia, ABIT, WHYY WHYYY WHYYY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE OH HOW I LOVED YOU SO MUCH? Them AN8-SLI 32X + 2x 7900GT nostalgia man, last time I ever had a dual gpu setup!

 

[8350rocks]

Not sure how on earth I missed this @ BSN:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/9/10/amd-toys-with-intel-at-idf-2013-passes-out-potato-chips.aspx

AMD goes to IDF invites people to try "another chip"...

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Not sure how on earth I missed this @ BSN:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/9/10/amd-toys-with-intel-at-idf-2013-passes-out-potato-chips.aspx

AMD goes to IDF invites people to try "another chip"...

AMD is to Pringles, as Intel is to Lay's.

 

[juanrga]

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

34% faster than 7970 normal or Ghz?

Reference 7970 I would assume, the write up I saw was unclear...however, it could very well be the GHz card. When it comes from AMD though, it's typically referring to the reference card.

However, even the reference 7970 was 925 MHz with 975 MHz turbo. So the performance gap wasn't huge between the 2.

If the baseline is the normal version then a 34% faster means slightly behind the Titan. If the baseline is the GHz Ed. then it means will be slightly ahead the titan. The performance gap is minimal between both options, but if it is the last option, the "faster than Titan" label could be excellent marketing.

 

[noob2222]

Indeed...the HD 9970 is supposed to be roughly 34% faster than the HD 7970, which was not 34% slower than the Titan.

By comparison, the GTX 780 was only about a 20% increase over the outgoing GTX 680 for those who are curious. IIRC, the GTX 780 was billed as a "mini-Titan" in reviews. That makes the HD 9970 what...? The Titan Killer?

34% faster than 7970 normal or Ghz?

As for Steamroller, Seronx is claiming on OCN that desktop FX class CPUs are delayed because Steamroller B (bdver3b) started development in June 2012 after bdver3a was cancelled as it wasn't competitive enough with Haswell.

He is also saying us that Kaveri is 8-core and that Steamroller maximum freq. is "~2.4 GHz" (because he says us "Steamroller doesn't maintain the high frequency engine") and other stuff that only exists in his imagination.

Reference 7970 I would assume, the write up I saw was unclear...however, it could very well be the GHz card. When it comes from AMD though, it's typically referring to the reference card.

However, even the reference 7970 was 925 MHz with 975 MHz turbo. So the performance gap wasn't huge between the 2.

faster than titan by a little bit on 3dmark.

http://wccftech.com/amd-hawaii-gpu-performance-exposed-3dmark-faster-gtx-titan/