AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[The Q6660 Inside]

Just heard Tom clancy has died at the age of 66. Farewell and RIP.

Wow, I can say I never saw that coming, not right now anyway. I read many of his books, LOVED some of the movies. The Hunt for Red October will always be one of my favorites...Rainbow Six was a great series to read as well.

That's pretty crazy...

Well, its a bit to young to die, 8350, get ready to survive your midlife crisis

 

[8350rocks]

Just heard Tom clancy has died at the age of 66. Farewell and RIP.

Wow, I can say I never saw that coming, not right now anyway. I read many of his books, LOVED some of the movies. The Hunt for Red October will always be one of my favorites...Rainbow Six was a great series to read as well.

That's pretty crazy...

Well, its a bit to young to die, 8350, get ready to survive your midlife crisis

LOL! Guess I'll have to get deep into some Tom Clancy Novels and buy a sports car...

 

[gamerk316]

How many times must I tell you that "our game engine uses 8 threads" doesn't mean it uses 8 threads all the time?

I would hope not; most engines use a good 40+ these days. Heck, WoW uses a good 80 or so threads.

Number Threads != Number of Cores stressed.

Congratulations, you've found a benchmark where 6 to 8 threads are being used and then you found another one where less threads are used.

Same benchmark run for both GPU's. And results way out of whack to be statistical noise. Something else was going on. Might just be a stupid driver bug, but it bears watching. The PCLab results with the NVIDIA GPU agree with the GameGPU charts, which also used a NVIDIA GPU. The PCLab results with the AMD GPU disagree? Coincidence? Or something else going on?

Just saying, if we find out that GPU's are somehow affecting CPU performance, the math changes. Significantly.

 

[8350rocks]

How many times must I tell you that "our game engine uses 8 threads" doesn't mean it uses 8 threads all the time?

I would hope not; most engines use a good 40+ these days. Heck, WoW uses a good 80 or so threads.

Number Threads != Number of Cores stressed.

Congratulations, you've found a benchmark where 6 to 8 threads are being used and then you found another one where less threads are used.

Same benchmark run for both GPU's. And results way out of whack to be statistical noise. Something else was going on. Might just be a stupid driver bug, but it bears watching. The PCLab results with the NVIDIA GPU agree with the GameGPU charts, which also used a NVIDIA GPU. The PCLab results with the AMD GPU disagree? Coincidence? Or something else going on?

Just saying, if we find out that GPU's are somehow affecting CPU performance, the math changes. Significantly.

Catalyst 13.10 Beta, just released, fixes an issue in BF4 noted specifically in the patch notes.

That's likely the culprit...

 

[griptwister]

I can't believe no one has even noticed... or even tried to search...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128653

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128655

There's no way these APU's are replacing the high end right away. :lol: I just wish we knew more about steamroller. I'd buy a A88X right away if I knew there was some kind of guarantee that I'd get 6 cores.

 

[8350rocks]

I can't believe no one has even noticed... or even tried to search...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128653

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128655

There's no way these APU's are replacing the high end right away. :lol: I just wish we knew more about steamroller. I'd buy a A88X right away if I knew there was some kind of guarantee that I'd get 6 cores.

That Gigabyte board makes me wish they put out a G1 series AM3+ board...*sigh*

 

[griptwister]

If Gigabyte released a AM3+ G1 Sniper board. I'd be on that like butter on a biscuit. Especially since it'd probably still be cheaper than any Intel board.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

If Gigabyte released a AM3+ G1 Sniper board. I'd be on that like butter on a biscuit. Especially since it'd probably still be cheaper than any Intel board.

*Gets reminded of the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX* Now, for a lime green GIGABYTE R9 290X

 

[griptwister]

If Gigabyte released a AM3+ G1 Sniper board. I'd be on that like butter on a biscuit. Especially since it'd probably still be cheaper than any Intel board.

*Gets reminded of the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX* Now, for a lime green GIGABYTE R9 290X

For me, it's Steamroller or i7. The fact that I can get a i7 4820K or a i7 4770K for slightly more than a FX 8350 has been gnawing at my mind... It's so tempting. I think I'll wait though. If I'm put into a situation to where I have to save money on my next upgrade, I'll for sure buy a Sabertooth FX and a 8320. But I suspect I'll be good on money, esp since Christmas is around the corner.

*edit* I'm going to head to Gamestop today and cancel my preorder on The Elder Scrolls Online (watch the Intel fanboys rebuke me) and place my money on BF4 instead...

I look forward to riding a quad out of a sky scraper then blowing a building to smithereens.

 

[palladin9479]

For me, it's Steamroller or i7. The fact that I can get a i7 4820K or a i7 4770K for slightly more than a FX 8350 has been gnawing at my mind...

Huh ... does not compute.
$320 for 4820K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116940
$330 for 4770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116901
$200 FX-8350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284

 

[griptwister]

For me, it's Steamroller or i7. The fact that I can get a i7 4820K or a i7 4770K for slightly more than a FX 8350 has been gnawing at my mind...

Huh ... does not compute.
$320 for 4820K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116940
$330 for 4770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116901
$200 FX-8350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284

I said this before, but no one payed attention.

Lol, I know "Somebody" who can hook me up with a good deal. I'm the only exception though. Unfortunately.

However, Microcenter has the i7 4820K listed for $250 and had the i7 3820K listed for $200. So, again, we'll see what happens at the beginning of next year. I'm looking for a motherboard to match my vision for my case mods.

 

[palladin9479]

http://www.microcenter.com/product/418180/Core_i7_4820K_LGA_2011_Boxed_Processor

$269 with in store pickup only lol. But yeah if you can get a really good deal on a better CPU then by all means go for it. It's all about price vs performance at the individual level.

 

[juanrga]

Aside from that I was giving you the benefit of a doubt by using the 4300. Truthfully, kaveri is based off richland performance, wich is actually 10-20% slower than the 4300 in games. http://www.ultimatehardware.net/amd/amd_a10_6800_vs_amd_fx_4300_page4.htm

so kaveri +20% performance -20% APU performance puts kaveri = 4300 FX or 34 fps. But since it wasn't on the BF4 test, I was being nice.

Interesting review of what they call a "Verisha" CPU (did they mean Vishera? ). I find sublime they use industry jokes such as Sysmark 2012. The selection of games is also interesting: Dragon Age and World of Warcraft. I wonder why two and why those two.

Their numbers are still more interesting. The 17.6% is rounded to 18% (you round it to 20%) but how is their 8.5% rounded to 10%? And how did they get the average of 15%? The average of their 18% and 10% is 14%, but using 17.6% and 8.5% the average is 13.05% which rounds to 13%. Amazing! And if this is made on the visible part of the review I wonder what will be made behind.

Now compare with this

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/57615-amd-vishera-fx-6300-fx-4300-review-12.html

where an A10-5800K offers a 97%, 95%, 88%, 88% and 91% of the performance of an FX-4300 for gaming at 1080p. The average is 92%. The A10-6800 is faster and Kaveri will be much faster.

 

[juanrga]

Well December is just 2 months away now. Hopefully there will be more leaks. AMD's next earnings announcement is on October 17th. There should be at least some official news on Kaveri but probably not before then.

My main concern with Kaveri is clock speeds on the Bulk process. Their core design fixes themselves should be the biggest bump in performance AMD has seen in a long time. I'm not expecting anything stellar with only 4C but budget buyers could be excited by a lower cost part due to the bulk process. Maybe even $100 for ~6300ish performance.

I can't believe no one has even noticed... or even tried to search...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128653

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128655

There's no way these APU's are replacing the high end right away. :lol: I just wish we knew more about steamroller. I'd buy a A88X right away if I knew there was some kind of guarantee that I'd get 6 cores.

I have just uploaded the final version of my article about Kaveri. I continue assuming that SR will be about a 20% faster than Piledriver, but added some rumours that suggest that could be up to a 40% faster (I find that unlikely).

This is the diagram for Kaveri

No six cores, no quad channel...

More info about the GPU, it seems confirmed that the leaked benchmarks about a 13CU version was in reality a dual configuration of Kaveri 8CU + 5CU dGPU.

About the compute capabilities of the Kaveri GPU, the schedulers can manage up to a maximum of 20480 threads. However, due to limitations in the SIMD units, the GPU can execute 'only' 512 threads per cycle.

 

[griptwister]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

@palladin9479, exactly! Plus, I'd like to run a couple benchmarks of my own between my rig, and my friends' rig. The system built with a more expensive i7 CPU and a Mid range GPU (My system) vs a FX 8350 with a Expensive GPU. Also, with this monitor I'm ordering in the next 2 weeks, I would be able to run 1440P benchmarks. Essentially, both rigs would cost the same price. It would be interesting I think.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

@palladin9479, exactly! Plus, I'd like to run a couple benchmarks of my own between my rig, and my friends' rig. The system built with a more expensive i7 CPU and a Mid range GPU (My system) vs a FX 8350 with a Expensive GPU. Also, with this monitor I'm ordering in the next 2 weeks, I would be able to run 1440P benchmarks. Essentially, both rigs would cost the same price. It would be interesting I think.

Might as well go 8320 and Sabertooth at that resolution. Another monitor, you must be going insane! Update you specs As for BF4, meh, go Project Reality BF2 .

 

[griptwister]

@The 6660 Inside: From what I hear the QNIX 1440P monitors overclock well, most people get them up to 96+ Hz refresh rate. Which is why I may be going Intel, So I can get my maximum FPS. They're only $350 right now. I've already got a buyer for my current monitor.

Pixel density and size play a big factor to me. I'm competitive in TF2, so a bigger monitor could help my game just a bit, especially with sniping. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a hexi-core Kav though. I ain't buying anything till I get more news

I'm buying BF4 to hold me off for StarWars Battle Front 3. That is th-E game I'm looking forward to most. So many good memories with SWBF2.

 

[palladin9479]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

@palladin9479, exactly! Plus, I'd like to run a couple benchmarks of my own between my rig, and my friends' rig. The system built with a more expensive i7 CPU and a Mid range GPU (My system) vs a FX 8350 with a Expensive GPU. Also, with this monitor I'm ordering in the next 2 weeks, I would be able to run 1440P benchmarks. Essentially, both rigs would cost the same price. It would be interesting I think.

I use an OC'd 8350 with 2 GTX 580's all in a WC setup. Performs wonderfully, though it's primarily designed for 3D gaming with a 120hz monitor.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

@palladin9479, exactly! Plus, I'd like to run a couple benchmarks of my own between my rig, and my friends' rig. The system built with a more expensive i7 CPU and a Mid range GPU (My system) vs a FX 8350 with a Expensive GPU. Also, with this monitor I'm ordering in the next 2 weeks, I would be able to run 1440P benchmarks. Essentially, both rigs would cost the same price. It would be interesting I think.

I use an OC'd 8350 with 2 GTX 580's all in a WC setup. Performs wonderfully, though it's primarily designed for 3D gaming with a 120hz monitor.

Pics? @ griptwister, For higher resolutions, the CPU becomes less and less of a problem ala i7-920 X58 TITAN setups all over the place. Lets just hope EA logic does not screw up SWBF3.
PS: Those 580 Hydros are aging, might be time for a 780 or 290X (if it can do crossfire)

 

[palladin9479]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

@palladin9479, exactly! Plus, I'd like to run a couple benchmarks of my own between my rig, and my friends' rig. The system built with a more expensive i7 CPU and a Mid range GPU (My system) vs a FX 8350 with a Expensive GPU. Also, with this monitor I'm ordering in the next 2 weeks, I would be able to run 1440P benchmarks. Essentially, both rigs would cost the same price. It would be interesting I think.

I use an OC'd 8350 with 2 GTX 580's all in a WC setup. Performs wonderfully, though it's primarily designed for 3D gaming with a 120hz monitor.

Pics? @ griptwister, For higher resolutions, the CPU becomes less and less of a problem ala i7-920 X58 TITAN setups all over the place. Lets just hope EA logic does not screw up SWBF3.
PS: Those 580 Hydros are aging, might be time for a 780 or 290X (if it can do crossfire)

I was very close to upgrading to two GTX 780 hydros along with going from an 800D to a 900D but just didn't provide enough benefit to be worth it. Same reason I didn't upgrade to 680's. The hydro thing is important as I absolutely hate loud fan sounds, totally ruins the entertainment value. I used DD WB's back when I was doing the 2 x GTX 285's and putting them on was a royal PITA, EVGA does an amazing job so worth the premium.

I probably won't be doing any major upgrades for awhile. I'm using a Sabertooth 990FX and don't want to be switching out platforms until I have a solid upgrade schedule. Also since it's all watercooled switching out things like CPU / MB / GPU is labor intensive and I only do it when I'm conducting maintenance on the WC loop.

 

[griptwister]

@paladin9479, Good God man, I don't see any need to upgrade that system right now... Unless if you're running out of VRAM because you have the 1.5GB model hydros.

@The Q6660 Inside: I'm trying to decide still... I really want to run comparisons between rigs. But then again, I like the comfort of having 8 actual cores. We'll see what happens after Christmas as I stated before, I'm holding out for Kaveri just so see where that's placed at.

I'm also looking into upgrading my RAM if I got with a FX 8320 as I've seen and heard about the performance gains that can come.

 

[palladin9479]

Actually I do have the 1.5GB models. I play 1920x1080@120 on a 23.5 inch LCD display. This system was primarily for 3D gaming and thus the unusual configuration. Stereoscopic rendering is done in the driver level not in the actual program, because of this is requires very little additional CPU power but nearly 2x the GPU power. In 3D mode I get pretty much the same performance a 8350 + GTX 580 (factory OC'd) at 60 fps. That's why I was looking to upgrade to a 780 Hydro but held off as I want to see what CPU's are going to look like next year. I might end up having to switch my platform to an Intel one if AMD can't produce a SR 6~8 core CPU to power this system. I also have 16GB of DDR3-1600 for system memory and I actually use it.

 

[juanrga]

@juanrga, where is the L3 cache? Lol, I thought it was official.

There is not L3.

 

[juanrga]

Something else i found REALLY interesting:

Using a 770. FX-8350 slightly ahead of the 2600k, matching what we saw above. However:

Using a 7970. A FX-8350, at stock, falls behind the 2500k, also at stock.

Really, GPU choice shouldn't be affecting where each CPU is placing, just how close they are to eachother. Nothing like this...Something looks REALLY screwy with the 7970 numbers, so I'm hoping its a driver problem or issue with the Beta. Something to watch going forward...That being said, given how BF4 will use 2.5GB RAM or so, its possible memory throughput could be causing what we are seeing (though I doubt it...).

Still, goes to show, you need multiple benchmark sets to see what's going on.

How many times must I tell you that "our game engine uses 8 threads" doesn't mean it uses 8 threads all the time?

Congratulations, you've found a benchmark where 6 to 8 threads are being used and then you found another one where less threads are used.

However, I'm docking points because you are yet again trying to use this evidence to imply that AMD can not make up for its lack of single threaded performance by making a rig with more weaker cores.

The problem with that is that AMD is forcing game developers to go for many weak cores by getting XBone and PS4 CPUs with 8 weak cores. You're also forgetting that this is a massive shift in gaming and that big shifts like this take time to fully adjust.

I'm going to repeat myself, but this happens every console generation and with with console ports. Developers are still learning how to get the most out of the system, so it has problems. The problem with this generation of consoles will definitely be game engines which don't scale to as many cores as possible as much as possible.

I'm going to repeat myself again, since you seem to fail in reading comprehension, but there's basically this big bounty out there where whoever writes the best performing game engine that can scale the best to the number of weak cores available in XBone/PS4 is going to rake in massive cash. The company that does this first is going to have the engine for people to develop games on and they're going to make a ton of money off of licensing their engine out.

So I don't really understand why you think the game industry is going to sit passive writing games for old consoles and old PC CPUs when there's a ton of money in licensing fees.

Why do you think DICE is embracing Mantle with Frostbite 3? Because the game developers who use Frostbite 3 and get Mantle support in their console games are going to slaughter the competition using Xbone DX. Suddenly, DICE/EA has the game engine to go to for beautiful XBone and PS4 games and everyone else is behind.

This is how it works from the business side, but I have a feeling that you're one of those "self declared game developers" that the internet is full of, which conjures images of the claimant working on AAA titles, but "game developer" can be as low as writing a game in TI-BASIC for TI-83 calculators.

Effectively, pclab.pl used the "Domination" mode, whereas GameGPU.ru used the "Conquest" mode.

Conquest mode includes Infantry, Vehicles and Aircraft with up to 64 player maps.
Domination is a infantry only mode with up to 20 player maps. The gamegpu scenario is using more "cores/threads".

 

[juanrga]

Interesting finding by this user:

Watch dog SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Base Specification

Operating System: Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 8
Note that we only support 64 bit OSs.
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM Dual Layer
Hard Drive Space: 20 GB
Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card with Latest Drivers
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer mode

Minimum Specification

GPU: DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB Video RAM
CPU: Quad core
RAM: 4GB

example 1
GPU: NVidia GTX 460
CPU: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600

example 2
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 5770
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9750

Recommended Specification

GPU: DirectX 11 graphics card with 2 GB Video RAM
CPU: Eight core
RAM: 8GB

example 1
GPU: NVidia GTX 560 ti
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770

example 2
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850
CPU: AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core

"Ultra" Specification

GPU: Latest DirectX 11 graphics card with 2 GB Video RAM or more
CPU: Latest Eight core or more
RAM: 8GB or more

example 1
GPU: Nvidia GTX 670
CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K

example 2
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7970
CPU: AMD FX-9370 Eight-Core