AMD Piledriver rumours ... and expert conjecture

[Reynod]

We have had several requests for a sticky on AMD's yet to be released Piledriver architecture ... so here it is.

I want to make a few things clear though.

Post a question relevant to the topic, or information about the topic, or it will be deleted.

Post any negative personal comments about another user ... and they will be deleted.

Post flame baiting comments about the blue, red and green team and they will be deleted.

Enjoy ...

 

[jimmysmitty]

"PCIe3 support vanishes from AMD roadmaps"
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/01/pcie3-support-vanishes-from-amd-roadmaps/
"AMD delays desktop Trinity one quarter"
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/01/amd-delays-desktop-trinity-one-quarter/
"ECS Rolls Out First Socket FM2 Motherboard - A85F2-A Deluxe"
http://vr-zone.com/articles/ecs-rolls-out-first-socket-fm2-motherboard--a85f2-a-deluxe/16119.html
"AMD gives up monthly catalyst updates"
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/27386-amd-gives-up-monthly-catalyst-updates
this one seemed more informative
"AMD Discontinues Monthly Driver Updates, Releases Catalyst 12.6 Beta"
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5880/amd-discontinues-monthly-driver-updates-releases-catalyst-126-beta

PCie 3.0 is not a super big deal although in the future with newer GPUs it may be.

Trinity, I don't think it can take another delay. IB is not as good GPU wise as Trinity but what about Haswell? Thats not a die shrink, its a arch overhaul.

The FM2 mobos will be good to help get ready for Trinity but thats about it.

As for the monthly updates, thats very dissapointing. AMD already gets a pretty bad rap for not having as good driver support as nVidia (nVidia does quite a few per month and sometimes just for new games) and this will only drive sales down more since they no longer have a price advantage, or at least a major one.

And thats said with me owning a HD7970. And it plays MP3 just fine maxed out. But again, is it just me or is the new CEO leading the company in the wrong direction? All of these changes seem to be non competitive so nVidia and intel wont push either......

 

[-Fran-]

I encourage every desktop/gaming enthusiast to buy Intel for this generation. AMD clearly is walking away from this area of development and I do not like the direction the CEO is leading the company. When AMD is again serious as Intel is about their high performance CPUs, I will be a serious AMD fan again. In the meanwhile I will keep reading and dreaming about the AMD that could be.

To the fans who believe AMD is going in the right direction, I will ask this question: How can one expect a first class APU from a company who is not investing in first class CPU technology?

To answer your question: because APUs are not about CPU power alone.

They're going in the right direction IMO, but we, enthusiasts, are still some-what blinded (or biased) towards ultimate performance not balance. That race is no longer in place from AMD nor Intel, but the latter has a clear advantage and they're using it to the fullest. Now, AMD is still going in the same direction as Intel, but a few cycles behind trying to leverage with execution in the short time. I'm sure Trinity's delay is not because of AMD screwing up time schedules (or at least, hope so), but other factors external to them (yes, GF).

PCie 3.0 is not a super big deal although in the future with newer GPUs it may be.

Trinity, I don't think it can take another delay. IB is not as good GPU wise as Trinity but what about Haswell? Thats not a die shrink, its a arch overhaul.

The FM2 mobos will be good to help get ready for Trinity but thats about it.

As for the monthly updates, thats very dissapointing. AMD already gets a pretty bad rap for not having as good driver support as nVidia (nVidia does quite a few per month and sometimes just for new games) and this will only drive sales down more since they no longer have a price advantage, or at least a major one.

And thats said with me owning a HD7970. And it plays MP3 just fine maxed out. But again, is it just me or is the new CEO leading the company in the wrong direction? All of these changes seem to be non competitive so nVidia and intel wont push either......

Nope, I agree with Mr. Read's calls so far. AMD is fab-less now and can't control the build aspect of the business, so they're better off betting in diversification of market (CPU + APU + GPU in all possible flavors) just like Intel is doing it now. Betting for using not-so-cutting-edge process technologies, but what the market has to offer right now and get products out there fast (or as fast as the fabs allow them to).

I remind you Intel is also going in different routes, just like AMD is trying to, so AMD's roadmap is not that different from Intel's in terms of long-term planning. Both want a chunk of mobile and ultra-mobile (smartphones/tablets) and are aiming towards those markets with very good product portfolios.

Intel has Medfield ("ULV" Atoms for cellphones) paired with 3rd parties GPU SOCs in trial over at China right now. AMD has the C-line of APUs for Tablets and maybe cellphones sometime in the future and a strong GPU portfolio that went to Qualcomm.

--
Summary/TL;DR: Mr. Read is just making out the best of what little AMD has so far to push forward, and Trinity, being his first final product (don't know if BD nor Llano can be called his, TBH), it's not a bad one in the light of reviews and what it turned out to be so far. This delay doesn't speak for what Mr. Read is actually doing as a whole and what will become in the near future of AMD, so don't pass judgement on him so fast. He might not be an engy, but he knows (as a salesperson inside) what the people might really want, so he can get a great engy to work on whatever AMD decides to. In this case, modular designs and APUs it seems, lol.

Cheers!

 

[esrever]

I encourage every desktop/gaming enthusiast to buy Intel for this generation. AMD clearly is walking away from this area of development and I do not like the direction the CEO is leading the company. When AMD is again serious as Intel is about their high performance CPUs, I will be a serious AMD fan again. In the meanwhile I will keep reading and dreaming about the AMD that could be.

To the fans who believe AMD is going in the right direction, I will ask this question: How can one expect a first class APU from a company who is not investing in first class CPU technology?

intel hasn't been about high performance for a while. Except maybe for the extreme cpus, which are mostly just extremely overpriced, intel has been focusing on mainly mobile, efficiency, integrated graphics and last but not least making money.

 

[-Fran-]

@mal

And that's why I pointed out, they're not pursuing the Performance crown, but something more in between performance per watt and being an all-rounder.

In fact, you can tell Intel is not going to make a huge jump in CPU performance with Haswell, but go more along the lines with AMD into an APU. I'm inclined to say that Sandy will be the last "huge" performance jump for Intel in a good couple of years and now they'll be progressive "P/W".

Now, they have a huge advantage, like you say, but it's 1 process ahead plus tweaks. That's a few cycles I'd say that can be closed by the fabs themselves. But AMD is not involved in that anymore I think. They're just asking for chips, let the fab decide how they'll compete with Intel fabs.

And regarding "being second". Remember, mal. It's always about the price. All this time Intel has been able to price their CPUs to put AMD in bankruptcy, but they haven't for a reason. They like keeping AMD around, so they have to price them to be "second best option" when they have the crown in performance. There are many business reasons Intel price their CPUs in the 200+ mark when I'm sure they can price them below 100 with no problems.

Cheers!

EDIT: About the CCC updates... Well, I'm willing to wait a few months time for solid upgrades and get a few hot fixes or patches in between.

 

[davemaster84]

more than a few cycles behind, you are being kind.
and that's one of my main reasons.

even if AMD is and always will be second in CPU performance to Intel, aren't you tired of running a lesser product.?
and now with Intel pricing of all chips i5-3570K and less being around $225US range, it's game over...
you can have your APU....
I'll take Ivy (or Sandy) and a dedicated all day long.

my opinion of course.
cheers.

I'd ask you the same question mal, why do you have a second hand product as the gtx 570´s? If you like to be in No 1 you should have a gtx 690 sli rather than your current.

I see you guys getting happier and happier with AMD's false steps and bet nothing would make you happier than seeing AMD vanish on the air, but that's maybe because you don't undertand or maybe you agree with monopolys , but probably when Intel's future generations start to improve only a bit and prices start to get higher and higher perhaps you'd wish there was some AMD ship around pushing Intel to keep the prices decent and the technology well updated.

 

[davemaster84]

Malmental is a person who sides with neither... just like me and many others here.
A 570 is a perfect choice for 1920x1080... i do not understand why you brought this up in all honesty, it is not as if he has been ripped off, or is that what you feared?

I want AMD back on track "performance" wise, but time will tell...

Well probably he didn't chose his words wisely and I wanted to use the same analogy, gtx 570´s aren't the best , they are just the same bang for the money compared to a 690, games this days use way more gpu than cpu . I have seen in videos benchmarks with my card and intel´s 2600k, and the difference is like 3 fps in unigine haven

 

[esrever]

Malmental is a person who sides with neither... just like me and many others here.
A 570 is a perfect choice for 1920x1080... i do not understand why you brought this up in all honesty, it is not as if he has been ripped off, or is that what you feared?

I want AMD back on track "performance" wise, but time will tell...

LOL

 

[de5_Roy]

why is 'monopoly' brought up every time amd and intel's pricing is discussed? intel's current lineup's msrp is lower than sandy bridge's. all the price gauging happens in retailer level. see what happened with the hdds. intel will never have monopoly - it's for their own good and they'll get into huge trouble if they ever come close to achieving monopoly (technically).
i think the next apu would be read's first final product, since trinity was in the works before read came on board. tbh i forgot when he joined amd. 😛 imo he's driving amd in the right direction. at least he seems to be properly focussed on the 'execution' goal. amd's decision on drivers, on going fabless, launching trinity in mobile first (where it has the best potential), launching gcn cards early and having a full quarter advantage over nvidia - all seems to have been done right so far.
amd's current roadmap shows 10-15% performance improvement every year. steamroller and later might be system-on-chip type chips. both intel and amd are aiming for that. intel has been slowly integrating components with each tock afaik. amd is trying to do the same, if you consider trinity a 'tock' for llano's 'tick'. mobile trinity offers better igpu performance and perf/watt with 32nm chips while intel's ivb counterparts are 22 nm.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Well probably he didn't chose his words wisely and I wanted to use the same analogy, gtx 570´s aren't the best , they are just the same bang for the money compared to a 690, games this days use way more gpu than cpu . I have seen in videos benchmarks with my card and intel´s 2600k, and the difference is like 3 fps in unigine haven

At the time when mal got the 570s, they were not "second rate". They were the best bang for buck, two GTX570s cost less than a single GTX580 and outperformed a GTX580.

At the time, a HD6970 did not really beat a GTX570. He has ahd the 570s for a while now.

A HD7970 does better at higher resolutions than a GTX670 and a GTX680 due to the extra VRAM but overall they are almost dead even at stock clocks and normal resolutions.

 

[davemaster84]

At the time when mal got the 570s, they were not "second rate". They were the best bang for buck, two GTX570s cost less than a single GTX580 and outperformed a GTX580.

At the time, a HD6970 did not really beat a GTX570. He has ahd the 570s for a while now.

A HD7970 does better at higher resolutions than a GTX670 and a GTX680 due to the extra VRAM but overall they are almost dead even at stock clocks and normal resolutions.

I'm aware that the 570´s are very good cards, I'd have loved to have that sli instead of my 460´s (awesome cards too) , but they are lesser hardware than a 670 or a 7970. According to mal it is wrong to have "2nd quality hardware" but hardware is not all about who has the biggest budget , it is also about getting the correct pieces so you get the best for a good price.

Benchmarks on the 8150 are not embarrasing behind intel's ships, and they are going to get closer by PD release, if AMD delayed trinity is because they want to assure a good product quality

 

[Chad Boga]

I'm aware that the 570´s are very good cards, I'd have loved to have that sli instead of my 460´s (awesome cards too) , but they are lesser hardware than a 670 or a 7970. According to mal it is wrong to have "2nd quality hardware" but hardware is not all about who has the biggest budget , it is also about getting the correct pieces so you get the best for a good price.

You have misinterpreted what mal was inferring.

He is saying don't buy a second rate product over a first rate product, if they have similar pricing.

After you do that, if then a better product is released, it doesn't make your purchase at the time invalid, which you seem to be inferring, nor are you then meant to immediately upgrade to the newer better product.

if AMD delayed trinity is because they want to assure a good product quality

Is that another way of saying they are having problems?

 

[Reynod]

Lets keep it positive.

BTW I would trade my mother in law for one 570 ... let alone 2.

I have a couple of 5850's ... 735 /1050 ... in our X6 gaming box in CF ... makes a big difference on some games.

Not that I get to use it since the kids got diablo III ...

Sheesh !!

 

[Reynod]

My PSU is only a 750 in that box ... wouldn't be able to put two 570's in It I guess.

I got my mate a nice E450 the other day ... prices have come down on those quite a bit.

Very good lappy for $500 eh?

I am keen to trade all of my desktops once Trinity lappies come out ... will free up a lot of room where currently 4 desktops sit ... greedily chewing power.

 

[Reynod]

Yeah I dodn't even get one for my main rig ... still have a Q6600 and a GTX260 here.

Its ok I guess ... plays Starcraft II quite well ... still haven't finished that game ... will get to Diablo III later this year.

Getting old ...

'Whats he building in there .... "" Guess the song / singer.

 

[king smp]

funny I have a Youtube channel called "Gaming on a Budget"
I have currently 6814 views with 8 subscribers in about a year's time
I personally think getting bleeding edge isnt really a good idea
look at SB with the mobo problem early on
look at BD with crazy prices early on
many more examples

sure if you have the money to burn to buy bleeding edge that is fine
but really not very smart
right now you can find some awesome deals on I7 first gen used on Ebay and Craigslist
heck I bought a PHII 965BE for $90 brand new retail version at Microcenter
for most amateur/light duty type work including gaming,office,video editing and encoding a 4ghz PHII Deneb does just fine
sure a SB/IB will crush it in benches but is it anything noticeable in real life scenarios?

 

[davemaster84]

( 'jimmysmitty' remembers me yelling about it..)

well considering I got a brand new in box MSI N570GTX Twin Frozr III PE/OC (Fermi) 1.25GB 320-bit GDDR5
for $260 shipped I can't complain......
you.?


but that's not even what this is about as 'CHAD BOGA' fully understood what I was saying.
I would like to add the power consumption difference between AMD and Intel in the mix with price/performance factor..

(so the more power consumption I run with my 570 vs HD 7850 is given back since my Intel unit runs lighter than AMD...
I'm saying that now to squash the, ' well the 7850 runs more efficiently than the 570 ' response...)
I don't care about that anyways, I pay the utility bill each month (mostly...😉 )

never said it was wrong, so please do not put words in my mouth.
because when you put words in my mouth that leaves you open for me to question you as well.

thanks 'CHAD BOGA', 'rekon-uk'..
for your understanding and support.

cheers.

I just found your comment a bit crude and a bit extreme, all I'm trying to say is in real life scenarios AMD and Intel are really close in performance (gaming) so having an AMD doesn't mean your rig would be "lesser", since there are more things to consider like the gpus. About pricing Intel will be always more expensive, a 2500k is priced the same as a 8150 but they perform basically the same, and a 2600k is priced at least 90 US higher than the 8150

 

[4745454b]

For the most part I agree. My issues is the games where for some reason AMD just isn't as fast. WoW is the best example I can give. G860s and 2120 can do what AMD can do just fine. And I'm talking OC'd AMDs. For a gaming box why get a 4100 or 8120 if a 2120 will do just as well?

 

[davemaster84]

I apologize for your sensitivity.. 😛

Yeah me too, I don't want this to look like personal, no hard feelins bro. See ya!

 

[Cazalan]

The delay was just to get more mobile APU's in the pipeline. That's where Trinity is most valuable to AMD. Who needs/wants a desktop Trinity?

 

[-Fran-]

me? OEMs ?


High end ones like the A8 and A10 wouldnt be what I want, but the lower ends like A4 will make really fine HTPCs

Actually, those "all-in-one" PCs from OEMs love the E350/450 and some A6 and A8 variants.

So, I agree with Greg, OEMs might be a little disturbed by the set back. Nothing a good talk can't fix I guess, but still 😛

Besides, it's only 1 month set back, right? It might be for stocking for retail. It wouldn't surprise me that OEMs are getting ALL the bloody chips, lol.

Cheers!

 

[nforce4max]

The delay was just to get more mobile APU's in the pipeline. That's where Trinity is most valuable to AMD. Who needs/wants a desktop Trinity?

I am planning on a low end to mid range trinity just for casual gaming and general use. I am not very fond of this e350 after my gtx460 killed my i5 build :lol: oh well it was only the board that went.

I can only hope that the low end models don't suck to much as I am only doing web browsing, wow, skyrim (low settings), and work. Save the real gaming and video editing for other rigs.

 

[esrever]

you laughing' , really.?
you haven't signed in as 'triny' lately either....
😉

LMAO

 

[FlintIronStagg]

oh man, piledriver? i gave up on amd.... sorry
oh yeah ummm... expert conjectuer.... uhh.... im at a loss for words in that dept. im just tired of waiting

 

[dogman_1234]

I can wait...in fact, I await for what AMD has to bring. then again, I am a hopeful pessimist in this case... 😛

 

[sarinaide]

It's tough to be a fan of AMD right now. So much going wrong. Not competing with Intel, new chip that has issues keeping up with older one, GPUs that do ok, but presumably are no faster then Nvidia's midrange, driver releases that can't keep schedule so they bail on monthly releases, etc. I need some sand for my head...

It wasn't that long ago that the HD 7870 which is a midrange card handed the then highest end GTX (580) a beating, with Nvidia and AMD committed to sequential release dates it is difficult to stipulate what is better.

"mid range cards", remind me again where are these Nvidia mid range cards....the GTX660 has not been released and in all honesty a card priced $400+ is far from mid range. On a par the HD7950/7970 match up well with the GTX680 at the price point... minus physx and nvidia preference the cards are about the samething. The HD7870/7950 also pair well against the GTX 670 again where situations don't favour Nvidia the cards are practically even.

Well on 3DMark 11/Vantage which is the best modern gaming synthetic which tests single core performance the FX8XXX beat the PII 1090/1100T (cards at the same price point) and the FX6100 matches up with the Denebs/Thubans, the FX 4XXX seems to be the missmatch. Again synthetics are metric representations of what the writer percieves is the representation of the particular component, it is not a exact science, i am inclined to believe the crystal ball fab is more accurate.

not competing with intel? in which market...if its the enthusiast market, i.e overclockers that are synthetic dependant like a coccaine addict, then "no" AMD has foregone that market for the forseeable future. For mainstream and commercial setups AMD competes very well, but for marketing myopia that goes around it should be doing far better. Blame haphazard reviews for that.

I encourage every desktop/gaming enthusiast to buy Intel for this generation. AMD clearly is walking away from this area of development and I do not like the direction the CEO is leading the company. When AMD is again serious as Intel is about their high performance CPUs, I will be a serious AMD fan again. In the meanwhile I will keep reading and dreaming about the AMD that could be.

To the fans who believe AMD is going in the right direction, I will ask this question: How can one expect a first class APU from a company who is not investing in first class CPU technology?

"When AMD is again serious as Intel is about their high performance CPUs" you are just lucky...or I am lucky I wasn't eating or drinking when reading this...I may have choked/drowned...Intel are supah seriaaas about DT that a mainstream buffed up notebook CPU can match or beat a extreme end watered down server chip? good lawd notebook and server chips playing guinea pig to the DT market....Hooah on that degree of seriousness.

"I will be a serious AMD fan"; again you and your "serious"

Who told you that AMD are not using first class technology, if anything Intel has ripped off a few AMD perks in IB....namely the "cold bug" Intel chips used to litterally stop working when hitting beyond -160*C, now they work....then Haswell is supposed to be Intel's sojourn into APU GPU performance realms.....HD 5000 will probably still look second grade to a then year old Trinity....oh well AMD are certainly not first class.