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 ...

 

[davemaster84]

Well I guess there's no way to win a competition against Intel in the high end side, but if PD gets just between th 2500k and the 2600k, maybe at the same level than the 2nd AMD would be back into business, since 990fx are very good boards and IB is expensive as hell

 

[4745454b]

Considering that high end BD showed up at $250 I wouldn't expect a PD that can compete to be cheap either. AMD prices their chips low because they take price/performance into account.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I'm still using a 955 be and really want to upgrade my cpu soon and would like to see what amd can offer before I switch to intel.I haven't really followed PD at all can someone kinda catch me up? I'd much appreciate it I don't really want to read through 100's of pages. Thanks alot!

If your sig is still up to date, you will need a new mobo. You have a M4A, which is a AM3. For BD or PD you need a AM3+ which is the M5A series from Asus.

@AMDFangirl thanx

@gamerk316 Oh yeah, n btw that 15% improvement was WITHOUT the 8MB L3 cache that the BD enjoys

Thing is that L3 for the most part doesn't add to the majority of apps. Plus AMDs L cache is pretty slow in comparison.

itunes? Well threaded??!!! Am i missing something here??

Yes 15% only due to IPC, cyclos tech will possibly allow for even higher clocks at the same TDP rating, adding perhaps maybe another 10% more
And regarding highly threaded loads, like i said above, BD already manages to stay between the i5 and i7 performance boundaries

The iTunes encoder is pretty well threaded. Not the app but the program used to encode movies and such.

Also, you need to lower your expectations. This is the same thing that happened with Phenom and Bulldozer. People saw some base reports and got out of control with their excitement. In the end the hype was built up way to far and people were let down very hard.

I am sure jdwii can tell you of this as he was initially pretty excited for BD.

Well I guess there's no way to win a competition against Intel in the high end side, but if PD gets just between th 2500k and the 2600k, maybe at the same level than the 2nd AMD would be back into business, since 990fx are very good boards and IB is expensive as hell

What is expensive as hell? $229.99 for a i5-3570K on Newegg is pretty decent considering that a Q6600 (one of the first quad cores) hit at $851. So in a matter of 5 years we went from $1K quad cores to less than $250 (and even less if you count the non K quad cores). The mobos are not too bad overall. About $150-$200 for a very nice one.

So I wonder what expensive as hell means. Is it the $1K CPUs? If so, those are SB-E, not IB. Because less than $250 for a quad core that performs like crazy is not expensive as hell.

And as well, you realize that if Piledriver does well enough it will be priced accordingly. Why do you think the HD7970 hit at nearly $600? Because it had the performance crown. Interesting enough is that we have yet to get any pricing info on neither Piledriver or Trinity for DT.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Considering that high end BD showed up at $250 I wouldn't expect a PD that can compete to be cheap either. AMD prices their chips low because they take price/performance into account.

I wouldn't say that but more that they price it where it performs. BD was supposed to be much higher in the original price rumors (near $400ish for the top end if I remember) but lowered near launch.

I still stand that if AMD ever regains the performance crown, the priceing will not be nearly as friendly as people have come to expect.

 

[davemaster84]

Well yet all depends on the budget, in my case paying 400US for a 3770k not to mention the x79 board price is not an option, it is just too expensive for me. I am finishing to build my 2000 dollar rig, with AMD I can afford a gtx 680 sli, with intel I´d just be stuck with only 1 and probably for long. PD flagship should be priced below 250 to be competitive enough making it a way better buy than a 2500k - 3570k, even to some people best bang for the buck than the i7´s

 

[MU_Engineer]

Thing is that L3 for the most part doesn't add to the majority of apps. Plus AMDs L cache is pretty slow in comparison.

The L3 helps with server applications, and server chips have been repackaged minimally modified for desktop use for quite a few years. The designed for strictly desktop and laptop chips such as LGA1155 Sandy Bridge and the FM1/FM2 APUs have no L3 cache, it's not that handy in desktop programs. I guess the question really is, should the manufacturers really keep "tricking down" high-end multiprocessor server chips for high-end desktop, or just turn the screws on their desktop-specific parts to make high-end desktop parts?

The iTunes encoder is pretty well threaded. Not the app but the program used to encode movies and such.

The audio encoder is well known to be single threaded, which is why you see the results you saw between the FX-81xx and the Trinity APU.

What is expensive as hell? $229.99 for a i5-3570K on Newegg is pretty decent considering that a Q6600 (one of the first quad cores) hit at $851. So in a matter of 5 years we went from $1K quad cores to less than $250 (and even less if you count the non K quad cores). The mobos are not too bad overall. About $150-$200 for a very nice one.

So I wonder what expensive as hell means. Is it the $1K CPUs? If so, those are SB-E, not IB. Because less than $250 for a quad core that performs like crazy is not expensive as hell.

The Q6600 debuted at $851 but just about nobody bought one until it dropped into the ~$300ish range about a year later. So we had $300ish Intel quads in 2007 and what do we have now? Intel Quads in the $200-300ish range. The i5-3570K is somewhere in the neighborhood of twice as fast as the Q6600 in single and multithreaded tasks. That sounds good until you realize that the chips cost the same and it's been FIVE YEARS since the Q6600 has come out. You would expect more than that for improvement in performance, or prices should go way down if Moore's Law is anywhere near accurate. Intel has been very, very reluctant to release anything with more than four cores on the desktop for less than a king's ransom. They have had six-core chips since 2008 with the enormous Xeon Dunnington, which admittedly would be cost prohibitive to sell on the desktop with its 500+ mm^2 die. However they have had Westmeres since early 2010 and declined to sell any of them for less than around $550, ever. I believe the least expensive six-core Intel chip you can get new and fits in a desktop socket is the 2.0 GHz Xeon E5-2620 which costs over $400. Arguably AMD has done much better, they keep dropping the price as they introduce a new line of chips with more cores and more performance. An FX-8150 is much more than twice as fast as a Phenom X4 9600 in multithreaded tasks but costs about 2/3 of what AMD was asking for the Agena unit in 2007.

And as well, you realize that if Piledriver does well enough it will be priced accordingly. Why do you think the HD7970 hit at nearly $600? Because it had the performance crown. Interesting enough is that we have yet to get any pricing info on neither Piledriver or Trinity for DT.

My guess is the Trinities run in the roughly $80-150 range and Piledriver is between about $120 and a little under $300.

 

[$hawn]

The iTunes encoder is pretty well threaded. Not the app but the program used to encode movies and such.

The audio encoder is well known to be single threaded, which is why you see the results you saw between the FX-81xx and the Trinity APU.

By multi-threaded i guess JimmySmitty means running 8 separate single-threaded audio encodings at once, so that all 8 cores are used.
Not a very just way of calling it "Well multi-threaded" eh? 😀

 

[palladin9479]

By multi-threaded i guess JimmySmitty means running 8 separate single-threaded audio encodings at once, so that all 8 cores are used.
Not a very just way of calling it "Well multi-threaded" eh? 😀

That audio encoder has been a stable for figuring out uArch efficiency improvements. Although I'd never use it for comparison between two CPU's using different instruction sets (SSE2 vs SSE4 / ect..). Otherwise, set CPU A to speed B, run once, set to speed C, run again, compare results.

 

[palladin9479]

So Phenom II owners, is PD looking like a good upgrade, if it is priced correctly?
I know it is going to be for anyone on BD, myself included.

I have three requirements before I'll consider an upgrade.

#1: Must exceed my current CPU's capability by a significant enough margin to justify the cost. I'm current 970BE @4.2 using only the multiplier.

#2: Must be tunable on a per-core/module level. I want to be able to forcible down-clock the underused modules to hyper-clock the module my designated program is running on (should said program not be multi-core friendly).

#3: Must work on my current board, Asus Sabertooth.

 

[$hawn]

Although I'd never use it for comparison between two CPU's using different instruction sets (SSE2 vs SSE4 / ect..). Otherwise, set CPU A to speed B, run once, set to speed C, run again, compare results.

You noe way back in 2006, i did exactly this
I had a 933MHz P3 Coppermine, and my friend had just brought a brand new 3.0GHz P4 HT.

I converted the same WAV file to an MP3 using the same settings, using Fastenc on the MS-DOS prompt on both systems. Due to the clock speed difference, and assuming the P4 architecture to be superior (4>3 😀), i was expecting his P4 to encode atleast 4x faster

Mine managed 20.0x, while his surprising cud only sustain 48.8x !!! That's when I 'discovered' that the P4 architecture was not so great as the Ad's on TV claimed it to be

Come to think about it now, the P4 really did suck, even with 4 times more L2 cache, a 800MHz bus, and the SSE instruction set, it cud only manage to be 2.5x faster than my good old Pentium 3 lol i felt so proud of my 5yr old Coppermine back then

 

[jimmysmitty]

Well yet all depends on the budget, in my case paying 400US for a 3770k not to mention the x79 board price is not an option, it is just too expensive for me. I am finishing to build my 2000 dollar rig, with AMD I can afford a gtx 680 sli, with intel I´d just be stuck with only 1 and probably for long. PD flagship should be priced below 250 to be competitive enough making it a way better buy than a 2500k - 3570k, even to some people best bang for the buck than the i7´s

$2000 is plenty for a 3570K and SLI GTX680s but unless you plan on 3 monitors, those will go to waste anyways.

As for PD, I said depening on the performance it will be priced appropriatley. If its better than Intels $300 CPU, AMD will drop it higher than $300. Thats how the game goes. Don't expect them to kleep pricing low just to please people. They are a business and need to make money.

And X79 is the wrong chipset for a 3770K/3570K anyways, you want a Z68/Z77 chipset. About 50% less in price than the X79 mobos.

You noe way back in 2006, i did exactly this
I had a 933MHz P3 Coppermine, and my friend had just brought a brand new 3.0GHz P4 HT.

I converted the same WAV file to an MP3 using the same settings, using Fastenc on the MS-DOS prompt on both systems. Due to the clock speed difference, and assuming the P4 architecture to be superior (4>3 😀), i was expecting his P4 to encode atleast 4x faster

Mine managed 20.0x, while his surprising cud only sustain 48.8x !!! That's when I 'discovered' that the P4 architecture was not so great as the Ad's on TV claimed it to be

Come to think about it now, the P4 really did suck, even with 4 times more L2 cache, a 800MHz bus, and the SSE instruction set, it cud only manage to be 2.5x faster than my good old Pentium 3 lol i felt so proud of my 5yr old Coppermine back then

A Pentium 4 brand new in 2006? I think your date is off a bit as in 2006 it was the release of Core 2.

But I am not suprised as Coppermine is the basis of the Core arch. In fact the first to use Core was the Pentium M which when converted to the DT with a 479->478 adapter and overclocked, it beat the pants off of the Pentium Ds and Athlon 64s.

And MU, thats what I meant. I tend to stay away from server talk as I know its a whole other ball game where memory speed, cache and more cores are better.

But in DT, L3 has shown very little overall performance benefits and it seems people here forget that.

As for pricing, it will depend oin the performance. If AMD pulls another "Athlon 64" wild card out of their pockets, they will price it the same as Intel if not higher in some areas.

I wont hold my breath on the performance or the price. Not sure why people expect the pricing to be at a certain point when historically AMD has priced according to their performance standing.

 

[$hawn]

A Pentium 4 brand new in 2006? I think your date is off a bit as in 2006 it was the release of Core 2.

Maybe the end of 2005 It wasn't a current top of the line system...most likely old stock He paid only around 200 bahraini dinars for it.....no taxes in Bahrain 😀

 

[truegenius]

Also, you need to lower your expectations. This is the same thing that happened with Phenom and Bulldozer. People saw some base reports and got out of control with their excitement. In the end the hype was built up way to far and people were let down very hard.

I am sure jdwii can tell you of this as he was initially pretty excited for BD.

we saw trinity based on piledriver, so current expactations are not going to over hype (except clocks, channels, cores, tdp, price :lol: 😗 )

The L3 helps with server applications, and server chips have been repackaged minimally modified for desktop use for quite a few years. The designed for strictly desktop and laptop chips such as LGA1155 Sandy Bridge and the FM1/FM2 APUs have no L3 cache, it's not that handy in desktop programs. I guess the question really is, should the manufacturers really keep "tricking down" high-end multiprocessor server chips for high-end desktop, or just turn the screws on their desktop-specific parts to make high-end desktop parts?

The iTunes encoder is pretty well threaded. Not the app but the program used to encode movies and such.

The audio encoder is well known to be single threaded, which is why you see the results you saw between the FX-81xx and the Trinity APU.

What is expensive as hell? $229.99 for a i5-3570K on Newegg is pretty decent considering that a Q6600 (one of the first quad cores) hit at $851. So in a matter of 5 years we went from $1K quad cores to less than $250 (and even less if you count the non K quad cores). The mobos are not too bad overall. About $150-$200 for a very nice one.

So I wonder what expensive as hell means. Is it the $1K CPUs? If so, those are SB-E, not IB. Because less than $250 for a quad core that performs like crazy is not expensive as hell.

The Q6600 debuted at $851 but just about nobody bought one until it dropped into the ~$300ish range about a year later. So we had $300ish Intel quads in 2007 and what do we have now? Intel Quads in the $200-300ish range. The i5-3570K is somewhere in the neighborhood of twice as fast as the Q6600 in single and multithreaded tasks. That sounds good until you realize that the chips cost the same and it's been FIVE YEARS since the Q6600 has come out. You would expect more than that for improvement in performance, or prices should go way down if Moore's Law is anywhere near accurate. Intel has been very, very reluctant to release anything with more than four cores on the desktop for less than a king's ransom. They have had six-core chips since 2008 with the enormous Xeon Dunnington, which admittedly would be cost prohibitive to sell on the desktop with its 500+ mm^2 die. However they have had Westmeres since early 2010 and declined to sell any of them for less than around $550, ever. I believe the least expensive six-core Intel chip you can get new and fits in a desktop socket is the 2.0 GHz Xeon E5-2620 which costs over $400. Arguably AMD has done much better, they keep dropping the price as they introduce a new line of chips with more cores and more performance. An FX-8150 is much more than twice as fast as a Phenom X4 9600 in multithreaded tasks but costs about 2/3 of what AMD was asking for the Agena unit in 2007.

And as well, you realize that if Piledriver does well enough it will be priced accordingly. Why do you think the HD7970 hit at nearly $600? Because it had the performance crown. Interesting enough is that we have yet to get any pricing info on neither Piledriver or Trinity for DT.

My guess is the Trinities run in the roughly $80-150 range and Piledriver is between about $120 and a little under $300.

another long post
for those who are tiered of reading can use their pc to read it for you by using this code
open notepad, and type
CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak"STATEMENT to be read"
and save it as filename.vbs and then run it 😉

 

[$hawn]

for those who are tiered of reading can use their pc to read it for you by using this code
open notepad, and type
CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak"STATEMENT to be read"
and save it as filename.vbs and then run it 😉

My gosh!!! it actually works, awesome!!! 😀

 

[vishalaestro]

wow it works

 

[gamerk316]

The Q6600 debuted at $851 but just about nobody bought one until it dropped into the ~$300ish range about a year later. So we had $300ish Intel quads in 2007 and what do we have now? Intel Quads in the $200-300ish range. The i5-3570K is somewhere in the neighborhood of twice as fast as the Q6600 in single and multithreaded tasks. That sounds good until you realize that the chips cost the same and it's been FIVE YEARS since the Q6600 has come out. You would expect more than that for improvement in performance, or prices should go way down if Moore's Law is anywhere near accurate. Intel has been very, very reluctant to release anything with more than four cores on the desktop for less than a king's ransom. They have had six-core chips since 2008 with the enormous Xeon Dunnington, which admittedly would be cost prohibitive to sell on the desktop with its 500+ mm^2 die. However they have had Westmeres since early 2010 and declined to sell any of them for less than around $550, ever. I believe the least expensive six-core Intel chip you can get new and fits in a desktop socket is the 2.0 GHz Xeon E5-2620 which costs over $400. Arguably AMD has done much better, they keep dropping the price as they introduce a new line of chips with more cores and more performance. An FX-8150 is much more than twice as fast as a Phenom X4 9600 in multithreaded tasks but costs about 2/3 of what AMD was asking for the Agena unit in 2007.

"Everything is worth what his purchaser will pay for it" ~ Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations

Besides, first rule of business: Whenever possible, do not engage in price wars. Engage in "feature" wars instead. More profit for everyone, and you remove the expectation of lower prices from the mind of consumers.

 

[king smp]

we saw trinity based on piledriver, so current expactations are not going to over hype (except clocks, channels, cores, tdp, price :lol: 😗 )


another long post
for those who are tiered of reading can use their pc to read it for you by using this code
open notepad, and type
CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak"STATEMENT to be read"
and save it as filename.vbs and then run it 😉

thanks for the neat trick though I have always enjoyed reading MUEngineers post however long they are
One of the more informed and knowledgeable posters on Toms
I always learn something new from reading his posts
and I enjoy reading

 

[sonoran]

I still stand that if AMD ever regains the performance crown, the priceing will not be nearly as friendly as people have come to expect.

Yes, the days of Jerry Sanders practically giving away product to gain market share at any cost are in the past.

 

[jdwii]

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/27670-amd-fx-8350-expected-in-q3

Don't know why we need so much L3 cache

 

[esrever]

why would a 6 core cpu have 14mb of cache?

 

[EXT64]

I believe that is total cache, so it includes L2, and L3.

Bulldozer also has 16mb L2+L3, so it really means cache is unchanged.

 

[lilcinw]

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/27670-amd-fx-8350-expected-in-q3

Don't know why we need so much L3 cache

The article says that they are expected in 'mid Q3'. If Q3 is July-Sept does that mean we could see a PD launch in August? That is sooner than I expected.

 

[MU_Engineer]

The article says that they are expected in 'mid Q3'. If Q3 is July-Sept does that mean we could see a PD launch in August? That is sooner than I expected.

So right in time for back to school...not a bad move from AMD.

 

[$hawn]

So right in time for back to school...not a bad move from AMD.

lol AMD's Q3 probably means Sept 31st 😀

 

[-Fran-]

lol AMD's Q3 probably means Sept 31st 😀

They better not screw the current set date, hahaha. If they do, well... So much for a better execution plan, lol.

Oh, man... So close... Can't wait for benchies >_<

Does Tom have a chip in their labs? When will they get one? ._.

Cheers!

PS: I asked and they told me it was ok to say where I work, lol... Experian is my house nowadays.