AMD Piledriver rumours ... and expert conjecture

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Reynod

Reynod

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Mar 26, 2007
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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 ...
 
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@Yuka knowing AMD Tom's labs probably won't receive chips until a few days before the NDA lifts.

Hopefully the sooner than expected launch rumor means that GF's yields have improved significantly and availability will be better this time around.
 
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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.



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.
Click to expand...

Yes i was way to excited for the 8 core bulldozer and was expecting a 50% boost in performance with all 8 cores being pushed when compared to the Phenom II x6 having all of its 6 cores being pushed. instead i got a 10% boost with crazy power consumption and cost on top of that i got 10%-20% performance taking away in low threaded apps.

Never will i make such extreme estimates but now its different we already have benchmarks showing Trinity with no L3 cache to be around 15% faster per clock plus we already know Piledriver will have clock mesh technology along with anything else global foundries improved. So saying a 15-20% boost in performance with less power consumption is not really going to far. But i will agree with your statement on price Amd and any other company will price their products on price/features.

BUT Its 2012 and we still have Quad cores for 230$ and we have to spend 120$ for a Dual core with Hyper threading Plus Intel's boards are not known for their price/performance except for some rare times. Intel's design can easily let Intel price their products at a much lower cost not to mention spending 100$ more for something that does not even add die size is pretty bad. Not to mention if Intel let their users overclock their I3 series they would probably have more customers in that space when it comes to custom gaming rigs. Intel is not as bad as they used to be but they still do these things that make me mad.

Lock overclocking to FORCE users to spend more.
Charge 100$ more for something that adds less then 5% die size if any. HT
Don't know if this is Intel's fault or not but their boards typically cost more then the equivalent Amd board.
Plus does any one remember this little thing that made me more mad then anyone else here?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/

Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do
Click to expand...
 
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BUT Its 2012 and we still have Quad cores for 230$ and we have to spend 120$ for a Dual core with Hyper threading Plus Intel's boards are not known for their price/performance except for some rare times. Intel's design can easily let Intel price their products at a much lower cost not to mention spending 100$ more for something that does not even add die size is pretty bad. Not to mention if Intel let their users overclock their I3 series they would probably have more customers in that space when it comes to custom gaming rigs. Intel is not as bad as they used to be but they still do these things that make me mad.

Lock overclocking to FORCE users to spend more.
Charge 100$ more for something that adds less then 5% die size if any. HT
Don't know if this is Intel's fault or not but their boards typically cost more then the equivalent Amd board.
Plus does any one remember this little thing that made me more mad then anyone else here?
Click to expand...

Well AMD shud be really happy that the i3's are locked for the sake of its own profitability!! :)

Unlocked core i3 at same price = Noboby buys the FX 41xx AND Less people buy the core i5 2300 and upwards = Intel will have to reduce the price of the 2500K etc by around $20 = Few people are gonna buy AMD FX chips unless the drop prices by atleast $30!!

In the end, AMD losses money on both the FX 41xx and FX 81xx chips 😀
 
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Yes i was way to excited for the 8 core bulldozer and was expecting a 50% boost in performance with all 8 cores being pushed when compared to the Phenom II x6 having all of its 6 cores being pushed. instead i got a 10% boost with crazy power consumption and cost on top of that i got 10%-20% performance taking away in low threaded apps.

Never will i make such extreme estimates but now its different we already have benchmarks showing Trinity with no L3 cache to be around 15% faster per clock plus we already know Piledriver will have clock mesh technology along with anything else global foundries improved. So saying a 15-20% boost in performance with less power consumption is not really going to far. But i will agree with your statement on price Amd and any other company will price their products on price/features.

BUT Its 2012 and we still have Quad cores for 230$ and we have to spend 120$ for a Dual core with Hyper threading Plus Intel's boards are not known for their price/performance except for some rare times. Intel's design can easily let Intel price their products at a much lower cost not to mention spending 100$ more for something that does not even add die size is pretty bad. Not to mention if Intel let their users overclock their I3 series they would probably have more customers in that space when it comes to custom gaming rigs. Intel is not as bad as they used to be but they still do these things that make me mad.

Lock overclocking to FORCE users to spend more.
Charge 100$ more for something that adds less then 5% die size if any. HT
Don't know if this is Intel's fault or not but their boards typically cost more then the equivalent Amd board.
Plus does any one remember this little thing that made me more mad then anyone else here?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/

Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

And from what I remember, AMD is starting to do the same thing hence the "K" edition Trinity CPUs.

Of course theirs is not as limited because they don't have the clock generator fpor the PCIe and SATA like Intel but that can easily change once they do.

I still think $200-$250 for a quad core is not that bad. Overall, overclocking has minimal benefits for the majorit and most gamers wont see much return for the extra investment into better cooling. I do it because I enjoy it more than anything plus I like the look of after market cooling vs stock.

As for the mobos, thats not far off but overall features are important per person. People clamor over SATA 6 and USB3 ports but they forget that they probably don't have more than one USB3 device and that HDDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray doesn't benefit from SATA 6. Hell the next SATA, SATA Express, is being geared towards SSDs mainly because HDDs are the major bottleneck in PCs to this day.

And even witrh Trinity benchmarks its better to wait and see. While it may be the same arch, it may not be the same performer. SB-E is overall the same as SB but with quad channel RAM and more cores. Yet the quad core still performs the same as the top end SB part in desktop apps and games.

And the delay... the date keeps changing. I would assume either a Monday or Tuesday release and if they keep pushing it back it will hurt them more than benefit them. One thing I wonder is if there will be a new chipset to go with it or possibly a refres to support USB 3 on the chipset. Considering their plans for PCIe 3.0 have dissapeared, I almost doubt that they will have a new chipset for PD.
 
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Not to mention if Intel let their users overclock their I3 series they would probably have more customers in that space when it comes to custom gaming rigs.
Click to expand...
then only amd fanboys/girls will buy amd (x2,x3,x4 fx4,fx6) and those who can take advantage of more cores (6,8)
even i can sell my 1090t for an unlocked 3rd gen i3 😗

Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob -- Intel's asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card -- and sure enough, Intel websites confirm -- that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor. Hardware.info got their hands on an early sample of the chip and discovered it's actually a full 1MB of L3 cache that's enabled plus HyperThreading support, which translates to a modest but noticeable upgrade. This isn't exactly an unprecedented move, as chip companies routinely sell hardware-locked chips all the time in a process known as binning, but there they have a simpler excuse -- binned chips are typically sold with cores or cache locked because that part of their silicon turned out defective after printing. This new idea is more akin to video games that let you "download" extra weapons and features, when those features were on the disc all along. Still, it's an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel's just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now.

[Thanks, Brian] :heink:
Click to expand...
is he aaa..., is it you, maybe we all know him, or maybe only i and some
 
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Okay well sorry if i post something that has already been posted.
I read about trinity and it has about 15% better ipc then bulldozerdozer which to me isn't quite enough considering that phenom ii has around that much only way i can justified getting one is if i wanted a 8 core but I really only game on my pc. Only game that comes to mind that takes advantage of that is bf3 but I'm only rocking a hd 6850 so I be bottleneck on gpu before taking advantage of those 8 cores. the phenom ii are better at dealing with floating points.

I read whats prevously posted but i will once i post this. lol
 
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And from what I remember, AMD is starting to do the same thing hence the "K" edition Trinity CPUs.

Of course theirs is not as limited because they don't have the clock generator fpor the PCIe and SATA like Intel but that can easily change once they do.

I still think $200-$250 for a quad core is not that bad. Overall, overclocking has minimal benefits for the majorit and most gamers wont see much return for the extra investment into better cooling. I do it because I enjoy it more than anything plus I like the look of after market cooling vs stock.

As for the mobos, thats not far off but overall features are important per person. People clamor over SATA 6 and USB3 ports but they forget that they probably don't have more than one USB3 device and that HDDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray doesn't benefit from SATA 6. Hell the next SATA, SATA Express, is being geared towards SSDs mainly because HDDs are the major bottleneck in PCs to this day.

And even witrh Trinity benchmarks its better to wait and see. While it may be the same arch, it may not be the same performer. SB-E is overall the same as SB but with quad channel RAM and more cores. Yet the quad core still performs the same as the top end SB part in desktop apps and games.

And the delay... the date keeps changing. I would assume either a Monday or Tuesday release and if they keep pushing it back it will hurt them more than benefit them. One thing I wonder is if there will be a new chipset to go with it or possibly a refres to support USB 3 on the chipset. Considering their plans for PCIe 3.0 have dissapeared, I almost doubt that they will have a new chipset for PD.
Click to expand...

Well, OC'ing always has benefits; it just depends on how far you're willing to get. Even more for gamers when they have video cards that get bottlenecked easily. And the additional cost for better cooling is not usually for having better OC. At least, in the case of AMD, it's been a long long time since I've seen a decent cooling solution outside of their top offerings. The A8 I got had this tiny little crappy HSF that barely kept the thing under 80°c, so I had to put my old HSF from the PhII and it got better by a lot in temps and sound, since the other had a little fan that was a bloody vacuum, hahaha. Same for the AthlonII's HSF, but they don't get that hot.

And the USD$250 mark for a "true" quad core from Intel is still high (K version; the 2300 is around USD$180); I got my PhII 965 for about USD$250 at the time, when the i5 750 was USD$300-ish (Q1 2010 I think). The AthlonII's had that market not so long ago and they OC'ed decently and sold a lot from what I saw at the time they were released; at least, all of my friends were picking the X3 or X4 flavors for cheap builds (encoding farms and HTPCs). Don't know how they're doing now though.

I agree with everything else, Jimmy.

Cheers!
 
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For me at the moment true quad doesn't matter. Those G8xx and 21xx i3s put up impressive numbers for being "only dual cores". There is a reason why AMD has only one FX chip as an honorable mention in Toms best CPUs for the money. (Might be two, the 8120 or 50 pops in every now and then.) Dual with HT or quad, does it really matter? I say no as long as the performance is there.
 
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When the first dual core CPUs were being released, there weren't many games that made active use of the 2 cores in WinXP... I remember that time, since I was an early adopter with the Athlon X2 and down the road, it really payed off (Toledo cores). Now, people telling folks to get the Core2 Dual cores are having horrible times with new games, whereas people telling them to get the Q6600 (I loved that CPU) don't have problems with current games with some OC or even at stock.

Nowadays, the shift has been set in dual cores; even quads I'd say. Down the road, getting a dual core for a gaming machine is going to crawl back and bite you in the rear; moreover when Intel is planning on another socket for Haswell (it seems) and new consoles getting more cores to work with.

If you talk about "regular non-gaming use", just get a Celeron or a E450; you'll have enough for years with 8GB of RAM for a very cheap price. For threaded workloads (encoding mostly), dual cores are just not enough, period.

Cheers!
 
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That honestly isn't my point my point is Intel is charging things that used to be free such as Overclocking or unlocking on a Amd rig(Intel told Asus to not allow free unlocking horrible)

The only reason why they don't let people overclock a I3 is because they would lose people in the I5 market. Greed and that is it.

Just like Hyper threading doesn't add any space for Intel which means cost, so a I7 is not worth 100$ more then a I5.

Again this isn't me saying "oh i hate intel" this is just me saying this stuff bugs me a little and i don't see it changing anytime soon.

A 4 core Piledriver will most likely be a better buy over a I3 if Amd can price it at 99-119$. But knowing Amd they will price it at 139.99$ and make it a meh deal.
 
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It was a combo of hype and pricing IMHO that made BD a fail
if the 4170 would of came out at $99 at launch and so on with rest of BD I think users would of been less disappointed
the issue is anybody with an AM3+ board before BD probably had a higher end PHII or Thuban so upgrading to BD made no sense
and for a new build it is hard to recommend BD over Intel unless possibly running heavy threaded apps for encoding,rendering etc even with new pricing
While I have a soft spot for AMD it is hard to recommend FX for new builds even budget builds where AMD dominated for so long
Not just the performance issue but the upgrade factor plays a big part in it
if FX would of somehow been compatible with AM3 boards it might of stood a chance

so with PD I think pricing even more than performance will be crucial
if AMD is admitting defeat to Intel in the enthusiast level desktop market then they cant charge enthusiast level pricing for their CPUs
I also think that they EOL'd the Denebs and Thubans much too quickly
sure it made sense so they dont compete with newer product but that is sad that BD couldnt compete with older architecture and had to do that
I know personally that it left a bad taste in my mouth
next cpu/mobo will be 1155 P67 at end of year hopefully
not that Intel is a loving company mind you
 
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I see what you're saying Yuka, but you'd probably want to upgrade your machine before that happens. I'm looking at scores now, and for gaming the 2120 is faster then any BD chip. And I'm not convinced that PD will change that. If you are looking at gaming which is the most demanding stuff that most of us do, then Intel makes more sense then AMD. Currently. And to me thats what matters, not that its only a dual with HT while the other is a true quad. That only makes it worse for AMD as their quad can't keep up with a dual...
 
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I see what you're saying Yuka, but you'd probably want to upgrade your machine before that happens. I'm looking at scores now, and for gaming the 2120 is faster then any BD chip. And I'm not convinced that PD will change that. If you are looking at gaming which is the most demanding stuff that most of us do, then Intel makes more sense then AMD. Currently. And to me thats what matters, not that its only a dual with HT while the other is a true quad. That only makes it worse for AMD as their quad can't keep up with a dual...
Click to expand...

I was just talking about recommending duals vs quads. Unless it's a very specific case of "internetz browsing experience", I don't recommend a dual core. Not even on tight budgets, when you can afford a true quad (on either camp), just go and get the quad. And lots of RAM, hahaha.

I would never recommend anyone buy anything less then a full quad core. You'll just end up spending more in the long run as you'll be forced to buy again next year. For things being built *now* it's i5 or don't bother.
Click to expand...

My point, precisely. When I got locked up with the Athlon X2 I thought "ok, I was lucky", since they said AM2 was coming and my almost-new s939 was now EOL'd. They kept making Athlons and then Barcie came with 4 cores, but I would've had to change the whole thing (hence my though on going with the i5 750; good thing I didn't). Not even the FX'es in eBay were cheap enough to make me want to upgrade ~___~.

If you don't have a severe constraint in budget, just get the lowest higher end (yeah yeah, you know what I mean, hahaha) that can be OCed or make sure you PLAN on the upgrade path, cause Intel or AMD can just change their plans without telling anyone and you'll be stuck for some time. Now, you can always sell and buy, but I don't have the time to do so and I'm sure there's a lot of folks in my shoes: my old parts go to friends or family as "upgrades" for them.

Cheers!
 
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I would never recommend anyone buy anything less then a full quad core. You'll just end up spending more in the long run as you'll be forced to buy again next year. For things being built *now* it's i5 or don't bother.
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Three years ago, I said that dual cores were dead, and at the very least, every new CPU purchase should be equivalent or better to an 8000 series quad core.

Since then, the regulars here who said the E8600 was plenty has had to undergo a CPU upgrade due to performance issues. Heck, even the C2Q lineup is showing its age as this juncture, let alone C2D...
 
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I wouldnt turn down a cheap QX9770 system LOL
What did Intel call that dual 9770 system again?
I would still like to find one of those on Craigslist
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The only reason I ditched my QX9650 was because of mobo problems [790i platform; laugh all you want], a GPU failure, and the fact SB just released. I was planning to keep that build until Haswell came out, but had to upgrade much earlier then planned due to HW failures.
 
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