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 ...

 

[Dangi]

I again note: MS could have killed dual cores if they insisted on per-core licensing. Thank god they didn't...

That would have killed FX processor ( thiking of FX 8XXX........ouch so much money for windows )

Also not so long ago MS did a patch to improve FX performance (using the 8 cores the right way, well the way said AMD )with a minimal gain ( 3% -5% )

 

[obsama1]

I actually agree on this. Tablets especially are going to continue to encroach on consoles domain. Consoles still have the advantage of an easy interface and are (mostly) idiot proof and trouble free, but between the HW cost to create the things and diminishing returns on investment, they are becoming a very hard sell.

I would not be shocked if this is the last major console generation.

Never going to happen. Tablet gaming is just something you do in the car or while you wait for something. Consoles will outsell tablets for gaming.

 

[Blandge]

Never going to happen. Tablet gaming is just something you do in the car or while you wait for something. Consoles will outsell tablets for gaming.

Well this is certainly true for ARM tablets but if you consider x86 tablets this could change in the next 3-5 years.

 

[obsama1]

Touchscreen sucks for input compared to KB+M/controller. A tablet will also be more expensive than a console. The avg. consumer will just go with a console if they're looking for a gaming device.

 

[noob2222]

Wrong again. The 4GB Address Space limitation is in effect for ALL 32-bit applications. The application can not, under any circumstances (PAE aside), access more memory then that. So if you start to increase storage usage linearly, you are very quickly going above that 4GB limitation.

Moving to Win64 would solve that issue, but even then, you'd continue to be using more and more RAM as you increased the number of threads.

This right here shows just how bad devs are fighting advancing to the new era. Are they seriously programming everything in 32 bit still? 64 bit windows is the highest selling os and has been out for how many years? going on 9 years and we are refusing to program in 64 bit, much less multi-core.

If lock-free and wait-free have no advantage and slows everything down as you say, then why are people even developing it at all?

A:"hey im going to make this new code to remove the blocking of access to memory so everything runs even slower"
B: " what?"
A: " im going to slow down all programming because this lock-free is super slow and has no advantage whatsoever"
B: " uhhh.."

^ If that were the case as you say, then why would we even be trying to develop lock-free programming at all?

The goal of this group and it's corporate partners is to encourage and promote the development of entire software applications and solutions that provide the maximum benefits of mult-core and distributed processing. http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LockFree-applications-are-coming-marketplace-4157473.S.78542525?qid=27af878c-49a6-4302-9d4c-7e3193f37a15

There is an aweful lot of effort put into lock-free applications and programming if there is no benefit at all. funny thing is every one of them quotes it being for "multi-core".

 

[Blandge]

Touchscreen sucks for input compared to KB+M/controller. A tablet will also be more expensive than a console. The avg. consumer will just go with a console if they're looking for a gaming device.

Yeah but you can fit full windows OS on a tablet so you would just attach a monitor, an Xbox controller or a keyboard and mouse. If you have a tablet already there's no point in buying a console if you can already play the same games.

 

[obsama1]

It won't have a ton of grunt, and there'd be a lot of heat if it's x86 and has graphics. Def. be cool if you do it, but it's not going to outsell consoles for gaming. For me, if I had an x86 tab, I'd try it out, but it's not going to replace a console or PC any time soon. Maybe if AMD's next APU's after Trinity are really low power, but have a lot of grunt, then it could be viable.

 

[r0ck3tm@n]

No, I'm just pointing out that the disadvantages outweigh the gains (at least as currently implemented).

wait-free is designed to speed things up, how is that slow?

Wrong. Wait-free only removes waiting contention between threads. This does NOT equate to an automatic speedup. In this case, because of the increased memory usage (and the overhead that comes with it), while your threads won't be waiting on eachother, the slowdowns that result from removing waits from the equation actually slows the entire process. (For example, making a copy of a large data structure is a time consuming process, especially if no block in RAM is currently large enough to hold it.)

lock-free only decreases performance on single-core systems, the thing your fighting, multi-core era.

Again, wrong.

using more ram is bad for low end systems, punish everyone else that has 8+gb system memory and stick with the old code. Its slow on 1-2 core systems, punish everyone that has 4-8 core systems and stick with the old code.

Wrong again. The 4GB Address Space limitation is in effect for ALL 32-bit applications. The application can not, under any circumstances (PAE aside), access more memory then that. So if you start to increase storage usage linearly, you are very quickly going above that 4GB limitation.

Moving to Win64 would solve that issue, but even then, you'd continue to be using more and more RAM as you increased the number of threads.

Like I stated before, it comes down to promoting your product to the market, not eliminating anyone because you made the biggest bad ass program around, but it requires some high end system due to how its written. <-- this is whats holding back multi-core game development.[/quotemsg]

Disagree totally with your conclusion. But hey, I'm only the Software guy; lets ignore his opinions on software design.[/quotemsg]

Yet another post by you on how writing programs for many cores doesn't work well. While I would agree that gamerk316 can't write programs that work well for many cores, I'm sure that the art of writing programs will advance and energetic, future minded programmers will learn how to do this.

Yes, synchronization is the price you must pay for breaking a program into many threads and no, you don't get a X n speed up for n threads but the point is to not tie up the cpu while the waiting occurs. If you can't find the ways a program can be broken up into threads that execute simultaneously, fine, it's not for everyone. Maybe you can give it a rest for awhile?

 

[jdwii]

It won't have a ton of grunt, and there'd be a lot of heat if it's x86 and has graphics. Def. be cool if you do it, but it's not going to outsell consoles for gaming. For me, if I had an x86 tab, I'd try it out, but it's not going to replace a console or PC any time soon. Maybe if AMD's next APU's after Trinity are really low power, but have a lot of grunt, then it could be viable.

Tablets wont replace consoles but it will(and has) make people use them less. Tablets are taking casual gamers away from consoles.

 

[esrever]

I'd say the next gen consoles will need to be a home entertainment system to succeed. More and more people are building htpcs with gaming capabilities, they won't really need a console unless the console can replace the htpc. This and the fact that theres really no difference between the ps4 and the 720 from the rumours of the hardware, it will be how well the marketing and the software that will define the console.

 

[king smp]

One day in the future the game consoles will all be the same
One unit licensed to different makers
There is no money in consoles only in the games and accessories
the idea of having three different consoles that cant use the same games or accessories will end

 

[obsama1]

^^^

Never going to happen.

 

[king smp]

just remember what I said obsama
it is just logical
the console makers really make their money from licensing the rights to make the games to the developers and makers of accessories and also make the software and accessories themselves
the consoles are sold with very little profit margin
if all they sold where consoles they couldnt stay in business
even the big OEM computer makers are having trouble with the home PC market
IBM sold their PC business to Lenovo
not because they were hurting
just wasnt cost effective
IBM is doing very well with their patents and enterprise software solutions
HP tried last year to sell their PC business also
console/PC systems have a low profit margin
for example I was a Radioshack store manager and they taught us that a $200 printer made $20 in gross profit
a $30 USB cable made $20 in gross profit
same amount of profit

also the idea of one unified gaming console is not my own
I have read about that happening in more than one article

 

[jdwii]

^^^

Never going to happen.

+1

I'd say their is money to be made on consoles but only for Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Amd or who ever helps make the system. You will never have 1 system for all just like you will never have 1 OS for all or 1 Phone OS for all. Plus you will never get Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft to agree on this when their competitors.

 

[cgner]

Tablets have very bad unresponsive controls over consoles. They are also easier to break than consoles, so parents will pick them

 

[truegenius]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/news/~3/aDYQDrWJxCM/1
trinity based athlon x4 chips

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/news/~3/Do6pInZQl6Q/1
amd launches intel based servers

 

[sarinaide]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/news/~3/aDYQDrWJxCM/1
trinity based athlon x4 chips

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/news/~3/Do6pInZQl6Q/1
amd launches intel based servers

Thats neat, I have Athlon II X4 640 which is still capable of doing many a casual user functions, with a bit of a rehash should be a nice little addition to those on the A platforms.

 

[anxiousinfusion]

Tablets are taking casual gamers away from consoles.

But this is a good thing. Have you seen what the casual market has done to Nintendo?

 

[cgner]

But this is a good thing. Have you seen what the casual market has done to Nintendo?

Have u seen what they have done to PC? Atrocious.

 

[-Fran-]

Have u seen what they have done to PC? Atrocious.

In all fairness, Nintendo hasn't done anything to the PC. They've been focused on creating new ways of interacting with the console mostly and that's a very cool thing to do.

If you want to point fingers, you can point them to MS and Sony.

Cheers!

 

[Dangi]

In all fairness, Nintendo hasn't done anything to the PC. They've been focused on creating new ways of interacting with the console mostly and that's a very cool thing to do.

If you want to point fingers, you can point them to MS and Sony.

Cheers!

I will point my finger to EA, Ubisoft...... they are the ones porting games MS and Sony will "push" PC performance with it's new gen console, until then we will live with ports from consoles that use Nvidia 7600 ( If I remember correctly that's the one from Xbox 360)

 

[jdwii]

In all fairness, Nintendo hasn't done anything to the PC. They've been focused on creating new ways of interacting with the console mostly and that's a very cool thing to do.

If you want to point fingers, you can point them to MS and Sony.

Cheers!

I will point my finger to EA, Ubisoft...... they are the ones porting games MS and Sony will "push" PC performance with it's new gen console, until then we will live with ports from consoles that use Nvidia 7600 ( If I remember correctly that's the one from Xbox 360)

In all fairness your both 110% correct!
😉

But this is a good thing. Have you seen what the casual market has done to Nintendo?

Yeah i sold my wii becease of no good games and got a 360 the 360 broke i got it fixed and sold it to a friend for 100$ then i got another 100$ and bought my Athlon II x4 and a Asus board and said i'm done with Console gaming, And i got 80$ for my birthday and got a Nvidia 9500GT DDR3 128 bit card. What's funny is my PC played games better then my 360 anyways and looked better while doing it.

 

[cgner]

In all fairness, Nintendo hasn't done anything to the PC. They've been focused on creating new ways of interacting with the console mostly and that's a very cool thing to do.

If you want to point fingers, you can point them to MS and Sony.

Cheers!

I was talking about casual gamers. So many games today are about story, not about challenge OR gameplay for that matter. all these games where u hide behind some cover, pop out, shoot a few rounds, pop back in, reload your 90% full magazine, and do that all day. Really fun

Not to mention the whole run and gun genre and everyone trying to copy cod. I played crysis 2 MP last night, what a shameless ripoff.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

slightly OT :

http://blog.accelereyes.com/blog/2012/04/26/benchmarking-kepler-gtx-680/

comparing gtx480, gtx580 and gtx680 in GPU accelerated MATLAB. For single precision and double precision.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Never going to happen. Tablet gaming is just something you do in the car or while you wait for something. Consoles will outsell tablets for gaming.

I'd agree with that. I have a PS3, a tablet and of course a gaming PC and each has their strengths & weaknesses. Tablet gaming is great for things like Mahjohng or Plants vs. Zombies or racecar games that make use of the tilt sensor. Consoles are great on a 50" TV and 7.1 surround sound 😀, for games that make use of more controls and are faster-paced. PC's are great for complicated/strategy/immersive plot-type games as well as the above (using a joystick for racing that is). I just wish that we had fewer console ports (like DA2 seems to be, compared to DA1).