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 ...

 

[jdwii]

look at the cpu/gpu usage. all the charts have their gpu at 95-98%. conclusion : a 6950 1gb doesn't take much cpu to max it out.

drop in 2x 7970 or gtx 690 and watch that change.

its like my testing on metro 2033. single 6970 gpu stressed 2 cores ~60-85%. CF 6970 pushed 4 cores up to 60-75% ... does that mean its only a 2-core game since a single gpu ran fine with 2?

It just takes more gpu to find a cpu bottleneck. In order to properly test a game's cpu usage, a proper review should use the absolute maximum gpu setup, and definately not a 6950.

problem is no review site wants to spend that kind of money.

That theory is a good one until you take into account that even GTA4 stresses my GPU at 90+% at my settings but when i make it to use only 2 vs 3 cores(GTA4 has NO advantage using more under my testing) performance goes down a lot

 

[esrever]

Here is my laptop doing a cincebench single core benchmark

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8052/8129194924_177d317869_b.jpg

that is only using 25% of the cpu at any given time but on the original post of task manager for that, it was using 80-90% of 4 cores which would mean it would be needing more cpu power if it was only one 2 cores.

 

[sarinaide]

Its not just about "good enough"; its about "good enough...at the right price".

And THIS highlights PD's problem:

For general purpose apps:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/value-scatter.gif

In games:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/gaming-scatter.gif

And lets face it: Who are the people who would most likely purchase an AMD processor? Enthusiasts. Everyone else just gets a pre-packaged Dell/HP.

It just highlights AMD's versatility in its pricing, while not being an enthusiast gaming part it offers enough, generally over 60FPS which is basically the point where nothing is noticed anymore anyways so its rather moot.

The FX8350 and A10 5800K in the P/P literally decimate the competition, again its what people want to pay for a system and more so processor. The APU is the curious one, it is by far the more flexible chip over a i3 allowing you to go straight to high end components (UP4, Extreme 6, GD 80, Pro/Pro Evo) for less than some intel mainstream motherboards with far more features, with a i3 its basically build on cheapest mobo money can buy often means skimping of features. A10 sits nicely between i3 and i5 in general performance so for that maybe people will start actually recommending this part to those that may not just want a gaming rig. I will wait and see if Toms actually has this processor in the 100-200 bracket.

 

[NoUserBar]

I know that....... problem is over half of them dont use 4+ cores because they are console ports. *facepalm*

Well since all the new consoles are getting at least 4 cores*, that "uses two cores because of console ports" might change fast.

*WiiU has 4 cores

 

[jdwii]

that is only using 25% of the cpu at any given time but on the original post of task manager for that, it was using 80-90% of 4 cores which would mean it would be needing more cpu power if it was only one 2 cores.

For one thing thats using 1 core and useage is staying at 40% does the picture need explaining? Only 1 core not 2 unlike sleeping dogs people seriously if i had that game on my laptop it would show double the usage which would be 80-90% .

Well since all the new consoles are getting at least 4 cores*, that "uses two cores because of console ports" might change fast.

*WiiU has 4 cores

The xbox 360 uses 3 cores and the PS3 has more CPU cores don't remember how much.

 

[esrever]

I was like this better not be a picture showing the task messenger then boom wow people its 2012 and we still think this type of crap

If i play that game on my processor it shows all 6 cores are being used so does resident evil 4 not 5 and so does other games hell even a single threaded cincebench run will show that 😀

http://benchmark3d.com/sleeping-dogs-benchmark

Wait what numbers what does that show again by the way on my processor under the task messenger i limited that program to just 2 cores and the FPS did not go down.

obviously that review is gpu bottlenecked. The cpu utilization goes down from high to extreme while the gpu utilization is near 100%. If your gpu is being pushed to the max and your cpu has plenty of headroom I don't see how it show the game not being able to utilize more cores.

 

[jdwii]

obviously that review is gpu bottlenecked. The cpu utilization goes down from high to extreme while the gpu utilization is near 100%. If your gpu is being pushed to the max and your cpu has plenty of headroom I don't see how it show the game not being able to utilize more cores.

Weird i guess its funny how other games notice a decent benefit when GPU bottlenecks happen for example GTA4 or Need for speed Run or other games that i used that were always stressing my GPU 90+% and i test by setting the affinity to only use 1 core then 2 and so on.

 

[viridiancrystal]

For one thing thats using 1 core and useage is staying at 40% does the picture need explaining? Only 1 core not 2 unlike sleeping dogs people seriously if i had that game on my laptop it would show double the usage which would be 80-90% .




The xbox 360 uses 3 cores and the PS3 has more CPU cores don't remember how much.

I believe the PS3 has 8. They are strange though. IIRC one of them is strong, and the rest are rather weak. It had more total power, much like PD/BD to Sandy/Ivy, but it is difficult to use.

I hope to see all of the next gen consoles with at least quad cores. Maybe a Hexa if we are lucky, but its unlikely.

 

[proffet]

OK, I'll admit after reading I'm looking at all these benches and AMD users just might have an upgrade now with Piledriver/Vishera.
(more so Bulldozer and not PII X4 C3 and X6 E0 runners)

this is what Bulldozer should have been and maybe I wouldn't have rid myself of all AMD hardware.
I'm sill happy with the all Intel line-up I have now and easier on my swapping parts.

I have to go back and look again but how is the power consumption now with Vishera.?

 

[amdfangirl]

OK, I'll admit after reading I'm looking at all these benches and AMD users just might have an upgrade now with Piledriver/Vishera.
(more so Bulldozer and not PII X4 C3 and X6 E0 runners)

Power consumption. *shudder*

So disappointing. Guess I'll have to settle for something else apart from Vishera.

Something techy but not a CPU to upgrade my computer with...

In that case, I want a MECHA DINOSAUR!

But seriously, I think it's time to start speculating on Excavator, what do you think Reynod?

 

[viridiancrystal]

OK, I'll admit after reading I'm looking at all these benches and AMD users just might have an upgrade now with Piledriver/Vishera.
(more so Bulldozer and not PII X4 C3 and X6 E0 runners)

this is what Bulldozer should have been and maybe I wouldn't have rid myself of all AMD hardware.
I'm sill happy with the all Intel line-up I have now and easier on my swapping parts.

I have to go back and look again but how is the power consumption now with Vishera.?

Reviews say anywhere from a little better to no change at all. A comment pointed out that your choice of Power supply (efficiency) makes a bigger difference than your choice of cpu. It's not entirely true, but it does make a difference.
Also, Undervolting 😛 http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2012/test-amd-fx-8350-vishera/11/

 

[amdfangirl]

Oh ty, ty

That's a little bit of relief for me .

 

[proffet]

Reviews say anywhere from a little better to no change at all. A comment pointed out that your choice of Power supply (efficiency) makes a bigger difference than your choice of cpu. It's not entirely true, but it does make a difference.
Also, Undervolting 😛 http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2012/test-amd-fx-8350-vishera/11/

Oh ty, ty

That's a little bit of relief for me .

aside from the 125-watt TDP
I could live with that voltage at that clock.

that's a good voltage even for an i7-3770K @ 4.1GHz..

 

[stickg1]

OK, I'll admit after reading I'm looking at all these benches and AMD users just might have an upgrade now with Piledriver/Vishera.
(more so Bulldozer and not PII X4 C3 and X6 E0 runners)

this is what Bulldozer should have been and maybe I wouldn't have rid myself of all AMD hardware.
I'm sill happy with the all Intel line-up I have now and easier on my swapping parts.

I have to go back and look again but how is the power consumption now with Vishera.?

Well power consumption is still really high. One plus is that with my FX-8320 I can run 4.4GHz on stock voltage whereas my FX-8150 required 2 or 3 bumps to the offset for that frequency. Also clock for clock the FX-8320 is an improvement over the predecessor, so if I can run a higher frequency on less power, it is a double win in my book. To compare performance, in Cinebench my FX-8150 @ 5.0GHz scores what my FX-8320 scores at 4.6GHz. One problem some of the Vishera owner's have come across is immature BIOSes that don't like multipliers over x23. I think as the BIOSes mature we will see even high clocks on lower voltages.

On a side note, I'm a little tired of the AMD vs Intel flamewars. I've had Intel chips and AMD chips, they both offer great performance. My i5-2500k I recently sold was a little better in gaming benchmarks than my Vishera. I can't notice any difference in actual gameplay. I take gaming experience over benchmark numbers. I would rather have my 4 module 8 core FX-8320 (that cost me $40 more) than a locked i3-3220. Even if the i3 gets me 2 frames more in a game that I already get over 60FPS in anyway. Locked CPUs aren't fun for me. I understand that an i5-3570k and an i7-3770k can beat the AMD CPU in most benchmarks. They also cost more, it would be silly if they didn't offer better performance with their pricetag. The AMD CPU is not the best chip on the market, it does offer a considerable amount of performance for it's price point.

Also, they came in a cool tin instead of a cardboard box, you can like, put stuff in it.

 

[amdfangirl]

aside from the 125-watt TDP
I could live with that voltage at that clock.

that's a good voltage even for an i7-3770K @ 4.1GHz..

Can you let me listen to AMD propaganda? 😀

Also, they came in a cool tin instead of a cardboard box, you can like, put stuff in it.

You can so put things in cardboard boxes 😛

 

[fazers_on_stun]

They have their own compiler (Open64). But then, in trying to answer your question, we'd have to ask whether the sofware that is commonly used by reviewers doesn't get compiled with ICC. Cinema 4D (Cinebench's core, apparently) uses ICC, for instance. The problem is that a compiler is one of the most intricate pieces of software, and ICC seems to be so much ahead of the competition in several areas that, in fact, using it for AMD processors ends up being faster than the other options.

Faster than AMD's own compiler?? If so then it seems AMD had better improve their own.

Off-topic question: Have you ever used the USB BIOS Flashback feature of your board or had any issues after flashing the BIOS with an ASUS board? My M5A99X EVO doesn't get past POST after I flashed it last night, but it was done within the BIOS (through EZ Flash 2). I suspect it might be due to my using an external HD with two partitions instead of a conventional pendrive with a single FAT32 partition to store the new BIOS file. Other than that, the board might be having a short because of something, but it doesn't seem very likely -- because I didn't swap or touch anything after the update. I have tried to boot the PC with a single RAM stick, use MemOK!, clear the CMOS through the proper jumper, remove the battery and try to use the CMOS jumper again, but nothing has worked so far. The CPU_LED is always on, and I am using a Phenom II X4 970. Perhaps I should try to boot it outside of the case and open a forum thread in the support section.

I have it enabled but so far have not had any issues, or had to reflash to an earlier BIOS or current version. Asus' AI Suite Internet BIOS update service doesn't seem to work very often - will sit there for hours it seems no matter what FTP site I choose, so I have to manually go and download any updates, then update from the file.

Checking on Asus' website shows there's also a R2 version of your mobo. Hopefully you flashed the correct version. And according to the manual for your mobo, EZFlash 2 only supports a single partition FAT32/16 USB storage device, so your external HD probably using NTFS and 2 partitions might indeed be the problem. I didn't see anything about Asus Crashfree in your manual, so I'm guessing it is not supported. For my mobo, a faulty BIOS flash can be fixed by using the Asus mobo DVD or a flash drive with a good BIOS file, so although I haven't tried it yet, supposedly BIOS updates are safer since you can recover from a crash.

Hopefully you can get it working to the point where you can reflash from a USB stick..

 

[fazers_on_stun]

:lol:

Games can scale to more than 4 cores. BF3 does it, Dragon Age: Origins did it, and, yes, Source games do it. It is possible, it just takes some real effort.

Edit: Had to spell out a name because it made an emoticon.

IIRC FSX will use as many cores as you've got. It shows all 8 'cores' on my 3770K with HT enabled as being in use..

 

[fazers_on_stun]

But seriously, I think it's time to start speculating on Excavator, what do you think Reynod?

IIRC Steamy is the next CPU up, not Exxy 😛..

However I'd wait at least until next week's press announcement, just in case Read says Steamy & Exxy are delayed or canceled and OBR was right all along! 😀 😗

 

[viridiancrystal]

IIRC FSX will use as many cores as you've got. It shows all 8 'cores' on my 3770K with HT enabled as being in use..

IIRC Steamy is the next CPU up, not Exxy 😛..

However I'd wait at least until next week's press announcement, just in case Read says Steamy & Exxy are delayed or canceled and OBR was right all along! 😀 😗

There are aome games that could use the better coding to make them much better. SC2, or any RTS would do very well with good core scaling. More units, bigger maps, bigger battles, etc.
Agree we should wait and see if Steamy and Exxy (I like that name btw 😛) are even a focus before we start speculating.

Side note, how is PD going to fare in the server space? That is where money is made, so it should be important to see.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

There are aome games that could use the better coding to make them much better. SC2, or any RTS would do very well with good core scaling. More units, bigger maps, bigger battles, etc.
Agree we should wait and see if Steamy and Exxy (I like that name btw 😛) are even a focus before we start speculating.

Side note, how is PD going to fare in the server space? That is where money is made, so it should be important to see.

Well to tell the truth I don't play Flight Sim much anymore, ever since trying to land a 747 on an aircraft carrier - just doesn't work! 😀..

I would think PD should be an improvement over BD for server - AMD can't do much worse than their current 5% marketshare, and yesterday I read a financial article (always a bit suspect with their 'facts' 😛) about how Intel is eating into AMD's HPC share as well, with the current Xeons and Knights Corner.

Actually, from a construction viewpoint, the next AMD CPU should be excavator and then followed by steamroller. Everybody knows first ya gotta dig a hole and then pave over it 😀..

 

[viridiancrystal]

Well to tell the truth I don't play Flight Sim much anymore, ever since trying to land a 747 on an aircraft carrier - just doesn't work! 😀..

I would think PD should be an improvement over BD for server - AMD can't do much worse than their current 5% marketshare, and yesterday I read a financial article (always a bit suspect with their 'facts' 😛) about how Intel is eating into AMD's HPC share as well, with the current Xeons and Knights Corner.

Actually, from a construction viewpoint, the next AMD CPU should be excavator and then followed by steamroller. Everybody knows first ya gotta dig a hole and then pave over it 😀..

Well, a Steamroller could come in to cover up the faults, and then an Excavator comes to clear out everything and start from scratch. :lol:

 

[noob2222]

well, AMD bulldozed thier chips into a pile(driver) just to steamroll it into an excavation site.

 

[gamerk316]

true, but the problem is no one actually even tries. As I said, a PII 560 can handle single player fine, but mp .. forget it. doesn't matter about lag, server, latency. It won't work, but according to toms, because they never even tried, it works fine.

The thing is building a machine based on one single aspect alone doesn't give a clear picture of the unkonwn. Case in point,



PD's problem, TEchreport posted numbers based on one game and solely on minimum fps (they called it 99th percentile frame lag, its minimum fps), but for apps, average it all together.

Lets face it, who buys a computer based on one program alone and only looks at the one single frame that lagged the longest. forget averages, forget highest, only look at the one slowest frame in only one game. After all, thats how they gave Intel an even greater advantage. Skew the results as much as possible.

Why not Batman? http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/arkham-99th.gifBF3http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/bf3-99th.gif
or Crysis 2http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/crysis-99th.gif

Answer: because skyrim is the only one that gives Intel a bigger lead.

Thats how you do an Anti-AMD review.

Minimum FPS != Worst case latency. Two totally different subjects. (Hence why BD and SB get the same FPS in BF3, yet one has significantly worse worst-case latency)

Secondly, they DIDN'T post for one game; they did a whole swath when they did BD reviews.

Thirdly (and for the last bloody time): BF3 IS A GPU BOTTLENECK. EVERY MODERN GAMING CPU IS GOING TO PRODUCE THE SAME FPS FOR A GIVEN GPU. IT IS THUS WORTHLESS AS A CPU BENCHMARK. (Seriously, is it THAT hard for you to grasp that concept?)

 

[gamerk316]

Well since all the new consoles are getting at least 4 cores*, that "uses two cores because of console ports" might change fast.

*WiiU has 4 cores

The PS3 has six functional SPE's, and the 360 has a tri-core with SMT support.

I will say this again and again: Anyone who thinks games will scale much beyond what they already scale to is going to be VERY disappointed. Though I'm sure that won't stop you all from somehow blaming consoles...

 

[gamerk316]

There are aome games that could use the better coding to make them much better. SC2, or any RTS would do very well with good core scaling. More units, bigger maps, bigger battles, etc.

Map sizes are limited by RAM. And until apps move to 64-bit native (2-3 years after MSFT drops 32-bit support, so two years after Win9 launches, so figure 5-6 years from now), the 4GB barrier is going to be a major limit on map sizes. Simmilar logic is in place when it comes to unit limits: Memory becomes an issue as you scale the number of units upward. And *most* RTS's use an AI engine, rather then unit-by-unit AI handling (its the only real way you can make the CPU come up with a decent strategy; unit-by-unit would lead to REALLY bad AI management), you aren't going to scale particularly well (or at all).