AMD's Bulldozer: More Design Details Surface

[elbert]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i wouldnt get a bulldozer till revision 2 anyway, just because there will be flaws. this is a low end enthusiast speaking, someone who will upgrade for power but not spend 1k+ on a cpu alone. even if the chip sucks, compared to intel, intel has nothing on amd gpu... a bulldozer with a gpu, and i mean a 68xx model or better could be the choice laptop of next years back to school, and make the chip a very viable option for more budget setups.this could be really nice, id love to see a decent 7xxx in it, that way it can crossfire, and make crossfire a viable low end option for people.[/citation]
A bulldozer APU will be coming next year. The 2-4 core version APU is called Trinity and the 8 core is komodo. You could say this chip will be revision 2. The 7xxx will just be die shrinks of the 6xxx. Next years bulldozer APU will have a 7xxx that will be about the performance of the 6800's. Here is a pic of next years CPU.
http://www.nordichardware.com/news/69-cpu-chipset/43339-amd-showing-trinity-bulldozer-apu-with-new-graphics.html

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Hmm, I just wonder how high those AMD slides can oc..

C'mon, AMD - enough with the dribbles of info and release it already!!

 

[misry]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i wouldnt get a bulldozer till revision 2 anyway, just because there will be flaws. ...[/citation]

Yeah, that core flaw in that 720BE is still biting me in the ass.

 

[palladin9479]

[citation][nom]gnb2501[/nom]8 integer cores, 4 floating point cores. So, if you're running a BOINC project, keep it to 4 packets. What about archiving? Transcoding? Ripping? Are these integer or FP operations? I hope Tom's will investigate FP performance and limitations for us when they can finally torture/interrogate/examine these chips. I'm curious to know what real world integer workloads we have that will benefit from 8 cores![/citation]

Not exactly true. Each module has
2x Mul (Multiply Operations) units
2x Div (Division Operations) units
4x AL (Add / Sub and compare operations) units
2x SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) units, MMX / SSE type stuff
1x FPU (256-bit FPU, can perform two 128-bit FMAC or one 80-bit operation at once)
2x MMU (Load / Store units for memory reads / writes)
4x Decoders (x86 macro instruction decoder, assigns the micro-ops to the various resources)
1x Branch Prediction Unit

This is the design for a heavy number cruncher CPU, the only possible bottleneck I can see is the branch prediction unit. As long as people don't stick to "FPS" single app benchmarks then this should be good.

 

[BSMonitor]

This is a monster. 8-cores and 8MB of L2 cache? plus another 8MB of L3 cache?

I see extremely LOW clock speeds for these. This thing is gonna be a power hungry monster!

 

[guyjones]

Please get this thing to market already -- Intel has the game all to itself with no competition until Bulldozer finally arrives.

 

[imperfectlink]

Looking forward to seeing what Bulldozer brings to the table, but my sentiments are that they need to do away with restrictions and allow them to reside in a multiprocessor system. I know there will be Opterons at a hefty price, but that's not the point.

If you aren't winning, change the game.

Even Fusion processors in their current state would be awesome if the builder could put 2-4 of them into a machine for combined CPU and GPU usage.

 

[stingstang]

That's the thing about bulldozers. They're ultra-cool, but ultra-slow! This is the slowest bulldozer I've ever seen!

 

[Guest]

went through the complete slide, some really interesting things pop up

AMD plan on 2 unique FP instruction set, FMA4 and XOP, these seem to operations that will greatly benefit from a GPGPU

each bulldozer module can be completely isolated and shutdown, not just go into a sleep state but completely shutdown to consume 0 energy, which should give some really impressive idle power draw

 

[tajisi]

I'm sure this is quite interesting if you're a programmer or otherwise have an obsessive investment in CPU architecture design, but I fail to see anything relevant to the average end consumer. How well will this run my applications? How does it compare performance/power-wise to the competition's offerings? Will it need a hefty power supply? These are questions I want answered, preferably before launch day so I can make a decision.

The whole cloak-and-dagger thing isn't inspiring confidence. Supposedly this chip is a month away from launch and we know precious little more about it than we did a year ago. I've waited as patiently as anyone (to see if AMD can truly get back in the game with Intel), but at this point I'm wondering. 2012 release date, anyone?

 

[saturnus]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this going to be released on a 32nm SOI package like the Llano? Which is in principle equal to a 28nm POP package so AMD will be ahead on package technology again until the 22nm Ivy Bridge is released.

If you're in doubt that 32mn SOI equal 28nm POP then look at the Llano, that has the roughly 40% higher transistor density compared to the Sandy Bridge, although both are in principle 32nm processes, not all processes are the same

 

[captaincharisma]

This sounds more and more like a paper CPU that will never materialize . this product has the "duke nukum forever" scenario

 

[lp231]

Until benchies comes out, we can't tell how BD will perform against SB.
I do hope BD kick the shisazz out of SB cause that blue 800 pound gorilla has been on that seat for too long. Just look at their SB Pentium line up, under featured and jacked up price. For AMD you can get a quad for under $100!

*holds up torch*
Death to Intel!

 

[Guest]

If BD targets the max TDP with the turbo feature (with +0.5GHz for all modules and +1GHz with half of them), why not push 2GHz when only one quarter of the cores are on load (for 8 core CPUs)? I mean, there would be enough TDP headroom to do so. This way, lightly threaded workloads would benefit even more of this feature. Unless there's no workload using only 2 cores in practice...

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]Thunderfox[/nom]Bulldozer has been Dukeing us for years. Hopefully it has a better outcome. Ivy Bridge has been delayed til next year, so if AMD has its act together, they could make some headway this holiday season. If these things are mediocre chips released in homeopathic doses, AMD is in trouble.[/citation]

Ivy Bridge was not delayed. It was always set for Q1 2012 and still is.

Still BD had SB-E to worry about as gthats set for Q4 2011.

 

[billcat479]

Even if it's only 1/2 faster from the present to the intels I'm going to go with it. Call me a nut but I know what a world without AMD will be like and it won't be cheap. There just isn't very many around that knew the cost of the Intel 286 cpu's before AMD and cyrix came on the market. Can you imagine paying as much for a cpu as your paying now for your whole computer? If AMD gets stuck I sure don't want to hear any whining from the people who dropped AMD for a few extra FPS on their games today! It's always been so funny how typical humans walk off the cliff knowing that it's there and still never do anything to stop the plunge. History is chock full of peaks and cliffs and we never do get out of the cycles. Even with the few that don't mind a little less and buy AMD it's always never enough. I pray AMD gets good performance because they need a higher profit than the low cost cpu and notebook line to earn the money to keep their R&D division going and that is what will keep them alive.
They really need the opteron money base back and selling to keep them afloat. They have shrunk as far as they can, giving up their fab plants was a bad sign and what's left if they flop here?
That R&D part is where the real money matters and with the new technology that breaks the 22nm and smaller the cost grows like crazy. When transistors are starting to come close to 5 or 6 or so atoms and trying to find the way to make them will cost LOTs of income. So try to give AMD your support if you can. Or get ready to pay out the rear end and it's 100 times worse now because ATI is tied into AMD and Nvidia won't be kind to us either if ATI gets it's head cut off in the process. Think about it. It's one reason I wasn't too happy with the merger but AMD is doing smart things with ATI on the same chip and maybe they can move the FP off the cpu and into the GPU's and really make a power house number cruncher in the near future and rake in a fortune that way. I know they are working on it and it is a logical move as spock would say...lol..

 

[Onus]

This architecture is sufficiently different that I'll bet in some things it will blow the doors off SB, but in others it may look like a 90-lb. Boy Sprout under a 50-lb pack. The question that seems to interest most readers here is which assessment applies to games?

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]MISRy[/nom]Yeah, that core flaw in that 720BE is still biting me in the ass.[/citation]

unlock it or not... well either way, thats not the kind of flaw im thinking of. im thinking more of an unforeseen flaw, or something they just dont notice till a mass release, that requires them to make a revision, not saying that the chips will need replacing, but just thinking they wont go as smoothly as we would like.

 

[pirateboy]

admit it, this article gave you a stiffy !

 

[war2k9]

I need this processor to be out soon, I need to upgrade my old phenom 955 system.

 

[clonazepam]

First of all, I'm not a cpu architect or anything close. This is just my personal opinion in a comment.

Bulldozer is looking more like a bulldozer, than a prius with a plow on the front... That's great.

I'm afraid its going to be a little on the toasty side and the turbo they intend will not be the turbo you get.

It's going to be a viable upgrade for current AMD-based systems. It will be more competitive with the current Sandy Bridge cpu's and the two will both win some battles but neither a clear winner of the war.

If it needs more maturing, it could make this the end-all-be-all for mainstream, gaming systems, amateur audio/video production, pro audio/video, and professional graphics. Hopefully we see more and more AMD friendly gpgpu / opencl software.

I'll be more than happy to eat my words, later... lol I think it's just fun to make wild predictions... even more fun if they turn out to be correct.

Edit: Oh and AMD-based multi-gpu systems will be the most powerful and the least expensive combination.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]Thunderfox[/nom]Bulldozer has been Dukeing us for years. Hopefully it has a better outcome. Ivy Bridge has been delayed til next year, so if AMD has its act together, they could make some headway this holiday season. If these things are mediocre chips released in homeopathic doses, AMD is in trouble.[/citation]

Ivy bridge was not delayed, there was just misinformation between sandy bridge-E series, and ivy bridge. E-series sandy bridge procs are still in cue for Oct(originally Sep, just a minor delay). These will be the 6core monster procs for extreme PC builders. These bulldozer procs will not be able to compete with E-series (but they wont have to as they will be much cheaper).
The question will be, can it keep up with the i5 and i7 sandy bridge chips? And will they be able to overclock to 5+GHz like the i5 and i7 sandy bridge chips? Considering the power draw, and die size I have my doubts, but I will withhold judgement until I see real benches. My bet will be that this will be embraced by the AMD base, which will give AMD the cash-flow to do a real chip next year. If it flops though... well then I guess AMD will be relegated to netbooks, and HTPCs for another few cycles as they have been for the last few years.

Personally, I cant wait for Ivy Bridge. Super low power, super high OC ability, and neat new features like WiDi, and instant on tech. Should be fun for my next build .

 

[kenyee]

No mention of ECC memory? That was one of the unique things about the Athlon design too, though only Asus and Abit really took advantage of it for those of us who have systems running 24x7...

 

[wiyosaya]

Sigh! Sooner or later - hopefully, the latest announced release date - we will get actual parts and actual benchmarks rather than these teasers.

 

[clonazepam]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]The question will be, can it keep up with the i5 and i7 sandy bridge chips? And will they be able to overclock to 5+GHz like the i5 and i7 sandy bridge chips?[/citation]

Will AMD produce a $200 (or less) chip that can potentially do 5ghz on air? Will the fastest possible overclock on a bulldozer compete lb for lb against a $200 intel k-series chip? If intel did an i3-k series chip for sub $150 that could also potentially hit 5ghz on air, where would that put things?

I can't wait to see the benchmarks... the articles, the comparisons, the hypothesis, the conclusions... the prices...