Join Us For Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything With AMD, Dec 11

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Mark Rhodes

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Why was so much energy and time put in to bulldozer when it was slower than the previous generation Thuban when it comes to IPC?
 


You'll have to wait until January 2015 for that. The AMD CPU guys are going to do a ask me anything around that time, while right now it's only about free sync and GPUs.
 

Fr33Th1nk3r

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Oh I feel rather stupid now lol.

So this Freesync...does it improve the longevity of older cards or is it more for the current and future linups in regards to high res gaming or media?
 
FreeSync fixes an issue that started when lcd monitors came into existence. You either had lag (with v sync on) or tearing (no v sync), FreeSync addresses this issue by making the frame rate of the GPU the same refresh rate as the monitor. So if the GPU was rendering at only 47fps, the monitor will only refresh 47 times per second. Making games buttery smooth.
 

bit_user

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Actually, the only thing that changed when LCDs came along is that they had a fixed framerate that was lower than most CRTs could reach. LCDs could also worsen lag with additional buffering, since the signal is digital, but I don't know how common that is/was.

The way you said it is backwards. It forces the monitor to match the GPU's framerate. The way it works is that the GPU only sends a frame when the image has changed, rather than being forced to send frames at a specific, fixed framerate. This reduces lag & jitter because the GPU can display a new frame as soon as it's ready, instead of having to wait until the next refresh period. It also allows you to hit higher than 60 FPS, but there's no guarantee that the monitor will display a frame if it arrives too soon after the previous one. Finally, it eliminates tearing because the monitor will only display a new frame in its entirety.
 
Will FreeSync affect the APU market at all, or it is something that is primarily meant for enthusiast class users?

(Any chance we can ask anything about Carrizo, or the future of the FM2+ platform?)
 
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