What do you think of AMD's Thuban

[DXcellence718]

You guys probably already heard the news, but now that amd's six core processor is coming out what are your thoughts. Personally im not really impressed, from what i've heard its only equivalent to an i7 quad but cost under $300. It is still the cheapest hex core a consumer can get, so i guess there still good for price/performance ratio(for a six core processor anyways)

 

[amdfangirl]

I hope AMD gets to 32nm.

The new 32nm i7s are pretty niffty.

Too bad we haven't seen any 45nm Lynnfields.

Now, THAT would be an interesting CPU.

 

[werxen]

i7 870 = $550. 965BE = $170.
And a lot of these benchmarks are synthetic (NOT gaming) and I clearly said the i7's would whoop a 965BE in those cases. I said, strictly in gaming, the 965BE is equal or under 5% slower than an 860 or 750. The only GAME I see on that comparison that doesn't fall into that 5% difference is Far Cry 2 and I think it's weird that Tom's, in their article today, showed the 965BE beating the 870 at all resolutions.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-9.html

I guess it depends on what sight you want to believe. That said, it's clear that the 870 (and the i7 920 which is more than half the price) can beat a 965 in things NOT game related, but for gaming....

And, BTW, it's hard to call me an AMD fanboy when I have an Intel rig, no (see my sig)? I like competition and I go for the best for what I need at the time for the best price. I'm absolutely drooling over a 980X but I'm having a hard time justifying the cost even though it's technically a tax write-off. IF I was JUST a gamer, though, the 955/965 is, by far, the best bang for the buck in processors out there (unless you want to OC an i3 530, which I have in my HTPC currently and LOVE). I'm NOT a fanboy, but I do appreciate the low cost of AMD/ATI compared to Intel/nVIDIA.

Just my 2¢

You're confusing everything I have stated.

One, I did not post that link to show synthetic, I was showing gaming. The i7 clearly beats it 'most' of the time in which you said this:
AMEN! For gaming purposes, a 965BE can meet or beat an i7 870 (let alone the 750) in most games.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2588.html

It is simply untrue that the 965BE beats the 870 in games most of the time when it clearly does not. You never stated anything above 5%. Even then the 870 just purely smokes the 965BE in certain games.

I also never called YOU a fanboy I simply said that there is a lot of misinformation propagated by AMD fanboys that might have lead you to believe your untrue statements in regards to 870 vs 965.

Lastly, you cannot say 'just' a gamer. I am 'just' a gamer and still use a 4850. My cousin is 'just' a gamer and has a 980x and dual 5870s in XF. Though I agree that the 980x is a complete waste for gaming, I also recognize Intels superior architecture and the difference between 'just gamers'. Like I said, the i5s have closed the 'best bang for the buck' catagory that AMD had going for it. In fact I can get a superior i5 for cheaper than I can get an AMD 965 at my local microcenter. Not only is it cheaper but it has a 95 watt TDP vs. 125. TDP which translates into higher overclocks.

What you say is just simply... untrue. Not sure how else to say it. BTW the best bang for the buck is still the x3 not the 955 or 965.

 

[Chad Boga]

BTW the best bang for the buck is still the x3 not the 955 or 965.

Bang for buck needs to take into account a level of performance that you are happy with, for that reason, I would never choose an X3 over a 955 or 965, with current pricing.

 

[Chad Boga]

That statement is a commonly accepted internet driven fallacy propagated by people that desperately wish it was true. The myth was mainly propagated because of the turbo-marketing feature of the Intel CPU fooling gullible people. (Without that feature the i5-750 gets completely owned by the AMD chips.)

Luckily the new 6 core AMD chips have added the same type of marketing gimmick. We'll have to wait until they are available to see how badly the Intel chips get abused.

:lol: Poor ol' Keithy, doesn't understand the technology, thus thinks it is just marketing.

Good luck waiting to see how the Intel chips get abused. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[werxen]

Bang for buck needs to take into account a level of performance that you are happy with, for that reason, I would never choose an X3 over a 955 or 965, with current pricing.

No best bang for the buck is just that best bang for the buck. It has nothing to do with your level of happiness or comfort - it simply says you pay the least amount for the amount of product you get which is a tri cord @ 2.8 which can be overclocked and sometimes even unlocked.

 

[Chad Boga]

No best bang for the buck is just that best bang for the buck. It has nothing to do with your level of happiness or comfort - it simply says you pay the least amount for the amount of product you get which is a tri cord @ 2.8 which can be overclocked and sometimes even unlocked.

If bang for buck doesn't come with acceptable performance levels, then what good is it?

I could sell my AMD 3000+ for 20c and it would have better bang for buck than any quad core you could buy today, but who would take this processor?

 

[someguy7]

From what I know about the chips I like them a lot. A 6 core cpu is clearly not for everybody. Nor is a quad core for that matter. If there was a single core i7 or PII it would be great for most people.

For a 6 core chip on the same process node as the previous quad cores to use the amount of power and have similar clockspeeds is impressive. Its price also seems to be good. We wont know for sure the true price/performance of the chip until its reviewed but I expect it be very good. It will also have turbo so the clockspeed will increase in the right circumstances/workloads.


Do I think it will beat an i7 920/i5 750 or whatever Intel chip. It will in some things and it wont in other things. That depends on so many factors its impossible to say. Some apps that are multithread only use for cores. Or stop scaling past 4. IPC/turbo/memory/cache

 

[Chad Boga]

Do I think it will beat an i7 920/i5 750 or whatever Intel chip. It will in some things and it wont in other things. That depends on so many factors its impossible to say. Some apps that are multithread only use for cores. Or stop scaling past 4. IPC/turbo/memory/cache

Obviously where Tubby Thuban will improve is in multithreaded applications, but it is likely to lose out to the PhII 3.4Ghz in a number of applications/benchmarks.

 

[keithlm]

:lol: Poor ol' Keithy, doesn't understand the technology, thus thinks it is just marketing.

Good luck waiting to see how the Intel chips get abused. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Poor old Chad Bogus... doesn't realize that even though he wants to pretend it is an important feature; in the end it all comes down to only being effective in benchmarketing. Poor fool.

As for my understanding technology little lad... I was writing assembly language code back in the 70's. Understanding a stupid mechanism created mainly to affect benchmarking results is much less complicated.

Besides having AMD add this same garbage removes the ability for fan boys to feign ignorance and pretend they are seeing results of a 2.66Ghz chip vs a chip at 3.2Ghz-3.4Ghz. (They are SOOOOO going to hate that.) When they attempt to feign ignorance after that point they will not really be feigning.

 

[blaze200]

Well, I never really cared what was the best. AMD are the only ones who know how well they perform, but there's no point in claiming they are the going to beat intel without having the actual proof or tests. I never had an AMD system in my life, but my first system build is going to be AMD since they are cheaper to go with. I was going to get the PhII 955 but I'm deciding to wait to see if the thuban is worth getting.

Regardless it's still better than the 1.7 Ghz laptop I'm stuck with at the moment.

 

[Chad Boga]

Poor old Chad Bogus... doesn't realize that even though he wants to pretend it is an important feature; in the end it all comes down to only being effective in benchmarketing. Poor fool.

I guess that is the sort of crazy stuff you have to tell yourself so that you can get a good night's sleep.

No doubt you are also of the belief that AMD has been consistently profitable for the last 3 years. :lol:

 

[someguy7]

Obviously where Tubby Thuban will improve is in multithreaded applications, but it is likely to lose out to the PhII 3.4Ghz in a number of applications/benchmarks.

This is probably not the case. You are assuming that the x6 made zero percent improve clock for clock over the current PII's. Which may be true I am not sure if thats the case. Plus it will turbo up. Again not sure of the official turbo bins for the chips at this point in this time. It should end at least equaling a 3.4ghz PII even in single/dual threaded apps. And it will of course beat it in anything that uses the extra 2 cores.

 

[keithlm]

I guess that is the sort of crazy stuff you have to tell yourself so that you can get a good night's sleep.

No doubt you are also of the belief that AMD has been consistently profitable for the last 3 years. :lol:

Crazy stuff that also happens to be true. I'm so sorry that your realm of trollish fanboyism is going to be diminished.


BTW: I'm not somebody that cares about finances; that is not relevant to anything I care about. It would be a subject that idiots would argue about in forums because they no longer have anything more important to complain about.

 

[Chad Boga]

This is probably not the case. You are assuming that the x6 made zero percent improve clock for clock over the current PII's. Which may be true I am not sure if thats the case. Plus it will turbo up. Again not sure of the official turbo bins for the chips at this point in this time. It should end at least equaling a 3.4ghz PII even in single/dual threaded apps. And it will of course beat it in anything that uses the extra 2 cores.

Find anything from anybody credible(i.e. they have nothing to do with AMDZone) that has suggested IPC improvements for Thuban.

As for Turbo, haven't a lot of Intel users been saying that due to how Windows schedules threads, they are rarely getting more than 1 bin out of turbo anyway?

I suspect the same for AMD.

What's more, compare the Thuban that costs the same as the PhII 3.4Ghz, it only has a maximum turbo of 3.2Ghz and that is if it is able to achieve that maximum.

So it is without question that a 2.8Ghz Thuban with a turbo max of 3.2Ghz will lose to a PhII 3.4Ghz in a good number of current applications/benchmarks.

Also Thuban is keeping the same amount of cache as the PhII, so its per core performance should take a slight hit compared to the PhII's.

Thuban is no game changer.

 

[Chad Boga]

Crazy stuff that also happens to be true. I'm so sorry that your realm of trollish fanboyism is going to be diminished.

Keep plucking the chicken Keith, Thuban will be a fizzler.

BTW: I'm not somebody that cares about finances; that is not relevant to anything I care about. It would be a subject that idiots would argue about in forums because they no longer have anything more important to complain about.

Considering your unnatural and unhealthy love for all things AMD, you should care very much about finances.

It is due to AMD's finances that they sold off their fabs, thus forever giving up any hope of becoming Intel's equal.

 

[someguy7]

Find anything from anybody credible(i.e. they have nothing to do with AMDZone) that has suggested IPC improvements for Thuban.

As for Turbo, haven't a lot of Intel users been saying that due to how Windows schedules threads, they are rarely getting more than 1 bin out of turbo anyway?

I suspect the same for AMD.

What's more, compare the Thuban that costs the same as the PhII 3.4Ghz, it only has a maximum turbo of 3.2Ghz and that is if it is able to achieve that maximum.

So it is without question that a 2.8Ghz Thuban with a turbo max of 3.2Ghz will lose to a PhII 3.4Ghz in a good number of current applications/benchmarks.

Also Thuban is keeping the same amount of cache as the PhII, so its per core performance should take a slight hit compared to the PhII's.

Thuban is no game changer.

The x6 black edition is a 3.2ghz part. Its turbo goes up to 3.6. I was not and nor was anybody else talking about a specific x6 model.

Is it a game changer? No. Did I say it was? No. I believe the HT link is also bumped up a bit. That may make it a little faster clock for clock.

 

[DXcellence718]

People should know that AMD is not in the same equivalency as intel for clock per clock. A i5 750 @ 2.66ghz is faster than Phenom II X4 @ 3.4. These are stock speeds by the way. The i5 shits on a 965 if it was at 3.4 as well. Thats the main worry i have with the thuban cpu. Not to mention the cache wasn't changed as well.

 

[Chad Boga]

The x6 black edition is a 3.2ghz part. Its turbo goes up to 3.6.

And it will be 50% dearer than a PhII 3.4Ghz, so who is going to be rushing out to buy it?

I was not and nor was anybody else talking about a specific x6 model.

Well we know that there will be models starting from 2.8Ghz base clock, going up to 3.2Ghz.

We also know the reputed prices for the top and bottom Thubans, so it isn't hard for someone to then join the dots to form an analysis of what will be the state of play.

Is it a game changer? No. Did I say it was? No.

JennyH has stated that Thuban will be the fastest desktop processor, so even though I have quoted you in part when making my posts, I am also addressing other view points expressed in this forum.

 

[someguy7]

Well we all know that JennyH is a AMD loon. The people that will rush out to buy it will be the folks that will actually use the extra two cores that the x6 provides. That is of course it its a good value compared to Intels offerings in its price range. Even more so if its drop in replacement in the users current AMD board.

The more choices we have the better.

 

[obsidian86]

thuban will be a power hog due to it being based on 45 nm tech

 

[keithlm]

BTW: Since your response to me actually had nothing worth responding to I'll just use your next post that had a bunch of slightly off base comments.

Find anything from anybody credible(i.e. they have nothing to do with AMDZone) that has suggested IPC improvements for Thuban..

Yeah... we'll go ahead and follow your lead and be gullible enough to put our heads in the sand and pretend that as newer steppings and in this case a newer die is created there won't be any optimization done at all. None whatsoever... because Chad said so. In fact they won't bother fixing any errata either. Because it would be stupid to think they might do that. (Or in your case you appear to be getting desperate enough to pretend.)

As for Turbo, haven't a lot of Intel users been saying that due to how Windows schedules threads, they are rarely getting more than 1 bin out of turbo anyway?

AH... so that is how it will start. After all the grief given to anybody that suggested that perhaps benchmarks should be done without this feature now you are going to start to belittle it. That way later it will be easier to claim you never advocated using it for benchmarking if they start getting owned. (Not to point out that a lot of Intel zealots had puppies back when anyone suggested that Intel's Turbo wouldn't really provide a lot of benefit in real world situations. But we do thank you for now belatedly supporting the posters that mentioned that fact.)

What's more, compare the Thuban that costs the same as the PhII 3.4Ghz, it only has a maximum turbo of 3.2Ghz and that is if it is able to achieve that maximum.

So after all the jumping around pretending how hyperthreading was a great benefit that allowed Intel to "win" you are now going to start to belittle multi-threaded applications also.

So it is without question that a 2.8Ghz Thuban with a turbo max of 3.2Ghz will lose to a PhII 3.4Ghz in a good number of current applications/benchmarks.

GADS... you actually said something relevant! CONTRATULATIONS. But then it doesn't really matter. The fact that the Turbo-marketing gimmick is going to stop all of the pretenders is very useful. Besides... the only person that will be looking at results from the slower chips are people obsessed with finding something less than optimal. (Probably predominantly i5-750 owners that are used to pretending their chip faster than it really is.)

Thuban is no game changer.

Well.... except for the people that insisted on only doing out-of-the-box comparisons with Turbo and Hyperthreading enabled. This is going to make their behinds hurt a bit. For so long they quoted and supported benchmark results that had a bit of an artificial bent. This is going to be funny as all get out. You will be laughed at Chad.

 

[Chad Boga]

Yeah... we'll go ahead and follow your lead and be gullible enough to put our heads in the sand and pretend that as newer steppings and in this case a newer die is created there won't be any optimization done at all. None whatsoever... because Chad said so. In fact they won't bother fixing any errata either. Because it would be stupid to think they might do that. (Or in your case you appear to be getting desperate enough to pretend.)

Keith,
When was the last time a new stepping or an errata fix(outside Barfelona's TLB bug) ever gave an IPC improvement that anyone noticed in any reviews?

Keep in mind, the per core performance if anything, is likely to suffer a slight drop because each core of Thuban will have less L3 cache than the PhII has.

So I think my prediction there will be proven right again, no matter how desperate you are to pretend it won't be the case.

AH... so that is how it will start. After all the grief given to anybody that suggested that perhaps benchmarks should be done without this feature now you are going to start to belittle it. That way later it will be easier to claim you never advocated using it for benchmarking if they start getting owned. (Not to point out that a lot of Intel zealots had puppies back when anyone suggested that Intel's Turbo wouldn't really provide a lot of benefit in real world situations. But we do thank you for now belatedly supporting the posters that mentioned that fact.)

:lol: Keith, not only don't you understand the technology, you can't follow when someone talks about it all.

The point I was making which whooshed over your head, is that you are massively wrong when you infer/state that the i5-750 is running most of the time at 3.2Ghz in the benchmarks and that is why it is kicking AMD's arse.

I am saying that as the i5-750 is likely not to be hitting it's turbo max that often, neither will the turbo feature on Thuban hit it either, so thinking that now AMD has turbo, it is going to catch up significantly to Intel is wishful thinking.

I do however want to stress one point to you because you have been so terribly confused about turbo and most matters relating to technology, that if AMD's implementation of turbo is more effective at getting around the Windows scheduler than I believe it will be, then that will be a good thing and all credit to AMD.

So once again you were wrong(talk about a life time habit), to suggest that I would be downplaying turbo at any point. As I have tried to free you from your ignorance so many times now, let me repeat, turbo functionality will be an ever increasing part of modern CPU designs for the foreseeable future.

So after all the jumping around pretending how hyperthreading was a great benefit that allowed Intel to "win" you are now going to start to belittle multi-threaded applications also.

Nope, and even allowing for how poor your interpretation of just about everything is, I can't work out how you managed to confuse yourself and ended up drawing that conclusion.

Well.... except for the people that insisted on only doing out-of-the-box comparisons with Turbo and Hyperthreading enabled. This is going to make their behinds hurt a bit. For so long they quoted and supported benchmark results that had a bit of an artificial bent. This is going to be funny as all get out. You will be laughed at Chad.

Keith,
People are laughing right now at how you can't even follow mainstream technology and keep making one crazy assumption after the other.

As I said before, keep plucking that chicken.

 

[Chad Boga]

Well we all know that JennyH is a AMD loon.

As this thread is demonstrating, sadly she is not alone. :lol:

 

[werxen]

If bang for buck doesn't come with acceptable performance levels, then what good is it?

I could sell my AMD 3000+ for 20c and it would have better bang for buck than any quad core you could buy today, but who would take this processor?

You're absolutely confusing the term best bang for the buck. It is not subjective. If best bang for the buck was to be completely subjective then there would be no point in saying best of anything. Do you understand? You can NARROW your range and compete dual cores or hex cores or quad cores and label best bang for the buck within that spectrum but I was not doing that. I was talking about the ENTIRE cpu spectrum. You don't seem to understand the concept of best bang for the buck so I'm going to leave your failed line of logic to yourself.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

It occurs to me that if Turbo & hyperthreading are just "benchmarketing gimmicks", why is AMD copying Turbo with Thuban, and both in Bulldozer?