AMD Quads

[Brucifer]

So where's all the gossip/news/tidbits about the new amd quads? Or is it just vapor?

[AMDave]

http://techreport.com/articles.x/13176/1

http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/...ors/barcelona/

http://www.crn.com/hardware/201805044

http://anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091

most of the others so far refer to one of these

[Bubben]

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,6793.html

[Brucifer]

My personal opinion/observations of the various urls above is the consensus seems to generally be that while the amd has some technological advances, that in raw power terms, intel still leads the pack overall. There are some areas where the amd outperforms intel, such in the clock for clock comparisons but at this point due to the higher clock rate of intel, intel output is higher.

The drop in replacement for some opterons is a plus for many present opteron owners too. I think that as far as we are concerned in the crunching world, the cpu advantage is still basically going to revolve around what projects we individually prefer to crunch and what cpu performs best on that project. For me, a PSP project fan, I guess the main question boils down to whether the new quad will still excel on sieving, and also whether it will hopefully at least match intel on the LLRnet testing. In looking at the d2ol effort, the intel quad is still most likely to be the performance champ.

But there are other issues to look at too such as the power consumption issues, as in crunching, our cpus are running maxed out 24x7. Power output correlated to generated heat also, and heat is a big problem confronting many of us.

Personally I was expecting more in the performance end of things from amd. Hopefully there will be a vast improvement as AMD ups the clock rate. However, not to forget that intel is not remaining stagnant in the core2 area either. I have been a hard core AMD fan since the 486 days, and wish the best for AMD. Unfortunately it does not appear to me that the Barcelona release has the performance jump to the degree that Intel's Core 2 Duo/Quad did in relation to the competiton's products at the time. The street pricing of the higher end Barcelona's with motherboard/mem/etc., as compared to the Q6600 is going to make or break the AMD for the home crunchers.

From my perspective of the corporate server room, would I run out and trade in my Q6600's/Xeons for the Barcelona's? Nope, not as performance is at present. Would I purchase Barcelona's to replace Opterons in servers allowing the compatibility? Yep.

While I love AMD, I see this release more as a chapter in the game of catch-up rather than a leap ahead. And while amd is sure to increase clock rate, you can bet that intel has stuff in their advanced technology closets too.

[vaughan]

I'd consider buying one or two of these CPUs but the motherboards are obscenely expensive. Not worth diving into IMO. AMD needs to stomp on ASUS and Co to get some decent pricing ASAP.

[CarcinogenX]

The Opteron 2347 (1.9ghz) went from $749 to $359 on Newegg. I've noticed that the price seems to fluctuate quite a lot and quite often, but that is the lowest I have seen it.

[Nflight]

AMD Platform Launch Imminent, RV670 Details Solidified

New corporate guidance sets AMD's big launch date; RV670 specifications fail to leave much to the imagination

AMD's current launch date for its next-generation desktop processor, Phenom, its next-generation desktop chipset, RD790, and its next-generation graphics processor, RV670, is tenatively set for November 19, 2007.

The story of Phenom and RD790 is all but a done deal. Phenom's big brother, server-based Barcelona, met mediocre fanfare while RD790 production boards have surfaced here and there for almost a year.

Radeon HD 3800, previously codenamed RV670, was a little bit more of a mystery, at least until this weekend. AMD publicly announced RV670 would entail a process node shrink of Radeon HD 2900 (R600) -- a move from 80nm to 55nm.

AMD guidance leaked to media last week also elaborated on the company's DirectX 10.1 superiority. Typically, media leaks that occur just before competition launches (in this case NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT) detail incredible performance gains -- the push for next-generation DirectX support did not fit the status quo for a GPU launch.

Another leak came this weekend when a serendipitous visit to the Diamond Multimedia website revealed exact details of three new Radeons: one low-end SKU, a high-end GDDR3 SKU and a high-end GDDR4 SKU. Google Cache details all three offerings.

The lower-end Radeon HD 3850 will only feature 256MB of onboard GDDR3 running at 825 MHz, and a core frequency of at least 660 MHz.

Higher-end Radeon HD 3870 will feature GDDR4 instead of GDDR3 while using the same RV670 core found on HD 3850. This GDDR4 memory is clocked at 1.2 GHz, and the core frequency is bumped to 775 MHz. The GDDR3 version of HD 3870 will feature the same core frequency as the GDDR4 card, but comes standard with lower frequency GDDR3 instead of GDDR4 to target a better price point.

The red flag is that Radeon HD 3850 touts exactly the same features found on the 80nm Radeon HD 2900 design with the exception of reduced GDDR3 memory. HD 3850 will reduce the thermal envelope when compared to the previous generation, but performance should be nearly identical to Radeon HD 2900.

Radeon HD 3870, on the other hand, is an ambitious bump from the older generation. The 775 MHz core frequency represents more than a 100 MHz increase, while the memory receives a 400 MHz gift over R600's GDDR4 implementation.

A memo circulated from ATI design teams to third-party vendors indicated that vendors will have the ability to set memory and core clock frequencies independently, so each vendor's card will perform at slightly different frequencies.

Other noteable features of RV670 include Quad Crossfire support and AMD's Triple Play physics support.

Radeon HD 2900 XT caused a ruckus when it was learned that the card did not include a Universal Video Decoder, as advertised. Third party Radeon manufacturers could not confirm or deny that this decoder is in place for RV670, though the argument for R600 was that it's processing power is capable enough to not need an HD accelerator via hardware. This may easily be the case for RV670 as well.

Pricing on RV670 has not been confirmed. However, given that Radeon HD 3850 is essentially Radeon HD 2900 in a single-slot design, it's easy to expect AMD will price those cards similarly to R600 cards available today.

[Bubben]

I have a question:

Will there be quadcores for socket AM 2 or not..?

Or do i have to buy a new motherboard and cpu..?

[liuqyn]

the way I understand it, the quads should work in AM2 boards, though a bios update may be needed.

[Bender10]

Here is a Blurb from CeBIT. Not sure how accurate this is, as I have not confirmed this against another source...It seems to sum up the compatibility issue.


CeBIT:
The good news is the compatibility of AM2+ quad core processors with current AM2 motherboards. Indeed, according to AMD but also a well known motherboard manufacturer, this compatibility will be effective.

A motherboard with an AM2 socket will be compatible with AM2 and AM2+ CPU and vice versa. Also, according to the same manufacturer, future AM3 processors using 45nm fabrication process and compatible with DDR2 and DDR3 will be compatible with current motherboards. AM2 and AM2+ processors will not, however, be compatible with AM3 motherboards as the latter is restricted to DDR3. Of course, with AM2 sockets, future AM2+ quad core processors will not express their full potential: they will not work with HyperTransport 3.0 but with 1.0, and the distinct voltage between the cores and the memory controller will not be possible.