AMD Sued Over Allegedly Misleading Bulldozer Core Count 311
An anonymous reader writes: A class action suit accuses AMD of misleading buyers about the number of cores in its Bulldozer-based CPUs. The complaint claims that the chips effectively had only four cores, while AMD claims there are eight. According to Ars: "AMD's multi-core Bulldozer chips use a unique design that combines the functions of what would normally be two discrete cores into a single package, which the company calls a module. Each module is identified as two separate cores in Windows, but the cores share a single floating point unit and instruction and execution resources. This is different from Intel's cores, which feature independent FPUs. The suit claims that Bulldozer's design means its cores cannot work independently, and as a result, cannot perform eight instructions simultaneously and independently. This, the claim continues, results in performance degradation, and average consumers in the market for a CPU lack the technical expertise to understand the design of AMD's processors and trust the company to give accurate specifications regarding its CPUs."
So AMD called their Hyperthreading a CPU core? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:So AMD called their Hyperthreading a CPU core? (Score:5, Informative)
AMD's CPU architecture has a similar purpose as hyperthreading -- to share hardware resources between what looks to the OS like independent cores -- but the tradeoff is different. Intel's hyperthreading approach only works to cover memory latency, because the hyperthreads share so many physical resources (I think basically everything except register files and hyperthreading-related state). AMD's is somewhat different in that each "module" has two independent integer ALUs, register files, and L1 data caches. The module has one L1 instruction cache, one L2 data cache, one FPU, and one instruction fetch/decode unit.
But AMD has always been pretty up-front about this architecture. There is maybe a cause of action against resellers who package the AMD chips into systems and do gloss over which aspects each "core" shares with another core, but AMD publicly presented the core-vs-module distinction well before the chips were released.
Re:So AMD called their Hyperthreading a CPU core? (Score:5, Interesting)
Concur. The design of the bulldozer modules was abundantly clear. The fact that the "cores" share an FPU was clearly disclosed and part of any diagram of the parts. The shared FPUs played a huge role in assessing bulldozer-based CPUs for high performance computing workloads. For HPC, the usual benchmark is HPL (a.k.a., high performance LINPACK), which is a measure of double precision floating point performance for a particular matrix operation called DGEMM. The fact that the FPU was doing double-duty for two "cores" on a module meant that the peak theoretical performance was limited by the number of FPUs in a CPU, not the number of cores or modules or anything else.
As others have noted, hyperthreading via Intel can have exactly the same impact: the threads share various components, including the FPU.
Another aspect that can have a major impact on performance is the number of memory channels, and how things like cache coherency is handled. Among other things, AMD's hyper-transport exhibits different scalability characteristics depending on the number of sockets. In a four or eight-socket configuration, latency due to cache coherency operations can have a big impact on performance.
- gbn
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It really wasn't AMD who was misleading customers, though. Retailers were the ones who were describing the PC's with these processors as something along the lines "blazing fast 8 core gaming monsters" when in reality they were being outperformed by most Core i5's that were available at the time.
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They get those quotes from AMD.com
"AMD FX Processors unlock maximum, unrestrained processing performance for extreme responsiveness you can see and feel."
"The industry's first and only native 8-core desktop processor for unmatched multitasking and pure core performance with "Bulldozer" architecture."
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So, I actually have an AMD FX 8320E eight core as the processor on my personal desktop.
This is what AMD [amd.com] says:
"The industry's only 8-core desktop processor", or "The industry's first and only native 8-core desktop processor for unmatched multitasking and pure core performance with "Bulldozer" architecture".
Now, I bought it knowing there was likely some behind the scenes tricks, and because I don't strictly need a high-level of sustained CPU intensive tasks. For me it was as much about letting multiple progr
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Was it so wrong of me?!
Yes
What answer did you want here. The only people this actually affects, know all about it already.
Think of it this way. Those trucks with the dualies on them? They have six tires right? Why? More traction and more wight capacity. Even if they only have two axles like the standard four tire variants. So what would be better, a dualie or a truck with three axles so you can still carry that weight? Well you get the dualie. You dont really need another axle you just need capacity and traction. The ot
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It's not quite so clear cut. Both vendors' chips are superscalar and so have multiple pipelines. Intel chips have around 5 independent integer pipelines, plus the AVX ones. Very few workloads will saturate them all. This was the main motivation for IBM's SMT: if you have two threads then you can get a lot closer to saturating the execution units than with one. Of course, you're still likely to suffer a bit because of contention on a few units, which is why Hyperthreading often isn't an overall performa
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They're not upfront about it now
Have a look at their website
The FX series is "The industry's only 8-core desktop processor" and "The industry's first and only native 8-core desktop processor for unmatched multitasking and pure core performance with "Bulldozer" architecture"
http://www.amd.com/en-us/produ... [amd.com]
Trying searching their website for information on Bulldozer. There's bugger-all.
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Full disclosure was made.
It's more like the difference between 1000 and 1024 but actually spelling out which one you are using rather than leaving it for the end user to make an assumption that benefits the seller.
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Where was AMD dishonest that a Bulldozer contains four modules?
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Then perhaps AMD, Intel, Microsoft [directions...rosoft.com], and Oracle [orafaq.com] need to sit down and negotiate what constitutes a core for the purpose of licensing proprietary software.
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It is not hyperthreading at all. It is two full integer CPUs sharing one FPU. Hyperthreading gives you one additional brain-damaged CPU at maybe 40% the main speed. For integer loads, AMD gives you the performance of 8 full cores.
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Intel cores with hyperthreading have two sets of registers, two ALUs and one FPU. They don't pretend it's two cores, nor market it as such
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Intel's cores since Nehalem have nothing of the sort. There's one set of ALUs, one FPU, one front-end, one each of L1i and L1d caches, and one peak of the memory hierarchy per core. However the front-end can decode two threads concurrently, tracking two sets of ISA regs at the same time, and sharing all resources between the two. But there are still ony one set of ALUs, and one FPU, per core.
Intel gets more oomph per core this way. AMD merely took the other road, but their process tech was behind and their
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I haven't used a benchmark to do practical work, ever.
Why ARM and Atom thrive (Score:3)
If slow processors get the work done fast enough, and they allow the device to be smaller, generate less heat, and run longer on a given mass of battery, then I'll take the slow processors.
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Extremetech sums it up pretty easily... : (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/217672-analysis-amd-lawsuit-over-false-bulldozer-chip-marketing-is-without-merit
Pretty Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this even reported? This suit isn't going to go anywhere (unless AMD's lawyers are extremely incompetent, and the judge is extremely incapable of understanding basics about computer architecture and ISAs).
The AMD cores shared an FPU, sure, but sharing a resource doesn't mean that cores cannot execute simultaneously. The AMD cores still have independent integer-based execution units (instruction registers, register files, ALUs, branch counters, etc.), after all, and are fully capable of executing integer instructions simultaneously (which accounts for the vast majority of instructions under typical loading).
Re:Pretty Laughable (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. Also, if I understand correctly, that shared FPU can be used either by one CPU core as a 256 bit FPU, or by both simultaneously as 2 independent 128 bit FPUs.
So, shared, but not likely to be a bottleneck.
Also, since when do cores have to include all the "extras" ? I recall when 486's had a math co-processor and there were no mmx instructions or other such multimedia or physics sets. This guy is going to have a really tough time explaining how exactly AMD's architecture doesn't provide exactly the number of cores listed -- even if the architecture has its limitations due to sharing resources.
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Well, I imagine bigger issues are the single instruction decoder and shared L1 cache. However, as mentioned before here, AMD was completely open about this architecture and this suit should go nowhere.
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They share *everything* except for an ALU. When 90% of the functionality of the core is not duplicated, it becomes pretty damn difficult to assert that it's actually 2 cores. Instead, it's 1 core with 2 ALUs.
There are only 4 instruction fetch units on the chip - that suggests 4 cores
There are only 4 instruction decode units on the chip - that suggests 4 cores
There are only 4 L1 caches on the chip - that suggests 4 cores
There are only 4 floating point units on the chip - that suggests 4 cores
The only thing
Because America uses jury trials for most things (Score:3)
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Cores don't run processes independently, however. They contend for memory, disk, I/O... You might be expecting something unrealistic, here.
Why did they buy based on "cores"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was shopping for VCRs about 20 years back and asked the Future Shop guy how much better it was for having (quoting from the card beside the VCR) a "19 micron tape head". Turns out they ALL had 19 micron tape-heads (whatever the hell that *meant*) as it was the spec for a VCR tape head, at the time, at least. It was just another bit of science-y sounding technobabble to put on the card.
Buying based on core count is like buying for the 19-micron thing; it's either a fast machine for your purposes or not. Absolutely the only way to tell that for sure is a test. The only thing that was ever useful with, say, "megahertz" was that it had for a decade or so there a correlation with the performance you'd get in real use. I've never found "cores" to have anything of the sort.
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Re:Why did they buy based on "cores"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong.
99% of software out there is still single threaded. that makes a old pentium 4 single core running at 4GHZ will beat the hell out of a i7 3ghz 8 core processor brutally if that i7 has hyperthreading turned on essentially cutting the processor speeds in 1/2 to emulate more cores.
To make this clear: last year I wrote Python-based system to interface with Intuit Quickbooks, which the client was running on a 3.4 Ghz dual-core something. He asked what he could do to improve performance as we really were pushing the limit of that poor machine, I told him to get the fastest clock speed processor that he could as Quickbooks is single-threaded, even when in Multi-User mode or whatever they called it. So the expert at the computer shop convinces the client to buy an octocore 2.8 Ghz something (numbers pulled out of ass for example only) which absolutely tanked performance.
Tools are tools and the best tool for somebody else's job might not be the best tool for _your_ job. Processors or any other complex component cannot be judged on a single merit alone. See how consumers buy their cameras based on megapixel count for example.
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99% of software out there is still single threaded. that makes a old pentium 4 single core running at 4GHZ will beat the hell out of a i7 3ghz 8 core processor brutally if that i7 has hyperthreading turned on essentially cutting the processor speeds in 1/2 to emulate more cores.
Truth. If you have been reading the design and theoretical papers about 20 years ago it was widely known the mhz race was going to come to an end in the 3-4 ghz range. An that is pretty much what has happened. I've not seen a real cpu in the field faster than 4 ghz. Most servers that I work with run at 2-3ghz. Sure you see some "gimmicks" that make cpu's run at 5+ ghz but would you truly put one of those 220W beasts in your desktop?
We have his the limits imposed by the laws of physics. The gate t
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That's entirely wrong. Pentium 4 have much, much, much worse IPC than Core i7, and so get a lot more done per clock cycle. Have you *used* a 2003-era Pentium 4 lately? Sure, single-threaded performance hasn't improved as much in the last 10 years as it did in the previous 10, but it has still improved a lot.
Also, hyperthreading does not do anything like "cutting the processor speeds in half". If you are really running single-threaded code, the other thread is just in an idle loop, which uses no CPU resource
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Cores mattered when most systems had only 1 core and upgrading to systems with 2 cores or 2 cores with hyperthreading (4 virtual cores) made a huge difference in performance. That was a long time ago, though. The multiple cores meant less latency -- especially for multimedia tasks as the CPU didn't have to stop what it was doing to schedule time for *random background service* or other apps.
Nowadays, it's as you say -- market droid speak. CPU makers hit a wall with Mhz and needed a new marketing ploy,
How important is FPU? (Score:2)
Good point. It's one thing to base it on MHz, which usually was a good indicator of relative speed within a CPU architecture (even though a 150MHz Alpha was slower than a 150MHz Pentium). It's another thing to base it on #cores, since it's well known that parallelism in CPUs is hard to extract, in which case, beyond 4 CPUs, one is quickly hitting the point of diminishing returns.
Also, to what extent have the loads on Floating point units changed? I recall that in the 90s, FPUs used to be heavily de-emp
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Why did *I* buy based on the number of cores?! Because I needed a CPU that can run as many processes in parallel as possible. Why else would you need multiple cores? No, it's not a web server, and not for bitcoin mining. 8 cores means I should be able run 8 processes in parallel, for 8 times speed-up over 1 core.
Yes, doing a testing would've been ideal, but you can't return a CPU, as far as I know. Plus, I thought I can trust AMD to sell an 8-core processor when, you know, it says "8 cores" right on the box
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When you do audio processing, for instance, the number of real cores makes a huge difference. If you use an Intel chip.
Meh, nothing is going to come of it. (Score:2)
A judge is likely to ask : Were there 8 cores ? If the answer is yes, which it seems to be , then AMD is in the clear.
No multi-core CPU box ever came with a statement that all 8 cores would be capable of processing instructions in parallel at the same time. It does however mean, that AMDs 8-core is significantly worse than Intel's 8-core.
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Well two cores are not supposed to share things like integer and floating point units. So those two cores could be considered as one core by the court, and rightly so.
Anyone know if each so-called core has separate L1, L2 caches or not? TFA is very light on details.
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according to another comment here: yes. unlike intel core i series, which share cache.
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May as well sue over GHz claims (Score:2)
I mean, if you bought a 3.5GHz chip and it didn't perform as fast as an Intel 3.5GHz it must be misleading marketing, right? We all know that clock speed is all that matters when you compare a chip. And, I've been told, that they may be reducing clock speed dynamically when the processor isn't fully loaded - basically cheating you out of the speed you PAID for. I hear AMD also ran over your cat.
AMD vs Intel performance (Score:3)
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Your observations on the AMD vs Intel performance gap seem to match my own observations.
I have a 3.6 ghz fx-8150 and my friend bought a Intel i7 also at 3.6 ghz. On most desktop operations you can't tell the difference. When we start operations like video encoding the difference in performance is staggering. On the average he gets over a 40% performance increase over my AMD system.
That is a hell of a performance gap.
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Question: Is this the CPU that's in XboxOne/PS4? (Score:2)
Is this the same AMD "8-core" device that's in both PS-4 and Xbox One consoles?
If so, the consequences may go much wider than this story makes it appear!
-- Steve
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Cant be, as the PS4 and Xbox One use Puma derived cores, a completely different Architecture than the Buldozer derived Desktop CPU.
The Puma Cores do NOT share the FPU. Puma CPU use a special low power Design that doesn`t scale up well above about 2 GHz
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I don't see how this issue can affect PS-4 and Xbox One consoles. Both those are marketed with out disclosure to the public on how many cores their processors have. Most people that buy games consoles don't care about that as long as their a radical performance increase over their last console.
I doubt that ether microsoft or sony will have anything to say ether. Both their engineering teams crawled all over the cpu designs they where planning to put in the console. They didn't just point at a cpu an
Same marketing BS as "hyperthreading cores" (Score:2)
Honestly they need to stop being allowed to advertise "cores" if they are not honest to goodness real separate processor cores.
I hope AMD loses HARD on this and forces the industry to stop being misleading assholes.
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Correct, it's actually a little bit better.
but it's still marketing bullshit.
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The alternative is to try to call them "dual module" processors, and then go through a big long explanation to customers who really don't care what "module" actually is.
Can it execute two separate threads simultaneously? Yes. At full performance? Mostly, although with a shared frontend, when both units are running at full load, instruction disp---- Is someone trying to make a practical judgement of a chip's performance based solely on its core count going to have a clue what any of that means? No. Then it
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You should be able to host as many VMs as you have memory for.
Cores should not be an issue.
Compare to NVIDIA (Score:2)
They've got nothing on NVIDIA, who advertise the GTX 980 as having 2048 "cores", when by any standard definition it only has 16 (or if you're really generous, you could maybe argue it has 64, but that's pushing it). They count every lane of their vector unit as a separate core. By that standard, AMD (and Intel) should multiply all their core counts by 8, since each AVX unit can do 8 int or float operations at once.
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They've got nothing on NVIDIA, who advertise the GTX 980 as having 2048 "cores", when by any standard definition it only has 16 (or if you're really generous, you could maybe argue it has 64, but that's pushing it). They count every lane of their vector unit as a separate core. By that standard, AMD (and Intel) should multiply all their core counts by 8, since each AVX unit can do 8 int or float operations at once.
I think 64 cores in 16 modules would be a fair assessment of a GTX980. Each SMM contains 4 register files and dedicated execution units, 4 instruction fetch and scheduling units. Not too many things are shared within each SMM: mostly caches and shared memory.
CPU Architecture (Score:2)
"The suit claims that Bulldozer's design means its cores cannot work independently, and as a result, cannot perform eight instructions simultaneously and independently."
If the suit really makes this claim it is easy for AMD to defend, because an AMD Bulldozer with 4 modules / 8 cores can actually execute 8 independent floating point instructions per cycle.
The two cores in each module share the floating point units, but each module contains 2 independent 128-bit FMAC units. Floating point throughput could be
sounds like bull shit (Score:2)
buying based on a single spec isn't wise (Score:3)
If you're a consumer, you can't base your buying decision based on a single specification. You have to look at your needs vs what is important to you. For some people performance/$ is important. For others, performance $/watt is more important. You have to compare based on the applications that are important to you. If you, as a typical desktop/laptop user, mostly use application A and price is the main consideration, it doesn't matter if the CPU runs at 3 or 4 GHz, 4 threads or 8 threads, etc. What matters is performance/$. If you have $200 to spend on a cpu, it really doesn't matter who makes the better $700 cpu.
There are plenty of resources available to help people make decisions. Only relying on marketing department information is just plain dumb.
This Discussion Proves It (Score:3)
The fact that, years later, _WE_ are still arguing about this proves that the case has merit.
If WE can't come to a consensus about this... then how is Joe Scmoe supposed to figure it out?
The fact is: this was _misleading_ advertising. They could have easily come up with another name for it (like Intel did with Hyperthreads)... instead they consciously chose to call the extra ALUs _cores_... which does have a meaning to the typical consumer. They did this, on purpose, to muddy the waters... and they REALLY did.
Does that mean that people shouldn't be more careful about what they buy? Sure. But that doesn't absolve AMD from putting out misleading advertising.
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No, blame AMD. They were doing the same thing as Intel is doing with Hyperthreading (scheduling two cores worth of instructions on one actual physical core), just they were claiming that that meant it had twice as many cores, rather than being honest that it's a trick to get more efficiency out of one core.
Re:blame windows not amd (Score:5, Informative)
Err except with HT there is one execution unit, and with AMD there are two.
They are real cores, that share instruction decode and a FPU.
Actual execution is parallel (unlike HT which is more interleaved).
HT isn't similar to Bulldozer modules in any sense.
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An i5 has 4 physical cores without HT, dummy.
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i5 is just branding, it doesn't describe physical features. Broadwell desktop i5 has 4 cores no threads, mobile has 2 cores as 4 threads,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwell_(microarchitecture)#Mobile_processors [wikipedia.org]
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You are not too smart. 4 HARDWARE THREADS in an I5. Get it?
Not all i5's have 4 physical cores. Neither do all i7's (5500u for example).
Re:i5, same thing? (Score:4, Informative)
i3, i5, and i7 represent "good", "better", and "best" respectively. That's it. A *particular* SKU with an i5 mark may have 4 physical cores, but 4 physical cores is not a requirement to receive the mark.
For example, this i5 has 4 physical cores: http://ark.intel.com/products/... [intel.com] while this i5 has 2 physical cores http://ark.intel.com/products/... [intel.com]
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You can replace "physical cores" with "cores", Intel has never confused hyperthreading with CPU cores.
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In this thread, it's not Intel's confusion that I am worried about ;-)
Re:i5, same thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up. It is correct. Some i5's do have 2 cores. The original AC post near the top is also correct, which I notice the mods have knocked to -1 in the usual frenzy of "I disagree, although I am uninformed about the matter."
For a couple decades, "core" meant CPU. 4004, 1802, 8080, 6800, 6809, Z80, 68000... etc.
Then it meant CPU+MMU.
What's funny is that "core" now seems to mean CPU+MMU+FPU (which is great... I love me an FPU per core.) But some (often aimed at mobile or tablets or phones) also have GPUs.
So how long before we won't accept "core" except as a label for CPU+MMU+FPU+GPU?
Then it might be "Nah, that thing has no NPU (neural processing unit), that's not a "real core": CPU+MMU+FPU+GPU+NPU
Then perhaps it'll be "Nah, that thing has no QPU (quantum processing unit)", that's not a "real core": CPU+MMU+ FPU+GPU+NPU+QPU
Then... well, I have no idea. But I do think it'll be something. It's always something. :)
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msinfo32 says "2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)" on this i5-3470T
Performance tab in Task Manager says:
Cores: 2
Logical processors: 4
Intel market it as a dual core CPU as well.
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That's fine, as most serious computing is not done with FPU at all.
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It's fine? Compared to a dual core Haswel with 16 integer units. They don't say it's a 16 core CPU
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both AMD and Intel have their specs publicly known, and moreover there are benchmarks that actually do a good job of pointing out those architectural differences. I'll bet you three-quarters of the public don't buy on any of that, they buy a whole system for a certain price...heck even at one major chain they usually don't even put the amount of RAM on the description cards! You're saying the kind of numb-from-the-neck-up buying public should have some concern and worry over marketing hype, distortion, a
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No, the better option is that AMD gets their shit together, never giving Intel full monopoly on the x86-market even for a bit.
Myself and a friend have been AMD fanboys for 20 years. I built my first system on AMD 133mhz '486. Since then he abandoned AMD on his last workstation build and went all Intel. I have a FX-8150 and a FX-8350 in my builds right now. He has given up on AMD and I'm not far behind. I'm looking at my next workstation build sometime in 2016. I'm not ready to completely abandon AMD. I'm gong to wait and see what the specs on the AM4 bring to the table but I expect to be disappointed.
A few months back we
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Well, there was the Athlon - era where they were sweeping the floors with Intel
Those where glorious days, where they not? I remember the race to 1 ghz and AMD beat Intel to that mark. AMD didn't just inch ahead there ether, they rode Intel hard and put them away wet. Those where good days.
Then Intel caught up and stayed ahead most of the time but AMD was still able to maintain a competitive edge in price. The performance for a Intel chip vs AMD was about 5% to 10% in most areas but AMD's prices where a hundred or more dollars cheaper than Intel. For that much of a difference
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Leading to Intel releasing the flawed Coppermine Pentium 3 1.13 GHz which had to be recalled.
Re:Damnit (Score:4, Informative)
Sony or Microsoft might buy their chip facilities since they do use AMD chips as the CPU/GPU in their consoles
Given that AMD spun off its chip facilities a few years ago, I think we can probably ignore your market analysis.
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Sony or Microsoft might buy their chip facilities since they do use AMD chips as the CPU/GPU in their consoles
Given that AMD spun off its chip facilities a few years ago, I think we can probably ignore your market analysis.
Personally I think AMD should give up and sell their assets under bankruptacy to Samsung or Realtek or some ARM cpu manufacturer who is component and knows what they are doing and can write decent drivers. :-(
AMD is damaged goods man and you know why they suck? No one including global foundaries wants to invest making chips that are not 2012 era technology! Global foundaries said there is no demand for AMD chips and their new cutting edge .18 NM plants only make chips for cell phones for Apple, LG, etc. Onc
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Ah yes, yepping of the disbeliever. We'll I guess I'm not. I guess the fact that my workstation is a fx-8150 and my linux box is a fx-8350. I have a A-5350 in my htpc and my old workstation is a Phenom II 965. The rig I build for my daughter is only a AMD 6300. I won't talk about the 9950, 9850, 1440XP, and the T'bird 950 before that. Yup your correct, I've never been a AMD fanboy.
Look, your little toy box is nice but if you want to run with the big dogs you best know what you're talking about.
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No, the better option is that AMD gets their shit together, never giving Intel full monopoly on the x86-market even for a bit.
Unfortunately its less about AMD getting their shit together, and Intel not being punished enough for their behaviour 10-20 years ago which blocked AMD. At this point unless AMD gets lucky (or skilled whatever) in a future architecture which places them ahead or on par with Intel, and Intel doesn't get a pass on monopolistic behaviour AMD is never going to be more than a niche pick.
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Real life is not like software. The cost of developing a totally new produce is not a couple million for some really smart engineers and the computers they use.
How much does it cost to set up a chip fab? Me memory from a late 90s factoid was it was the Billion$ range, and with the ever-shrinking nanometer processes they keep coming up with it can't have gotten cheaper.
When a major player goes bankrupt in a market like that it makes it much harder for anew guy to enter, because all the banker isn't stupid.
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You know AMD doesn't own chip fabs, right? They were spun out into Global Foundries.
But you are right about the cost of designing a new chip. I would expect the cost to design, validate, manufacture a competitive x86 chip is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars.
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How much does it cost to set up a chip fab? Me memory from a late 90s factoid was it was the Billion$ range, and with the ever-shrinking nanometer processes they keep coming up with it can't have gotten cheaper. When a major player goes bankrupt in a market like that it makes it much harder for anew guy to enter, because all the banker isn't stupid. If a company with decades of experience, existing fabs, etc. goes bankrupt, then the odds against our innovative new start-up have to be pretty bad, and a loan in that range has to be extremely fucking risky.
Except that AMD isn't in the chip manufacturing business anymore, that's TSMC, GloFo and Samsung and they split investment costs across the whole ARM market too. In fact, their 14/16nm process is more competitive with Intel than ever, it's AMD that needs to come up with some kick-ass designs. Of course laying out >1 billion transistors in an optimal way is roughly as hard as it sounds....
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You're right! They're a joke! Hopefully they go bankrupt so you can buy an i5 for the price of a Xeon!
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AMD dying off would effectively make Intel the sole producer of high-performance x86/64 CPUs in the market. Sure, you have VIA as well, but good luck trying to crunch numbers on an C7 core.
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I built a few workstations a few years back out of those VIA parts. God what a piece of shit. These where for low end office work too. We couldn't get off those things fast enough.
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I understand they're very popular on the embedded market due to their low cost, but i can't honestly tell why. Any half decent ARM platform will run circles around it.
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Intel doesn't want AMD to die off because that would subject its practices to monopoly scrutiny. It shares just enough patent information with AMD to allow it to trail a bit behind (in exchange for access to AMD patents, of course) and not completely collapse. The one time that AMD managed to move ahead of Intel (when the Athlon was the king of the hill), Intel pulled out all the stops to prevent it getting a solid foothold in the PC market until Intel's Core 2 Duo could come along and put Intel technologically back in the lead. AMD hasn't had the money to effectively compete since then in part because Intel ensured that its bank accounts couldn't build up too far.
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I actually prefer to buy AMD. I've got plenty of money but I might as well save it. I tend to buy a lot, an absurd amount actually, of hardware over a single year - often just to use it for a short time and play with it. I may keep that hardware or I may just donate it to the local elementary school's computer lab at the end of the school year (so it's in place for the next year). Why AMD? I get more than enough bang for the buck. I'm not a gamer so I don't even buy high end graphics cards. I'm content with
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I facepalmed at the mention of how Intel allegedly doesn't do this... does anybody remember HyperThreading? :-P
Intel's marketing for hyperthreading shows a quad, or hexa core processor that supports hyperthreading. So they advertise a four or six core processor that shows up as 8 or 12 cores in Windows.
AMD advertises an eight core bulldozer processor, but you only have four FPUs on the chip.
So Intel says you can run two threads on a single core, AMD says you have twice the number of FPUs so they aren't full cores.
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Sure it can fly itself
I can put my car on cruise control and it will drive itself, eventually into a wall or ditch or another car
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