AMD a10 6700 'Richland' APU core module question

robotgpu · Dec 1, 2015

So I know that the amd a10 6700 Richland APU has 2 Dual core x86 steamroller modules. What I am curious to know is how much of a difference would it make if the cores were all separate, or if each dual module had two FPUs, more regesters, etc.

How many registers/FPU/ALU units does each module have? Would it make a difference if there were more FPUs?

Would a exact version of this APU but with 4 separate cores each with their own FPU be better performance compared to just two dual modules?

Brunostako · Dec 1, 2015

The A10-6700 has Richland cores, not steamroller. Those are the Kaveri APU.

Management · Dec 1, 2015

robotgpu :

No way to know.

And you can't just add more registers. They have to be utilized by the software. Aside from any registers added through extensions, all x86-64 processors should have the same number of registers.

robotgpu :

The FPU is used for floating-point math (same type of math GPUs specialize in). Such math is utilized in things like game physics. Most math being performed is integer arithmetic, which each core can already do independently. Most workloads don't entirely rely on this type of math, so it wont effect performance much.

robotgpu · Dec 1, 2015

Management :

robotgpu :

No way to know.

And you can't just add more registers. They have to be utilized by the software. Aside from any registers added through extensions, all x86-64 processors should have the same number of registers.

robotgpu :

The FPU is used for floating-point math (same type of math GPUs specialize in). Such math is utilized in things like game physics. Most math being performed is integer arithmetic, which each core can already do independently. Most workloads don't entirely rely on this type of math, so it wont effect performance much.

How many registers does each core have then?

Management · Dec 2, 2015

robotgpu :

From wikipedia:

x86 processors have a collection of registers available to be used as stores for binary data. Collectively the data and address registers are called the general registers. Each register has a special purpose in addition to what they can all do:

AX multiply/divide, string load & store
CX count for string operations & shifts
DX port address for IN and OUT
BX index register for MOVe
SP points to top of stack
BP points to base of stack frame
SI points to a source in stream operations
DI points to a destination in stream operations

Along with the general registers there are additionally the:

IP instruction pointer
FLAGS
segment registers (CS, DS, ES, FS, GS, SS) which determine where a 64k segment starts (no FS & GS in 80286 & earlier)
extra extension registers (MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, etc.) (Pentium & later only).

The number of registers should be the same between any two x86 processors, given they have the same extensions.

But the number of registers there are in a processor really does not matter. As long as it has all the standard registers expected of a modern x86 processor (and if it didn't, modern software probably wouldn't run on it), it's fine.

Also, registers are not shared between cores in modules.

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AMD a10 6700 'Richland' APU core module question

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