Anandtech Review => AMD's Quad FX: Technically Quad Core

[jaguarskx]

Didn't see any threads related to Anandtech's Quad FX reveiw so here it is:

AMD's Quad FX: Technically Quad Core

Sorry if it has already been posted.

It seems that using just one dual core CPU is actually faster than using two dual core CPUs in most of the benchmarks. The exceptions are 2D Content Creation and Web Publication.

More Sockets, but Lower Performance?

When AMD briefed us on Quad FX, the performance focus was on heavy multitasking (AMD calls this "Megatasking") or very multi-threaded tests. We figured it was an innocent attempt to make sure we didn't run a bunch of single threaded benchmarks on Quad FX and proclaim it a failure. Given that the vast majority of our CPU test suite is multi-threaded to begin with, we didn't think there would be any problems showcasing where four cores is better than two, much like we did in our Kentsfield review.

However when running our SYSMark 2004SE tests we encountered a situation that didn't make total sense to us at first, and somewhat explained AMD's desire for us to strongly focus on megatasking/multithreaded tests. If we pulled one of the CPUs out of the Quad FX system, we actually got higher performance in SYSMark than with both CPUs in place. In other words, four cores was slower than two.

Power Consumption

Power consumption of a Quad FX system is simply unreal for a desktop, as it should be because this is effectively a workstation platform with un-buffered memory. At idle our Quad FX test bed consumed nearly 400W, partially because we couldn't get Cool 'n Quiet running on the system, but also because the CPUs and motherboard simply draw an incredible amount of power.

Looking at power consumption under full load, Cool 'n Quiet would have no chance to even make an impact as all cores are being utilized at full speed. Under load the Quad FX system pulled 456W on average, a full 73% more than our Kentsfield testbed.

Final Words
AMD is going to have a very tough sell with Quad FX; although the CPUs are priced competitively, if the ASUS L1N64-SLI WS ends up just shy of the $400 mark it's a platform that is simply too expensive at no benefit to the end user. When only running one or two CPU intensive threads, Quad FX ends up being slower than an identically clocked dual core system, and when running more threads it's no faster than Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700. But it's more expensive than the alternatives and consumes as much power as both, combined.

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Prepare to revisit this discussion in less than a year's time, and next time AMD will hopefully be much better prepared, armed with a new architecture and a cooler, smaller 65nm process. Until then, there's always Quad FX but you're better off with Kentsfield.

I think this paints a bleak picture for AMD until they can finally release their next gen CPU.

 

[sailer]

I think this paints a bleak picture for AMD until they can finally release their next gen CPU.

I had been looking forward to the release of the 4x4 machines with hope that they would do well. Whether its a review from Anandtech, Tom's, or someone else, the 4x4 turns out bad. I wonder how many heads will roll at AMD? I think I'll probably stay with my old 939 machine for a bit longer, as AM2 didn't show any real benifit and this 4x4 is worse yet.

The only possible good thing I've seen for AMD is that with Vista, it might perform better than with XP, but that's a big MIGHT, and I'm not betting on it. Guess my Intel stocks will do good, while my AMD stocks will continue to suffer.

 

[JeanLuc]

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious Intel fanboy but the release of the AMD 4x4 smacks of desperate measures from a desperate company. The power requirements are simply unreal. At PC watch under full load this thing can draw 589 watts, if you ran that with GeForce 8800GTX SLI (321 watt full load per card) you will need a 1.2 Kw PSU just to run this, and that doesn’t included motherboard, ram, hard drives etc.

 

[nobly]

Guess no one told AMD that one of the 4's in 4x4 is for 4 PSUs...

In all seriousness, Quad FX is going to be picked up by a select few. Its just not worth it when there's a C2Q that is cheaper, faster, and destroys 4x4 in performance per watt.

Its like intel releasing the Pentium D chips when the X2's were out - pretty useless, but at least the P-D's were cheaper... :?

Talk about leaving a bitter taste in one's mouth.

 

[chunkymonster]

Good article. Thanks for the link. But, Anandtech has lost credibility in my book ever since the Core Duo vs AthlonFX benches. I've come to take Anand with a grain of salt.

Give it some time to mature and as the native quad cores are released, 4x4 will show itself not be the power hungry waste of money it's being made out to be.

 

[evilr00t]

I fail to see how. With two sockets, two 68W quad core chips are still going to be 146W.

 

[chunkymonster]

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious Intel fanboy but...

Lesson learned here is, anytime you feel the need to preface a post with a disclaimer like this, that's exactly what you are going to sound like.

 

[sailer]

I fail to see how. With two sockets, two 68W quad core chips are still going to be 146W.

That's still a lot better than the situation now. Another thing is that if its run with Vista, it might run better because all the cores can be addressed, in addition to future programs that will take advantage of multiple cores. Would have been nice if Anandtech had tried the comparisons using Vista.

At the same time, I don't hold much hope in the 4x4 platform. I can see Intel in my future machine.

 

[chunkymonster]

I fail to see how. With two sockets, two 68W quad core chips are still going to be 146W.

Check your math before attempting to sound intelligent.

68 + 68 = 136

I'm not surprised you fail to see how...

 

[evilr00t]

Removed, counter flame way too strong.

 

[chunkymonster]

whatever...just don't hurt yourself with any big numbers, ok...

 

[evilr00t]

Ack, knee jerked on an (interpreted) flame
I do this a lot to BaronMatrix, but you aren't as antagonizing.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious Intel fanboy but...

Lesson learned here is, anytime you feel the need to preface a post with a disclaimer like this, that's exactly what you are going to sound like.

No offense dude but you sound like one big AMD fanboy in denial that 4x4 is crap. You see as it matures.. it will be called 4x4+. Not the same platform.

As it stands 4x4 is utter and total crap. Admit it and go on with your life. No sense in trying to pick on a maybe/possibility as a reasoning to claim it to be any different.

 

[jaguarskx]

Guess my Intel stocks will do good, while my AMD stocks will continue to suffer.

I see you're hedging your bets.

 

[jaguarskx]

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious Intel fanboy but the release of the AMD 4x4 smacks of desperate measures from a desperate company. The power requirements are simply unreal.

While it is a depeserate attempt to draw attention away from C2D and C2Q, I don't think AMD is in a desperate situation yet. They held the performance crown for quite some time beating Intel's Pentium 4 over the head with the Athlon XP first, and then the Athlon 64.

The introduction of the C2D merely marks the transition of the performance crown back to Intel. AMD can still compete fairly well in the value segment of the market and having Dell sell PCs with Athlons in them is a major milestone.

However, if K8L fails to provide competitive performance then AMD will be in dire straights since they will need to rely on K10 to level the playing field at the very least.

 

[pausert20]

I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious Intel fanboy but the release of the AMD 4x4 smacks of desperate measures from a desperate company. The power requirements are simply unreal.

While it is a depeserate attempt to draw attention away from C2D and C2Q, I don't think AMD is in a desperate situation yet. They held the performance crown for quite some time beating Intel's Pentium 4 over the head with the Athlon XP first, and then the Athlon 64.

The introduction of the C2D merely marks the transition of the performance crown back to Intel. AMD can still compete fairly well in the value segment of the market and having Dell sell PCs with Athlons in them is a major milestone.

I believe when Intel releases the E4400 and E4300 and then follows on with the E2xx series of processors based on the Core 2 architechure then they will own the value segment. Not to mention I remember reading that Intel is planning to drop their Netburst processor prices down the well in January.

This does not bode well for AMD. The only place left that AMD has the advantage will be in the 4P and higher and super computers.

However, if K8L fails to provide competitive performance then AMD will be in dire straights since they will need to rely on K10 to level the playing field at the very least.

 

[tchiwam]

What I'd like to see is a quad 8800GTS/GTX setup... unfortunately the current AMD aren't the best CPU to feed these monsters, but the interconnect seems to be there.

Why didn't they put the second 680a on the other processor ? They are selling the cpus in pair anyway, woudn't need to have both crossbars buzy for nothing ? I know there is enough BW in the crossbar itself, but there is still contention and latency.

 

[Hameedo]

Here is a more trusted site :

Performance Summary: Throughout our entire suite of benchmarks, a system powered by Intel's quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor outpaced all of the QuadFX-based systems. The Intel-powered system also generally scaled better moving from two to four cores in the multi-threaded benchmarks. Our in-game tests and PCMark05's memory performance module put the QuadFX platform at a disadvantage versus AMD's own socket AM2 dual-core platform, but in all of the multi-threaded application and rendering tests, QuadFX was significantly faster than a similarly equipped system powered by an Athlon 64 FX-62.

AMD is clearly laying the foundation for the future with the QuadFX platform. In its current state, a QuadFX machine powered by a pair of AMD's fastest FX-74 processors can't quite keep pace with the QX6700 strictly from a performance standpoint. The overall feature-set of the QuadFX is impressive, however, thanks in part to NVIDIA's nForce 680a SLI chipset and the dual-socket nature of the platform. Twelve SATA ports, quad PCI Express X16 graphics slots, the potential for quad gigabit Ethernet, and SLI support put the QuadFX in a league of its own from a feature standpoint. And that doesn't account for potential future innovations that could make use of the second CPU socket.

AMD will be selling Athlon 64 FX-70, FX-72, and FX-74 processors in pairs with heatsinks for prices of $599, $799, and $999 respectively. That's two 3.0GHz dual-core processors for just under a grand. The Asus QuadFX L1N64-SLI WS motherboard will sell for upwards of $300. And for maximum performance, QuadFX will also require four DIMMs, which will be marginally more expensive than two DIMMs of a similar total capacity. Overall, the pricing structure makes configuring the fastest QuadFX system more expensive than the fastest quad-core Intel-based system, but QuadFX does offer more features, so pricing isn't out of line in our opinion

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx

 

[Lathangrill]

Too expensive (Mobo+CPUs+PSU+RAM) for the performances offered.
Let's wait for the next AMD step (and Intels too...).

Sounds great to keep your house warm in winter though.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Again, shining example of NUMA in action.... Vista will help, but not that much --- Desktop work loads just do not play nice with NUMA. I think you are right, for now this does not bode well for AMD.

Has anybody had Linux running on this platform yet? I'd be interested to see how well its able to work on it and if it offered any advantage over XP/Vista. I could see this working for developers running environments such as VMWare or for some of the graphics niche areas where Linux has a good foothold.

 

[darkstar782]

I fail to see how. With two sockets, two 68W quad core chips are still going to be 146W.

Barcelona 4x4 = 68+68 =136W for 8 cores.

Current 4x4 = 125W+125W = 250W for 4 cores

Kentsfield = 130W for 4 cores

Right now its double the power for the same number of cores as Intel. And AMD who laugh at intel for their "glued" design have basically glued two Dual Cores together here, except that on 90nm they cant fir in one package so there are two....

After Barcelona, it will be double the cores for about the same power.

That is, unless Intel is producing 45nm quad cores by then...

Personally I think nVidia should have taken this opportunity to say "screw you" to AMD for buying ATi and refused to put a platform together for it... leaving AMD with a long chipset lead time on releasing 4x4 still.

 

[m25]

yes, but at it's intro it will be a top performer and I think most people vill opt for lower clock, 68W parts.

 

[darkstar782]

I fail to see how. With two sockets, two 68W quad core chips are still going to be 146W.

Barcelona 4x4 = 68+68 =136W for 8 cores.

Current 4x4 = 125W+125W = 250W for 4 cores

Kentsfield = 130W for 4 cores

Right now its double the power for the same number of cores as Intel. And AMD who laugh at intel for their "glued" design have basically glued two Dual Cores together here, except that on 90nm they cant fir in one package so there are two....

After Barcelona, it will be double the cores for about the same power.

That is, unless Intel is producing 45nm quad cores by then...

Personally I think nVidia should have taken this opportunity to say "screw you" to AMD for buying ATi and refused to put a platform together for it... leaving AMD with a long chipset lead time on releasing 4x4 still.

Projecting from today's current products, to AMD products of tomorrow then this is correct --- however, we are not aware of any Intel's 45 nm quad products just yet. Word on the street is that the TDP will be lowered to 50 watts at 3.5-3.7 GHz.

The 68 watt quad part that is being thrown in this thread will not give nut busting performance either, as AMD will likely need to bin this out at lower clocks and lower voltages to hit this envelop. AMD's full range of power specs (leaked albiet) is 68, 89, and 120 Watts for their future quad cores. The FX-line is certain to be the top bin parts which means we are back to the same 120 Watt x2 for the 8x4.

While you will get 8 cores and good performance, the power will still be 500+ for this platform.

Jack

Oh I agree Jack, and my only source for the 68W thing was this thread its pretty sad but I've just about lost interest in AMDs roadmaps now, just as I had with Intel's before Core 2 Duo.

I said in my original post that Intel could be producing 45nm by then (or soon after).

Its pretty sad when the only "cool" thing about a new CPU is the chipset.

56 PCIe lanes, 20 USB2, 12 SATA, 4 GbE. Thats way more exciting than a 3.0GHz A64 with NO overclocking headroom.

 

[m25]

yes, but at it's intro it will be a top performer and I think most people vill opt for lower clock, 68W parts.

I don't know to be certain, but I don't think the 68W parts will be top performers, Q6600 (when it launches) will likely out perform the 68 Watt barcelona (on performance only), perf/watt hard to tell. The 68 watt parts will likely clock 30-50% below the high performance parts which will come in at 120 Watts. My guess anyway based on AMDs historical segmentation along this vector.
I intended the top performer in dual socket ?8X4? configuration; don't forget that it will still be multiplied by the 2X factor. I don't have an exact idea on how barcelona will perform and most probably intel will have an edge on power consumption but if AMD keeps 8cores within the 136W envelope, they will most likely outperform intel's 4 cores by at least 50% (K8 arch already does it with a 500W envelope 8O :lol: ) and nobody will care about the 20-30W+ or $400-500+ when they build a top performing $2000-3000 machine.

 

[m25]

Well, your hypothesis is based on the strong fact that intel is going to introduce 45nm chips after mid 2007, however, you also asume that intel will still have the clock/clock lead, about which I'd not bet.
However, one thing is sure; when intel gets on 45nm, it won't take them much longer to build a dual die octo core, that is why AMD has to rush the 65nm quads as soon as possible if they want to have some guaranteed months of performance lead and a more balanced image.