Barcelona/Phenom data officially coming out...

[bixplus]

Anandtech is beginning to post data:

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

Phenom: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3092

Some useful data in these...still not the complete story though.

More to come...

 

[wolverinero79]

But even from this brief bit of data, we can see two things
1 - Barcy scales very well
2 - Barcy is not the Intel killer predicted by AMD fanboys

None of these are surprises, but it's good that it's competative. This isn't the best for AMD, but this might just be pretty good for us.

 

[weskurtz81]

Still haven't decided to short or buy long. I think overall this is good news for AMD since they will be more competitive performance wise, but bad news on the profit arena where they are fabbing a larger chip. They need to make more money!

 

[bixplus]

More of the same at this site: http://www.hothardware.com/articles/AMD_Barcelona_Architecture_Launch_Native_QuadCore/

 

[weskurtz81]

Well, since the least expensive version as of right now is right around $200 I guess maybe they should make money. I am correct on the pricing?

 

[bixplus]

Still haven't decided to short or buy long. I think overall this is good news for AMD since they will be more competitive performance wise, but bad news on the profit arena where they are fabbing a larger chip. They need to make more money!

Yeah, tough call. On the one hand you have their new falgship CPU competing with the competitor's mid-range offering...so this would bode poorly in the eyes of most techies. On the other hand, given that it appears to scale well, decent performance per watt and the fickle analysts who sometime seem to have a love affair with AMD, it could really go either way.

 

[weskurtz81]

Right now it's so hard to trade the market that I might just stay out of it. If the analysts say anything negative then it will be down for a day or two. Then it will depend on what the market in general is doing. If they are neutral it will probably rise or fall with the market. If they say good things then it's going up. But, with all the fear on the market right now who the hell knows.

 

[weskurtz81]

Dailytech is crawling right now. I am trying to find the pricing for AMD with the single socket version but DT is slooooww. Anyway, I am not sure what to think at this point. It seems that they are going to need to sell this chip at double the price of current 65nm offerings since the die is so large in order to make some cash off of it. They will probably do fairly well in the server space just not sure how much they will make in the retail section.

 

[weskurtz81]

The server section is precisely where they will try to make the money. The least expensive multi way is $688(tray prices I guess). And the 1 way is $206. So, that $206 model will be at a break even point probably or a loss. The other should make them money. This might not be so bad after all if they can sell the cpu's. We really need to see some good benchies of multi sockets setups. If they are good there then AMD might get it's bread and butter back. I hope so, they need to stay afloat.

 

[turpit]

Im merging my thread into yours and deleting mine Bix, they're the same thing and the timemark shows your was up first.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3092&p=5

From Anand

A 15% increase in performance over k8....not enough to beat C2D clock for clock

 

[weskurtz81]

Sorry to post so much!

The Barcy server pricing has Intel beat. The 2ghz Barcey being about $170 less than the 2.13 Tiger. Performance is close so maybe they can get some of these things out the door and finance the damn company they are "trying" to run.

 

[weskurtz81]

Turpit,

bets on Baron starting his own?

 

[bixplus]

The server section is precisely where they will try to make the money. The least expensive multi way is $688(tray prices I guess). And the 1 way is $206. So, that $206 model will be at a break even point probably or a loss. The other should make them money. This might not be so bad after all if they can sell the cpu's. We really need to see some good benchies of multi sockets setups. If they are good there then AMD might get it's bread and butter back. I hope so, they need to stay afloat.

Yeah, looks like AMD has price positioned aggresively. Hopefully THG/Anand/someone will do a price/performance chart on this stuff soon. It would also be nice if it included Tigerton data too!

 

[bixplus]

@turpit...welcome!

 

[turpit]

Turpit,

bets on Baron starting his own?

Lol,

only if he finds some obscure benchmark that shows Barcelona beating C2D by 30%.

 

[randomizer]

Wow lots of crap there.

A CPU with a TDP of 95W has an ACP of 75W; one with a TDP of 68W has an ACP of 55W. According to AMD, ACP should be the number we use to compare to Intel's TDP

Um...no. Apples to oranges?

 

[weskurtz81]

They better throw some Tiger data in there otherwise it would be pointless. Would not surprise me is it was left out though like they did with the E4300. I think this is pretty promising though, since AMD has ALWAYS released incremental improvements over a period of time. It just might be enough to keep them competitive with the 45nm shrink.

 

[weskurtz81]

what was it that we used to call it? N-Logic or something like that? I can find those benchmarks turpit..... go here.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8800~119100,00.html

 

[bixplus]

Wow lots of crap there.


Um...no. Apples to oranges?

The whole TDP vs. ACP thing seems a bit contrived...they'll have to make a really strong case for it if they want it to have any chance at industry acceptance.

 

[weskurtz81]

wtf is ACP?

 

[turpit]

Yeah, looks like AMD has price positioned aggresively. Hopefully THG/Anand/someone will do a price/performance chart on this stuff soon. It would also be nice if it included Tigerton data too!

WORD!

The pricing looks good, but I hope very much that the margins are good. If they are, AMD might be able to breath a sigh of relief.

 

[randomizer]

wtf is ACP?

From the same paragraph:

AMD uses a different power rating than TDP: "Average CPU Power" or ACP. AMD claims that this power rating is very similar to Intel's TDP: it is the average power draw when the processor runs high utilization workloads.

 

[bixplus]

wtf is ACP?

Here is the official AMD definition of their new acronym ACP:

ACP is Average CPU Power - "Measuring processor power draw on all CPU power rails while running accurate and relevant commercially useful high utilizationworkloads*"

The slide is on this page: http://www.hothardware.com/articles/AMD_Barcelona_Architecture_Launch_Native_QuadCore/?page=2

Yeah, I know, so wtf is ACP?

 

[weskurtz81]

Turpit,

That is the biggest question. Quad core is 291mm>2 while dual Brisbane is around 126mm>2. So the low end parts will be tough at $200(guessing) for them to profit off of but the high end parts will make pretty good cash. I think they will be ok all in all. If yields are good they should be able to sell these things at said price and hopefully be back in black.

 

[randomizer]

So basically they use lots of words to confuse you, but they mean:

"Average power draw under high load" As opposed to Intels much clearer definition of TDP:

Thermal Design Power: A power dissipation target based on worst-case applications. Thermal solutions should be designed to dissipate the thermal design power.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/proc...x/31559405.pdf