So now we know (tentatively) how Barcelona performs, and the performance is nowhere near the claims, from either AMD or its Horde.

What are everyones thoughts on that?

i think i will find a new hobbie cause this one will be too expensive when amd closes next year. buy that lift kit for my b2 mabee.

[sounds of crickets chirping from the AMD fanboy camp]

Seriously though, I think it will be just enough to keep Intel on it's toes innovating for the next couple of years ...let's hope so anyways. As for AMD, that's a tough call. The next 3 quarters will say a lot. Since these chips are larger and they will have to traverse the typical learning curve of a new ramp (meaning yields are a question) they will cost more to produce. How can this be a good thing when AMD is already bleeding cash?

Yeah, but then, yet another AMD claim is high yields.

I hope AMD is getting high yields. For the price they're gonna sell them for ($209 for the slowest one), it will be hard to make money if they're not using every piece of silicon that traverses the plant.

i hope private investment saves ati.

I'm short on time to evaluate all the numbers. Anyone care to share a brief overview on the news we have received recently? I assume we will have quite a bit more stuff to come this week none the less.

Best,

3Ball

We do??
linkage please...

Or if AMD gets picked up by IBM

Well nvm...I was able to take a quick glance around the web to see some numbers and with an average ~15% increase over K8 it isnt as good as promised, but this is my take on it. Lets say that the respected clock for clock average of C2D over K8 as ~20% and penryn is shaping up to be somewhat ~5% or so better than C2D clock for clock. We will see somewhere around a 5 - 10% difference between performance of phenom against a penryn, in penryns favor on a given app (this is because I am giving the benefit of the doubt of about 5% more over the next 2 - 3 months that they will be spending on phenom putting them possibly 5% clock for clock behind intel) This could be great for us, because it makes them competitive again and could keep the price war going. Unfortunately AMD may not be able to sustain a price war with the larger size of the chip and the obvious easy ability of clock speed scaling that Intel will have with penryn. These are some early looks, but it would seem that Intel may be staying on top performance wise by a small margin and AMD will help keep them down price wise while also supplying another great product...regardless of any false claims that were made with "simluated" processors im sure people will buy a few of their chips...lol (I know I will prolly pick up a phenom proc for some testing when they come out as I like to do some of my own personal comparison testing.), hopefully they manage to do well in the server market in the coming months since that is where they are most likely going to be trying to make the money anyways.

Just curious is to if anyone else is someowhat perturbed at the outrageous claims that we did see early on from the company, which most people tout to have such great morals? I mean...I am not one of the peopel who has ever worshiped AMD for being the helping friend and Intel being the big bully, but for a company that pretty much lives and dies by word of mouth and good rep because of a lack of advertising doesnt it seem that they may not want to lose the trust of their customers by state/publishing such false numbers all over the introweb?!?...Just a thought!

Best,

3Ball

From Anand...
This sums up AMD best for me.

To put it plainly: Phenom/Barcelona make this price war more difficult on AMD, while Penryn makes it easier on Intel. What's the end game? Is there a solution? We're not sure...

Thing this p!$$e$ me off most... AMD were sneaky f***s about everything. Oh we cant let u bench our chips cos of competitive blah blah. Just be men about it and say we aint got it ready.

U play games, i'll spend my $ elsewhere.
I think MOST people feel the same way i do. Were not Intel fanboys, we just want the best pruduct from the best company.

PS. I honestly do hope AMD can come back and give Intel a hiding. I also wish to procreate with Jessica Alba. Hey, we see who gets lucky first.

There ya go....a 15% improvement over K8, which puts it 3% behind C2D
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3092&p=5

Personally, I think this is bad news, even for Intel fanbois. Be honest: can you see any reason for Intel to accelarate the Wolfdale ramp if Phenom x4 / x2 comes up short? I can't. With the pressure off, Intel delays the introduction of 45nm desktop parts for as long as possible. How that benefits the Intel-minded consumer is beyond my powers of comprehension.

There's one massive reason, lower manufacturing cost.

Most people understands that the benchmark of Barcelona vs K8 is "simulated", and to have a constrainted benchmark score like that vs K8 is not bad.

Have you seen the server side benchmark of how a 2.0GB Barcelona performed?

I think you either cant read or too much of a pro-Intel troll, everything from you is negativity about AMD. just how much intel shares do you hold?

A gross simplification of facts Turpit.
In the 3d studio max and winrar benchmarks you can see that Barcelona does much better than 15% increase over K8.

http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdo [...] =3091&p=10
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdo [...] i=3091&p=8

Also you are conveniently ignoring the excellent scaling of the Barcelona.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3092&p=6

It's this scaling that is supposed to make Barcelona perform better compared to K8 and Intel cpu's as clockspeeds increase...

Also:

"Barcelona is currently limited to DDR2-667, we were unsuccessful with attempts to run the memory any faster. Like all other MP Opterons, Barcelona requires the use of registered DDR2 memory, which is inherently slower than the unbuffered stuff we use on desktops."

Let's not get too hysterical about the desktop benchmarks yet, shall we?

what? what simulated?

I believe you're the one who has no clue about what happened.

The server side doesn't look good at all. Although Barcelona @ 2.0Ghz can outperforms Xeon E5345 under memory intensive programs (i.e zVisuel), it is generally slower than Clovertown in most benchmarks.

For some very odd reason, Anand used more memory bandwidth sensitive applications to benchmark K10. I wonder if this is a part of NDA.

This is from Anand regarding zVisuel:

Not to mention that Intel has the advantage of clockspeed. Intel had already release 3.0Ghz Clovertown, with 3.16+ Ghz more to come in Q4. In other words, if AMD can't increase their clockspeed over 2.3~2.5Ghz range in the next 3 months, how can they fight Penryn? How is that not a bad thing for AMD?

Hey, a question for you. Are you here for forum, or are you here for trolling?

i think we can all agree that AMD will not die after this. should it not stop the bleeding of cash, it will lessen it ( it should anyway ). other than that.. anyone else see the problem of releasing a $1000 server chip @ 2.ghz? what will happen when 2ghz + comes out? price cuts? huh....

well anyways.. i suggest we all invest in AMD for a quick buck or two.. cause hey.. the shares cant possibly go down further than it already has right? ( im guessing $15 at least... )

....and C2 is about 20% better than K8 clock for clock. Do you think AMD created Barcelona to compete against its own products?

There are two types of scaling: 1. clockspeed, 2. socket

For clockspeed, Barcelona does appear to gain additional performance upon reaching 2.5Ghz and beyond. But the question is, can AMD do that? Although Pheonom already scaled up to 3.0Ghz, Barcelona has a more stringent requirement, as well as additional features, which are disabled on Phenom. As a result, the ability for Barcelona to reach 2.5Ghz with acceptable yield has yet to be seen.

For socket s