Maybe the fact that they are taking them to Cebit means they have also increased performance. Otherwise why would you take what will be by then a 6 month old cpu with a new stepping.
The OC issue comes from insisting on doing a monolithic design @65nm.
They need to get out tri and dual cores, those will clock higher.
Actually you are mistaken in this assumption. The problem with the Phenoms is not core overheating but the fact that they hit a clock frequency ceiling which is relatively quite low (even compared to the AM2 Athlons which also have a relatively low absolute clock ceiling - compared to Intel). Now if you look at the die on the dual and tri-core Phenoms all the inefficiencies will still be there (latency from 2nd level cache, extra length of pathways around the very spread out die). This is just basic Electronic Engineering principles!!
The B3 stepping will overclock just as poorly as the B2 stepping. THG recently tested this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/phen [...] 30093.html The overclock is pitiful even with the BIOS TLB fix disabled. So how do you figure having the TLB problem fixed is going make things any better??!!
People are comparing the Phenom to the P4 Prescott (space heater, etc.) but actually for all its flaws (long pipeline latencies) the P4 Prescott did overclock very well (4Ghz was achievable on air). The Phenom maybe more efficient but it clearly has some serious clocking issues which give it a very low ceiling...
Basically I think AMD are in some very serious problems now with no sign of a rescue. When Intel copy the integration of memory controllers and inter-core serial links this will kill off AMDs only trump card in the Desktop space... If Intel replaced the FB-DIMM crap in their server products then AMD could lose the only market they can actually make money on (look at the current price of their high clocking Opterons!!)
.... out die). This is just basic Electronic Engineering principles!!
Actually what you are saying in your post, without realizing it, is that Intel will have the same problems with their Nehalem and they won't be very good at overclocking.
If your guess is true... how does this "kill off AMD's trump card"?
The B3 stepping will overclock just as poorly as the B2 stepping. THG recently tested this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/phen [...] 30093.html The overclock is pitiful even with the BIOS TLB fix disabled. So how do you figure having the TLB problem fixed is going make things any better??!!
That black edition is B2 so is prone to all the same problems the non-BE B2 processors have. We know these problems exist, and also that the fix for the TLB bug (when taken individually) is probably not going to change the overall performance by anything more than a percentage point (1%) at most, if it makes any difference on its own at all.
However, AMD have been noted saying that following B3 the next stepping will be a C stepping and will be on 45nm. Do you really think they (before the TLB "crisis" came about) originally planned to introduce phenom as B2 and not make any changes to it's design for as long as it takes to get their 45nm working? No, they'd likely already planned for B3, which means there are likely to be other changes in it other than the TLB fix.
Those other changes *might* make a difference in performance and/or overclocking headroom, which would be good for AMD, good for competition, and very good for our wallets.
Actually what you are saying in your post, without realizing it, is that Intel will have the same problems with their Nehalem and they won't be very good at overclocking.
If your guess is true... how does this "kill off AMD's trump card"?
Actually we have no idea what will happen with Nehalem. And considering it is coming out this year and Intel is still boasting its huge performance gains means they might not have any problems yet.
Right now AMDs only real trump card is their IMC and Directconnect. Once Intel impliments those AMDs FP and memory bandwidth advantage will no longer be there especially in the server market considering Intel plans on quad channel meaning it will probably double the bandwidth available and unless AMD has that planned for Q4 08 it might kill off AMDs major server advantage.
And he is right the TLB being fixed doesn't guarantee any OC'ing headroom gains, performance gains or any of it really. What I see it doing is possibly lowering the thermal envelope but I doubt it since its only the second stepping.
I just hope they can get a higher than 2.6GHz clocked part since even that fails to outperform a Q6600. Its really depressing to see AMD having no competative products.
Actually what you are saying in your post, without realizing it, is that Intel will have the same problems with their Nehalem and they won't be very good at overclocking.
If your guess is true... how does this "kill off AMD's trump card"?
Woahh there,
You are misquoting me. I was saying that that AMD have a major process disadvantage as they have no headroom for overclocking. Look at the 65nm dual-core Athlons and Opterons. They max. out around 3.2Ghz and get very hot/have massive power draw at that level. Intel's 45nm chips have massive room for overclocking (6Ghz is the record). So I would expect their monolithic dies to have good OC's as well at 45nm and lower. Don't forget they have the new Hi-K process in their arsenal now as well (resulting in lowered CPU power consumption overall - ideal for a monolithic quad core)!!
AMD have not even migrated to 45nm yet. Since they have not demonstrated any working products at this feature size we cannot speculate (even) that their overdraft will allow them to start producing real Silicon at 45nm in 2008. They have simply stated that they will achieve this in press releases (words are cheap)...
Intel have such a big R & D budget that they already are working on the Nehalem chips and demonstrating working Silicon (i.e. action not just words)... This means they are less likely to shot themselves in the foot with a serious design mistake like the TLB errata that AMD currently have in the early steppings...
Once Intel copy AMD's architectural advantages (serial interconnect, integrated memory controller, dumping stupid FB-Dimm idea - this will go the way of Rambus very soon I predict ) then AMDs market will be compressed to the sub 100-200USD range... This is like not good for anyone of course and I am no Intel fanboi (in fact I still mainly buildup AMD/ATI-based systems for people)...
You are misquoting me. I was saying that that AMD have a major process disadvantage as they have no headroom for overclocking. Look at the 65nm dual-core Athlons and Opterons. They max. out around 3.2Ghz and get very hot/have massive power draw at that level. Intel's 45nm chips have massive room for overclocking (6Ghz is the record). So I would expect their monolithic dies to have good OC's as well at 45nm and lower. Don't forget they have the new Hi-K process in their arsenal now as well (resulting in lowered CPU power consumption overall - ideal for a monolithic quad core)!!
AMD have not even migrated to 45nm yet. Since they have not demonstrated any working products at this feature size we cannot speculate (even) that their overdraft will allow them to start producing real Silicon at 45nm in 2008. They have simply stated that they will achieve this in press releases (words are cheap)...
Intel have such a big R & D budget that they already are working on the Nehalem chips and demonstrating working Silicon (i.e. action not just words)... This means they are less likely to shot themselves in the foot with a serious design mistake like the TLB errata that AMD currently have in the early steppings...
Once Intel copy AMD's architectural advantages (serial interconnect, integrated memory controller, dumping stupid FB-Dimm idea - this will go the way of Rambus very soon I predict ) then AMDs market will be compressed to the sub 100-200USD range... This is like not good for anyone of course and I am no Intel fanboi (in fact I still mainly buildup AMD/ATI-based systems for people)...
Bob
What architectural advantages other than an additional FPU does AMD have on Intel? Last I checked Intel's current solution does not saturate the FSB enough to note. In servers this is a much different story as there are generally more intercommunications going on but that’s task specific and in some cases code specific. But regardless Intel doesn’t have to bring the technology to the desktop other than to ensure adoption and a new upgrade path for their platforms.
The real key to this technology is the fact that Itaniums and Xeons can intermingle without a great deal of overhead on the intercommunications end. Since in the end Intel is only trying to get mass adoption of IA-64 which will give us the clean slate we desperately need. I'm not saying IA-64 is the answer as any other ground up solutions will work, it just happens to be Intel’s idea of a clean slate.
As for the memory controller that goes with my initial statement above it's very apparent that the current implementations of their desktop line does not need it, its more or less a new socket new upgrade path.
Do you know the technological advantages that FB-DIMMS bring to the table in the area of bandwidth and overall data and signal quality of competing DDR technologies? I am assuming no as you seem to firmly believe that FB-DIMMS are going the way of RDRAM which is far from the case, when it comes to large memory requirements FB-DIMMS are the more viable solution for those types of environments.
Actually, I believe the TLB fuss, and delays to get to B3 have more to do with successful binning at higher clocks. Probably due to something in the process.
I'm currently running my 9600BE at 2.7Ghz core 2.0Ghz NB. It ran through 12 hours of Prime95 v25.6 Blend over night and hit no errors. Switched it over to prime95 small fft to make sure on core stability. Gonna let that run while I'm out of the house today. I haven't gove over 39c CPU temp according to Everest yet, and the core temps are hanging below 30c under full load. And thats running pretty much at stock voltage. I've been reading on Xtremesystems forum to watch what others have been able to do with theirs. And the funny thing is, part of the OCing has to do with BIOS issues. The other part has something to do with the individual CPUs. They've been trying to keep track of what weeks and and lots the cpu's were from. There seems to be no effect regardless of week and run number. One processor from the same bin can OC higher than another from the exact same week bin.
To me that points to their having problems with Yield Issues at the higher clocks. And I've said it before, I do believe their other problem with B2 is the fact they aren't able to set the parts at full NB/HT speed like they're supposed to be able to do. Also the 9600 BE seems to be an oddball when it comes to OCing. It has a lot lower HT ref clock tolerances than the 9500 does. On other forums I've seen people pushing HT ref to 267Mhz able to get close to 2.9ghz stable or close to that stable on them. Where as the 9600 BE is limited to about 230HT ref clock.
And since I'm a noobler and can't figure it out. How do you do a screenshot of your desktop???
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AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition, ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Premium CPU Cooler, MSI K9a2 Platinum bios 1.1b3 or P.0J, 4GB (2x2) Mushkin DDR2 1066 (pc8500) 5-5-5-15 2.05v RAM, Sapphire Toxic HD3870, Raidmax RX-700SS PSU, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320gb SATA2 X
) then AMDs market will be compressed to the sub 100-200USD range... This is like not good for anyone of course and I am no Intel fanboi 
(in fact I still mainly buildup AMD/ATI-based systems for people)...