Intel/AMD Microarchitecture 2011

[dogman_1234]

Hello Tom's Hardware,

I have been intrigued by the noobiness of all the people all over the internet. It seems Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer are the next thing since sliced bread. Anyways. I am posting here to collect the thoughts of the masses of posters of Tom's hardware. This is NOT another "Is Intel/AMD Doomed" thread. I do not want fanboys flame wars,( 4ryan and jpishgar will have my head), or anything supporting the company wholly. You can compliment each or one, but not support.

What do you think about the new architectures and changes to the new series? What about the new sockets? Fabrication changes? Additions and subtractions,( like Fusion for AMD)?

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Dogman, if you're really really interested in learning about the new architectures, then go visit http://www.realworldtech.com. The very first two articles are on the Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer architectures. However nobody will know the exact pros and cons of each until actual shipping product gets reviewed on a bunch of sites. Otherwise it's all theoretical.

Now if you're interested in a preview of SB, Anandtech had some articles on it last month. General consensus around here is that it'll show about 20% IPC improvement over Westmere, and if the reports of oc's up to 5GHz on air are true, then the unlocked versions will probably be the gamer's choice next year, especially if desktop versions of Bulldozer aren't out until late next year. But, as I said above, nobody actually will know until they are shipping and reviewed...

 

[damasvara]

Flame wars? Count me in!..

I chose VIA's side... :lol: Just kidding.

I'd say, if this is really about discussing the two arch enemies on the new "Hybrid CPU war" saga, I can't really dive in. They're both still in pre-launch state. Any info regarding the two products can be considered uncertain. That's why I prefer to wait for the reviews, then comment. Besides, with my shallow knowledge on technical stuffs like architecture, socket type, fabrication, etc, I simply can't keep up with the others.

Anyway, tell me if the new fanboy battle starts, I'd buy some popcorns and coke while watching. Maybe some provocative posts. :lol: But the mods will have my head if I do that.

 

[kevikom]

I just want what works. It looks like they are going to need to come up with new bechmarks for CPU/GPU combos. Until we see consumer products allowing comparisons of Llano, i7,SB,Bulldozer this is all guessing. I want to see side by side benchmarks for each

 

[Raidur]

If 1155 has 20 PCI 2.0 lanes then to me SB is FAIL. Looks like only AMD will offer fully loaded mobos at affordable prices, again. *sigh

I'm not paying $250+ for more than 20 PCI lanes when my old 775 has 36 2.0s for ~$230 over 2 years ago.

Then again I'm not about to go BD for 8+ cores and a slight, if any, IPC increase for gaming.

Hell GPUs (due to game developers and *cough*consoles *cough* slowing gaming progression) can't keep up with lynnfield anyways. (5870 crossfire maxes FPS at what, 3ghz, if that)

I might be stick with my Q9550 longer than I thought... Maybe 6970s and Crysis 2 will get me back in the spiritt.

 

[TommyV]

I'm not a fanboy, I have an intel cpu running on an nvidia chipset with an ati gpu.

I think that this new 1155/p67 Intel thing will be useless to a good chunk of the people. I believe that this is a step backward for gamers and overclockers. btw, overclocking has become a game in itself and with Intel crippling overclockers with the locked usb, pci, and memory timings, well, it just makes me mad.

Amd has a chance to take the lead, depending on how Bulldozer will match up against the current Intel products. If Amd can pull this off, they will have the lead for probably a couple of years, until Intel can pull their head out of their (cuss word) and start thinking about the customer instead of the share holders.

But, alas, THIS is what I really believe will happen. Intel will alienate the hardcore customers and Amd will miss the chance to take the lead because Bulldozer won't be as good as the current i7's, maybe as good as the i5-760, but I pretty much doubt it.

Sorry folks for the rant. I was going to start a new thread but seen this thread. Thanks for letting me vent a little bit here. (group hug)

 

[Shadow703793]

I think that this new 1155/p67 Intel thing will be useless to a good chunk of the people. I believe that this is a step backward for gamers and overclockers. btw, overclocking has become a game in itself and with Intel crippling overclockers with the locked usb, pci, and memory timings, well, it just makes me mad.

Intel has said that they will offer K versions with unlocked multi.

To me, I'm not really interested in LGA1155 as a desktop CPU, however I would like to see how the mobile versions of Sandy Bridge will perform.

I'm waiting for Bulldozer and LGA2011.

Amd has a chance to take the lead, depending on how Bulldozer will match up against the current Intel products. If Amd can pull this off, they will have the lead for probably a couple of years, until Intel can pull their head out of their (cuss word) and start thinking about the customer instead of the share holders.

Sorry to brake it to you, but the Enthusiast market is probably less than 5% of Intel's profits,etc. It's probably a bit higher for AMD, but the fact is the Enthusiast market makes very little difference to CPU manufactures. On the other hand, this market matters a LOT to companies like ASUS, Gigabyte, XFX,EVGA, etc.

Did you know most of the Extreme Edition CPUs are sold to OEMs? Yup. Real enthusiasts will use the cheaper CPUs and OC the $hit out of them. This is something that Intel has tried to avoid for some time (FSB limits in P4,etc). I think Intel may have finally come to a compromise by offering Unlocked CPUs for a little premium. Only prices will tell if Intel really cares about the enthusiast market.

 

[dogman_1234]

*cough* They don't.*cough*

 

[Mousemonkey]

Am I going to have to sit on this thread with my

dishing out the

's and

's ?

 

[dogman_1234]

Naw...go watch some soccer.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Naw...go watch some soccer.

I hate football or "soccer" as you call it.

 

[damasvara]

Am I going to have to sit on this thread with my http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/images/smilies/popcorn.gif dishing out the http://forums.hexus.net/images/smilies/redcard.gif 's and http://forums.hexus.net/images/smilies/stop.gif 's ?

I didn't do anything. I'm innocent. *cough* for now... *cough*

 

[Houndsteeth]

I say buy them both up! Let's keep this competition neck-and-neck so we can all enjoy relatively lower prices for a little bit longer, until one or the other pulls the plug on competition and decides to go for the throat.

It's the anticipation of new hardware that gets the best of us, really. I am very enthused to see what AMD is pulling out of the hat. And to be completely honest, from what I have seen of Sandy Bridge so far, I'm not really all that blown away.

It just seems like a marginal step in the direction that Intel has been headed towards for a while. Pardon me if I'm not exactly over the top when folks start talking about embedded IGP solutions from Intel, considering their record. I am more than enthused when folks start talking about additional GPU core from AMD, though, given the proven track record of their graphics arm with an eye to performance.

 

[dogman_1234]

I think the reason both are secretive about their products is to increase revenue...(duh?!?!)

 

[Reynod]

fazer's post was the only one with any content people ...

Tsk tsk ... we are getting lazy.

Sandy Bridge looks good and before you post telling me its fake remember coolaler has more cred than anyone here in terms of popping stuff out first.

http://forum.coolaler.com/showthread.php?t=251959

 

[Reynod]

Brazos Demo and Llano Demo:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/10/18/amd-demos-brazos/

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/10/18/amd-demos-llano/

Thank you Charlie D !!

 

[addy_77]

maybe they will come out 2 silicon(GPU+CPU) on 1 chip for SB...

 

[dogman_1234]

Tsk tsk ... we are getting lazy.


http://forum.coolaler.com/showthread.php?t=251959

Really, I haven't noticed. In all honesty, all of society is getting lazy. Hopefully we will be on our feet when Sandy and Bulldozer comes out.

 

[dogman_1234]

It also may be a sign that Intel and AMD haven't released and 'good' news about their products...except their names and concepts.

 

[Wisecracker]

It also may be a sign that Intel and AMD haven't released and 'good' news about their products...except their names and concepts.

With the new instructions to be added, they are busy *creatively engineering* their arses off. They don't want to release any testing where the results may well be obliterated 6 weeks later with optimizations.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

If 1155 has 20 PCI 2.0 lanes then to me SB is FAIL. Looks like only AMD will offer fully loaded mobos at affordable prices, again. *sigh

I'm not paying $250+ for more than 20 PCI lanes when my old 775 has 36 2.0s for ~$230 over 2 years ago.

Then again I'm not about to go BD for 8+ cores and a slight, if any, IPC increase for gaming.

Hell GPUs (due to game developers and *cough*consoles *cough* slowing gaming progression) can't keep up with lynnfield anyways. (5870 crossfire maxes FPS at what, 3ghz, if that)

I might be stick with my Q9550 longer than I thought... Maybe 6970s and Crysis 2 will get me back in the spiritt.

I don't usually give too much credence to sources like The Inquirer , but anyway:

The new Socket LGA1155, common to both mainstream desktop Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5/i7 chips and the entry level Xeon Sandy Bridge parts, will support CPUs in two different configurations for PCIe I/O: the 16-lane desktop part, and the 20-lane server and workstation part, all of course at PCIe v2 speed.

Otherwise, the desktop and enterprise parts are identical, including up to four cores and 8MB cache, and speeds up to 3.4GHz for the parts with GPU turned on, and 3.5GHz for the parts with the disabled GPU. The fine grained Turbo capability gives them another up to 400MHz headroom when all cores are used, with appropriate power and thermal solutions. These sockets, by now well known to the community, are the only ones with the built-in GPU.

Then we come to the Socket LGA1356, a direct replacement for the current Socket LGA1366. The parts here are 6-core and 8-core Sandy Bridge single-socket and dual-socket capable but midrange positioned Sandy Bridge Xeon - and, ultimately, Core i7 - parts with up to 20MB of L3 cache, three DDR3-1600 memory channels just like the existing LGA1366 Westmeres with one memory speed grade higher, and 24 PCIe v3 lanes on-chip. The single external QPI v2 link runs at up to 8 gigatransfers/sec, or 32GB/sec bidirectional bandwidth, a 25 per cent speed up over the current generation, but also feeding a third more cores on each socket.

The highest speed 8-core CPUs with up to 150W TDP should, however, be reserved for the high-end Socket LGA2011. With more power and ground lines to support 40 PCIe v3 lanes and four DDR-1600 memory channels per socket, as well as dual QPI 8 gigatransfers/sec links, the 8-core, 20MB L3 cache Sandy Bridge-based Xeons should have sufficient system bandwidth to feed even the highest workloads. Not to mention enough PCIe bandwidth for two dual-GPU cards with extra lanes still free for a, say, 5GB/sec PCIe high-speed SSD or Infiniband interconnect.

And, when you add the same resource on the second CPU, it becomes possible to fully feed an 8 GPU system out of a single two processor workstation. And yes, you could even do a quad-socket monster here, if you're using the EX parts, I assume.

So if true, then you'd probably be interested in either the 1356 or 2011 socket Sandy Bridges.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

fazer's post was the only one with any content people ...

LOL - thanks!

I've been taking my anti-fanbois meds for some time now - seem to be working for the most part

 

[dogman_1234]

Good to hear.

 

[werxen]

AMD is going after the server market while Intel is trying to go after both with improved ipc. AMD meanwhile will focus on more cores and less power and hope apps become multithreaded by the time their chip releases. If not then they will survive on the server market.

We can't speculate on the chips themselves because we don't have all of them yet.

/thread

 

[fazers_on_stun]

AMD is going after the server market while Intel is trying to go after both with improved ipc. AMD meanwhile will focus on more cores and less power and hope apps become multithreaded by the time their chip releases. If not then they will survive on the server market.
/thread

IIRC server accounted for something like 1/4th of Intel's CPU income last quarter, whereas mobile was nearly 1/2. Desktop, at 12%, not so much . I suppose netbooks, tablets and below account for the rest. I guess AMD is positioned somewhat similarly.