AMD FX-6100

[purple stain]

I was just wondering and I thought I'd ask it here.My question is is why is the FX-6100 so bad?

I know AMD didn't spend the last years making a product that would just be equal with the previous generation of CPU's(Phenom ii).I'm thinking either it wasn't ready or their's some sort of driver error with it.Just doesn't make sense to me why they would release a product if it's only equal to their last gen.

Any insight would be appreciated.Thank you.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

according to what has been said the scheduler wasnt as good and the pipeline was way too long.Not sure about cpu arch still a newb at it so yeah.

 

[purple stain]

But it just doesn't make sense why they would release it.They tested/benchmarked long before they released it i'm sure and they would know how close it performs to the Phenom ii's.But if they knew that, why they would release it just doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe they felt they would loose money if they kept delaying it?

 

[casualbuilder]

Desktop benches are the only thing i've seen out right now, and im guessing that this, like said even by reputable reviews, is not a desktop chip. It is a Server and Applicational chip based for heavy multitasking. Although AMD did hype this chip up for gamers, i dont think the developers ever had intentions with 1st release to have this be the "solve all" desktop chip like an i5 or i7 is from intel. Also remember, while intel has had this technology, this is AMD's first crack at integer cores (basically HT), and the first 8-core processor, true core or not.

While i am disappointed at the design for desktop use, as a server chip, this may be a huge win for AMD. It is yet to be shown yet though.

also, the reason they lose money is because it costs money to manufacture and produce testing chips. remember, they aren't just plug and play chips in the research labs, they are pushing them to absolute max, and then some, and doing it multiple times, making sure of everything this chip is capable of, and trying to improve on it. Millions if not Billions of dollars later, this is what they had to offer before what i can imageing a very ugly shareholders meeting occurred.

 

[Onus]

In the next two weeks, I expect a "scapegoat" will be found at AMD. It will be someone who gets booted out, but possibly with a golden parachute (details of which may not be fully disclosed). This will be done to placate shareholders and save the stock price.
What will be of interest to us is who this person is. If it's an engineer, my guess is that AMD is hosed; they missed design goals. Despite possibly excellent server performance, the high TDP likely rules this out in high-density datacenter environments; the performance gain isn't worth the power (and cooling) costs. That it performs no better than existing tech leaves it out in the consumer market. The "golden" parachute may in fact be lead.
If it's a marketing droid though, there is hope; hope that there's a readily fixable bug, or perhaps more importantly there are specific, well-understood software modifications/optimizations and/or stepping changes that will let this chip shine. The guy let go "took one for the team," and his parachute may well be platinum; in two years, maturing software will have caught up to the design, and it will turn into something amazing.


Just don't expect Intel to be twiddling its thumbs during that time. "It goes on..."

 

[purple stain]

I just want to hear it from an Engineer themselves.They are the only ones who really knows what went wrong or what exactly they were trying to do.I'm sure no one from marketing or more higher up the knows the tech specs.

 

[casualbuilder]

not twiddling, but definately enjoying the extra time they now have in the consumer market.

 

[purple stain]

Do you guys think a revision or stepping will make any difference besides make the power consumption better?

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

Do you guys think a revision or stepping will make any difference besides make the power consumption better?

Remember this is a server cpu abuse and made to be a desktop.

 

[casualbuilder]

i have no experience or know how when it comes to architecture of cpus, and will never admit to having any...lol. BUT, like i said in this post, i don't believe for one minute they ever intended this first chip to be "gamer ready". I believe it to have been specifically designed for server and application use, and that within the next revision or 2, this will be a viable option for gamers. However, there are just way too many feelings on why this chip is not gaming material, and quite frankly, not enough testing from the consumer market.

 

[4745454b]

Keep in mind that new chart we see from AMD now. 5-10% per year improvements to the arch/chip over the next 4 years.

One rumor floating around is that they had to release SOMETHING and this was the design that was farthest along. I don't quite think it was THAT bad, but I suspect its closer to the mark then anyone wants to admit. We know from when AMD was talking about modules that they've been working on this for a long time. And because they aren't as big as Intel they likely weren't working on much else. They've been tweaking the basic K8/K10 arch for a long time so I'm not surprised to see them needing more years to bring BD up to those specs.

 

[Onus]

Do you guys think a revision or stepping will make any difference besides make the power consumption better?

If there's a L1 cache bug, absolutely; could be 10% right there. If other efficiencies altogether added another 10% (include BIOS revisions in there too), we could see a 20%-25% improvement, which pretty much puts this chip where it needed to be; if not a thriller, certainly no disappointment.

 

[purple stain]

Everyone's seems to be topping out at around 4.7-4.8ghz on air.Do you think if the revision/stepping fixed the power consumption "issues" that you could get higher clocks? If their is a next stepping/revision what do you guys think would be fixed?

Do you happen to know the general area for which Sandy Bridge processor's top out at on air? I was hearing 5ghz but i'm not sure.

 

[4745454b]

For air yes. 5GHz or so for SB is "normal". I've heard others talk about being able to cross 5GHz.

 

[ilysaml]

That was their reply so far, doesn't make any sense though !!
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2011/10/13/our-take-on-amd-fx/
it's said that Win 8 will take more advantage of the 8 cores and thus BD might work better. I'm also waiting for more reviews on diff boards, new rev or new BIOS.
According to Wikipedia, there will be a 2nd generation of BD codenamed "Piledriver" which will improve the performance by 10%
and a 3rd generation codenamed "Steamroller", 4th codenamed "Excavator"
the "Piledriver" is to be released 2012 and i guess they will be working on it so hard in order to fix their situation

 

[purple stain]

I would assume with the rest of the Bulldozer lineup coming somewhere in the Q1 2012 that piledriver won't be out until maybe Q4 2012.

Is piledriver gonna be like what they did with the AM2+ Phenom ii 's to AM3 Phenom ii's?

 

[ilysaml]

no details and no one can make expectations, but for sure they will prepare for a massive surprise or they will be vanished soon.
and we are waiting for their official response on the current release of FX

 

[purple stain]

I found it a little strange how stealthy they were about launching Bulldozer.No advertising or official release dates prior to launch.Which leads me to believe that they weren't happy with what they made.Seems like they might have been rushed as someone stated in an earlier post.

 

[ilysaml]

be noted that BD was under production 2-3 years ago, it was originally made to compete with the first I7 gen, so i guess it's in the wrong time.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-6.html here is bulldozers problem. It is clear and present, per core performance is bad and that is why is is bad overall. I dont know what AMD was thinking, expecially considering its worse than a phenom II core. Logically, as myself and a few other people have said before, they would be better off modifying the phenom design and cutting their losses with bulldozer. An 8 core phenom II made at a smaller process would be faster period.

 

[de5_Roy]

amd's vista (dozer) to be followed by 7 (piledriver, 7sp1 - trinity) and 8 (excavator)?

 

[Onus]

Yeah, or like Phenom followed by Phenom II, with a few stepping improvements thrown in for good measure. I think that's a best-case scenario though, so I'm not planning to hold my breath. My next full build may not be for years, and although I'd anticipated a CPU upgrade, it isn't going to be THIS Bulldozer.

 

[purple stain]

So I was doing some browsing and I happened to stumble upon this.

http://quinetiam.com/?p=2356

Do you guys think their's any truth in that?

 

[Onus]

Well, software fixes may help a measurable amount, but it really looks like there's some hardware issue too, or at least that it simply isn't optimized for the tasks that gamers (and/or the rest of us) run. I really don't think we'll have a clear idea for another few weeks, maybe more.

 

[ilysaml]

i'm very optimistic about the Piledriver, and i guess also that AMD might make new chipsets or change the existing AM3+ socket