AMD's Bulldozer server benchmarks are here, and they're a catastrophe

ive written off AMD on bulldozer and their "APU". Its been three years since the athlon II and phenom II and they have yet to release a faster processor. Granted the APUs have great graphic ability but still no performance jump in CPU capability from an athlon II.

Sad, really sad.

You mean to say they're actually stopping ongoing production to make the switch? How is that even possible, don't they have a contract in place? If this is the case, it's a really drastic move. I agree that they have massive fab issues and now that their financial stake in GF is like 8% or something they can move away easily, but in the middle of a launch? At a new 28nm process? This is the worst time to do it, no?

disclaimer: i know nothing about servers. not even gonna pretend i know something about them.
that article presents some information about how other reviewers tested interlagos, but i didn't see them testing interlagos themselves.
i learned quite a few things from this article. for instance, how cpu is less of a major component where cost is concerned, how server vendors tweak statistics (different from a review site) to favor their products etc.
when i compared numbers to numbers, interlagos did seem underwhelming. even though amd compared interlagos to their own last gen opteron (magny cours) and intel's soon-to-be-last-gen xeon, magny cours seemed like a better option and xeon better than magny cours. i doubt that is going to change after intel releases sandy bridge xeons (i observed the same thing happening with fx vs sb).
iirc amd already has a meager 5-6% share of server market. they'll be in big trouble if they can't expand their share further.

i don't think amd fanboys can blame this on windows 7's scheduler.

I didn't even read the link, but I'm sure OUCH is not an understatement.

I hope AMDs BoD is starting to wonder if they've made the right choices. From where I'm sitting they've nearly managed to wipe out a good company. I hope that my hunch is right and a big issue with BD is the FP cores and it can be fixed. But considering the other choices that are being made right now, and I'm not so sure even a fixed BD can stop this board from ruining AMD.

You mean the part which acutually makes a profit?

IIRC it was just the Brazos parts that are being moved to TSMC's 28nm process (which is apparently pretty good - something like 47% improvement over their 40nm). I initially thought it included Trinity, but that is still slated for GF's 32nm as a Llano replacement. So the Wichita and whazzisname 'next-gen' Brazos parts aren't canceled - just delayed for something like a year as they are redesigned for TSMC's gate-last HKMG 28nm. I imagine the design rules differ greatly between TSMC's and GF's (gate-first HKMG) 28nm, so basically a big job with the new layout.

I just wonder now if GF will ever do a 22nm SOI node for AMD. Considering that GF is supposed to switch to gate-last HKMG on 22nm, they'll have a learning curve with that node, and AFAIK still only one customer - AMD - for all their time and expense. Given all the problems with 32nm and insisting that AMD go back to paying for production volume (instead of the one-year paying only for good wafers agreement which expires the end of next month), I see them cutting all ties in the near future..

According to the rumors, AMD's CEO Read is supposedly going to make some big announcement at a meeting in January about a shift in AMD's direction. I think they might talk up mobile and de-emphasize DT and server..

I wouldn't be shocked. I also wouldn't be shocked if they spun off either their CPU or GPU portion of the business either. AMD needs to decide where its primary focus is going to be, and go balls in at this point. I don't think AMD has the resources to fight Intel/NVIDIA on every front anymore.

so the yang becomes the yin but christina has to choose between her job and owen and teddy won't leave her alone...whatever...
kidding aside, it doesn't sound like a bad idea. imo ati/amd's gpu division is not in that position financially. they're still behind nvidia in discreet graphics card sales. dunno about their workstation cards. didn't see any boasting from amd about their pro or workstation cards as much as supercomputer builders buying bulldozer cpus and llano a8 apus etc. iirc amd actually lost a few market share percentage to nvidia in dgfx field.

Wasn't GF originally supposed to ship on 22nm in 2013 sometime? I think they'll be lucky if they get there in 2014, if at all.

Yes, I've seen figures under 10% share, on quite a few sites now (S/A for one).

BTW, does Intel have FD-SOI under consideration for future nodes under 22nm? From http://semimd.com/blog/2011/02/10/ [...] -systems/:

^^ Which may be their best long term option: Ditch X86 and go after the very lucrative mobile market.

Its an interesting discussion, but with ATI in tow, AMD is in a very good position to come up with a ARM varient of Fusion, which could compete directly against Tegra...

I agree and it does seem as if they are starting to lose control of the company and don't even get me started on Rory Read I think he's helping to destroy that company. BTW someone tell him to get a freaking haircut it looks like his hair is glued to his head. Firing 10% of their workers and stopping the 28nm production...real smart Rory. It doesn't surprise me that Bulldozer was yet again a failure in the server field too. Now maybe the AMD Fanboys like Baron Matrix will keep quiet since they have nothing else to hold onto. Thier only argument was that Bulldozer would be great for servers...BUZZ wrong again. Now they have nothing left to hold onto Bulldozer was a failure thats why its called the Faildozer.

Please AMD isn't any better. In December 2006 both AMD and Nvidia received subpoenas from the Justice Department because of possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry, including the act of fixing prices.

Something weird about the Bulldozer platform is the sudden change in the scheme AMD is using for the number of cores in a CPU.

They have added an extra integer ALU into each core and let them take two threads per core. So the design is merely a form of hyperthreading (or SMT).

But they don't call it hyperthreading or SMT. Instead they call the cores "modules" and double the core count. I thought this was a cheap marketing trick but I think I have found out why they have done this.

When it comes to servers, a lot enterprise softare licenses are on a per-core basis. Even Microsoft who used to charge per processor is going to base their licensing on the number of cores starting with SQL Enterprise 2012. The naming scheme of AMD allows them to charge twice as much for their software.

Most if not all Enterprise apps, especially MS are per SOCKET licensing now simply because the per core paradigm existed when there were 4 cores in 4 sockets. Now there are 64 cores in 4 sockets so companies need to reevaluate pricing that way. But another key is that you pay almost the same amount for 64 cores in 2u as you did for 16 cores in 2U, so your costs go up only for licensing in cases where it is per core. But even they have a min amount where the first 6-8 cores a x dollars and each increment is added.

I hope you enjoy $1000-1200 performance CPUs and commodity CPUs selling for $200-300 for the next few years. As long as you continue to flog AMD and badmouth their product (like the little Intel fanbois you are) rather than encourage people looking for reasonable performance on a budget to look at AMD parts, then you will perpetuate higher prices for the parts you like to buy.

6 years ago, AMD held the performance crown and spurred Intel to actually come out with better product. Not just better product, but better product at competitive prices, which forced AMD in turn to do the same. For a short while these two companies were neck-and-neck, and it was great for consumers, since prices were kept low and the product was very fast.

So now, Intel has the performance crown. Where AMD competes with Intel, the prices are actually reasonable. But where AMD does not compete, the prices have been jacked beyond reason. And BD's poor showing has not helped any.

I weep for the price of the CPU for my next build, which is scheduled to be an Intel build since I alternate from AMD to Intel, regardless of who holds the performance crown. And to be honest, every one of you out there should try doing the same if you don't like having to pay outrageous prices.

Well i paid 300.00 dollars for my E6600, Q6600 and my 2600k all while Intel had no competition from AMD.
So what your point again.

In case anybody interested , here's some more history from 1993: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1993.html

Ahh, Meat Loaf..

^ If you recall, the BD FX series was originally supposed to be priced around $350 I think. Then all the problems started and that's why the pre-release price kept dropping until the 8150 came out around $100 less.

If AMD had released it at $200 less ($150 or so), we wouldn't be having all these "Is BD a catastrophe" threads ..

Anyway, Happy Turkey Day to everybody!

Oh heres my cent / penny worth

AMD are phasing out AM3 processors and pushing forward Bulldozer chips.

Why as a Phenom II 850 is a good processor for its price - margainly more than a Athlon 640 series and heaps better.

Everyone is moving over to core i 3 / 5 and 7

AMD has done this as i purchased AMD chips through out the year and have just finished with my last P2 850..

Please tell me that if Bulldozer is so bad compared to the core i 5 then why are they dropping AM3 like a stone when its been a good money maker..

Llano has been a failure too as no one has bothered buying it.. and this is from one of the UK's leading disties..

To say im preturbed by all this amd crap then I'll move over to Intel - no worries.

Hello Fazers btw anyway AMD you fail at failing - good luck this holiday season as there is no AM3s around of reasonable stocks with my disties

Well looks like AMD is going the way of IDT and Cyrix did a decade ago. Eventually they are either going to go under or get bought out. As for BD we all know that it is crap even for servers. Their APUs however may in the end be the only worth while product for a long time. As for Brazos well it was good while it lasted. I got two Llano apus right now and both are mobiles. I am glad that I caved in and hunted down a A8 3530MX as it turned out to be a good overclocker. 3ghz easy.

AMD R.I.P

Yes - Meat Loaf was decades ahead of his time ..

Good thing we're having turkey today and not meatloaf ..

IIRC DOS 6.0 came out in '93 as well, but didn't quite make the top 10,000 list..

I am sorry but thats wrong. What did Intel do when the Athlon 64 was kicking NetBursts arse all over the place? They went back to a older design and enhanced it: the Pentium 54C. Well Coppermine Pentium III but still was absed on the Pentium 54C arch.

So thanks to Intel taking an older arch, shrinking it and enhancing it with some neat tricks they learned since then we got Core 2 which smashed Athlon 64.

AMD could take K10, shrink it again, enhance it and probably have a CPU that performs much better than BD and is more competitive.

Sorry but I set a price for the part and buy whatever is best at the time. And right now for my normal of $250, BD is not the 2500K is. I see no reason to buy a inferior product from a company. The only way to get them to do anything is to not buy from them.

Look at American car companies. They used to be the best. Then they went to carp (80s-90s). Now at least Ford has made great strides and their current line of cars are pretty damn good. But when they were sucking, no one bought their cars hence why they turned around and started making decent cars again.

Ahhh 1993. One year befoe Green Day went mainstream and just a few before Nirvanas lead singer commits suicide and forever embodies the band a higher reputation than they deserve. But hey, at least we got David Grohl who started the awesome band Foo Fighters.

I'll leave you all with your mindless blithering after I say,

WHAT?

So now SPEC scores don't mean anything? Are you saying someone figured out how to to cheat?

Down with the Brood!