AMD takes wraps off of quad-core design!!!

AMD shows off their "Barcelona" quad-core chip designs

Source : *www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/amd-shows-off-their-barcelona-quad-core-chip-designs/

If you're not super excited by technical chip jargon like "advanced branch prediction" and "sideband stack optimizer," you might want to skip this one over, but for you chipheads out there, AMD has just unveiled the nitty gritty specs behind their forthcoming Barcelona quad-core processors. Built on a 65nm SOI process, the new chips will take the place of AMD's Opteron line, and will power workstations and servers sometime mid-2007 before the technology trickles down to consumer versions of the chips. AMD couldn't help but take a little pot-shot at Intel for their quad-core systems, which they claim are just two dual-core CPUs packed together, but we're pretty sure most consumers are going to be more concerned with performance, price and performance per watt than semantics. AMD hasn't provided any benchmarks yet, but we'll all be watching closely, since they're currently playing catchup to Intel on most of those fronts.

PS: Pic on site.

Re: AMD shows off their "Barcelona" quad-core chip designs

nice piece of information

AMD described its forthcoming quad-core processor, codenamed Barcelona, in a session at today's Microprocessor Forum. Details of the new microarchitecture on which the processor is based (codenamed K8L) have been known for some time now. Still, the event brought some new info, and here are some highlights that I've culled from some of the reporting on it.

AMD's new processor is a bona fide quad-core part, with all four cores integrated onto a single die and sharing a 2MB on-die L3. Each core has private 512KB L2 and a 64KB L1 caches. In contrast, Intel's quad-core Kentsfield part is a dual-chip module (DCM), where two Core 2 Duo dies are sandwiched together and put into the same package without sharing a cache.

K8L's floating-point and SSE units are now 128-bits wide, so AMD can now offer single-cycle throughput for 128-bit computation.

That's AMD's answer to Intel's Core 2 Duo Processor!!. It's coming soon!!

Read more about it here

which one should be faster?

I know Intel quad core processor are just 2 core2duo placed side by side (the same mistake they did with Pentium D.) but still it would be tough for AMD to beat.

Because a single Core 2 extreme processor beats 2 dual core Opterons!!! Thats 2 Intel cores VS 4 AMD cores and still Intel wins!!

*www.digitalvideoediting.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=61808-1

well that simple theory is of no good as intel core2duo beats pentium D processors by a large margin...even though both are dual cores...

jz2linkinpark said:
which one should be faster?

I guess quad processors are faster than dual cores!!

K

so did AMD beat INTEL once again?????

ya I was reading a mail yesterday I received about AMD launchin the Barcelona core soon.Supposedly the C2D killer core is supposed to be 128bit.****,rite now the comp that I'am using to post here still uses a 32bit proc.Wow!!!
__________
Similar thread: *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38480

great news!

ahh...here it come the giant of the processor 128 Bits... 4 core... i expecting the 8 Core preocessor form AMD..

AMD Rules ....

but will amd quad-core design beat the intel quad core??

LOL man no point investing on the best comp man.Now-a-days technology gets outdated in weeks.Dr.Moore's law of 18months is not holding good any longer!!!

JGuru said:
That's AMD's answer to Intel's Core 2 Duo Processor!!. It's coming soon!!

No, thats AMD's feeble attempt against Yorkfield. 12 MB L2 cache @ 3.4 ghz is no joke. Battle begins, Q3 2007

well it seems that intel will still kick the **** out of AMD's with "Yorkfield"....
this processor battle is really getting on a new height...lets wait & see who comes out as the WINNERS.

Q

blackpearl said:
I know Intel quad core processor are just 2 core2duo placed side by side (the same mistake they did with Pentium D.) but still it would be tough for AMD to beat.

Because a single Core 2 extreme processor beats 2 dual core Opterons!!! Thats 2 Intel cores VS 4 AMD cores and still Intel wins!!

*www.digitalvideoediting.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=61808-1

obviously u havent checked the scores...in everything the dual core opterons have won....the title is so misleading.....
__________

sabret00the said:
ya I was reading a mail yesterday I received about AMD launchin the Barcelona core soon.Supposedly the C2D killer core is supposed to be 128bit.****,rite now the comp that I'am using to post here still uses a 32bit proc.Wow!!!
__________
Similar thread: *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38480

plzz the barcelona is not a 128 bit processor but jus a 64 bit processor only...its jus the sse units that are 128bits wide and will give it higher integer processing power than the K8's...

intel will counter the barcelona with bloomsfield 45nm quad cores...

and well by the time a desktop version of the 65nm barcelona know by an code "altair" quadcore and "antares" dual core hits the market intel wud have produced 45nm "wolfdale" dual core and "yorksfield" quad core processors...

one other thing which will hit amd hard is the fact that "barcelona" is still a 3 issue core that means that it can do a max of only 3 Instructions per clock while even the core 2 duo can 4 IPC....so this adv will be a huge boost for intel.....combined with macro fusion which will let 5 IPC under favourable conditions...

the 45nm wolfdale is supposed to be clocked at 3.5Ghz to 4.0Ghz while the amd 65nm antares will be clocked at 2.7-3.0Ghz only...so that wud mean that even if the barcelona isa core 2 duo killer intel will be well ahead in terms of clock speed which miight jus negate the effects of better architecture...

the barcelona will probably better than yorkfield clock fo clock but intel has advantages in terms of processing technologies...i.e intel will have 45nm processors by the time amd jus starts getting 65nm....

what might really turn the tables in amd's favour is the strong 64 bit performance boost it shows over the core 2 duo's...core 2 duo's cant do macrofusion under 64 but due to a flaw in intels EMT64...that means amd barcelona/antares/altair can potentially wipe the floor with intel bloomfield/yorksfield/wolfdale with

i am an ardent amd fan...but i hate to say this...intel has really pulled off some thing amazing with their core 2 duo series...and most probably they will jus sit on their laurels and make mistake jus like amd did with their K8....

and when the amd K10 comes to life im pretty sure it will jus kill the intel Nehalem which will succeed conroe in 2H 2008

A

You guys are missing one point. For mainstream market, Intel's quad core is gonna come 6 months earlier than AMD 4x4. This can be a disaster for AMD as Intel will have very high chances to have dominance in this segment. Until AMD completely changes it's processor architecture, it cannot beat Intel.

FYI, what enduser want is performance, whether it is two dual cores side by side or one over the other

I am eagerly waiting for a killer processor arch. from AMD (like Intel's Conroe). Not Bacelona.

quadfather_amd said:
obviously u havent checked the scores...in everything the dual core opterons have won....the title is so misleading.....

Obviously, you haven't checked the scores. Look again. The c2d beats the 2 Opterons in all the CPU tests.

Great News man !

xenkatesh said:
ahh...here it come the giant of the processor 128 Bits... 4 core... i expecting the 8 Core preocessor form AMD..

AMD Rules ....

well AMD's Quad Core is not gonna be 128 bit . 128 bit computing hasn't even hit servers yet .

BUT , it has hit consoles , my 6 year old Dremcast has a 128 bit RISC processor

I am sure that AMD's quadacore will hit Intel bad on 64 bit.

Q

blackpearl said:
Obviously, you haven't checked the scores. Look again. The c2d beats the 2 Opterons in all the CPU tests.

3DMARK06 CPU Test:

Opteron: 3697
Core2 : 2551

Opteron wins by 45% -- Conroe doesn't win here.

CineBench:

Opteron: 1554
Core2 : 903

Opteron wins by 72% -- Conroe doesn't win here.

well the above is the only true cpu benchmarks there...and cant u do maths eh?

HDR and SM doesnt depend on cpu alone dear....and they havent even mentioned the type of graphics those systems are having...

and do u know what is that total benchmark...i dont know what it is....if u know then plzz enlighten me abt it....

and well how can hdd speeds be compared..we dont even know what kind of hdd's both were using....the ones on core 2 duo system might have been faster who knows.....

and about the adobe tests...they havent even mentioned what they have done....so obviously its not conclusive....and they havent even mentioned the type of graphics those systems are having as it will depend on it as well...

so instead of looking at numbers i sugggest u think about it little bit...well its not ur fault its jus that their title is so misleading

1st, its unfair to take two processors versusa dualcore but single processor
2nd, opterons are meant for servers and workstation while conroe is for desktops..again unfair
3rd, opterons in the test conducted above were on 4 GB DDR2-667 SDRAM while c2E was on 2 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM.
4th, the OS for Opterons specified is XP64 while for c2e its not specified.
5th, more than a CPU comapirison, this is a system comaprision that highlight s the traits of the HP product or wutever it is

Quotes from the site that should clear the picture-:

Keeping in mind that it's a single-processor against two processors with this HP machine, the performance of the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor was remarkable, as borne out in our benchmarks. The single processor soundly beats the two dual-core Opterons in tests one through six of our After Effects suite of benchmarks, encompassing bitmap rendering, Adobe Illustrator graphics rendering, video composite and animation projects, as well as a virtual set. If you're doing a lot of these kinds of tasks in After Effects, the Intel Core 2 Extreme chip will be a faster performer for you.

Of course, testing these dual Opteron machines against a single-processor Intel Core 2 Extreme workstation is a classic apples-to-oranges comparison. But what we learned in this test is that the fastest Opteron processors are nowhere near as quick as Intel's latest Core 2 technology. Heck, just one of the dual-core Core 2 Extreme chips can beat two of the dual-core Opterons in many tests. Keeping that in mind, we'll next bring one of the newest dual Intel Xeon (Woodcrest) workstations into our Midwest Test Facility labs, where their dual/dual-core Core 2 technology has the potential to show these Opterons who's boss.

__________
oh, and one more interesting thing, if ya havent seen already

WOODCRESTvsOPTERON