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Discussion and expectations of a new CPU

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Archer0915

"The Expert"
Joined
Nov 3, 2008
What do you expect out of a new CPU?

Do you rely on the hype and sensationalism or do you research the technology?

In the past year there have been some disappointments on both sides. Are people really justified in their wild expectations or did people build themselves up to be let down?

Do these newer processors move us forward or are they worse than the last generation?

When run at stock speeds do they deliver?

Anything extra is just free power and it seem some forget that.
 
IB is overall a win, i'm disappointed with their Tim vs solder decision but the performance is there, and it is great for overclocking with extreme cooling (ln2)

Amd flopped providing a CPU that doesn't compete with Intel or really even their previous generation of processors
 
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Mostly as above.
Sandy Bridge is little more than one year old.
Ivy Bridge packs the promised features and Z77 chipset.
Choices are yours.
 
Years ago I bought the newest Intel had to offer, the first of the flagship Pentium I processors. It couldn't do math correctly. Recall. AMD delivered some real sizzlers, i.e., they generated enough heat to cook with, so in a way they exceeded my expectations. I'm not a person prone to absorbing much hype. It annoys me. When I read all the names of the PC enthusiast products I almost need a Tums: Rage, Venemous, Viperous, Ultra, Pyro, etc. Just give me a spec sheet. Don't short change me on the product.

"Oh, did you want oil in the engine of your new car? We save you money by leaving out the oil, lubricants, A/C freon, and light bulbs. But aren't you happy with the sticker price?"
 
Marketing is, it works, for good and bad. Anger in no way changes this.
IB works, not as well as we would like, possibly because of IHS TIM issues.

It also involves new tech transistors and a down size, both complex tech issues.

Expectations before the fact are also an issue, largely because SB does so well.
 
If you have sandy bridge you don't need Ivy bridge it's fruitless upgrade.:borg:

Amd BD is low cost and it will get the job done the general public does not read cpu reviews.:cool:
 
From my perspective Ivy Bridge is a flop after Sandy Bridge, there pretty much the same chip performance wise yet Ivy Bridge Runs warmer and is currently more expensive then what Sandy Bridge was always priced at, £170 vs £180.

Take a perfectly good chip and make it run hotter, that's not good.

AMD tho must get the award for stupid things to do.

The Phenom II x6 when launched was a very strong chip, IPC performance was excellent, it was the worlds first true 6 core and it was affordable.
But that was more than 2 years ago.

Since then Intel had introduced Sandy Bridge, which out performs Thuban by ~20% per core, yet as it only has 4 cores Thuban still kills it when its using all of its cores.

Never the less Sandy Bridge became the better chip as few things take advantage of 6 cores.

AMD had to respond, a year after SB they came up with Bulldozer.

Knowing few things use more than 2 to 4 cores they used the DIE space they had to dump 8 small cores on it instead of 6 large ones or even better yet 4 really big ones.

Be it for that reason or whatever the core for core IPC performance is down ~20% on there previous CPU and a whopping ~40% on Intel's best mainstream offering.
Talk about *Face Palm*

AMD still are and have been at the fore front of inovation and driving prices down.
One has to respect them for that, and i do.

What do i look for in a CPU? cost vs performance and respect for the maker.

When i bought the CPU i have now that is exactly what i got.

The problem for AMD now is i or anyone can not upgrade via AMD, if i was to replace my Thuban with an FX-8150 i will have jumped off a cliff and broken my legs.

Unless AMD get there s##t together Intel is the only option there is, and that's not good for anyone.

They have always been the first to offer you more cores and that's great, but its gotten stupid now, it should have stopped at 6 to use more of the DIE to increase IPC performance.
They had that opportunity with the process shrink from 45nm to 32nm, they didn't take it, they used the space to cram 2 more cores on inside half the modules and blew it.
 
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What motivates me with buying a new chip...? Well my process is something along the following lines:

1. Become aware that a new chip is out.
2. Read about chip. Read reviews.
3. See that new chip is X% better at tasks A,B and C than my current chip.
4. Say: "Ooh, it's X% better performance."
5. Buy chip.

Sadly, Frak is currently right. I am an AMD user. I have an 1100T. AMD have really left me struggling with Step 3 in the above. I'm possibly considering getting a Piledriver chip when they come out (subject to reviews) because for what I do, e.g. some 3D modelling, DB work, a couple of VMs, Piledriver might actually offer me a boost. (Maybe). I think that I will be able to ratchet up the memory with Piledriver better than I can with 1100T which is significant for some of my tasks. But I don't know yet. Basically, Frakk is right - I have currently don't have an upgrade path except to move to Intel which I don't really want to do.

I may differ slightly on whether I think this is a good move by AMD. Yes, they could have continued to refine the Phenom II's. But in the long-run, a re-design getting rid of old cruft might take them places that sticking with the old architecture could not. If you realize that you're racing your competitor down a limited track, it may make sense to get off that track onto a longer one, even if your competitor looks back at you and says 'Nanana!" AMD sees father than I do on chip architectures. Also, for the world outside people like us, AMD are actually doing really cool stuff. The performance is worse than Intels, but they are producing chips that meet normal needs, have integrated GPUs (a pretty big thing outside people like us who all want discrete expensive cards) and they are relatively power-efficient. What is not as good for us (though Bulldozer wasn't a disaster, it just wasn't a very big step forward), may actually suit the wider market very well.

All my amateur opinion, anyway.
 
Only thing that I do on my main machine is game so thats what I care about, the processors ability to increase FPS and remove video bottlenecks.

And sadly Intel hasn't done much for me recently. The jump from Core 2 Quad 9550 at 3.8 to Core I7 870 at 3.6 gave me a small boost (+-10% at best) but not much else. If it wasn't for the fact that it was free I wouldn't have gotten the I7 lol.

Sandy is a nice processor but for gaming not much better than the Core 2 Quad unless you game at insane resolutions with multiple graphics cards. Ivy performs just like Sandy. AMD hasn't moved very far so now I'm just gonna stick with what I have unless something new comes out that can give me at least a 30% increase in FPS or guarantee that any bottleneck I could have is on the GPU side.
 
I'm with you i would like to see a 30% increase with a new gaming CPU however it takes so long to wait for that, so i like to do a cpu change for the fun of it.:D
 
Frakk, I suspect things will turn around for them as more code supports their APU's in future. Likewise, we don't know how the current x86 design ties win with their future fully integrated CPU/GPU mashups. After all, we know that their future designs are supposed to share resources between the two and even offload work onto the GPU component where it will give a greater boost. Certainly makes sense with floating point calcs. Likewise, how are they going to tie into the x86 component only the engineers at AMD know.

After all, many of their choices in what they've left out of Bulldozer makes sence when you factor in that they're meant to offload work to the GPU. Likewise, other code will perform better with the new instructions supported in Bulldozer. In the end, time will tell. Things look to be moving in the right direction presently though.

Besides, their current chips are fine for the mainstream, and do much better in the server space. Server chips remain far more profitable for them and the mainstream chips help them keep their volume up. They have the most important (to them) parts of the market covered already. Likewise, they're currently running more profitably than they have at any time in the past 10 years that I've watched them. They must be doing something right. ;)
 
If you study the Trinity mobile processors both the progress in GPU and (Piledriver) CPU are impressive.
The trouble is Intel is a moving target. And APUs are shared RAM dependent. Also AMD makes its chips a harder sell by using GPU "tiers" with each processor.

And of course, the GPU wars are increasing GPU capabilities, except in the mobile chip sets. And FM2 is a new socket.
 
My last AMD chip will be a stand alone AM3+ Piledriver part, until Steamroller is released at the very least. Then I'll re-evaluate.
 
Frakk, I suspect things will turn around for them as more code supports their APU's in future. Likewise, we don't know how the current x86 design ties win with their future fully integrated CPU/GPU mashups. After all, we know that their future designs are supposed to share resources between the two and even offload work onto the GPU component where it will give a greater boost. Certainly makes sense with floating point calcs. Likewise, how are they going to tie into the x86 component only the engineers at AMD know.

After all, many of their choices in what they've left out of Bulldozer makes sence when you factor in that they're meant to offload work to the GPU. Likewise, other code will perform better with the new instructions supported in Bulldozer. In the end, time will tell. Things look to be moving in the right direction presently though.

Besides, their current chips are fine for the mainstream, and do much better in the server space. Server chips remain far more profitable for them and the mainstream chips help them keep their volume up. They have the most important (to them) parts of the market covered already. Likewise, they're currently running more profitably than they have at any time in the past 10 years that I've watched them. They must be doing something right. ;)

Admittedly yes, more recently Trinity has been tested (all be it at the mobile level) the performance IS up ~15% on K10, finally... even if it is down to a large clock speed increase, add to that IGU work is starting the play a real part these days which is where AMD have a real upper hand over Intel, it also seems incredibly efficient.
If it also turns out to be an overclocking monster its a complete win win for AMD.
But more importantly it makes them a very good allround chip.

But that's APU's, 4 cores with an IPC ~10% less than Ivy Bridge, and this is at stock, so the Desktop part Trinity would have to overclock to 5Ghz on the same cooler that IB can get to 4.4Ghz to maintain that comparison.

The unknown is the FX replacement Piledriver part, if its the same performance as Trinity only with 8 cores and no IGP, that IGP advantage is gone and your left again simply with 8 cores with only 2 to 4 of them used most of the time and that ~10% defisit.

You know if AMD had a 6 core APU with a top of the line IGPU i would get that instead of the new FX.

Or there is another way, the top of the line APU will be a 100W TDP, i did read somewhere that 50% of that is dedicated to the IGPU.

If they make a 125w TDP FX 8 core they should have 25w to play with for a 'purely compute' IGP, or they could use that power to up the IPC performance more.

We will have to wait and see, interesting times.
 
I think APU's are great in the mobile market and thats really where AMD is aiming for right now. But I'm a desktop user predominately and I would be more interested if they had a line of CPU's that removed the graphics part of the chip and used the open space for making the CPU better on the "Enthusiast" end. Bulldozer didn't do it for me, even today if I was given the choice between a Phenom II X4 system or a Bulldozer system I'd probably go PhII. There's just not much going on with bulldozer right now.
 
I'm still plunking away with my little I7 920 D0 here I guess, I tend to just read reviews like here on Overclockers and make decisions based on that.

The old Q6600 slackers I think were one of the best chips out there and have one I bought that I built for a buddy that is still going strong and I think a Q9550 in the wifes, been long enough I'd have to look at her comp :p

I try to avoid the hype myself, read reviews from people that have been using them, and not jump on the bandwagon of newness myself I guess most of the time.

:beer:

There was a time a many years back I was using AMD Thunderbirds I guess, I switched when the Q6600 came out I guess and have never tried an AMD out since then I guess *shrug*
 
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You know, I think that AMD should keep itself where its at.

Think of Intel processors as enthusiast processors, and AMD processors as general processors.

AMD Processors are designed for the people that need computers just to do the regular things, but also to be set for a little bit. Truth about the AMD X4 965! Costs half of a i5 3550, but if you strap a good GPU, it can max out Crysis 2 WHILE it runs other programs..

Intel processors are for people, who either need the processing power or people that love computers so much that they only want the good stuff in their rig (me)

Intel is your Mercedes
AMD is your Lincoln..

Ones faster, and nicer. The other still does the job in a not so ugly way..
 
Agreed. I have no issue with AMD's current roadmap. I mean look at AMD when they bought ATI a few years ago. After the "mess" that the Radeon 2900 was ATI said they were no longer looking to compete with Nvidia in the high end market and were only going to aim for the mainstream. The 3800 series did that and did it well. The 4800 series put a lot of preasure on Nvidia on the main level and even on the high level. Then the 5800 series came out and well, we're back to what we were used to!

AMD just needs to focus on getting profitable again. Once thats said and done maybe they'll come across some new design that will let them get back into the enthusiast market again. It happened with Intel and their P4's. They were "saved" by their mobile design team which all the Core 2 Duos and Core 2 Quads were based off of.

But they need to survive long enough to get there.
 
When looking for a CPU...

I consider how long I expect to be married to it. I don't like the Vegas Wedding concept. I don't want my divorce date circled on the calender BEFORE saying "I DO". Thus, I look for bleeding edge performance, preferably untapped underutilized performance - like my FX-8150. I was weighing it against an i7 for a while. I decided for myself that the i7 probably already WAS all it would EVER be. I also decided that my suspicion of the FX being a hidden gem was more and more probably true. I wanted a chip that could possibly grow up a bit. Sorta like being 40 years old and marrying a girl fresh out of high school - fun to day and funner tomorrow - with a reasonably long cap on the expected half-life.

Then I consider all the things I have that will work well with my intended CPU. What *don't* I have to buy to go with the CPU. However, I always end up buying everything else too. I manage to convince myself that the new CPU would be wading through the mud of my existing gear. So I dismiss the necessity for compatibility with the legacy stuff (see, there I am writing it all off and labeling it 'substandard', that didn't hurt a bit).

Then I try to guess about how much I am misleading myself. I also try to guess how much I'm being misled by hype. So, I ignore reviews and statistics which are biased from the start and weighted in favor of the predetermined result the reviewers WANT or expect. Can't trust them, can we. Existing owners always lie about their gear publicly, just the same as I do. Can't trust them either. Any current user posting a bad review is a hater. Can't trust them, they're unwashed heathens.

Does the retail package have black? Does it have red? Is the CPU shiny anywhere? The pins are gold, right? Does it cost more than the last CPU but less than a weekend in a hotel with a chick whose name I hope I won't remember week after next? Generally if any answer is yes, my decision is made in the back of my mind already. If more than one answer is yes, the decision is less subliminal.

Then I determine if I'll starve to death or have something repossessed because I spent the amount of money required to acquire said CPU and sundry. If the answer is yes, I start robbing Peter while promising to pay Paul. If the answer is no, I scrap my whole plan and start thinking of gear that costs more, because I'm not cheap even if I am easy.

Then, I mention possibly buying some toys to my most recent significant other (even if currently that means she's my ex). If she isn't shrieking in my ear so loud that blood is spilled, well back to the drawing board. If the eardrums collapse and I get punched in the chest - then I'm on the right track and getting warmer. Aim higher.

Eventually, I flip a coin. Heads, wipe the dust off the Visa and start waving it all over the internet. Tails, leave myself a post-it note to wipe the dust off the Visa and start waving it all over the internet next weekend.

That's pretty much how I do it.
 
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