AMD CPU price cuts.

[mjw21a]

Not a bad looking case. Great value really

 

[caddi daddi]

i am thinking about skipping pile driver and waiting for excavator, all my junk is only 6 months old and i can't see investing all over again to have to reinvest again. the boards are really not up to octacores, revamped hex core boards really. by the time excavator is out perhaps the boards will be up to the task is how i see it.

yes, i AM the idiot the guy above refers to.

 

[mjw21a]

You know, I've not heard enough about Excavator to know what it brings. Does anyone have any details or links that I can read?

I think I have to upgrade, since I overclocked my FX my power bill went through the roof for the last month..... Mind you, that could be because I got a bar fridge too but you know

Any excuse to upgrade right?

 

[gnusounduave]

I'm waiting for the new boards that come out for piledriver and hope the sabertooth and or crosshair V drop in price. Snag me one of those bad boys and hang on to my 6100 for a while.

 

[mjw21a]

I'm hoping its a drop in upgrade for my current board..... Will probably build a 4th rig with my spare parts upon my next upgrade.

 

[Frakk]

You know, I've not heard enough about Excavator to know what it brings. Does anyone have any details or links that I can read?

I think I have to upgrade, since I overclocked my FX my power bill went through the roof for the last month..... Mind you, that could be because I got a bar fridge too but you know

Any excuse to upgrade right?

Just this... http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...vements_with_Steamroller_Microprocessors.html

Its yet another new architecture

This is a little boastful so take it with a pinch of salt.

Even though in the recent years central processing units (CPUs) from Advanced Micro Devices were competitive on the mainstream markets, the company virtually ceased to compete for high-end desktop systems. Although we will see higher-performance AMD's microprocessors with Piledriver cores this year, the company will only truly introduce something radically better with Steamroller generation of chips, which are due in 2013 - 2014 timeframe.
According to a report from VR-Zone web-site, which cites sources with knowledge of AMD's plans, "there will be substantial changes in both cores and system architecture from Steamroller onwards, that should help make AMD competitive closer to the top". Some executives from AMD have reportedly acknowledged low instructions-per-clock (IPC) performance of the Bulldozer micro-architecture, something that clearly affected overall performance of AMD's latest chips.

While no exact details about the improvements of the Steamroller family of microprocessors are known, it is expected that both mainstream and high-performance platforms featuring Steamroller-class processing engines will support new technologies, such as PCI Express 3.0, more DDR3 memory channels, better integration between CPU and GPU chips and other improvements.
What should be kept in mind is that AMD's very first code-named Kaveri accelerated processing units with Steamroller x86 cores that will become available in 2013 will not feature fully-fledged Steamroller cores, but something better than Piledriver, but less advanced than the Steamroller cores found in the next-gen server and desktop platforms. AMD's current plans to not include Steamroller-class high-performance CPUs for next year, hence, the company will only be able to get back to high-end CPU-centric systems earlier than in 2014.
Another important factor that should be considered is that the Steamroller-based central processing units for high-performance servers and desktops [due in very late 2013 or in 2014] will compete not against Intel's current-generation or next-generation processors, but against server offerings based on Haswell and desktop offerings powered by Rockwell/Broadwell, which will be made using 22nm and 14nm process technologies, respectively.

In the meantime, boosting efficiency of heterogeneous computing in general as well as heterogeneous multi-core "Fusion" chips in particular will be the two main tasks for AMD. The company's next-generation discrete Radeon HD "Sea Islands" family of chips as well as future-generations of APUs code-named Kaveri and Kabini will feature numerous HSA [heterogeneous systems architecture]-related enhancements in addition to better-performing graphics and x86 cores.

Right now there around 200 apps that can be accelerated by stream processing units of GPUs, but several years from now that number will increase and the compute performance of GPU cores will be critical for success on the mass market. Still, x86 performance clearly remains an important factor, but the breakthrough in that direction may occur only in two years down the road.

 

[Ravara]

i see a lot of hate around the 8120.. which i cant really see if its stupidity or blasphemi.. with a small clock it works better than a i5 2500k for gaming knowing that its was only phys score it lacked from the i5.. and well the price is just alot better.. i paid less money and got more when clocked.. no matter if you clock the intel i5 or not the amd value is higher and it WONT bottleneck in any game so far.. im running BF3 ultra with a 560ti (which is know not to be able) once again few tweaks for less money and you got urself a lovely rig just my opinion

 

[mjw21a]

Pft, I'd be seriously surprised if they haven't gone with DDR4 by 2014. DDR introduces some fairly significant benefits running 2133–4266 MT/s compared to DDR3's 800–2133, lower voltages and topology change discarding dual, tripple and quad channel memory in favor of point-to-point where each channel in the memory controller is connected to a single module (details shamlessly ripped from Wikipedia) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM

This would involve some significant changes to the integrated memory controller. As such I expect Piledriver to be the last architecture to support AM3+ and I'll replace my existing chip then. I'll try hold off to 2014 before my next majot system upgrade (mainboard, CPU & RAM). The document doesn't go into enough detail to cause any real interest I'm afraid. Smoke and mirrors, the only major change I now very likely is DDR4.

i see a lot of hate around the 8120.. which i cant really see if its stupidity or blasphemi.. with a small clock it works better than a i5 2500k for gaming knowing that its was only phys score it lacked from the i5.. and well the price is just alot better.. i paid less money and got more when clocked.. no matter if you clock the intel i5 or not the amd value is higher and it WONT bottleneck in any game so far.. im running BF3 ultra with a 560ti (which is know not to be able) once again few tweaks for less money and you got urself a lovely rig just my opinion

I agree entirely. Very happy with my current chip although in many area's its slower than my older Phenom II X6 was however in general it feel a lot snapper. Probably has more to do with it supporting DDR2133 than anything else

 

[Frakk]

Pft, I'd be seriously surprised if they haven't gone with DDR4 by 2014. DDR introduces some fairly significant benefits running 2133–4266 MT/s compared to DDR3's 800–2133, lower voltages and topology change discarding dual, tripple and quad channel memory in favor of point-to-point where each channel in the memory controller is connected to a single module (details shamlessly ripped from Wikipedia) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM

This would involve some significant changes to the integrated memory controller. As such I expect Piledriver to be the last architecture to support AM3+ and I'll replace my existing chip then. I'll try hold off to 2014 before my next majot system upgrade (mainboard, CPU & RAM). The document doesn't go into enough detail to cause any real interest I'm afraid. Smoke and mirrors, the only major change I now very likely is DDR4.



I agree entirely. Very happy with my current chip although in many area's its slower than my older Phenom II X6 was however in general it feel a lot snapper. Probably has more to do with it supporting DDR2133 than anything else

AMD secrecy, its hard to predict what there doing. The only thing we can realy do is wait and see.

Anyway, The price cuts are definitely confirmed.

FX-8120 down from £145 to £130 http://www.ebuyer.com/287681-amd-bu...t-am3-8mb-l3-cache-retail-boxed-fd8120frgubox

A8-3870K down from £110 to £94 http://www.ebuyer.com/322109-amd-3870k-socket-fm1-retail-boxed-processor-ad3870wngxbox

Ridiculously cheap.

I can get £140 guaranteed for my Thuban on Ebay!

 

[mjw21a]

Is that upgrade bug biting yet dude? Mind you, you're the smart one, managing to wait until PD is released..... On the other hand I needed to replace my mainboard and PSU, and figured a new CPU would go nicely with it..... Then I wanted some nice DDR2133 RAM, I'd already replaced the case..... Before I knew it very little of my original pc remained

Admittedly, this widget set at 250% of its usual size on my desktop makes me happy whenever I look at it:

 

[Frakk]

Is that upgrade bug biting yet dude? Mind you, you're the smart one, managing to wait until PD is released..... On the other hand I needed to replace my mainboard and PSU, and figured a new CPU would go nicely with it..... Then I wanted some nice DDR2133 RAM, I'd already replaced the case..... Before I knew it very little of my original pc remained

Why do things by halves?

The FX-8120 is very good value and as Ravara pointed out its not a bad CPU at all if your not expecting 2500K IPC performance it will handle anything you can throw at it just fine, in that sense a 2500K is overkill and what you pay for.

But unfortunately what i have out performs it by a noticeable margin, (no dig intended) so as i already have it i will stick with it for now.

You beat me...

 

[mjw21a]

Lol, I just love seeing cores 1-8 listed..... I'm hoping they've a 5 or 6 module Piledriver available. I'd love to see it displaying 12 cores

I'll see no real difference between anything at this point.... I just like seeing the useless additional cores.... I think I must be going nuts or something

 

[Frakk]

Lol, I just love seeing cores 1-8 listed..... I'm hoping they've a 5 or 6 module Piledriver available. I'd love to see it displaying 12 cores

I'll see no real difference between anything at this point.... I just like seeing the useless additional cores.... I think I must be going nuts or something

No not at all..... i can see 6 (real cores) never mind that for most things at least 2 of them are little more use than to make me feel good, yet its good to know that anyone from Intel wanting to see 6 cores listed in there system monitor will need to remortgage there house for that privilege
To see 8 there would be fantastic and just that makes it very tempting.

These things are toys for overgrown children, which i have no shame in admitting is exactly what i am.

 

[mjw21a]

Yup, me too. There's more fun in upgrading and playing around with the hardware than in actually playing games on it.

 

[Ravara]

what i love most is to buy a decent but cheap amd cpu and butt**** clock it as allways an eat intel for breakfast my best mate is a angry intel lover who cant figure why im raping him in Benchies

 

[Frakk]

Yup, me too. There's more fun in upgrading and playing around with the hardware than in actually playing games on it.

No wonder in don't see you on BF3...

 

[mjw21a]

what i love most is to buy a decent but cheap amd cpu and butt**** clock it as allways an eat intel for breakfast my best mate is a angry intel lover who cant figure why im raping him in Benchies

Lol, depends on whether he overclocks. I've a mate who loves to give sh*t to the rest of us about Intel being better. Whenever he's having issues playing in BF3 I make the call, must be your dodgy Intel stuff. He says the same of AMD when either me or someone else has issues. Thing is mine benches higher, and he came to me for advice on components in the first place so its kind of amusing. All of my other mates, 5 of them, are running AMD based rigs for gaming.

Mind you two of them are using my old parts, the rest were based on my recommendations at the time.

Doing my part to keep AMD afloat

No wonder in don't see you on BF3...

Lol, yah. Last night I replaced the cheapie 500W Silverstone Strider Essential PSU in my HTPC with a 450W Antec EarthWatts Platinum unit..... That and our time zones are way off. I generally play from 8:30pm through to 10:00pm.