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How did AMD lose the performance crown to Intel?
- Thread starter magellan
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- Jan 1, 2008
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I have folded on a 64 core (4p), 64gb ram beast of a server before... Most impressive.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2004
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- Santa Barbara, CA
I never looked at AMD after Conroe. I was looking forward to Bulldozer, but it turned out to be...
Some links that may be of use:
http://arstechnica.com/business/201...benchmarks-are-here-and-theyre-a-catastrophe/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/10/can-amd-survive-bulldozers-disappointing-debut/2/
crap.
Some links that may be of use:
http://arstechnica.com/business/201...benchmarks-are-here-and-theyre-a-catastrophe/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/10/can-amd-survive-bulldozers-disappointing-debut/2/
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- Jan 1, 2008
- Location
- Colorado Springs, CO
Doesn't arstechnica have a history of being biased towards Intel? I swear I remember hearing that...
From the first article:
Considering they spend a good deal of time also stating that at higher clock speeds these Bulldozer chips with their long pipelines actually perform pretty well, and sucking Intel's teets, I would say that these are not an unbiased source. They also spend a significant amount of time saying that software is not optimised for Bulldozer, and that Bulldozer needs to be treated differently by task schedulers. When these articles were written, there was not a hotfix for windows 7. Windows 8 was still on the horizon.
For what it's worth, yes Intel has better top end parts. But when cost is taken into effect, the field is evened significantly. For example: my system. Upgraded a month or so ago. Total cost for mobo/CPU: $240. Performance is very close to that of a 4770k. For the cost of an Intel CPU, I have a mobo and CPU, and it performs sufficient in all tasks I utilize it for. Virtualization works, compilation works, games work, and more trivial pursuits work (office applications, etc). It has been shown by many members that the FX8XXX series are actually quite good in multi-threaded applications such as video editing. I have seen first hand results from one weekend of f@h on a 64-core beast with 64gigs of ram can do. I have seen the same server perform flawlessly in server orientated workloads in a standard enterprise environment.
From the first article:
Considering they spend a good deal of time also stating that at higher clock speeds these Bulldozer chips with their long pipelines actually perform pretty well, and sucking Intel's teets, I would say that these are not an unbiased source. They also spend a significant amount of time saying that software is not optimised for Bulldozer, and that Bulldozer needs to be treated differently by task schedulers. When these articles were written, there was not a hotfix for windows 7. Windows 8 was still on the horizon.
For what it's worth, yes Intel has better top end parts. But when cost is taken into effect, the field is evened significantly. For example: my system. Upgraded a month or so ago. Total cost for mobo/CPU: $240. Performance is very close to that of a 4770k. For the cost of an Intel CPU, I have a mobo and CPU, and it performs sufficient in all tasks I utilize it for. Virtualization works, compilation works, games work, and more trivial pursuits work (office applications, etc). It has been shown by many members that the FX8XXX series are actually quite good in multi-threaded applications such as video editing. I have seen first hand results from one weekend of f@h on a 64-core beast with 64gigs of ram can do. I have seen the same server perform flawlessly in server orientated workloads in a standard enterprise environment.
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Not sure I can pull any bias from that article...
Cost wasn't part of the discussion... performance per clock was the context. The difference between platforms is around $100. The thing is, with an FX Octo, you need a beefy board, and a beefy cooling solution to push the CPU. Your UD5 is a $150 board for example. Now, for Intel, a $100-$120 board will push the CPU plenty fine and so will a $30 cooler (will take a 4770K to 4.5Ghz - that wont happen with an AMD FX Octo). Ram of course is the same when talking DDR3. So the difference is in the CPU cost. $175 for an 8350, versus finding the 4770K as cheap as $300 if you have a Microcenter (otherwise, $330). So yes, there is a premium for better performance, but it isn't as much as people think, especially if you stick to recommended boards like the CHV-z, Sabertooth, etc.
The only place it will outperform the Intel offering is in heavily multi-threaded applications... and only some of them. IPC and anything with 4 threads or less, AMD gets walked...and that isn't even considering the dramatic difference in power consumption, particularly when overclocked.
EDIT: Have you tried F@H on a 4P 64c/t Intel rig before? Not sure if it is slower or faster, but I bet it won't heat your home either. Many things to consider when looking at the big picture...
Cost wasn't part of the discussion... performance per clock was the context. The difference between platforms is around $100. The thing is, with an FX Octo, you need a beefy board, and a beefy cooling solution to push the CPU. Your UD5 is a $150 board for example. Now, for Intel, a $100-$120 board will push the CPU plenty fine and so will a $30 cooler (will take a 4770K to 4.5Ghz - that wont happen with an AMD FX Octo). Ram of course is the same when talking DDR3. So the difference is in the CPU cost. $175 for an 8350, versus finding the 4770K as cheap as $300 if you have a Microcenter (otherwise, $330). So yes, there is a premium for better performance, but it isn't as much as people think, especially if you stick to recommended boards like the CHV-z, Sabertooth, etc.
The only place it will outperform the Intel offering is in heavily multi-threaded applications... and only some of them. IPC and anything with 4 threads or less, AMD gets walked...and that isn't even considering the dramatic difference in power consumption, particularly when overclocked.
EDIT: Have you tried F@H on a 4P 64c/t Intel rig before? Not sure if it is slower or faster, but I bet it won't heat your home either. Many things to consider when looking at the big picture...
If we are going to have this type of discussion as per the title of this thread, we need to consider the commercial/financial impact of Intel's dodgy and underhanded business practices bribing OEM's like Dell (just one example) to not buy AMD products and the damage that has done to AMD's revenue base of years...
I'm not going to specifically link any sources but quick google for "intel anti competitive behaviour" (or any search engine you like) shows numerous media reports over the years back some decade... take your pick!
I'm not going to specifically link any sources but quick google for "intel anti competitive behaviour" (or any search engine you like) shows numerous media reports over the years back some decade... take your pick!
OP
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- Jul 20, 2002
- Thread Starter
- #27
If we are going to have this type of discussion as per the title of this thread, we need to consider the commercial/financial impact of Intel's dodgy and underhanded business practices bribing OEM's like Dell (just one example) to not buy AMD products and the damage that has done to AMD's revenue base of years...
I'm not going to specifically link any sources but quick google for "intel anti competitive behaviour" (or any search engine you like) shows numerous media reports over the years back some decade... take your pick!
When the 1st HPC cluster at my work was built Intel CPU's (whether server or desktop) weren't even considered because Opterons were clearly better in performance. AMD's products spoke for themselves back then. These servers were all built by Sun.
I wonder if Intel just vastly outspent AMD in R&D after their Itanium (itanic) debacle and losing the performance crown to AMD. AMD had IMC on-chip for several years before Intel did.
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- Mar 12, 2002
You also have to account for Hector Ruiz plunging AMD into billions of dollars of debt to build new foundaries and neglecting the R&D side of the business which gave intel a substantial amount of time to catch up / surpass any advantage AMD had while simultaneously bankrupting AMD.
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