AMD Bulldozer breaks world speed

[WhitehawkEQ]

Well, the FX 8150 BD broke the world record for CPU speed at 8429 MHZ, if the 8150 can do that, the 8170 should blow the doors off the 8150

 

[KGH]

any link ?

 

[madhatter256]

http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Bulldozer-Processor-hits-8429-GHz-New-World-Record

 

[LuvToGame]

Well, the FX 8150 BD broke the world record for CPU speed at 8429 MHZ, if the 8150 can do that, the 8170 should blow the doors off the 8150

Hurry up and release it already; pushed back another month I understand. . .

 

[MattNo5ss]

any link ?

http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Bulldozer-Processor-hits-8429-GHz-New-World-Record

IMOG was there when it happened

See our frontpage: AMD Bulldozer Breaks CPU Frequency World Record

 

[TC]

The problem with these chips related to Folding as I understand it is without the minimum 8 threads you won't be picking up bigadv units, and I question whether its performance with regular units can make up for that shortcoming.

 

[Shelnutt2]

The problem with these chips related to Folding as I understand it is without the minimum 8 threads you won't be picking up bigadv units, and I question whether its performance with regular units can make up for that shortcoming.

You will have 8 threads though. Its a 8 core cpu. Each module is made up of 2 cores. The 2 cores share some components but they are capable for running two independent threads. So we should be able to do bigadv with these guys.

 

[LuvToGame]

The problem with these chips related to Folding as I understand it is without the minimum 8 threads you won't be picking up bigadv units, and I question whether its performance with regular units can make up for that shortcoming.

Phenom II X6's are already making the 3 day deadlines on bigadv; Bulldozer just evens the playing field with i7's. . .finally.

 

[TC]

You will have 8 threads though. Its a 8 core cpu. Each module is made up of 2 cores. The 2 cores share some components but they are capable for running two independent threads. So we should be able to do bigadv with these guys.

Didn't know that - I just remember hearing somebody here - Charles maybe, say it only had 4 something so it wouldn't be a serious player for folding. I was thinking it was a 6 core with only 4 alus or something of that nature.

 

[TC]

Phenom II X6's are already making the 3 day deadlines on bigadv; Bulldozer just evens the playing field with i7's. . .finally.

How do they run bigadv with 6 cores and no HT?

 

[ChasR]

There is a way to make the X6 fold -bigadv and they will complete the WUs on time.

The Bulldozer has only 4 Floating Point Units. So eight FAH threads will have to squeeze through the 4 of them, just like on Intels i7 chips.

 

[LuvToGame]

How do they run bigadv with 6 cores and no HT?

They are running Linux with environment varibles set to reflect more cores than actually exist. This is a gray area area when it comes to what is acceptable to the Pande group so you'll have to google it for details. I fully intend to fold small bigadv on my new bulldozer if it ever ships.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Thanks for the frontpage link Matt, appreciate that. Funny how much time a good article takes to write, but I spent a little time on getting that to where I was happy with it.

As for Bulldozer, 8 real cores is correct. I'm not sure how it will fold, as I've only seen limited benchmarks at this point but I've received a full briefing on the architecture and am familiar with the ins and outs. We'll be the first to publish the results once we have them, along with other top tier sites.

One thing to note however, is like the current sandybridge chips, it will be able to run around 5Ghz on air cooling that costs less than $100. Word is they've been running them well over 5 on air, according to AMD. I take that to mean every chip will be likely to hit it, but we won't really know until the chips hit the streets... Everyone was saying 5GHz on sandybridge, but turns out a lot of people can't run their chips that fast on air (or don't want to use the voltage necessary to do it).

 

[Mark620]

Is AMD going to equal the I7 in folding?
I hope it is better....ahh the days of amd and lower costs...

 

[LuvToGame]

Takes one back to the heady days of the AMD 386 40 Mhz. . .

 

[tuigi69]

Is AMD going to equal the I7 in folding?
I hope it is better....ahh the days of amd and lower costs...

I expect with 8 cores and OC to 5ghz it will have a good chance of equaling i7-2600k. The hex-core SB-E should still kick some serious @SS though. But AMD will still have the lead on pricing. BullDozer chips are about $220-$250. Plus boards for AMD have historically been cheaper then ones for Intel. It's hard to tell, since historically Intel performs better clock for clock than AMD. Plus with the 2700K coming out at the 2600K price point, then the 2600K should drop in price down to BD.

 

[]-[itman]

The Bulldozer has only 4 Floating Point Units. So eight FAH threads will have to squeeze through the 4 of them, just like on Intels i7 chips.

Bulldozer has 4 flexFPU's, meaning it has 8 FPU's similar to current x6's (128 bit), which is a 33% increase. The flexFPU, however, means that 2 fpu's in the same module can be combined for an effective 256-bit fpu if one of the cores is not using its own fpu.

I'll try to find a graphic for it but essentially bulldozer can do 8 seperate 128-bit floating point executions at a time, or 4 256-bit fp executions simultaneously.

Edit:
Here's a pretty good overviews, http://www.anandtech.com/show/3863/amd-discloses-bobcat-bulldozer-architectures-at-hot-chips-2010/4 . What will really be interesting is to see how aggressively AMD prices and clocks Interlagos, which is their server class bulldozer with up to 16 cores. Could make things pretty interesting for folding if the folding client runs well on the bulldozer architecture.

 

[tuigi69]

[QUOTE=']What will really be interesting is to see how aggressively AMD prices and clocks Interlagos, which is their server class bulldozer with up to 16 cores. Could make things pretty interesting for folding if the folding client runs well on the bulldozer architecture.[/QUOTE]

Yeh if a single Bulldozer core can keep up with the old core folding wise, then those 48 core machines on a G34 quad processor will get upgrade to 64 cores. With the QRB, they'll be getting some serious points for the big WU's.

 

[ChasR]

Bulldozer has 4 flexFPU's, meaning it has 8 FPU's similar to current x6's (128 bit), which is a 33% increase. The flexFPU, however, means that 2 fpu's in the same module can be combined for an effective 256-bit fpu if one of the cores is not using its own fpu.

I'll try to find a graphic for it but essentially bulldozer can do 8 seperate 128-bit floating point executions at a time, or 4 256-bit fp executions simultaneously.

Edit:
Here's a pretty good overviews, http://www.anandtech.com/show/3863/amd-discloses-bobcat-bulldozer-architectures-at-hot-chips-2010/4 . What will really be interesting is to see how aggressively AMD prices and clocks Interlagos, which is their server class bulldozer with up to 16 cores. Could make things pretty interesting for folding if the folding client runs well on the bulldozer architecture.

Since there are currently no 128 or 256 bit FP instructions out there, the real question is how many 32 bit (SP) or 64 bit (DP) instructions can be executed per clock cycle. The 2600K can do 4 256 bit instructions simultaneously, same as the 8 core Bulldozer. I couldn't find out in the time available to me how many 32 bit instructions it could do simultaneously.

If the bulldozer FP units aren't a big improvement over the x6, having 33% more will not quite get it to the 2600Ks floating point performance.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Forwarded the question:

I’ve read that an 8 core Bulldozer can complete 4 256 bit operations per clock cycle. How many 32 bit operations can it complete per clock cycle? How many 64 bit operations can it complete per clock cycle?

I'll update here if I get a clear answer.