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  • Frags - Saturday, June 23, 2007 - link

    I hope AMD succeeds in Barcelona so I can get another Intel Quad processor for cheap. All this debate is rather comical. In theory and on paper Barcelona looks like the cream of the crop, but as of yet, AMD has not shown me anything but a pretty FLASH presentation of hopes for the future. (Now a much MORE distant furture.) No Benchmarks or finalized product. They sure can Market though. Too bad there's nothing to sell.
  • Emryse - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    I can't express how dissappointing it is to see AMD in a bad way like this. It is true that according to current market trends, standards, and production - they're behind the curve, and there's just no getting around that.

    I see their potential - a road map that could culturally change the way a PC is built; we need that kind of innovation in the long run and AMD could pull it off, because they've done it before.

    However, that's as I said in the long run. For now, they're not achieving measured goals that can reflect the capability, competence, and trust invested by their own employees, management, and investors to accomplish goals in a timely, budget-effective process. While it may not be so important that Barcelona succeeds in the short term, (and I say that because Intel has thoroughly trounced over anything AMD will offer in this segment) these concepts are absolutely vital as AMD continues to explore systems that offer CPU / GPU capabilities on the same platform - or even upgradeable modules to the CPU / GPU for task-specific application. While revolutionary in concept, these are objectives that require a sustained, driven, and highly focused effort to achieve the dramatic results that would be needed to bring AMD back into the arena.

    What is difficult about the current situation remains the fact that company sustinance often exists in the court of public opinion (especially if it's publicly traded) - and AMD is only a few blows away from full-on "knock out". Intel is poised at the jugular, to be clear; worst-case scenario would be for (and this is very likely) Intel's '08 lineup to be introduced at the same time Barcelona releases (soft or hard).

    Now let me be clear: this doesn not mean AMD sinks. What it DOES indicate is that Intel will probably continue to be the leader for the next few years (at minimum).
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Good grief, stop being so melodramatic.

    Intel's '08 lineup is nothing. Penryn is nothing to worry about, it's a minor change and not as substantial as the Barcelona. I don't know why people exaggerate it so much, but I guess the uninformed make things up rather than deal with the complexities that not every change is the same in magnitude.

    AMD has been in way worse situations than this, and they are still here. I think the real issues come back to Hector Ruiz. This ass-clown has to go. He just has to. He's earning massive amounts of money while leading the company into the abyss. That's my real concern, not some small delay in Barcelona performance, but this piece of crap CEO that is screwing everything up. Maybe this demise will be a blessing if they dump this sorry sack of dung. He's killing the company.
  • CobraT1 - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    "Intel's '08 lineup is nothing." Compared to what? AMD's line up? Can you tell me what that will be?
    "Penryn is nothing to worry about" Who is worrying, well, other than AMD? Not you or I.
    "it's a minor change and not as substantial as the Barcelona. I don't know why people exaggerate it so much, but I guess the uninformed make things up rather than deal with the complexities that not every change is the same in magnitude."
    Ok, ok. I'm not trying to nitpick but c'mon. Melodramatic? Yes, Penryn is as Intel intended, an architectural update with some enhancements, a die shrink and additional performance. No big deal being made there. But c'mon, the only thing substantial about Barcy is that it is a major update for AMD. From a functional, performance or financial standpoint there is nothing substantial. It has yet to prove itself, at all. It in no was has had any significant impact other than to speculators. I have no idea why people pawn all over something they themselves know little to nothing about. I guess it called faith.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Are you crazy?

    Barcelona is a very big change compared to existing processors. And there is a lot known about it, just you don't. We know all about the new communications, the new branching, the L3 cache, the non-speculative memory reordering (the biggest thing, probably), inter processor communication (unlike Intel's FSB between the two sets of cores), additional HT link, SSE128, double instruction bandwidth, etc...

    You are obviously uninformed, badly so, and assume there isn't a lot of information out there. They all add up to a pretty significant, although not revolutionary, upgrade to an existing product that isn't terrible. You need to learn more before making such a post, because it just comes off as uninformed.

    I do agree with one thing though, we do have to wait until we see the results. But, to some extent, if I drop a rock from a tree, I don't have to watch it fall to know it will. This isn't that absolute, but the changes are so predictable it's hard to believe this won't be at least a very competitive processor. But, I'll agree, we won't know exactly how competitive until it actually is ready.
  • Emryse - Friday, June 15, 2007 - link

    Quite frankly - I just thought you may wish to know that the tone of your posts thus far have been perceived by myself to be arrogant, cock-sure, egotistical, and disrespectful. I think you would do well to adjust the “attitude” of your future posts, as it would prevent me (as well as other readers I’m sure) from needing to pause every 4 seconds, stop concentrating on your actual message, and attempt to sift out your emotional baggage from the occasionally relevant fact or point (too few or far between, unfortunately).

    That being said – I’m not going to spend time sorting point vs. counterpoint to your objections raised. I will simply state that it would be impossible for anyone to read all of the above posts and not come away with the belief that you’ve contradicted yourself on more than one occasion.

    We have seen very recent examples of supposedly “predictable” (the term you used) changes or innovations in architecture and performance for AMD, which in the final release did not even see the light of day. We’ve also seen efforts to correct inherent flaws in the design with additional hardware component modifications, additions, or even the occasional software driver revision where said “innovations” did occur.

    AMD is now a CPU and GPU industry provider; ultimately under the same management, and currently in the process of being aligned to the same overall business strategy. I don’t need to be the most technically knowledgeable person on this form to understand that AMD is not in a good position right now.

    Your posts seem to indicate a belief in the performance of this “holy grail” of an AMD chip, the revered Barcelona, as being the winning stroke that sends AMD back to the top in the server sector, and perhaps on a more global scale (which couldn’t be further from being the case in actual reality).

    I and others are simply attempting to examine what we feel to be potentially more significant factors than the simple success or failure of a single chip. Actually, we’re interested in discussing the factors that would actually determine the success or failure of the chip in question – a discussion which apparently is lost on you.

    My post did not claim to be “the most correct gospel on AMD as they stand” (as did every post you have ever made since). My post did cite my simple opinion, while allowing me to enjoy the feedback and insight of others in this forum (as was not the case with every post you have ever made since).

    In all reality, I really think you should consider working for AMD so you can actually get paid for all of the promoting you’re doing on behalf of their up-and-coming product. Then again, considering your appeal with the consumer market represented here - I’m not so sure they would be interested.

    Do I think AMD has a lot of potential? Absolutely! Do I fear for their current and future success? Yes; if they don’t start making some dramatic changes to their strategy as a whole. Am I hoping they will be successful? I most certainly am. Do your posts irritate me? That was a rhetorical question.
  • CobraT1 - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Are you crazy?
    Not really crazy, just well, not extreme.

    Barcelona is a very big change compared to existing processors. And there is a lot known about it, just you don't. We know all about the new communications, the new branching, the L3 cache, the non-speculative memory reordering (the biggest thing, probably), inter processor communication (unlike Intel's FSB between the two sets of cores), additional HT link, SSE128, double instruction bandwidth, etc...
    Oh, I think I might known a little bit. And it appears that you do as well, at least what the press reports tell you. It's easy to copy and paste isn't it. And what does all that mean to the market place, the consumer, to AMD's bottom line? Nothing. It is all unproven and just talk. Talk that the closer we get to AMD launch schedules the shakier their execution ability appears.
    It's funny how you bang on Intel FSB, SSE, cache usage etc... yet these are features you tout with AMD. Does hypocrite come to mind? Yes, these features should be mention when discussing BOTH processor as these are some of the features that improve performance if done properly. Just because the parts are there doesn't mean they will work together. Proper design and integration is what we waiting to find out.

    You are obviously uninformed, badly so, and assume there isn't a lot of information out there. They all add up to a pretty significant, although not revolutionary, upgrade to an existing product that isn't terrible. You need to learn more before making such a post, because it just comes off as uninformed.
    Really what part? Or should I say parts, as you seem to believe you really have the market cornered on microprocessor design. Go ahead, pick them out and educate me, please go ahead.

    I do agree with one thing though, we do have to wait until we see the results. But, to some extent, if I drop a rock from a tree, I don't have to watch it fall to know it will. This isn't that absolute, but the changes are so predictable it's hard to believe this won't be at least a very competitive processor. But, I'll agree, we won't know exactly how competitive until it actually is ready.
    Hmmm, and after all your harping and insinuations that we are all idiots, you end with that? You agree we have to wait and see how competitive Barcy is. I'm sorry, but that's ****.
  • defter - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    quote:

    Penryn is nothing to worry about, it's a minor change and not as substantial as the Barcelona.


    I don't know what is your definition about minor change, but Penryn will offer at least 5-10% higher IPC with at least 15-20% higher clockspeed. Thus Penryn will bring about 20-30% improvement compared to current Conroe which is quite substantial in my opinion.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    None of the changes to Penryn were for clock speed, and your 5-10% is a made up number. If you see anywhere close to this, you'll only get it from the larger cache, which again is NOT architecture. The actual architecture changes are very minor, and not even in the same ballpark as the Barcelona. The problem is when people talk about it like it's a lot more than a die shrink (which allows for the larger cache, and possibly greater clock speeds), which it isn't. Even Intel doesn't categorize it as such, just a die shrink with some minor tweaks. Their bigger changes will come after this.

    Penryn clocking higher isn't clear either. They will release it at higher clock speeds, but the Conroe could be sold at much higher clock speeds if Intel wanted to. They just haven't seen much need to. So, if Penryn peaks at 3.6 GHz, I'm not sure that shows any progress in clock speed since getting a Conroe there is not difficult. I'll be curious to see how well it overclocks to see if it can hit over 4.4 GHz which would represent something close to a 20% increase in the real frequency limitation. The released numbers will be way higher, mainly because AMD's chips will be so much more competitive, they can't dog them with artificially low clock speeds.
  • defter - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    quote:

    and your 5-10% is a made up number


    No it's not. See Anandtech article about Penryn benchmarks, in some cases clock-to-clock improvement is much higher.

    quote:

    The actual architecture changes are very minor, and not even in the same ballpark as the Barcelona.


    Who cares? Customers care about performance, it's irrelevant wherever the performance is achieved by larger cache, higher clockspeeds or some other changes. Penryn will produce substantial performance improvements compared to Conroe.

    quote:

    They will release it at higher clock speeds, but the Conroe could be sold at much higher clock speeds if Intel wanted to.


    I seriously doubt that Intel could release quad core 65nm at above 3GHz with a reasonable TDP. Penryn based quad core CPUs should easily achieve higher clockspeeds.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    I have seen other benchmarks, and they are actually very close. Plus, you have to discount other things in the system like higher FSB speeds, etc...

    Penryn will broadly be 5-10% faster, everything else being equal, on a majority of benchmarks. You might find a few that will, like those that love division, but broadly it's not going to happen. Pre-release benchmarks aren't even close, except for those made to illustrate the differences. Also, most of that comes from cache.

    It is entirely relevant where it comes from, because adding additional cache is easy for AMD as well, although not as easy and not quite as effective. If they hadn't created Penryn, they would have just added the same cache, or more, to Conroe with the shrink. Besides, Barcelona is adding a L3 cache, which should offer a big improvement since they have relatively small L2 caches.

    If you're expecting the Penryn to maintain the lead the Conroe has over the current K8, you're in for a shock. It'll be much closer.

    Who needs Quad core? Not many people. If that's the Penryn's claim to fame, it's kind of limited. In the server space, sure, but that's not exactly where Intel is strong. They have a system architecture that is very poor, although more cache should help. In dual core, Conroe can go much higher, and that's where most processors sell now. We'll see how well they do with Penryn.
  • CobraT1 - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Who's getting emotional?
    Emryse didn't say anything about architecture. He merely stated his opinion that "worst-case scenario would be for (and this is very likely) Intel's '08 lineup to be introduced at the same time Barcelona releases (soft or hard)." He was referring to (correct me if I'm wrong Emryse) public opinion, hence the statement he prefaced with "sustinance often exists in the court of public opinion". He was stating that if Barcy is pushed out from it's pre-Penryn announced launch, until Penryn is launched, it will be a PR nightmare for AMD.
    1.) Problems to release on schedule denotes execution issues and reflects poorly on the company and the product.
    2.) AMD would loose the benefits of launching solo and have to compete in the limelight with the anticipated Penryn.
    Compound these together and this would be very concerning as Barcy is critical for AMD.
    Now consider, if Barcy has to launch with Penryn and Penryn outperforms Barcy. AMD will loose the precious pre-Penryn marketing opportunities AMD was shooting for and have no time to tout superiority (if it can best the top C2D Quad). Hence the serious concern. If you don't think AMD's issues are significant, well, that's your opinion. If they are of no concern why doesn't AMD just announce the problems and update the launch dates to stop the speculation? We both know the answer to that. AMD needs the speculation right now. The what if.

    As for Penryn. To say the additions\tweaks to Penryn are not for speed is silly. Why would they have done them then? It certainly wasn't cost, or they would have left the design alone, (i.e. left cache the same size). You said it yourself "which allows for the larger cache, and possibly greater clock speeds". Well, what is it? Of course it is to improve the performance of the architecture. And as we have seen from early benches thus far, the Penryn will be a nice improvement. Not only the 5-10% (not made up) derived from the cache and other enhancements, but the very significant enhancements from SSE4 supported applications (see the early alpha version of DivX performance doubling). Of course the higher clock speeds will only be, well, for speed as well. And of course as you stated, Intel's manufacturing prowess and it's current architectural designs have very long legs in regards to clock speed. The combination of the enhancements and increase clock speeds will make for another winner for Intel.

    You misunderstood defters comments regarding AND's execution issues. While there are a few unknowns with Penryn, defters comments are in line with what has already been established, and curiously, with assertions you are making. Increased performance from architectural updates and increased clock speeds.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Are you sure that's the worst case for AMD, or Intel, if they release at the same time?

    Problems with releasing a product Intel can't release isn't that big a deal. Intel conceded it was too difficult to release a native quad core. AMD didn't, maybe they should have :P.

    Penryn is a nothing release, it's only discussed by people that are clueless. The average person will not even know about it, Intel isn't changing the name like AMD is.

    Barcelona will do extremely well in the quad server space, and potentially in the eight socket space if they change the socket and someone decides to sell them.

    I never said the tweaks to Penryn were not for speed, so stop acting like you can't comprehend English and misrepresenting me. They are very minor changes, and will not afford a 5-10% IPC on most applications. SSE4 is not important for most applications, and the cache has nothing to do with it being Penryn, it's about the die shrink. Also, if the cache is bigger, it might have more latency, so, it's not a free lunch.

    Intel already has a winner with Conroe, and an increase in clock speed is speculative at this point, not a certainty. We'll see soon enough. A shrink makes it a lot cheaper to make, so, it's not necessarily about clock speed. It was, but lately, it's been dicey.

    The problem with those assertions are they are overblown and misrepresented, like they are a big change like Barcelona is. It's not even close.

    And the whining about AMD is what gets on my nerves. Oh, this is so bad, etc... It's weak minded and completely overblown. The Barcelona will be fine, people just need to be patient and accept AMD just bit off more than they, or Intel, could chew. The difference is, Intel knew it.
  • CobraT1 - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Are you sure that's the worst case for AMD, or Intel, if they release at the same time?
    Ummm, comparing what is known thus far, worse for AMD. Intel is happy with their product and have made it available for preview 5-8 months prior to launch. AMD is not and keeping their product under lock and key a month or so prior to it's supposed launch.

    Problems with releasing a product Intel can't release isn't that big a deal. Intel conceded it was too difficult to release a native quad core. AMD didn't, maybe they should have :P.
    Intel can't? What? To difficult? That's drama queen baloney and you (or you should) know that. Intel CHOSE not to release a native at .65 for 4 reasons. 1.)Cost 2.)Cost 3.)Cost 2.)It makes little difference performance wise (please not, Intel, AMD nor I ever said it has no performance difference, only little). AMD has stated that they probably made a MISTAKE by choosing to go straight to native. And everyone agrees with them.

    Penryn is a nothing release, it's only discussed by people that are clueless. The average person will not even know about it, Intel isn't changing the name like AMD is.
    Your opinions not shared by all. It is mainly a die shrink with some enhancements to boost performance, scale speed and increase manufacturing efficiencies. It's not a new architecture like Core or Barcy, but far from a nothing release. No one said Penryn was a new architecture, a revolutionary release or anything resembling as such. You are the one who brought that topic up.

    I never said the tweaks to Penryn were not for speed, so stop acting like you can't comprehend English and misrepresenting me. They are very minor changes, and will not afford a 5-10% IPC on most applications. SSE4 is not important for most applications, and the cache has nothing to do with it being Penryn, it's about the die shrink. Also, if the cache is bigger, it might have more latency, so, it's not a free lunch.
    Blah blah blah I comprehend just fine. You are the one who misunderstood defter. I just explained what he was saying to you. What I do question is your ability to access preview hardware or comprehend micro-architecture design if you can't extrapolate what is known about C2D, couple that with data garnered from very early Penryn previews and form at least a few decent assumptions about what Intel with have to offer. Hell, 2 people have already told you. Yet, everyone is an idiot in your view. Oh, well.

    Intel already has a winner with Conroe, and an increase in clock speed is speculative at this point, not a certainty. We'll see soon enough. A shrink makes it a lot cheaper to make, so, it's not necessarily about clock speed. It was, but lately, it's been dicey.
    Yes they do and yes, it is all speculative, and you have been doing it. As you stated earlier, C2D has long legs and can overclock like crazy and this coupled with a die shrink we should all expect Penryn to scale in stock clock speed. And we have said as much.

    The problem with those assertions are they are overblown and misrepresented, like they are a big change like Barcelona is. It's not even close.
    No, big or little change with Barcy is irrelevant. If it doesn't perform, a big change in it's architecture is all moot. Who will care about the design? AMD would not be the first company to design a nice product yet fail to execute and deliver to the customer. Oh, and it would not be AMD's first failure to deliver either. Old Sanders had a few blems grace his resume during his tenure that almost cost the company.

    And the whining about AMD is what gets on my nerves. Oh, this is so bad, etc... It's weak minded and completely overblown. The Barcelona will be fine, people just need to be patient and accept AMD just bit off more than they, or Intel, could chew. The difference is, Intel knew it.
    It doesn't bother me at all, one way or the other. Barcy may very well end up being fine, "WE" just don't know. If the news reports and the people commenting on the news get on your nerves, then ignore them (who's week minded?). That is the mature thing to do, as until you have evidence to prove otherwise, AMD's current press does not bode well in instilling confidence in it's ability to hit it own committed benchmarks. Remember, no one claimed AMD's roadmap but AMD. Only AMD can fix it's issues, no one else.

    Ok, I give, what does "AMD just bit off more than they, or Intel, could chew. The difference is, Intel knew it." mean?

  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    You missed the point about Barcelona and Penryn. Barcelona is a big release, and it will make Penryn look small if they release the same time. The only problem is, can AMD compete so long with the antiquated K8. If they release at the same though, Penryn will get buried.

    Actually, Intel stated in an interview that they found the native quad core extremely difficult. I forget the exact wording, but they were asked to comment on the Barcelona, and the guy said he thought it was a really difficult thing to do, even for us". So, no, they couldn't do it well either. But, they were smarter and realized it. It wasn't about cost either, it was time to market, and possibly performance. Performance, clock normalized, is going to be lower, of course, but you can generally clock higher because not all four cores have to hit the same clock speed. As far as performance clock normalized, it's not a small penalty though, or were you unaware that even on the same processor, each pair has to communicate with each other over the FSB. That's bad, really, but maybe the clock speed makes up for it? I don't know. It's not trivial though.

    Actually, people keep talking about Penryn like it's so significant, but it isn't. Oh boy, Barcelona better come out befor Penryn, or they're doomed!!!!! AGGGGGGGH. It's absurd, like once the big bad Penryn comes out all is lost for AMD, so they better beat it to market. Nonsense. Intel is a different company, they don't improve manufacturing on the same process the way AMD does. So, sure, they'll have Penryn, and AMD will continue to improve their manufacturing on .65 and probably add cache (which is why they added latency to the L2 after all). So, Penryn isn't going to present an insurmountable problem for AMD. Unless AMD seriously screws up, they'll own Intel on servers, Penryn won't change that at all.

    Most of the people that tell me stuff, like you, have no background in what you're talking about. Everyone has opinions, but not everyone has valid ones. 5-10% clock normalized is not trivial at all, and the changes to Penryn are trivial in most applications. It doesn't add up. Barcelona does. But you can't tell the difference, huh?

    You're suffering from a logical problem. If pigs have wings, they would fly (maybe not, chickens don't), but you don't know how Barcelona performs. So, you're starting from an unknown and extrapolating from it. What we do know is the K8 performs reasonably well, and we know how many of the changes on the Barcelona have worked on other processors, and can approximate what the performance should be. It's not all smoke and mirrors, it's like adding 50 horsepower to a car. You have an idea how fast it will go, but maybe not precisely. If you knew more about their design you'd realize it is very conservative and very predictable, and it will deliver. It's not radical like the Itanium or P7 where you're scratching your head wondering what it will do because it's so unique. Sanders had some problems, mainly with the K5 which was a radically new thing for AMD, but he was smart enough to buy NexGen and thus the company succeeded. Also, keep in mind, AMD is still alive. Can you name any other Intel competitor that is?

  • clairvoyant129 - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    "<i>You missed the point about Barcelona and Penryn. Barcelona is a big release, and it will make Penryn look small if they release the same time. The only problem is, can AMD compete so long with the antiquated K8. <b>If they release at the same though, Penryn will get buried.</b></i>"

    How do you know this? Did Henri show you some benchmarks at Computex? Oh wait, there was none except that pathetic Cinebench result that showed an aging Kentsfield fragging Barcelona.

    Pathetic, I love how you're just making **** up.

  • CobraT1 - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    You missed the point about Barcelona and Penryn. Barcelona is a big release, and it will make Penryn look small if they release the same time. The only problem is, can AMD compete so long with the antiquated K8. If they release at the same though, Penryn will get buried.
    Oh, I got your point. You are excited. It is a big release for AMD and Penryn will only look small if AMD is able to deliver and deliver C2D like domination over the Penryn. Per the reports we are seeing and AMD’s actions it is doubtful that this will be the case. I get it, you believe that Barcy will rock the PC world. Not likely at this point.

    Actually, Intel stated in an interview that they found the native quad core extremely difficult. I forget the exact wording, but they were asked to comment on the Barcelona, and the guy said he thought it was a really difficult thing to do, even for us". So, no, they couldn't do it well either. But, they were smarter and realized it. It wasn't about cost either, it was time to market, and possibly performance. Performance, clock normalized, is going to be lower, of course, but you can generally clock higher because not all four cores have to hit the same clock speed. As far as performance clock normalized, it's not a small penalty though, or were you unaware that even on the same processor, each pair has to communicate with each other over the FSB. That's bad, really, but maybe the clock speed makes up for it? I don't know. It's not trivial though.
    This tells me you have no idea what you are talking about and makes me want to lean towards ending this ridiculous waste of time. I will just say that wherever you read that it was false. AMD is NOT doing something Intel could not. Intel made a business decision plain and simple. If you have any understanding of processor design and manufacturing you would understand the benefits to using a dual die 4 core setup, especially at .65. Think about it, it is Intel your talking about. Unless you think Intel is a group of incompetent boobs (yes they made a mistake with netburst) who has been just plain lucky for 35 years, what you thought you heard makes zero sense. Hence, AMD admitting making the wrong choice. It was about cost, it’s called efficiency in manufacturing. Time to market was a non-issue as AMD had no quad core plans until well into 07’ and everyone knew it. Performance was a non issue with C2D yields at speed very high. The very the worst core would perform at least at the lower end of C2D’d line up in quantity. The rest of the drivel in this paragraph just makes me tired. Bottom line, none of your assertions hold water.

    Actually, people keep talking about Penryn like it's so significant, but it isn't. Oh boy, Barcelona better come out befor Penryn, or they're doomed!!!!! AGGGGGGGH. It's absurd, like once the big bad Penryn comes out all is lost for AMD, so they better beat it to market. Nonsense. Intel is a different company, they don't improve manufacturing on the same process the way AMD does. So, sure, they'll have Penryn, and AMD will continue to improve their manufacturing on .65 and probably add cache (which is why they added latency to the L2 after all). So, Penryn isn't going to present an insurmountable problem for AMD. Unless AMD seriously screws up, they'll own Intel on servers, Penryn won't change that at all.
    Penryn is not “so significant” yet it is significant. It should boost IPC and scale clock speed which will increase it’s overall performance. C2D is already the performance leader by a large margin and it’s release will extend it performance envelope. Oh and lets not forget, it will be much cheaper to manufacture. Penryn is 25% smaller even with it’s additions. Barcy better come out and be everything AMD has touted it to be or even without Penryn, AMD will be in deep, deep trouble. This not about Barcy vs Penryn, Intel products are a known quantity. No, this is about AMD and it’s ability to deliver. They are bleeding money big time and need a success. This is why people are concerned.

    Most of the people that tell me stuff, like you, have no background in what you're talking about. Everyone has opinions, but not everyone has valid ones. 5-10% clock normalized is not trivial at all, and the changes to Penryn are trivial in most applications. It doesn't add up. Barcelona does. But you can't tell the difference, huh?
    I will do you a favor and ignore this one.

    You're suffering from a logical problem. If pigs have wings, they would fly (maybe not, chickens don't), but you don't know how Barcelona performs. So, you're starting from an unknown and extrapolating from it. What we do know is the K8 performs reasonably well, and we know how many of the changes on the Barcelona have worked on other processors, and can approximate what the performance should be. It's not all smoke and mirrors, it's like adding 50 horsepower to a car. You have an idea how fast it will go, but maybe not precisely. If you knew more about their design you'd realize it is very conservative and very predictable, and it will deliver. It's not radical like the Itanium or P7 where you're scratching your head wondering what it will do because it's so unique. Sanders had some problems, mainly with the K5 which was a radically new thing for AMD, but he was smart enough to buy NexGen and thus the company succeeded. Also, keep in mind, AMD is still alive. Can you name any other Intel competitor that is?
    You are suffering from not knowing what you are talking about. I will just end by commenting on your analogy since you also feel you are an expert on motor design. You cannot add 50hp to a car. You have to modify or redesign different areas to improve said motor to create more power. (don’t even get me started on cheats like NOS, doesn’t apply) The performance profile can change at certain load\speed intervals or across the entire range depending how you modify the motor. You can also increase power at certain load\speeds while reducing power output at other load\speeds. Of course, you can modify the motor with a bad combination of the best designed parts on the planet that do not work well together and your performance profile will drop. That is why there are dyno’s, to track changes and optimize the power profile you are trying to achieve. Engines, just like processors, have to have components designed that make the hole that work well. That is what we are all waiting to find out with Barcy. Thus far, the news has been less than stellar so close to AMD’s scheduled launch.
  • CFKane - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    quote:

    I will just say that wherever you read that it was false. AMD is NOT doing something Intel could not. Intel made a business decision plain and simple.


    He wasn't saying that Intel couldn't do it, but there actually was an interview on digitimes where the Intel representative indeed admitted that "even they" would have difficulties to bring native quad core to market:

    http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20070608PD206.html">http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20070608PD206.html

    quote:

    Penryn is not “so significant” yet it is significant. It should boost IPC and scale clock speed which will increase it’s overall performance.


    Penryn won't boost IPC since you would need architectural changes for that. It will come with increased clock speeds at the same or lower TDP, which is mainly due to the 45nm shrink. Some of that potential also goes into the larger L2 caches, so it remains to be seen how far they can push the clock speed without hitting the power consumption wall (again).
  • CobraT1 - Thursday, June 14, 2007 - link

    Actually he said "Intel can't release" then he backed off to "difficult". So, difficult how? What did the Intel rep say? "The technology is much easier, the product has higher yields and performance is almost the same as the native quad-core processor." The technonlogy he is refering to is manufacturing technology. Native is difficult to manufacture in quantity to make it economically advantageious at .65. That doesn't mean they can't it means they chose not to for business reasons. That was my contention with his "Intel can't" comments.

    As far as Penryn IPC and ability to scale, you do not need a new architecture to increae IPC. You can improve the architecture and improve IPC. You can also made modifications that decrease IPC of an architecture. I won't go into all of the reasons or rehash above discussions, I will just go this route. As I don't actually have a Penryn myself, I will defer to this article (which will answer your questions) and you can go there and debate it.

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...

    "It has also been confirmed that Penryn will deliver higher IPC and higher clock speeds. Intel wouldn't say more than "more than 3 GHz", but considering that the FSB is bumped up to 1600 MHz, 3.2 GHz is likely. However, several Intel people confirmed that if necessary ("depending on what the competition does"), the 45nm CPUs can go quite a bit higher (3.6 GHz is probably a safe estimate, considering how far current Core 2 CPUs are able to overclock)."

  • CFKane - Thursday, June 14, 2007 - link

    quote:

    That was my contention with his "Intel can't" comments.


    Nobody with the most basic sense of logic would make a claim in that simplicity regarding the technological challenges. There is no wizardry involved in chip making and Intel can do everything AMD can. Business considerations are just as important as technological viability for such large scale enterprises, though, and Intel has touted the native quad-core approach on the 65nm node "suicidal" very early. More realistically they should have said "this wouldn't allow the gross margins our shareholders expect". But in the end it just means the same for them: They can't.

    The question of if AMD can or should is a different one. I, as a customer interested in the technology, am glad they're doing it. I just wouldn't buy any stock right now.

    quote:

    As far as Penryn IPC and ability to scale, you do not need a new architecture to increae IPC. You can improve the architecture and improve IPC. You can also made modifications that decrease IPC of an architecture.


    Okay, I was perhaps a little vague there, but I said you need architectural changes for that, not a new architecture. Penryn brings a few changes and some (like the Radix 16 divider) do increase IPC in certain limited areas. Higher FSB clocks may also improve IPC slightly. Both should hardly be noticable though, except in benchmarks that exploit those improvements heavily - Intel hasn't included the DivX alpha benchmark without reason in their presentations. But this doesn't deserve to be called a "boost in IPC" in my opinion. You can call it that when you add more execution units or other improvements that increase IPC across the board. Conroe surely deserved that label. And from what we know, Barcelona also deserves it.
  • Roy2001 - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    Well CobraT1, I think he has NO idea about CPU manufacturing and cost, at all.

    Barcy would be significant for AMD, but no for PC industry. There is no way it can compet with Penryn. The very first Penryn (1st tapeout) runs up to 3.7Ghz in Intel lab. Even if it can reach 2.8Ghz as AMD simulated, it won't beat Penryn @3.7Ghz.

    AMD was/is and will be in trouble. They have to wait until their 45nm process is up and run. Before that, they have no chance.
  • strikeback03 - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    Well, if your car is turbocharged, 50HP is often just an ECU flash away. If you have a supercharger you can put on a smaller pulley. No guarantee on how well the rest of the powertrain will hold up, but it can be done. The VW 1.8T engines supposedly respond well to just changing the intake manifold gasket. The RB26DETT was reported to pick up over 100HP from just camshafts and an ECU flash.

    Back to the subject of processors, I agree that the size of the leap over it's predecessor won't matter much if Barcelona can't at least match Penryn. Also, IIRC, Nehalem is scheduled for release next year, which is supposed to be a more significant update. So even if Barcelona outperforms Penryn, AMD can't wait nearly so long to pull their next rabbit out of a hat as they have for this update.

    Also, if I were a shareholder of AMD, I'd be concerned that if they do get delayed to the very end of this year or early next year, then the earliest they are going to return a profit is Q3 08. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, companies don't generally rush out to upgrade their servers, and the majority of consumer purchases are in Q3 and esp. Q4. So if AMD can't have the new processors on the shelves this year, that will be two Christmas buying cycles in a row where they have played second fiddle to Intel. That won't help their bottom line.
  • CobraT1 - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    I understand what your saying, that it is possible to boost power output of some engine designs, especially designs that were poor to begin with. Yet, the point was to increase overall power without suffering losses, and it being easy. Like with processors, this is generally not a quick and easy task and concessions generally need to be made. It takes proper consideration of usage, limitations, cost and the understanding of how the components will work in concert. With software modifications of engine managements systems (ECU) it is just as easy to reduce performance or negatively effect other operational criteria with programming. Testing needs to be done, hence the usage of dyno's in graphing power profiles and monitoring function. And generally, with no other modifications the power profile will change. Gains will be made under certain speed\loads while losses will be seen under others. Efficiency also generally drops. For example, modifications can fairly easily be made (like throwing on a larger TB) to produce a higher peak hp, yet throttle response, low-end torque and efficiency will generally suffer. That would not be an ideal design choice in regards to what we are analogizing. Induction velocities, capacities, fuel atomization abilities, fuel mixtures, cam\valve timings, valve lift, duration and I\O overlap, combustion chamber size, CC shape, plug choice, Ign. timings, duration and intensity, I\O port shape, size and length, scavenging and\or back pressure, the list could go on and on. The point is, if you change one it effects the others, and like in processor design these components need to be designed in such a way that the hole functions as was intended. If an increase in overall performance and efficiency is the intended target, you generally can’t just add something to achieve this. Even just adding cache in a processor design has it positive and negative impacts.
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, June 14, 2007 - link

    I suppose I didn't read that correctly. Yes, if a company wants to add more power they need to research it extensively. However, the consumer can just go buy the results of that research, so for them it is relatively easy.
  • Roy2001 - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    That's funny comment. Hector has devoted his life to fight with Intel since Motorola days with 68000. But we can forsee he won't make it. CPU industry is not just design or execusion. It's capital/manufacturing.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Yet, it was design, under Jerry Sander's leadership, that made AMD what it is today. Or was, except Hector now has given up that leadership in design. They waited too long. He was never known as a visionary, but was supposed to help with execution, which hasn't exactly worked, has it?

    Where is the 68K now anyway? That's a good example of his prowess. A much better processor with a much more elegant instruction set is essentially dead, although Freescale still sells something close to it with a scaled-down instruction set. If the 68K line had the 68008 in time, would IBM have chosen the 8088? Doubtful, since they used the 68K in their 3270 and 370 emulators, not an Intel product. It's not like the 68008 wasn't possible either, it's somewhat simpler in that it has few address lines and data lines. So, where does he deserve credit for this???
  • tacoburrito - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Anyone else thought that Shittle's SFF cases are getting bigger? With their G2 and G5 models, they looked great with their compact designs. Now it seems that Shuttle's cases are simply mid-sized towers turned sideways.
  • erwos - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Shuttles are a touch larger than they used to be, but let's face it: you just can't cool a modern quad-core CPU and a high-end GPU without a little extra space to work with.

    They are _nowhere near_ the size of a mid-tower. The SS21T is a touch larger than most, but everything else is far smaller.
  • Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    That AMD did not spend 3-4 years of R&D on this processor. More like..6-12 months. They started when they first saw Pentium M or was it when they first saw a Core Duo? I'm thinking when they first saw Core Duo because AMD made die shrinks before without updating the architecture. Though it seems like most of the time in development for the "Bark" has been making it work on a platform.

    All I got to say is what the hell was AMD thinking? They don't even have their mid-range video cards out yet and that's if you don't all ready consider their "flagship" middle range.
  • ShapeGSX - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    quote:

    That AMD did not spend 3-4 years of R&D on this processor. More like..6-12 months. They started when they first saw Pentium M or was it when they first saw a Core Duo?


    That is simply not possible. It takes much longer than that to get a new piece of silicon out the door.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    And if they had, they would have probably gone with the memory disambiguation of the Core 2, instead of the non-speculative load reordering of the Pentium Pro to III. They may not have realized when they were making it Intel was going to raise the bar.

    Either way, it's impossible.
  • Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Sure..maybe they just decided to pick up a plan that was considered dead and go through with it. It was all ready reported they were trying to re-spin the K8 before the Core Duo was ever announced though it was cancelled because it was dependent on highly-threaded applications that are simply not coming any time soon.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    That's a different processor design that they killed. But, you bring up a huge misconception that most non-programmers have, that with more work you can get really great performance out of threading. All you have to do is put in the time and rethink how to code. It's utter nonsense, and there is something called Amdahl's Law that is worth reading for people that don't understand or believe this.

    Some algorithms will work well with threading, many, many will not. So, yes, AMD killed that dog and luckily so. If they came out with that, I'd be really, really worried for the company.

    But this new processor isn't anything particulary risky or scary. It's a very nice upgrade in many areas, and considering the K8 is obsolete, but not horrible like the P7, it should turn out to be a fine processor and at the minimum competitive for a while.

    6-12 months is absolutely incorrect. If you're saying that because you believe it, you need to do a little more research on this type of thing because it's entirely implausible. If you're saying it because you're frustrated with AMD and just lashing out, I can understand that completely. But, try to keep it in perspective; it's still a good processor but it just has a few problems before it's release.
  • Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Highly frustrated. If this was a long planned project then their execution is well, I guess we have to see. Like the bias before the Opteron launched I guess we should not make the same mistake twice.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    While I can understand your frustration, try to keep a few things in common.

    This is pre-release silicon, of course, and that might not seem like such an important thing, but keep in mind that EVERY processor on that core has to run at the designated speed. So, if one can run at 2.8 GHz, one at 2.6 GHz, another at 2.3 GHz, and one at 1.8 GHz, you're stuck at 1.8 GHz for the entire part. The margin for error is so small because of native quad core decision, it's not surprising the numbers are so low considering the stage of development it's in. At this point, the manufacturing is still fairly new, the processor is of course very new, and with the low margin for error it's going to look bad. But, AMD is a weird bird, they seem to come out with terrible processors on the first version of a new lithography, and continue to improve it quite a bit, much moreso than Intel does. This and getting less scatter with regards to maximum frequency should allow the Barcelona to improve pretty quickly through the iterative improvements AMD does with their manufacturing.

    I can understand why you'd be frustrated, but I think it's early to give up on them compeletely. I think most of it is the sting of going native quad-core right off the bat with a brand new processor architecture. It's a lot to deal with in one shot, especially with a fairly new manufacturing process. They probably should have done one thing at a time, but sooner or later they'll get it right. I don't think it will be too late for it to matter either, but who knows?
  • Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Yes trust me I read a lot of articles about the "Bark". From its symmetric ALU's, down to the non-speculative memory access reordering.

    I'm not giving up on AMD at all but it's a ton of fun seeing too CPU manufactures diverge. Just like how you talk about how badly your team is doing mid-season, it some how enlightens your hope for them during the post-season.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Go Yankees?
  • TowerShield - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    I was figuring the product might have died after it didn't show up in May.
  • Gary Key - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    It worked beautifully under XP Pro with my laptop, Vista compatibility still needs some fine tuning before the unit is launched. ASUS is intent on completing the project within the next four to six weeks.
  • poisondeathray - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Is the XG Station still designed with the Express Card interface (480Mbit or 2.5Gbit depending on USB or PCI Express)?

    What impact on high resolution gaming does this limited interface bandwith present?
  • MrEMan - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    So, can someone explain to me what exactly AMD has gotten from its (paid) collaboration with IBM?

    It seems that once again IBM is unable to deliver on converting from lab design to actual production implementation.
  • defter - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    quote:

    So, can someone explain to me what exactly AMD has gotten from its (paid) collaboration with IBM?


    I recall that AMD has licensed some process technology from IBM (including SOI).


    quote:

    It seems that once again IBM is unable to deliver on converting from lab design to actual production
    implementation.


    ??? Barcelona is AMD's design, it has nothing to do with IBM.
  • MrEMan - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Yes, Barcelona is strictly AMD's design, but are the problems being encountered due to the design, or the manufacturing of the new processors?

    It seems to me that it is more a manufacturing problem, because the current Athlons and Opterons haven't had any great performance enhancements/clock speed increases over the last few years.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Neither have Intel products. The fastest product they released was 3.8 GHz, and that was two or three years ago?
  • Neosis - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Are you comparing a netburst based CPU with these ones?

    Do you have any idea about Integer Pipelines and Cache Latency?
  • defter - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Sub 2GHz speeds and motherboard issues cannot have anything to do with manufacturing issues.

    Even though 65nm K8s have very low clockspeeds, they are capable of reaching 2.6GHz@65W TDP (2 cores), thus hypothetical K8 based quad core would reach at least 2.6GHz@130W TDP. Since Barcelonas clockspeed is currently limited to 1.6-1.8GHz there must be significant issues with the design itself.
  • archcommus - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Let's face it, AMD has no hopes until at least early-mid next year, and that's assuming things DO improve significantly. Maybe they can keep themselves afloat with mediocre video, notebook, and low-power chip sales until then. Who knows what they've been doing there for the past four years since the original A64 launch. I know they had a cancelled project, but that still doesn't explain this kind of delay/lack of progress over that much time.

    But in the end, you can't win them all. AMD was king a couple years back, and now they're losing. They won't go out of business, and maybe they'll be a completely different company with their first 45 nm/next gen products.

    In the meantime, I guess I'm betting on a cheap C2Q upgrade sometime in the next year.
  • nicolasb - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    There are number of references to "RD600" in this article that should probably read "R600".
  • Gary Key - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Sorry about that, corrected, it was a long flight home yesterday. ;-)
  • clairvoyant129 - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    quote:

    Continuing on the worst case scenario track, some partners don't expect to see 2.3 - 2.4GHz until Q2 next year


    Not surprising, scaling is terrible... by the time AMD rolls out 2.6GHz, forget Penryn, Intel will have Nehalem out.
  • JackPack - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Employee morale at AMD must be pretty much low at this point.

    Every time an AMD spokesperson has to say "Barcelona is on track for a summer launch" or "regaining the performance lead this year" when they don't believe it themselves, it takes a toll on the employees.

    It reminds me of what one AMD spokesperson said in July 2006, right after Intel's Woodcrest launch: "We remain supremely confident in both our product architecture and road map, which remains unchanged."

    Why don't they just come clean about it?
  • Roy2001 - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    This reminds me the Iraq officer who claimed Iraq troops were defeating US troops when US army's tanks entered Bagdad.
  • OddTSi - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Maybe AMD should hire good ol' Baghdad Bob. At least he'll give us all a few good laughs.
  • shabby - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Dear stock holders, our product sucks and will probably be delayed.

    Do you really expect a company to say this?
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Barcelona having problems is so predictable it was almost a certainty. AMD doesn't have a great reputation for manufacturing, and currently their fastest parts are still 90nm, not the 65 nm lithography the Barcelona is made on. Since their well understood Athlon 64 can't reach high clock speeds on this process, naturally a newer design that is not well understood will be even worse. On top of this, AMD made a typical marketing mistake and made the Barcelona a native quad-core, something even Intel with much better manufacturing ability thought was currently too difficult. So, Barcelona running at 1.8 GHz is not terribly surprising considering everything. It doesn't mean, at all, that a dual core would be suffering from that clock speed either. There was a reason why Intel wouldn't do it yet, but of course AMD knew better. Hector has to go!

    I don't know why anyone at AMD would panic, except for the fact they have realized Intel was right about not rushing to native quad core. On the plus side, if they created a new socket, a dual-core version of the Barcelona would be a much better 8-socket than the Opteron, which was horrible after four sockets. So, if they have to eat crow and release slow quad-cores, at least the 8-way performance will be really good and might save them.

    The performance of this processor is something else no one needs to worry about. I still think they are making a mistake splitting the integer and floating point clusters; it's a waste of resources and not many people care about x87 anyway. But the Barcelona has non-speculative memory reordering, whereas the K8 was incredibly primitive and memory access were all issued in-order. It's not up to the Core 2 standard, but it's equivalent to the Pentium Pro - Pentium III now in that regard, and that alone should make a nice improvement. With all the other improvements involved, I don't think anyone needs to worry about the IPC much.

    The only thing I would worry about is the native quad core stuff. I don't know if AMD will tackle that easily, because Intel decided it was too difficult. But, for the dual core desktop processors, I can't imagine any serious long term problems. Maybe a delay while they find the critical paths and improve their manufacturing technology, but panicking just seems extreme to me. The IPC will surely not be anything anyone needs to worry about. It may not be quite as good as a Core 2 in certain workloads, but it will certainly be a great improvement on the K8 and will narrow the gap in the worst case, and possibly pass it in others. Certainly as you add sockets, it should do considerably better. And even on single sockets, you'll have a great advantage in IGP solutions since the processor can now sleep and use a lot less power.

    I wouldn't worry too much if I were an AMD stockholder. I don't think there's anything too surprising, and nothing insurmountable, although native quad-core might not be feasible in the relatively short term and might compare unfavorably to Intel's solution. But, it's not a huge market yet anyway.
  • LTG - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    quote:

    quad-core...might compare unfavorably to Intel's solution. But, it's not a huge market yet anyway.


    Are you kidding? There is a huge market for quad core servers and it's where the profit is.

    AMD will remain under huge price pressure until 08 if this article is even close to true.

    Not good, not good at all.
  • neweggster - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    No way is Quad core server market as strong as you think. The problem here is that many many server specialists seek out alot more then just small real world performance upgrades. The research and product bids go towards many factors such as power management, performance equations to stability and so on. Meaning Quad core server market will hardly be pulled on hard enough till performance and other things are well enough to make such huge costly changes. Server people tend to stay with what works and for years at a time, wasting money on new products that aren't proven to offer huge benefits just yet makes it a worthless business transaction.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Actually, there isn't. There haven't even been quad cores out for very long, and it takes a while for server folks to move over to new technology like this is. The big advantage AMD has is they don't even need quad cores, and they are better off with 4 x duals instead of 2 x Qs. Intel with their FSB scale much more poorly to four sockets, and it wouldn't buy anything. AMD would presumably have a better solution with four sockets and dual cores than two sockets and quad cores since you'd increase memory bandwidth, unlike Intel's solution.

    Naturally, Quad by four sockets would be better, but that's comparing AMD with AMD. I'm sure they'll release something for that anyway, and if it runs a little slower in clock speed until they fix things, it's not a big deal because Intel really has nothing in that market worth a damn. AMD may run at slower clock speeds, but Intel's entire system architecture is horrid for it. So, I wouldn't call the 16 processor area a disadvantage for AMD at all. As I said, the eight processor arena should also be fine for AMD, just it will probably have four sockets instead of Intel's two. Again, their system architecture gives them a big advantage in having eight cores on four sockets, whereas Intel's doesn't so it doesn't make much sense for them. Case in point, AMD's 4 x 4 or whatever stupid name they have.

    Also keep in mid that people that buy servers like to think ahead, and in a general sense you'd prefer your servers to be as similar as possible. I really like Intel solutions because their chipsets and motherboards are excellent quality, and I don't like to buy AMD anymore because I hate NVIDIA chipsets, and I don't trust ATI yet (they always seem late, slow and lacking features), but AMD's system architecture is so much better for four socket solutions, I can't see buying Intel now or in the near future. A lot of people buying servers, or planning to (as is most often the case) may look at see the Barcelona is a little slow right now, but Intel's solution is slow for quite some time; AMD should solve their clock speed problem well before Intel solves their system architecture problem.

    I don't think this is a big deal. I think it's a big deal only in the sense that it seems that nothing AMD can do right now works, and everything gets blown out of proportion because it's always gloom and doom with this company. It's a real concern, of course, when a company has nothing but bad news, but I don't think this particular problem is really huge like it might initially seem. The constant problems though, when added up, surely do present a pretty bleak picture. But it wasn't that long ago Intel was making mistake after mistake. The difference is, everyone knew Intel would come out of it because they have so much talent and ability, but AMD is much smaller, so it's a bit scarier. But, remember, they have IBM on their side with manufacturing, and that should help.
  • CyberHawk - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    True!

    But, with all said, and all the unofficial benchmarks out there I also expected some real numbers. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer.
    With AMD pricing right now we do not have to worry. I hope that it turns out well, it is not a no-go situation.
  • Gary Key - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    quote:

    But, with all said, and all the unofficial benchmarks out there I also expected some real numbers. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer.


    We tried/completed close to 30 benchmarks on an early 2P system but the results just were not good but this was based on a very early BIOS release. While we wanted to print real benchmarks, the numbers would not have meant anything considering the early BIOS issues. Hopefully, over the course of the next couple of weeks we should see tremendous progress being made in the BIOS tuning efforts.

    The limited demos that AMD's partners showed during Computex were on a 1P system also, we had the same results with two benchmarks that ran without issue but felt like since Barcelona is destined for the server market that 2P results would have been more meaningful. What was more telling than our early benchmarks was just the fact that the platform is not ready yet. A fact that really floored us considering all of the press information about AMD being on schedule. While we feel confident that AMD could meet a limited (as in very limited) late July roll out of Barcelona, until core speeds improve, we do not see this as being beneficial except from a PR viewpoint. However, maybe that is what AMD really needs at this point until volume shipments are occurring. :)
  • Kooky Krusher - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    Ok, so I started reading this article in hopes that there would be some glimmer of light for Barcelona, but I was saddened by the fact that there just isn't any...yet. I'm not big on placing myself in any one chip maker's camp, but man! AMD can't buy good PR right now. At least abit and shuttle made me smile. As an SFF builder and absolute NUT, I'm happy about any kind of matx/SFF news.
  • erwos - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    I agree - I'm drooling at the idea of stashing one of those Hitachi combo drives into an SX38P3.

    Let us not even speak of the debacle that is Barcelona and the HD 2900XT. Just not AMD's year, it seems.
  • Bjoern77 - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link

    right now i'm more worried about the lack of competition in the video card market. the r600 more or less failed to deliver, therefor nvidea keeps the price up. Especially the dx10 mid/lowrange price/performance sucks. Especially if you want to build a new pc now, cpu/memory/storage is so damn cheap, but a suitable gpu...ok, and than i can start to worry about BArcelona again, because if it fails cheap cpus will be history for a while.
  • neweggster - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link

    True but look at it this way, by the time Dx10 becomes a major part of the gaming market share you will start to see an even battle between Nvidia and ATI. So for now any midrange card will suffice for Dx9 gaming, a 7600gt runs really great for the price right now for a midrange offering. Just because the GPU and memory gets faster doesn't mean the performance gap increases enough to make older models obsolete from being defined as midranged or whatever.

    You can still add 10 new models with all progressively increased performance and a older video card models will still be considered midranged. Take into consideration current game performance, across the board a 7600gt will still be midrange to me for years to come till we start seeing DX10 games dominating the market where the high end cards start to define the gap in performance vs models.

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