# AMD Gives Bulldozer 6-core a Speed-Bump with FX-6200



## btarunr (Dec 14, 2011)

AMD launched its AMD FX processor family with two eight-core parts (FX-8150, FX-8120), a six-core part (FX-6100), and a quad-core one (FX-4100), apparently a newer, slightly faster six-core FX processor is just around the corner, the FX-6200. Since all AMD FX processors are unlocked out of the box, the FX-6200 is essentially a speed-bump. Out of the box, it is clocked at 3.80 GHz, with 4.10 GHz maximum TurboCore speed. It features six cores, 6 MB total L2 cache, and 8 MB total L3 cache. Its TDP is rated at 125W. In a presentation to retailers sourced by DonanimHaber, AMD pitched the FX-6200 to have about 10% higher performance at Mainconcept HD to Flash conversion, than the FX-6100 (3.30 GHz nominal, 3.90 GHz max. turbo). 





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Athlon2K15 (Dec 14, 2011)

Quite a bump considering model numbers


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## mayankleoboy1 (Dec 14, 2011)

*bump*

yeah.
was expecting something like 100mhz and meh performance increase.
but a 3.8 ghz is great


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## entropy13 (Dec 14, 2011)

How much? $170? $175? $180?


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## RejZoR (Dec 14, 2011)

I'm not gonna mock at AMD, i wish they'd get a breakthrough. We need a good battle between both rivals so prices go down. All for the benefit of us, the users.


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## bacan (Dec 14, 2011)

It is strange that it's called model FX-6200 instead of FX-6120. Could this be the first stepping OR-B3 CPU?


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## dj-electric (Dec 14, 2011)

DonanimHaber, you have proven to be trustworthy. Today (for some reason i can't explain :X) you bought my trust


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## GenTarkin (Dec 14, 2011)

Would be nice if it was B3 but at same time, if its B3 and released as a 125watt part, that doesnt say much for their process refinement =/


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## repman244 (Dec 14, 2011)

The 6100 has a TDP of 95W, this 6200 has a TDP of 125W. So I guess the process didn't improve much...


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## Zubasa (Dec 14, 2011)

repman244 said:


> The 6100 has a TDP of 95W, this 6200 has a TDP of 125W. So I guess the process didn't improve much...


What you need to consider is that everything 96W and up must be marked with the 125W TDP envelope.
So we really don't know how much more power does it use with a ~15% clock increase.
So until a full review is up we won't know if there are any improvements.


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## btarunr (Dec 14, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> how much? $170? $175? $180?



$175.


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## CDdude55 (Dec 14, 2011)

A 500MHz increase over the FX 6100 and 4GHz+ turbo is great, but still not significant enough for me to consider going BD just yet. A lot needs to improve.


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## Zubasa (Dec 14, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> A 500MHz increase over the FX 6100 and 4GHz+ turbo is great, but still not significant enough for me to consider going BD just yet. A lot needs to improve.


I guess at lease for people that don't OC, The FX-6200 should be a worthy replacement for the PII X6s, so they don't have to find the older products.


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## AphexDreamer (Dec 14, 2011)

I'm loving my BD at 4.5Ghz with 6 cores. 
I think I can take it to 5Ghz with 4 core but haven't messed around a lot in that department.


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## Zubasa (Dec 14, 2011)

AphexDreamer said:


> I'm loving my BD at 4.5Ghz with 6 cores.
> I think I can take it to 5Ghz with 4 core but haven't messed around a lot in that department.


Might as well grab the 4100, those overclock very well and is quite cheap.
I am half tempted to grab one to play around with it if there they release a FX-4200.


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## AphexDreamer (Dec 14, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> Might as well grab the 4100, those overclock very well and is quite cheap.
> I am half tempted to grab one to play around with it if there they release a FX-4200.



Sure, if I didn't pay $100 for mine during Black Friday.


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## CDdude55 (Dec 14, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> The FX-6200 should be a worthy replacement for the PII X6s, so they don't have to find the older products.



I agree that as the Phenom II's are phased out these chips will be seen as a good replacement, granted, they do not perform very well compared to the current Phenom II X6 chips you'd be better off sticking with an overclocked Phenom II chip then going over to BD if possible, i think these are good ''last resort'' chips.


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## EpicShweetness (Dec 14, 2011)

Amazing a 6 core 125watt 3.8GHz CPU competing with a 4 core 95 watt 3.1GHz CPU 
Seriously its not a bad product, just as a "high performance" product it's kinda a joke.

Is it me or is K10.5 "Stars" the best core/watt/performance they've made?


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## pantherx12 (Dec 14, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> I agree that as the Phenom II's are phased out these chips will be seen as a good replacement, granted, they do not perform very well compared to the current Phenom II X6 chips you'd be better off sticking with an overclocked Phenom II chip then going over to BD if possible, i think these are good ''last resort'' chips.



There's only a 10% ipc difference betwen phenom and fx.

So my fx 8120 @ 4.4 is like a phenom x 8 ( theoretically) @ 4ghz.

That might not be true across the board but certainly in all the apps I use.

Super pi is a lot slower though  ( super pi is ancient code though)

If you have the cooling a BD chip will got a lot higher than a thurban core though.


I had a 1055t before this by the way.


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## Hustler (Dec 14, 2011)

6 cores my ass...

Try 3 cores with a pimped up AMD type hyperthreading.


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## Casecutter (Dec 14, 2011)

Well, basically matches the 1100T, shouldn't be more than $160, especially as not any better on power.  Looks like they're yields still have bad core/modules, but might have more faith in raising the frequency, can’t say it from any real process improvements just have attained more confidence.  I don’t see them given any BD anything like B2 stepping improvements, they leave that all for Piledrivers’ glory.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 14, 2011)

Releasing higher clocked processors is pointless on a product line that has fully unlocked multipliers, unless this is a revision, and I don't think it is.


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## CDdude55 (Dec 14, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> There's only a 10% ipc difference betwen phenom and fx.
> 
> So my fx 8120 @ 4.4 is like a phenom x 8 ( theoretically) @ 4ghz.
> 
> ...




It's definitely a case by case thing, an FX 8150/8120 does excel by a pretty good margin in software that will put the extra cores/threads to use as expected. I don't see how it's a good thing to say that it's practically like a Phenom with 8 cores though when clocked higher, as doesn't that still indicate that you'd be better off with a Phenom II chip if you don't use heavily threaded software?, so what would justify going with BD?


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> There's only a 10% ipc difference betwen phenom and fx.
> 
> So my fx 8120 @ 4.4 is like a phenom x 8 ( theoretically) @ 4ghz.



It doesn't quite work like that.

Yes, Bulldozer has 8 "cores", but it shares a lot of resources between them. So, in workloads reliant on those shared resources, it'll perform like a quad. This is why you see Phenom x6 beating it in some threaded applications. In workloads that aren't so reliant on those shared resources, or that are a bit more balanced (e.g. real world multitasking), BD can start to behave more like an 8 core. However, the end result in benchmarks is the power consumption of an 8 core and often the performance of a hyperthreaded quad, and a lot of the bad press on launch was because of this.

Also, while you might be right about the IPC, it remains the case that for whatever reason BD's single threaded performance, clock for clock, is diabolical in certain programs.

If you forced me to buy an AMD rig tomorrow, I'd definitley go Phenom II - pretty much everything I do is limited by per-core performance. What I'd really like though (what I'd go out and buy voluntarily, in fact) is a 32nm Phenom.


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## EastCoasthandle (Dec 14, 2011)

Benchmarks??


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## pantherx12 (Dec 14, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> It's definitely a case by case thing, an FX 8150/8120 does excel by a pretty good margin in software that will put the extra cores/threads to use as expected. I don't see how it's a good thing to say that it's practically like a Phenom with 8 cores though when clocked higher, as doesn't that still indicate that you'd be better off with a Phenom II chip if you don't use heavily threaded software?, so what would justify going with BD?



Well depends how in to over-clocking you are. 

Like I said by IPC matches a phenom @ 4ghz ( cept in some older software) 

If I ran 1.45 volts through this chip I could probably hit 5ghz a good phenom can maybe get to 4.5 so again single core performance ends up the same but with 2 extra cores.

You have to bare in mind an 8120 is 20-30 pound more than a 1100t, for it's price it does perfectly.

The 8150 is completely waste of time though 



"Yes, Bulldozer has 8 "cores", but it shares a lot of resources between them. So, in workloads reliant on those shared resources, it'll perform like a quad. This is why you see Phenom x6 beating it in some threaded applications. In workloads that aren't so reliant on those shared resources, or that are a bit more balanced (e.g. real world multitasking), BD can start to behave more like an 8 core. However, the end result in benchmarks is the power consumption of an 8 core and often the performance of a hyperthreaded quad, and a lot of the bad press on launch was because of this.
"

Can you give me a few examples please, I'd like to try it out 

It certainly doesn't effect cine-bench ( I can disable one core per module with my motherboard and it didn't really make a difference compared to disabling the last 2 modules)

But if you name what software is effected I can try and see if it really doesn't get an extra performance from those  extra cores.


I think people forget that two extra cores( over a phenomx6) doesn't necessarily mean 33% extra performance.

Like going from single to dual didn't give us the 100% boost people would of expected.


Now just to before I get barrages of " fan boy" If I was doing this build from scratch I would go with a 2600k set up.

How ever I already had the 990fxa board so went with BD. But compared to my 1055t most things are quite a lot quicker .


For example you would expect a 50 performance difference between a phenom 965 and 1100t stock at cinebench, but the actual performance difference is closer to 28% .


It seems the hype killed these chips more then anything else.


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## laszlo (Dec 14, 2011)

can we call this chip "sexdozer" ?


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## Assimilator (Dec 14, 2011)

I wonder if this is a harvested FX-8xxx, would explain the TDP increase over the 6100.


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## Fx (Dec 14, 2011)

CDdude55 said:


> A 500MHz increase over the FX 6100 and 4GHz+ turbo is great, but still not significant enough for me to consider going BD just yet. A lot needs to improve.



I agree. I got the AM3+ mobo ready but I want more refinements before I pull the trigger


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## pantherx12 (Dec 14, 2011)

Assimilator said:


> I wonder if this is a harvested FX-8xxx, would explain the TDP increase over the 6100.



The TDP increase would be from the overclocking of the exact same CPU : ]

Could be wrong, but the whole point of bulldozer is that is is a modular design so there is no more need to have disabled cores, they can simply cut them away.


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> Well depends how in to over-clocking you are.
> 
> Like I said by IPC matches a phenom @ 4ghz ( cept in some older software)
> 
> If I ran 1.45 volts through this chip I could probably hit 5ghz a good phenom can maybe get to 4.5 so again single core performance ends up the same but with 2 extra cores.



I fear you're missing the boat here to some degree. The thing is that even if you equalised per-core performance between Phenom and FX - and the FX would be drawing a lot more power, even power per core, to do so - the Phenom would still outperform it many multithreaded applications, because of the architectural bottlenecks of the FX. 



pantherx12 said:


> But if you name what software is effected I can try and see if it really doesn't get an extra performance from those  extra cores.



I've not had the chance to experiment myself, but one example of a piece of software that seems not to be held back by the architecture is this:







Notice the near excellent scaling vs. the (faster clock for clock) Phenom II.



pantherx12 said:


> I think people forget that two extra cores( over a phenomx6) doesn't necessarily mean 33% extra performance.
> 
> Like going from single to dual didn't give us the 100% boost people would of expected.
> 
> It seems the hype killed these chips more then anything else.



It's not just that two extra cores failed to mean 33% extra performance, it's that it actually meant less performance in many areas. This, as I've repeated above, is because Bulldozer "cores" are not cores in the same sense as Phenom cores. You could just as easily call it a quad core in which each core has two of some things.

The hype definitely was a big mistake by AMD - this should have been promoted as a budget multitasking chip. I think what really killed it, though, was the single-threaded performance and single-threaded performance per watt. Too much of what we do is still dependent on this. 

There's also an issue (fixed in Windows 8 iirc) with how Windows assigns tasks to cores. If you have a dual-threaded task, for example, Windows may well send it to cores 0 and 1 of a Bulldozer CPU - because it sees it as a regular 8 core. But depending on the application, performance could sometimes be almost doubled by sending that task to cores on different modules, such as 0 and 2. Tests in Windows 8 show BD close the gap on but not catch up with SB.


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## Casecutter (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> Yes, Bulldozer has 8 "cores", but it shares a lot of resources between them. So, in workloads reliant on those shared resources, it'll perform like a quad.


That's where the Windows 8 scheduler would add benefits, it suppose to break those packets and provide them to the modules in improved sequencing, the module has only to point the packet to the next "core" that will be ready.


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## Super XP (Dec 14, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> Might as well grab the 4100, those overclock very well and is quite cheap.
> I am half tempted to grab one to play around with it if there they release a FX-4200.


Don't quote me but within my Crosshair V bios there is a setting where you can enable "Core-Unlocking". The thing is can you unlock extra cores within the FX-4100? Some already claim they've unlocked cores with the ASUS Sabertooth mobo that has almost the same bios as the Crosshair V. 

Anyhow nice speed bump from FX-6100 to FX-6200. Though it does sound odd that they didn't name it the FX-6120/6150. I believe the FX-**70 and FX-**90 are reserved for clock speeds higher than 4GHz such as the upcoming FX-4170 @ 4.20GHz, FX-8170 @ 4.00GHz and FX-8190 @ 4.60 GHz at stock speeds.


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

Casecutter said:


> That's where the Windows 8 scheduler would add benefits, it suppose to break those packets and provide them to the modules in improved sequencing, the module has only to point the packet to the next "core" that will be ready.



You replied while I was typing, see above 

Even with this problem resolved, SB still leaves BD in the dust.


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## Super XP (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> You replied while I was typing, see above
> Even with this problem resolved, SB still leaves BD in the dust.
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/310588/original/win 8 wow 2560.png





blibba said:


> There's also an issue (fixed in Windows 8 iirc) with how Windows assigns tasks to cores. If you have a dual-threaded task, for example, Windows may well send it to cores 0 and 1 of a Bulldozer CPU - because it sees it as a regular 8 core. But depending on the application, performance could sometimes be almost doubled by sending that task to cores on different modules, such as 0 and 2. Tests in Windows 8 show BD close the gap on but not catch up with SB.


It's because todays Bulldozer requires a lot more refining and tuning. Hopefully the upcoming Piledriver cores also called Enhanced Bulldozer resolved these issues. For today's Bulldozer AMD will have to jack up the clock speed to compensate for now. But great points nevertheless.


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## Zubasa (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> You replied while I was typing, see above
> 
> Even with this problem resolved, SB still leaves BD in the dust.
> 
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/310588/original/win 8 wow 2560.png


Funny that you use a 7 year old game that only have 2 main threads on an 8-core CPU build for multitasking 
Anyways, that does show a 10% increase in performance.


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## Casecutter (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> Even with this problem resolved, SB still leaves BD in the dust.


Well, that's about a 12% increase just from Win8 while not a big thing it Free! 

Then another 20% get to SB... but yes they’re playing catch-up to IB. Although, I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea they have to beat Intel in every B-M to be taken seriously, as long as the CPU/Mobo are priced right and available they' stay in the game.


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## St.Alia-Of-The-Knife (Dec 14, 2011)

A speed-bump or a speed bump


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> Funny that you use a 7 year old game that only have 2 main threads on an 8-core CPU build for multitasking



Colossal missing of the point in evidence.

I used that benchmark PRECISELY FOR THAT REASON. Using an 8-threaded application clearly would not demonstrate this effect at all, but that's not all that significant as so few applications are optimised for 8 cores. The 10% performance boost is a best case scenario. It's explained in my post above and in the TH article, I cannot be bothered to go over it again for your benefit.


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## Dent1 (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> You replied while I was typing, see above
> 
> Even with this problem resolved, SB still leaves BD in the dust.
> 
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/N/G/310588/original/win 8 wow 2560.png



Yes but how many gamers whom are serious about high end hardware play World of Warcraft - Not a lot!  Warcraft users are generally laptop users or have mainstream hardware i.e. integrated GPU and a Atom CPU.  So this benchmark is moot really.

If you want to turn this into a benchmark contest, we can post images of multi threaded games and applications leaving "SB still leaves BD in the dust".  - But that would be immature. You agree


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## repman244 (Dec 14, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> What you need to consider is that everything 96W and up must be marked with the 125W TDP envelope.
> So we really don't know how much more power does it use with a ~15% clock increase.
> So until a full review is up we won't know if there are any improvements.



You are correct I totally forgot about that.

What we need from Bulldozer or better yet, from Piledriver is at least 5% higher IPC and lower power consumption...for a start. If Piledriver doesn't deliver AMD will fall even further behind Intel, since IB is suposed to have ~8% higher IPC than SB.


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> Yes but how many gamers whom are serious about high end hardware play World of Warcraft - Not a lot!  Warcraft users are generally laptop users or have mainstream hardware i.e. integrated GPU and a Atom CPU.  So this benchmark is moot really.



Fail.

The point is that (insert any 2-6 core optimised workload here) can perform noticeably better on BD with Windows 8 than with Windows 7, because of how Windows 7 sees it as a "full" 8 core. 

If you look at the TH article, or go google "Windows 8 Bulldozer benchmark" (without the quotation marks of course) you can see plenty of other applications showing similar effects.


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## Dent1 (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> Fail.
> 
> The point is that (insert any 2-6 core optimised workload here) can perform noticeably better on BD with Windows 8 than with Windows 7, because of how Windows 7 sees it as a "full" 8 core.
> 
> If you look at the TH article, or go google "Windows 8 Bulldozer benchmark" (without the quotation marks of course) you can see plenty of other applications showing similar effects.



Maybe so, not getting into Windows 7 vs Windows 8. I'm not talking about that.

I think you are reaching, I fail to see what Bulldozer's performance has to do with World of War Craft Cataclysm, and why WWCC is even cared about in the enthusiast community.


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## suraswami (Dec 14, 2011)

FX-6200 Rename to Pentium IV FX Extreme 6200?

Seems like Chief design Engineer from P IV got fired and got hired to design the FX line


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## xenocide (Dec 14, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> I think you are reaching, I fail to see what Bulldozer's performance has to do with World of War Craft Cataclysm, and why WWCC is even cared about in the enthusiast community.



Cataclysm is a very CPU-bound game.  The difference between a Athlon X2 and a Phenom II X4 is very noticeable as such, so people use it to compare CPU performance since you can get valid observable results.  From my own personal experience, going from an overclocked Q6600 to a stock i5-2500k, with the same GPU resulted in double the frame rate.


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## BeepBeep2 (Dec 14, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> There's only a 10% ipc difference betwen phenom and fx.
> 
> So my fx 8120 @ 4.4 is like a phenom x 8 ( theoretically) @ 4ghz.
> 
> ...


No, the IPC difference is 20-30% depending on what you app are running. The good thing is that you can clock it 10-15% higher and MT apps improve overall over the old architecture.
Your 8120 @ 4.4 is like a Phenom II X6 @ 4 Ghz when apps use all of its cores.


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## antuk15 (Dec 14, 2011)

Speed bump and yet would still get hammered by a low-end SB powered CPU..


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> Maybe so, not getting into Windows 7 vs Windows 8. I'm not talking about that.



No, I'm not interested in a Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 debate either. I'm just using the example to explain and demonstrate one of Bulldozer's performance issues.



Dent1 said:


> I think you are reaching, I fail to see what Bulldozer's performance has to do with World of War Craft Cataclysm, and why WWCC is even cared about in the enthusiast community.



You don't think I am reaching? I don't understand.

It's not that Bulldozer's performance is somehow related to WoW:C. I don't see how that point is relevant or interesting, though.

I certainly don't care about WoW:C, but, as explained above, it's an excellent way of comparing and analysing how CPUs deal with applications optimised for two cores (which is a LOT of applications and games right now).


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## seronx (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> The point is that (insert any 2-6 core optimised workload here) can perform noticeably better on BD with Windows 8 than with Windows 7, because of how Windows 7 sees it as a "full" 8 core.



Bulldozer will run the same as Windows 7 as it will in Windows 8

The flaw of Tom's Hardware guide is the implications not noted

Windows 7:
Both Cores in a module being used
Core A1 <-- 30-50 ns --> Core A2

Windows 8:
Two different cores in two differnt modules being used
Core A2 <-- 100-200 ns --> Core B2

The only reason Windows 8 is showing an increase is because World of Warcraft is optimized for Intel Architectures where the decoders are an odd number
Intel Sandy Bridge, Nehalem can have 5 macro-op decodes(3 simple, 1 complex)

While Bulldozer 1 module can decode 8 macro-ops, 4 per core... meaning for Bulldozer to have relatively the same performance it will need a uops cache and 6 decoders to have perfect alignment with code in World of Warcraft...because you will have a bleed of 2 macro-ops with World of Warcraft unless Blizzard recodes the game for AMD FX

What is Interesting is the benchmark that is on the front page is single threaded

4.1 GHz / ~17 = .2412 x 14 = 3.4GHz

i5 2400 = 3.4GHz single core turbo
FX-6200 = 4.1GHz single core turbo
meaning that Bulldozer has a 16-17 stage pipeline compared to Sandy Bridges 14 stage pipeline


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

seronx said:


> Bulldozer will run the same as Windows 7 as it will in Windows 8...
> 
> The only reason Windows 8 is showing an increase is because World of Warcraft is optimized for Intel Architectures ...



Your reasoning is flawed. World of Warcraft does not suddenly become optimised for AMD FX when you run it in Windows 8. The game is the same. As such, the game's being optimised for Intel does not explain the performance gap between Windows 7 with BD and Windows 8 with BD. Furthermore, you do nothing to refute the generally accepted explanation for this phenomenon. That said, if you can provide a valid argument, or better still a credible source boasting one, I'd be very interested.

Until then, I think we're better off with the generally accepted explanation, which is that in treating BD CPUs as "normal" 8-cores, Windows 7 isn't (yet) understanding the Bulldozer architecture properly.


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## seronx (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> Your reasoning is flawed. World of Warcraft does not suddenly become optimised for AMD FX when you run it in Windows 8. The game is the same. As such, the game's being optimised for Intel does not explain the performance gap between Windows 7 with BD and Windows 8 with BD. Furthermore, you do nothing to refute the generally accepted explanation for this phenomenon. That said, if you can provide a valid argument, or better still a credible source boasting one, I'd be very interested.



Your ideology is flawed

Two modules has a peak throughput of sixteen macro-ops much more than the eight macro-ops of one module

When two modules are used you have a higher throughput thus seemingly higher FPS but you then get blockade by the slowest cache



blibba said:


> Until then, I think we're better off with the generally accepted explanation, which is that in treating BD CPUs as "normal" 8-cores, Windows 7 isn't (yet) understanding the Bulldozer architecture properly.



Windows 7 sees Bulldozer correctly it has 8 normal cores

Windows 8 will just fix the problem of legacy programs show when a new architecture is introduced that changes the number of decoders

A normal core is registers to ALU clusters
Bulldozer has 8 individual registers to 8 ALU Clusters thus can be called 8 physical cores
Sandy Bridge has 8 registers that have pairs shared to 4 ALU Clusters thus can be called 4 physical cores

Other than that you can go by Database licensing which concludes the amount of cores being the amount of logical cores thus Bulldozer is 8 cores and Sandy Bridge is 8 cores


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

seronx said:


> Your ideology is flawed



Lol what? What exactly do you think my ideology is? How is this relevant?

In case you're confused, here's the relevant OED definition of "ideology":

"A systematic scheme of ideas, usually relating to politics, economics, or society and forming the basis of action or policy; a set of beliefs governing conduct."



seronx said:


> When two modules are used you have a higher throughput thus seemingly higher FPS but you then get blockade by the slowest cache



So do you get higher FPS, or not?



seronx said:


> Windows 7 sees Bulldozer correctly it has 8 normal cores



It has 8 "normal" cores, split into modules of two, with each module sharing a large number of resources, such that two cores from two modules have better performance in many applications than two cores from one module. Agree or disagree?



seronx said:


> Windows 8 will just fix the problem of legacy programs show when a new architecture is introduced that changes the number of decoders



Source? If so, we'd see the same performance gain from Windows 8 with Phenom II as we do with Bulldozer (when using legacy applications). Incidentally, I wouldn't describe some of the applications in which BD gets a performance boost in Windows 8 as legacy.

Also, just to zoom out a little here, is your main point that Bulldozer is just a conventional 8 core processor? If so, why does it scale so terribly in some multithreaded tasks? Everyone else's answer is shared resources between cores bottlenecking the modules, and this is backed up by AMD's own accounts of their own architecture.


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## seronx (Dec 14, 2011)

blibba said:


> So do you get higher FPS, or not?



You get higher FPS but you won't get stability if you have other modules requiring L3 Cache space, when you have two cores being used in the same module you probably won't have instability as they will only use up to the L2 cache




blibba said:


> It has 8 "normal" cores, split into modules of two, with each module sharing a large number of resources, such that two cores from two modules have better performance in many applications than two cores from one module. Agree or disagree?



Disagree

Only 20% of resources are being shared the only problem that can occur is from the code of the program not having alignment to the instruction fetch and instruction decode which will cause problems

2(New apps) vs 3(Legacy apps)
You have bleed with World of Warcraft but instant the bleed is fixed you will see higher FPS with a module vs 2 modules



blibba said:


> Source? If so, we'd see the same performance gain from Windows 8 with Phenom II as we do with Bulldozer (when using legacy applications). Incidentally, I wouldn't describe some of the applications in which BD gets a performance boost in Windows 8 as legacy.



Only applications that are legacy will see the boost...

Source still thinks Bulldozer is K10 which has 3 decoders just like Sandy Bridge pretty much
and that is what AMD is using to show of Windows 8 improvements...legacy applications..


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## blibba (Dec 14, 2011)

It doesn't matter what % of resources are being shared if they're causing the holdup. 

Furthermore, you respond to very few of my questions in a satisfactory manner - perhaps because English isn't your first language, in which case that isn't something I'd hold against you.

Because of this and because you're so massively out of kilter with what every other expert is saying (notice how I generously offer you an implied compliment there), I'm going to wait for you to back all this up with a credible source.


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## seronx (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> It doesn't matter what % of resources are being shared if they're causing the holdup.



They aren't causing a hold up...they are working properly



blibba said:


> Furthermore, you respond to very few of my questions in a satisfactory manner - perhaps because English isn't your first language, in which case that isn't something I'd hold against you.



English is my first language... This forum isn't important so I type fast and pretty much leave after thirty mins and I just finished walking the dog, doing my workout, taking out the trash, and vacuuming my house...so my arms are hurting right now



blibba said:


> Because of this and because you're so massively out of kilter with what every other expert is saying (notice how I generously offer you an implied compliment there), I'm going to wait for you to back all this up with a credible source.



http://www.amdzone.com , http://www.semiaccurate.com .

and thanks for the implied compliment

Well first off if you are getting 70 fps @ 2560x1600 .... and Windows 8 only gives you 9 fps you probably won't be able to see it since the monitor is 60Hz....

If you are waiting for Windows 8 you might as well wait for Piledriver which will have up to ~8 IPC uplift and up to ~8 Clockrate uplift(per core)


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

seronx said:


> They aren't causing a hold up...they are working properly











seronx said:


> http://www.amdzone.com , http://www.semiaccurate.com .



I said credible  Besides, you could at least link the actual articles you think disprove the Bulldozer module bottleneck theory.



seronx said:


> Well first off if you are getting 70 fps @ 2560x1600 .... and Windows 8 only gives you 9 fps you probably won't be able to see it since the monitor is 60Hz....



This isn't really the point, is it? As explained above, the point is not WoW performance, the point is that one setup is faster than another under certain (common) conditions.



seronx said:


> If you are waiting for Windows 8 you might as well wait for Piledriver which will have up to ~8 IPC uplift and up to ~8 Clockrate uplift(per core)



Me? Hell, I'm not in the market for a CPU or an operating system. Even if I was, I'd probably be looking at an i3 - in the absence of a 32nm K10 or equivalent.


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## seronx (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> I said credible  Besides, you could at least link the actual articles you think disprove the Bulldozer module bottleneck theory.



You have to look at the forums and look for several dudes they usually post past me and before me...



blibba said:


> This isn't really the point, is it? As explained above, the point is not WoW performance, the point is that one setup is faster than another under certain (common) conditions.



Well again completing something in 20 seconds(2M/2C) or completing something in 22 seconds(1M/2C) is relatively unimportant when the guy making the application which has something complete in 20 seconds or 22 seconds to optimize his application for Bulldozer and make the unknown but common workload complete in 18 seconds(1M/2C) is more worth while than saying because CMT is a balanced design we have to go back to CMP which is a over provisioned design and will run slightly better than a balanced design because there is more resources in a over provisioned design.



blibba said:


> Me? Hell, I'm not in the market for a CPU or an operating system. Even if I was, I'd probably be looking at an i3 - in the absence of a 32nm K10 or equivalent.



32nm K10 is Llano...and it has a better GPU than the i3....


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

seronx said:


> 32nm K10 is Llano...and it has a better GPU than the i3....



Aye, but it's not really a good successor to the Phenom II - it's aimed at a different market, and you can see that from the platform, too.

Also, I don't want to pay more than I have to for an integrated GPU I'll never use.

What I really meant is a Phenom II 32nm for the AM3+ platform.

As it happens, I run a C2D and an HD6850 (I won both or I'd have older hardware), and I play all the new games I want to maxed out at 2048*1152, and that's the only demanding thing my PC ever does. So, if I was to be forced to replace it, I'd just want a PC that does all the same as cheaply as possible (idle power consumption being a factor in cost). That probably means picking up an £80 GTX460 or equivalent and an i3, atm. This post is seriously off topic, though


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## seronx (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> What I really meant is a Phenom II 32nm for the AM3+ platform.



Well Phenom II 32nm 8C on the AM3+ will be 2x slower than Sandy Bridge 4C in single thread workloads and 2x slower than Sandy Bridge-E 8C in multithread

Orochi-FX at least gets near the 4C in single thread I think it is more around 1.3-1.5x and multithread is about 1.6-1.75x

---
I forgot to mention this but FX-6100 -> FX-6200 is completely going to bug me out...(one day seronx will check newegg and see 6200 PILEDRIVER OUT NOW?! oh wait it is just that processor...)


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

Given that Phenom II 45nm wasn't even outperformed by 100% by SB, I don't see how you can say that Phenom II 32nm would be (I'm assuming that the jump to 32nm would yield higher clock speeds or at least better power efficiency). Current FX processors are even further behind SB in single threaded workloads (and some multi-threaded workloads) than the Phenom X6 was.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/362?vs=288

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/203?vs=434

The first link shows the top Phenom II 4C being outperformed by less than 100% by the top SB 4C/4T.

The second link shows the top Phenom II 6C outperforming Bulldozer in a few single threaded tasks and very much holding its own in many multithreaded tasks. Take a look at single threaded Cinebench, for example.


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## seronx (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> Given that Phenom II 45nm wasn't even outperformed by 100% by SB, I don't see how you can say that Phenom II 32nm would be (I'm assuming that the jump to 32nm would yield higher clock speeds or at least better power efficiency). Current FX processors are even further behind SB in single threaded workloads (and some multi-threaded workloads) than the Phenom X6 was.
> 
> http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/362?vs=288
> 
> ...



http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=363

It isn't always 2x but majority of the time you will be near 2x

Fallout 3 near 2x
WinRAR near 2x
Par2 near 2x
Blender near 2x
FLV Creation near 2x
R10 ST/MT near 2x
Adobe CS4 near 2x

Other than a lot of programs don't support FMA4/AVX/XOP "-march:bdver1" thus you aren't really seeing full IPC with Bulldozer while alot of programs show support for AVX for SB "-QxAVX"
While plenty of programs show support for /archSSE3 and /marchSSE3

Full SB, Full K10, Half BD isn't really fair game


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## etayorius (Dec 15, 2011)

I wont upgrade my PhenomII 810 to Sh*i*tDo*Z*er untill AMD hits 4Ghz without Turbo and TDP lowers just a bit.


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

seronx said:


> http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=363
> 
> It isn't always 2x but majority of the time you will be near 2x
> 
> ...



In most of those, if you look at the numbers, it's closer to 1.5x. Huge difference between that and 2x. And those are the most extreme examples. Actually, some of what you list is closer to 1.3x.



seronx said:


> Other than a lot of programs don't support FMA4/AVX/XOP "-march:bdver1" thus you aren't really seeing full IPC with Bulldozer while alot of programs show support for AVX for SB "-QxAVX"
> While plenty of programs show support for /archSSE3 and /marchSSE3
> 
> Full SB, Full K10, Half BD isn't really fair game



Well it is fair game if those are the applications that you're going to use. If my CPU is slow because software doesn't take full advantage of it, my CPU is still slow.


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## JustaTinkerer (Dec 15, 2011)

I am honesty sick BD bashing....though i keep reading, anyone running windows 8 full time? 
No....oh why is that i hear the folks calling....!
Cos its not retail and it doesnt fix s**t, BD is what it is right now live with it

I picked up my FX-8120 for £125 on sale here, no longer on sale (look hard enough) because of the reviews and bad press no doubt.
Anyone able to tell me if I can get an Intel for the same cash that does the same job.
I recode, game, compress, jeez a bit of everything?

I don't care about AMD vs Intel (last processor was a Intel) all anyone who call's themselves an overclocker should care about is price vs performance.

FX owners that adopted early I do feel for.

Windows 8 is not the FX fix, its just a pipe dream, if you think windows 8 will fix everything like a fairy godmother then you are mistaken. 
By the time it comes out retail Intel will have stepped the game up 2 levels....is FX going to "come in to its own" .....we can only wish...well cinders did get to the ball i suppose


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

JustaTinkerer said:


> Windows 8 is not the FX fix, its just a pipe dream, if you think windows 8 will fix everything like a fairy godmother then you are mistaken.



Afaik nobody thinks that.

Also, grats on the bargain. Asking others to match that is a little harsh, though.

There are Phenom II x6s and socket 1366 i7s in that price range very occasionally, both of which are comparable on performance.


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## seronx (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> In most of those, if you look at the numbers, it's closer to 1.5x. Huge difference between that and 2x. And those are the most extreme examples. Actually, some of what you list is closer to 1.3x.



You have input the Intel CPU has a longer pipeline and wins most of the time... pushing it even more towards 2x 




blibba said:


> Well it is fair game if those are the applications that you're going to use. If my CPU is slow because software doesn't take full advantage of it, my CPU is still slow.



Most applications don't care about ISAs but most benchmarks do

In most cases in the native environment some of these applications won't exist
(x87, MMX, 3dnow!, SSE(64bit) can't exist in x86-64, in x86-64 you have to use SSE2,SSE3,SSE4,SSE5(AVX+FMA+AVX2+Gather+XOP)

In most music conversion you see MMX and SSE being most used...while in 64bit applications of music conversions you see SSE4 being used the 64bit music converter is faster than the 32bit music converter but the 32bit version is still being more used...

Consumers = Relatively Stupid....in these cases

Smart Consumers like myself know to wait for applications to use the new ISAs before jumping boat or listening to non-important reviewers trying to persuade unsmart consumers in making dumb decisions


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## Mussels (Dec 15, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> What you need to consider is that everything 96W and up must be marked with the 125W TDP envelope.



thank you for pointing that out. people always think these wattage numbers are set in stone, when really its just what envelope they fit into.


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## Thefumigator (Dec 15, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> What you need to consider is that everything 96W and up must be marked with the 125W TDP envelope.
> So we really don't know how much more power does it use with a ~15% clock increase.
> So until a full review is up we won't know if there are any improvements.



Except llano, 100W



JustaTinkerer said:


> I am honesty sick BD bashing....though i keep reading, anyone running windows 8 full time?
> No....oh why is that i hear the folks calling....!
> Cos its not retail and it doesnt fix s**t, BD is what it is right now live with it
> 
> ...



The thing isn't bad, it just sells well anyway. I'm also sick of BD bashing, but hey, you have to be honest, we expected more. I actually expected to be comparable with i7, but hey its not far. Also guess what? You could get a G34 board and put a 16 core bulldozer or 12 core bulldozer, yeah, the ones appeared in newegg, 6 modules way cheaper than the 8 modules one, I'm planning building one for myself to make a heavy multitasker on the cheap. Also if the board is dual G34 you don't have to fill both sockets to make the thing run, and this is great.


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## Mussels (Dec 15, 2011)

Thefumigator said:


> Except llano, 100W



the power envelopes are set per socket. llano is FM1, bulldozer is AM3+


AM3+ follows the same wattage envelops as AM2/2+/3, which is 65, 95, 125.

if its 96W or above, it has to be specified as 125W.


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Dec 15, 2011)

seems rather pointless


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## entropy13 (Dec 15, 2011)

[H]@RD5TUFF said:


> seems rather pointless



Only in the sense of comparing them with other processor series, whether from AMD or Intel. It populates the Bulldozer line-up quite well however. It's when you go beyond them that things doesn't go "well", to put it mildly.


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## nt300 (Dec 15, 2011)

Are we finaly done with the pissing contest. Now I should get myself a 8 core Dozer.


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## DannibusX (Dec 15, 2011)




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## ViperXTR (Dec 15, 2011)

and i heard intel is outing the i5 2550K this christmas? >_>


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## Zubasa (Dec 15, 2011)

etayorius said:


> I wont upgrade my PhenomII 810 to Sh*i*tDo*Z*er untill AMD hits 4Ghz without Turbo and TDP lowers just a bit.


The FX-4100 can easily go pass 4Ghz already, it is actually a decent upgrade for the PII 810 aka C2 Phenom IIs.
Not to mention memory performance is a crap load better. The IMC on the old 810 is bottle-necking even DDR3 1600.


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## blibba (Dec 15, 2011)

seronx said:


> You have input the Intel CPU has a longer pipeline and wins most of the time... pushing it even more towards 2x



Either a CPU gives performance results 2x faster, or it doesn't. Contrary to your earlier suggestion, in the examples that you give, it doesn't. 



seronx said:


> Most applications don't care about ISAs but most benchmarks do
> 
> In most cases in the native environment some of these applications won't exist
> (x87, MMX, 3dnow!, SSE(64bit) can't exist in x86-64, in x86-64 you have to use SSE2,SSE3,SSE4,SSE5(AVX+FMA+AVX2+Gather+XOP)
> ...



Most of the most demanding programs I use (and will use I would think for at least another few years) are represented (by themselves or very similar programs) in that table.


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## fullinfusion (Dec 15, 2011)

Hustler said:


> 6 cores my ass...
> 
> Try 3 cores with a pimped up AMD type hyperthreading.


no different then Intels scotch tape method.


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## dezz (Dec 15, 2011)

blibba said:


> Yes, Bulldozer has 8 "cores", but it shares a lot of resources between them. So, in workloads reliant on those shared resources, it'll perform like a quad.


The second sentence here is not true! Yes, the 81xx has only 4 FPU's (one per module), but those FPU's has the double of resources than the old FPU's in PhII's. And the new one is more clever, as well.



> This is why you see Phenom x6 beating it in some threaded applications.



What applications are you talking about?

It's simple: BD's single core performance is worse than that of PhII's, but it has more cores. So, it performs worse in less-threaded applications and better in well-threaded ones. (In case the clocks are similar.)


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## blibba (Dec 16, 2011)

dezz said:


> What applications are you talking about?
> 
> It's simple: BD's single core performance is worse than that of PhII's, but it has more cores. So, it performs worse in less-threaded applications and better in well-threaded ones. (In case the clocks are similar.)



With clock speeds the same, there are quite a lot of multithreaded applications where BD suffers vs. Phenom x6. Even with it's clockspeed advantage, however:







Notice that this application can clearly make good use of 8 threads - the HT enabled i7 thrashes the otherwise near-identical i5.

Another example is F@H. Also, notice that Microsoft's Windows 7 patch today acknowledges this point - it makes sure that tasks are spread between BD modules to avoid bottlenecks.


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## dezz (Dec 17, 2011)

blibba said:


> Notice that this application can clearly make good use of 8 threads - the HT enabled i7 thrashes the otherwise near-identical i5.


Hmm, surprising. But I don't think it is because of shared resources, as compiling is an integer task. Of course, there is only one front-end per module, but that's not an issue in other cases. I think the cause must be the relatively slow caches.



> Another example is F@H.


Hmm, even more surprising, as F@H is floating-point intensive, where the BD is not bad at, otherways. Probably it's the caches, again.



> Also, notice that Microsoft's Windows 7 patch today acknowledges this point - it makes sure that tasks are spread between BD modules to avoid bottlenecks.


We don't yet know what that patch does. Some say it's indeed packs the threads on as lesser the number of modules as it can to allow Max. Turbo Core to kick in more frequently. (Which would be a bad idea, I think, as there is more to gain with utilizing only one core per module, in case of only a few active threads.)


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