Thursday, December 15th 2011

AMD 'Bulldozer' gets an Update from Microsoft.

Today Windows updater may have brought "Bulldozer" users a little surprise. A hotfix that increases the AMD flagship processors performance. As this "hotfix" is bleeding edge news any benchmarks have yet to be seen but this confirms Windows 7 was in fact hampering "Bulldozer" from performing at 100% in all prior benches. What percentage it was previously performing at has yet to be determined. Here is a small snippet from the Hotfix release notes.
This article introduces an update that optimizes the performance of AMD Bulldozer CPUs that are used by Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computers. Currently, the performance of AMD Bulldozer CPUs is slower than expected. This behavior occurs because the threading logic in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 is not optimized to use the Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) scheduling feature. This feature was introduced in the Bulldozer family of AMD CPUs.
You can download the Hotfix here.
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139 Comments on AMD 'Bulldozer' gets an Update from Microsoft.

#26
riska
Yeah i now but wy have my winrar score nearly halved
Posted on Reply
#27
nt300
Sorry but I thought you guys aready know this?
For example, in testing by AMD with the AMD FX-8150, we are seeing up to 10% uplift on a number of games with the Windows 8 Developer Preview compared to Windows® 7. Of course, results do vary.
We are also working with Microsoft on a scheduler update for Windows 7 that will be available soon.
Tuesday , November 29, 2011
www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/29/hardocp_readers_ask_amd_bulldozer_questions/2

Good news for our Bulldozer Pals :toast:
Posted on Reply
#29
cadaveca
My name is Dave
nt300Sorry but I thought you guys aready know this?


Tuesday , November 29, 2011
www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/29/hardocp_readers_ask_amd_bulldozer_questions/2

Good news for our Bulldozer Pals :toast:
Yeah, that was two weeks ago, and now the patch is here. The patch itself was released yesterday.
dezzThis fix is for improving less-threaded application performance (like f.ex. games)!
No wonder it has no effect on CineBench@8 threads.
I'm not surprised that multi-threaded apps son't show much if any benefit. As far as I understand it, the behavior noticed in the FX Overclocknig thread here on TPU, with not all cores scaling up in frequency, is Bulldozer's default behavior. This behavior, without the scheduler update, had some threads running on the lower-speed cores instead of forcing them on the high-speed threads, affecting end results. The patch should have apps like games, that are not using the CPU fully, running on the faster cores when possible.
Posted on Reply
#30
JustaTinkerer
must be something wrong with my install, ran my benchmarks, applied hotfix and windows crashed hard, safemode, and restore fixed it , redownloaded hot fix same again.

Before anyone asks, Retail copy win 7 x64 ultimate, fully updated.
Posted on Reply
#31
TheMailMan78
Big Member
As for this new performance increase I suspect its only for situational issues.
Posted on Reply
#32
MegaMan
I will install after it has been fully tested.
Posted on Reply
#34
pantherx12
Right so my multithreaded performance has gone down, how ever I've had a 7.6% increase in cinebench single core performance.

Will try more benchmarks.
Posted on Reply
#35
JustaTinkerer
riskaYeah i now but wy have my winrar score nearly halved
And what was the score after?
Posted on Reply
#36
_JP_
By this time, AMD could have made a driver like they did for the Athlon 64 x2, when Windows XP SP2, at the time, couldn't use the two cores effectively.




He's in the news business now?


Not questioning your news writing skills big guy! :toast:
Actually, thank you for the heads up!
Posted on Reply
#37
qubit
Overclocked quantum bit
So it looks like the mythical Windows speedboost for BD was real after all. If the boost is something worthwhile, then this is excellent news all round, as Intel is gonna get some much needed competition - it doesn't matter which brand one prefers to buy.
TheMailMan78Sometimes.......just sometimes WE ARE THE ARTICLE YO!
+1 and welcome back. :toast:
Posted on Reply
#38
TheMailMan78
Big Member
qubitSo it looks like the mythical Windows speedboost for BD was real after all. If the boost is something worthwhile, then this is excellent news all round, as Intel is gonna get some much needed competition - it doesn't matter which brand one prefers to buy.



+1 and welcome back. :toast:
It was never mythical. Some people just love to post negativity and don't have a real grasp on the facts.

And thank you.
Posted on Reply
#39
PolRoger
I seem to be getting the ~same/similar score for Cinebench 11.5 (multi cpu) after updating to the hotfix.

Orange is after updating the hot fix... Blue is before:
Posted on Reply
#41
JustaTinkerer
TheMailMan78It was never mythical. Some people just love to post negativity and don't have a real grasp on the facts.

And thank you.
When I frist heard about it I dismissed it, "some group had found it was a scheduler issue, found a fix that improved some benchmarks by upto 10%"

No more details were given, sounded a little mythical to me.

I will find out myself and share but need to get my install fixed as it keeps crashing out on the update.

The desktop is almost done re installing and then...updates then later tonight I will post as many benchmarks as I can find.
Posted on Reply
#42
shb-
This changes almost nothing. You cant affect buldys weak IPC. Yes, multithreaded apps will benefit from this, but most important thing remains - with 4 threads active, buldy wont beat similarly clocked X4 phenom. So these are good news for server farm owners and other pros, gamers wont feel a thing.
Posted on Reply
#43
TheoneandonlyMrK
roll on the 21st i was ponderin a 960T but this'll swing me in the 8120's direction , good news by the way, a very good first show their MM
Posted on Reply
#44
pantherx12
If anyone does spot any noticeable improvements please let me know.

Turbo still doesn't work properly. With my set up.
Posted on Reply
#45
PolRoger
pantherx12Can you try running cinebench on four threads ?

This patch fixes scheduling ( I.E when using 4 threads it will use one core per module rather tahn the first two modules)
I could... but I don't have any Cinebench runs saved from before the hot fix (4 threads) to compare it with?
Posted on Reply
#46
pantherx12
PolRogerI could... but I don't have any Cinebench runs saved from before the hot fix (4 threads) to compare it with?
Ahhh not to worry then, but yeah this shouldn't really affect things that use 8 threads ( although it has, and negatively for me) will mostly improve single/dual/tri and quad threaded applications.

Or general system smoothness.
Posted on Reply
#47
Zubasa
shb-This changes almost nothing. You cant affect buldys weak IPC. Yes, multithreaded apps will benefit from this, but most important thing remains - with 4 threads active, buldy wont beat similarly clocked X4 phenom. So these are good news for server farm owners and other pros, gamers wont feel a thing.
You don't seems to understand what this patch is about. :slap:
This patch increase exactly what gamers care about, which is lightly thread performance.
Posted on Reply
#48
pantherx12
Right I've rerun cinebench a whole bunch of times now (8 threads)

And I have definitely lost performance since this patch, it's only a 1.1% difference but that's a difference of

7.35 prepatch to 7.21 after patch.

Could disappoint bench markers.
Posted on Reply
#49
Super XP
qubitSo it looks like the mythical Windows speedboost for BD was real after all. If the boost is something worthwhile, then this is excellent news all round, as Intel is gonna get some much needed competition - it doesn't matter which brand one prefers to buy.

+1 and welcome back. :toast:
You can all thank me for spreading this wonderful rumour which I knew was true, but many did not believe me including the Knight Rider Moderator :p

Anyhow expect a 12% to 20% CPU usage increase via Skyrim, though not sure about performance yet until I get my H100 back from the shop.
Posted on Reply
#50
erocker
*
Super XPYou can all thank me for spreading this wonderful rumour which I knew was true, but many did not believe me including the Knight Rider Moderator :p

Anyhow expect a 12% to 20% CPU usage increase via Skyrim, though not sure about performance yet until I get my H100 back from the shop.
Lol, show me results. :rolleyes: Update or not, I'll still take the less expensive, yet more powerful, yet less power consuming chip over BD.

Hopefully this patch will at least help those who are suffering from random, unwarranted BSOD's.
Posted on Reply
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