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.

#126
TheoneandonlyMrK
anyone gona start jumping on MS's head now then(hang on stupid? theirs linux fanboys too)

yet another fiasco though, whos running these firms at all have the chimps taken over or something.

im on the edge of not buying anything here and just waitin till the jan sales, i would deff do that but my stand in pc, no game and i mean No game
BenetanegiaBut to add some spice, NO not all hardware causes BSODs. I have a SB and never had a BSOD and prior to that I had a Core2 and never had a BSOD. And before that I had an AMD64 X2 and never had a BSOD. What is this BSOD thing we are talking about anyway? It does not exist clearly.
come on man really never a bsod i have allways gone legit on os and didnt allways oc but ive allways seen a few bsod on every pc ive touched ie mams cousins etc etc either your fibbin or your not pushing hard enough, are you Just typein on it?:p

or do i have magic crash hands:wtf:
Posted on Reply
#128
15th Warlock
theoneandonlymrkwww.guru3d.com/news/amd-bulldozer-hotfix-from-microsoft/


many benches shown before and after sorry for dp , sort of bump
1% in applications and synthetic benchmarks, less than one percent in games... Granted they only tested a few games, results don't seem too promising though; well, will wait for the big boys to post their results :)

I've said before, and will say it once again, there's no sense in beating a dead horse, let's wait for AMD to release pile driver and improve the architecture, a software patch won't fix the performance of a proc that was 5 years in development...
Posted on Reply
#129
Benetanegia
theoneandonlymrkcome on man really never a bsod i have allways gone legit on os and didnt allways oc but ive allways seen a few bsod on every pc ive touched ie mams cousins etc etc either your fibbin or your not pushing hard enough, are you Just typein on it?:p

or do i have magic crash hands:wtf:
I'm sure that if you try really hard you will eventually understand sarcasm. Sheldon Cooper did it after all... (sort of)

EDIT: Never had a random BSOD with those 3 CPUs tho. And no I don't push them hard at all. 3.2 Ghz on the Core2 up from 2.4 Ghz, 2.8 Ghz on the A64 X2 up from 2.4 Ghz, and 4.2 on the SB, but I'm back to stock because really I don't need more and I rather have an ultra quiet and cool PC.

I've had many BSODs with previous CPUs, like P4, A64, Athlon XP, Sempron, Athlon Thunderbrid, PentiumII, K6-2, Pentium etc etc. But I it's more due to the OS. With XP I had very few already. With Win 7 in the 3 CPUs mentioned first, no BSOD, none at all.
Posted on Reply
#130
TheoneandonlyMrK
lucky you my pc world appears somewhat faulty now then as i can make any pc bsod with a little or lot of oc and i like to be just behind that bsod edge:)



everyone i know and Fix the pc for have a free 20-30% boost stable tho ;) as i like peace







0 most 20 now as i like peace <----wagwan my Iexplorer taken an arrow to the knee its movein stuff as i type now
Posted on Reply
#131
Super XP
15th Warlock1% in applications and synthetic benchmarks, less than one percent in games... Granted they only tested a few games, results don't seem too promising though; well, will wait for the big boys to post their results :)

I've said before, and will say it once again, there's no sense in beating a dead horse, let's wait for AMD to release pile driver and improve the architecture, a software patch won't fix the performance of a proc that was 5 years in development...
I have to disagree in a way, yes hopefully Piledriver get's tweaked to death when it gets released in Q3 2012. Anyhow you have the Windows 7 OS that does not fully understand Bulldozer and how the modules work. Obviously it's not going to perform properly. And yes a Patch can resolve this issue and perhaps give it a performance boost. Nothing dramatic, but something a little better than what see today. The fact Microsoft is talking about this is proof alone that this scheduling issue is a big problem.
Posted on Reply
#132
PopcornMachine
I don't know why anyone would release a CPU that is not fully understood by the most common OS it's going to be used with.
Posted on Reply
#133
15th Warlock
Super XPI have to disagree in a way, yes hopefully Piledriver get's tweaked to death when it gets released in Q3 2012. Anyhow you have the Windows 7 OS that does not fully understand Bulldozer and how the modules work. Obviously it's not going to perform properly. And yes a Patch can resolve this issue and perhaps give it a performance boost. Nothing dramatic, but something a little better than what see today. The fact Microsoft is talking about this is proof alone that this scheduling issue is a big problem.
Yes, you're right, there's an issue with the way Win7 schedules tasks on BD, and what better proof than this hotfix, unfortunately though, chances are we won't see a big improvement during BD's lifetime in Win7 systems, Win8 might be another story, and I think we need to move on and wait hopefuly for Piledriver to deliver, like Phenom II did, the only problem I see with this scenario is that the competition is not going to just wait for this to happen :ohwell:
Posted on Reply
#134
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
Super XPI have to disagree in a way, yes hopefully Piledriver get's tweaked to death when it gets released in Q3 2012. Anyhow you have the Windows 7 OS that does not fully understand Bulldozer and how the modules work. Obviously it's not going to perform properly. And yes a Patch can resolve this issue and perhaps give it a performance boost. Nothing dramatic, but something a little better than what see today. The fact Microsoft is talking about this is proof alone that this scheduling issue is a big problem.
But my question is should Microsoft(and other OS developers) have to redesign their schedulers to work properly with Bulldozer's Module design when the schedulers work perfectly with a proper multi-core design? Or should AMD just make a proper multi-core processor?
Posted on Reply
#135
DigitalUK
newtekie1But my question is should Microsoft(and other OS developers) have to redesign their schedulers to work properly with Bulldozer's Module design when the schedulers work perfectly with a proper multi-core design? Or should AMD just make a proper multi-core processor?
when AMD released the worlds first dual core no software used it, windows had to be patched to use it, when AMD added x64 we needed 64bit OS, same sort of thing with P4 HTT. Bulldozer is a completely new arc and AMD should be given due respect for trying something new. microsoft should never have released this patch and instead put out a statement saying yes there is a problem with win7 scheduler and an update is coming soon. makes you wonder just how well win8 preview scheduler is running with BD.

what is really strange is how M$ and AMD seem in no real hurry to fix the issue.
Posted on Reply
#136
entropy13
Update: Microsoft has apparently pulled the patch from its download servers for unspecified reasons. We'll try to post another update when we find out more.

Update II - 10:55AM: We've spoken with an industry source familiar with this situation, and it appears the release of this hotfix was either inadvertent, premature, or both. There is indeed a Bulldozer threading patch for Windows in the works, but it should come in two parts, not just one. The patch that was briefly released is only one portion of the total solution, and it may very well reduce performance if used on its own. We're hearing the full Windows update for Bulldozer performance optimization is scheduled for release in Q1 of 2012. For now, Bulldozer owners, the best thing to do is to sit tight and wait.
Or has this been mentioned here already?
Posted on Reply
#137
TRWOV
AMD and Microsoft are continually working to improve hardware and software for our shared customers. As part of our joint work to optimize the performance of “Bulldozer” architecture-based AMD processors we collaborating on a scheduler update to the Windows 7 code-base. The code associated with this KB is incomplete and should not be used.
hummm... :ohwell:
Posted on Reply
#138
hhumas
Good news for BD owners ~~~
Posted on Reply
#139
pantherx12
Super XPI have to disagree in a way, yes hopefully Piledriver get's tweaked to death when it gets released in Q3 2012. Anyhow you have the Windows 7 OS that does not fully understand Bulldozer and how the modules work. Obviously it's not going to perform properly. And yes a Patch can resolve this issue and perhaps give it a performance boost. Nothing dramatic, but something a little better than what see today. The fact Microsoft is talking about this is proof alone that this scheduling issue is a big problem.
Don't expect it to be magic when the fix comes properly though man.

In the absolutely best case scenario it will bring the IPC back up to phenom II levels.

It still won't touch intel.

The only times it will get a big boost is where it absolutely isn't working as an 8 core cpu.

But TBH that isn't all that often.
Posted on Reply
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