I hope AMD can at least match Intel's performance per-clock, even if these new parts dont clock as far. Lower power draw and equal performance would sway larger orders to AMD, companies trying to save power.

At 95W Barcelona won't be that interesting compared to some Clovertown LV's, unless it outperforms them by very high percentages.

I think the results will be comparible with the current gen Intel quad core.

ZalmannI think the results will be comparible with the current gen Intel quad core.

Which use only 50W.

DanTheBanjomanWhich use only 50W.

Still an improvement over the current gen wouldn't you say?

ZalmannStill an improvement over the current gen wouldn't you say?

My point is that Barcelona needs to be either very fast or really cheap to take on current generation Clovertowns. Specially with the 1600MHz and 45nm parts coming soon as well.
Barcelona might just end up as too little too late.

We'll have to just wait and see, won't we. Hopefully the haven't missed the boat this time. They already missed it with the lengthy delays with the R600.

The Low Voltage Clovertowns that have a TDP of 50W come in only two flavors. The L5320 which runs at 1.86 GHz and the L5310 which runs at a slower 1.6 GHz. I think they are in no way competitive when compared to the fastest Barcelonas, at least not from the performance perspective. Though the LV Xeons draw less power but that's another thing...

Its all about pricing.
Now if AMD didnt have as strong as a Quad Core, but priced it right it will be a success.
It would be kewl to have a mainstream Quad Core after all :)

That it would be mate, I agree with you there.

BastieeehThe Low Voltage Clovertowns that have a TDP of 50W come in only two flavors. The L5320 which runs at 1.86 GHz and the L5310 which runs at a slower 1.6 GHz. I think they are in no way competitive when compared to the fastest Barcelonas, at least not from the performance perspective. Though the LV Xeons draw less power but that's another thing...

a 1.86ghz Core 2 Based Quad CPU will still outperform the Barcelonas @ ~2.5ghz imo. That's assuming that AMD havn't made any major changes to the architecture of their cpu's.

I'm getting this rough figure by the way current Core 2 Duo's compete with current AMD Athlon X2 cpu's in benchmarks. A Core 2 Duo e6400 (2mb L2) @ stock 2.13ghz will quite happily outperform an Athlon X2 @ ~3ghz in a lot of benchmarks.

Another thing to put into the equation is the immense amount of L2 Cache the Clovertows have (8Mb L2).

EDIT: Plz no-one else quote this... i regret this post enough already.

bruins004Its all about pricing.
Now if AMD didnt have as strong as a Quad Core, but priced it right it will be a success.
It would be kewl to have a mainstream Quad Core after all :)

i agree with that! if the performance is almost equivalent to Intel's quad-core, plus the price of AMD much lower... then, most users may buy AMD's quad core....

infrareda 1.86ghz Core 2 Based Quad CPU will still outperform the Barcelonas @ ~2.5ghz imo. That's assuming that AMD havn't made any major changes to the architecture of their cpu's.

I'm getting this rough figure by the way current Core 2 Duo's compete with current AMD Athlon X2 cpu's in benchmarks. A Core 2 Duo e6400 (2mb L2) @ stock 2.13ghz will quite happily outperform an Athlon X2 @ ~3ghz.

Another thing to put into the equation is the immense amount of L2 Cache the Clovertows have (8Mb L2).

You're assuming that Barcelona is just two K8's on the same die? Have you read anything about Barcelona yet? It's similar to K8, with MAJOR improvements. so, your opinion, while not yet verified by benchmarks, is more than likely wrong.

Yeah, i suppose everything's speculation atm. It will certainly be very interesting to see how it compares when it is eventually released.

kurengi agree with that! if the performance is almost equivalent to Intel's quad-core, plus the price of AMD much lower... then, most users may buy AMD's quad core....

Funny thing though is that Barcelona and Clovertown aren't aimed at the desktop market, therefor it isn't really important what the CPU's cost, customers look at a complete server/workstation. So unless AMD is giving Barcelona away for free a slight difference in pricing won't matter. Barcelona won't be "much" cheaper, not initially anyway. In fact I doubt AMD could sell them as cheap as the Clovertowns will be in July or they would lose money.

I really have my doubts about Barcelona.

Intel is in a great position right now... while AMD is struggling to produce a 65nm processor that tries to compete with the 65nm Conroe, Intel has multiple fabs getting ready to produce 45nm processors. And with AMD being bogged down with ATi's stuff, they're really losing a lot of potential customers. Hopefully the new AMD processors are a big enough threat to Intel that it'll warrant some more price cuts :D

infrareda 1.86ghz Core 2 Based Quad CPU will still outperform the Barcelonas @ ~2.5ghz imo. That's assuming that AMD havn't made any major changes to the architecture of their cpu's.

I'm getting this rough figure by the way current Core 2 Duo's compete with current AMD Athlon X2 cpu's in benchmarks. A Core 2 Duo e6400 (2mb L2) @ stock 2.13ghz will quite happily outperform an Athlon X2 @ ~3ghz.

Another thing to put into the equation is the immense amount of L2 Cache the Clovertows have (8Mb L2).

AMD has tweaked just about everything when it comes to changes between K8 and K10.

A 3 GHz Dual core AMD wins some and loses some benchmarks when compared with an E6600. Get your facts straight.

More L2 cache on Intel processors will be nice.

I think you should prove me wrong.

And it's the AMD's that need more L2... although more L2 cache isn't a bad thing for any processor.

BTW...

"Get your facts straight" isn't necessarily a good thing to say to someone who 1. Knows thier shit, and 2. Has the ability to ban you. (Even if i am wrong on the odd occation, no-one's perfect)

infraredI think you should prove me wrong.

And it's the AMD's that need more L2... although more L2 cache isn't a bad thing for any processor.

BTW...

"Get your facts straight" isn't necessarily a good thing to say to someone who 1. Knows thier shit, and 2. Has the ability to ban you. (Even if i am wrong on the odd occation, no-one's perfect)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K8L#Characteristics_of_the_microarchitecture

A list of what they've changed, as well as more information.

Extra L2 cache on AMD's don't have nearly as large of an effect as it does with an Intel processor. Though, you should know that.

Threatening to abuse your mod power. Nice.

I'll abuse my power as much as i want, although i prefer not to, so lets drop it.

Good info on the architecture changes, i'll freely admit that i didn't know that.

infrareda 1.86ghz Core 2 Based Quad CPU will still outperform the Barcelonas @ ~2.5ghz imo. That's assuming that AMD havn't made any major changes to the architecture of their cpu's.

I'm getting this rough figure by the way current Core 2 Duo's compete with current AMD Athlon X2 cpu's in benchmarks. A Core 2 Duo e6400 (2mb L2) @ stock 2.13ghz will quite happily outperform an Athlon X2 @ ~3ghz.

Another thing to put into the equation is the immense amount of L2 Cache the Clovertows have (8Mb L2).

When you say that the E6400 at stock will out perform an athlon x2 at 3Gig, I think you will find in many benches thats not the case, compare the 6000+ that stocks at 3Gig in most games and it beats not only the 6400 but also the 6600 at stock in some. Even in some of the CPU tests in 3D Mark 2006 the 6000 betters the 6600.

I do appreciate that the 6400 is cheaper and there is no doubt in my mind its a MUCH better all rounder (and will be faster in Integer and FP etc) and is a better overclocker but at stock there are still 3 or 4 stocked AMD's out there that can compete. (6000 and FX70 upwards).

techreport.com/reviews/2007q1/cpus/index.x?pg=3

Edit: sorry, didnt notice the couple of posts above, dont like to repeat stuff!

infraredI'll abuse my power as much as i want, although i prefer not to, so lets drop it.

Good info on the architecture changes, i'll freely admit that i didn't know that.

Well, I suppose I just pay a lot of attention to the news. The one thing i'm actually interested in haha.

just to point something out while posting in this thread...

the higher clocked Barcelona/FX chips are going to have a 120w TDP...at least that is what i've read just about everywhere.

lol usual banter i see, we'll have to see how barcelon fares, they abandoned the cache war as they simply can't compete there, so lets hope the architecture is enought to overcome the difference.

and its interesting to note that intels conroes dont punish amds so much in newer apps as they do in older ones, makes one wonder how well conroe will do in dx10 we are talking a completely revised tualatin, but perhaps some of the old architecture wont fare so well in wholly bloated apps.

95TDP is amazing for a quad core. Unless you go ULV, Intels arent even that cool. Nice move on AMD and Im sure easier for OCING with nice gains.

A thing on this L2 caches. Since AMD has the HTT and its integrated on die (memory controller) the need for L2 cache isnt really as high. do to this fact, you probably wont see much on the L2 cache from AMD for awhile if ever. The fact that Intel is changing to an On die memory controller should tell you all something about that. By then, I suspect Intel to throttle down on their cache levels a good bit.

WarEagleAU95TDP is amazing for a quad core. Unless you go ULV, Intels arent even that cool. Nice move on AMD and Im sure easier for OCING with nice gains.

Clovertown TDP is 80W for most models, 120W for the fastest though. (and 50W for LV yes) Niagara (which has 8 cores) has a 60W TDP. There are dual core PowerPC's that use under 25W (so quad core would use less than 50) I'm not that impressed by 95W since about every other CPU manufacturer has more power efficient chips out there.

As for overclocking, the boards won't allow it. Barcelona isn't a desktop chip.