Wednesday, August 27th 2008
Phenom FX in the Works, AMD to take Another shot at...Kentsfield
The transition of the K10 architecture by AMD to the 45nm silicon fabrication process is stirring up interesting revelations these days. First, it was about surprisingly low power consumption of the quad-core Phenom parts, and then about the overclocking headroom those 45nm parts provided, at least the engineering samples did so far. And now, news coming in that AMD could be resurrecting the "FX" series of extreme performance products. Over the past three or so years, the performance trail AMD products had over Intel's made it close to impossible for AMD to sell parts that provide performance tuning advantages such as unlocked FSB multiplier settings for a premium, like it did back when K8 reigned the performance segment. "Black Edition" chips made up for that deficit by providing consumers overclocking advantages while not charging a significant premium and at the same time, safeguarding the "FX" title, not letting it dilute.
Come AMD Deneb core and lot seems to be on offer. To begin with, unlike the Windsor core that had a maximum FSB multiplier of 16.0x, initial reports suggest the Deneb to sport a maximum 25.0x multiplier, 200 MHz x 25 = 5.00 GHz, with the FSB left to play with. Considering at 2.30 GHz the Deneb draws in 57.3 W (according to findings), it should still leave enough room for AMD to sell premium products clocked at high frequencies.
From Reviewage's findings, there seem to be two Phenom FX processors in the making. The numbering seems to take off where it last left at the Athlon64 FX 74. The two chips, Phenom FX 80 and Phenom FX 82 could be clocked at 4.00 GHz and 4.40 GHz respectively (stock speeds). An interesting statement is that at 4.00 GHz, the Phenom FX 80 should outperform an Intel Kentsfield core clocked at 5.00 GHz, implies it has to be faster than the Kentsfield on a clock-to-clock basis. This opens up an interesting debate on how these parts compare to the succeeding Yorkfield chips. This should also open gates for several models to enter the market at various clock speeds.
Source:
Reviewage
Come AMD Deneb core and lot seems to be on offer. To begin with, unlike the Windsor core that had a maximum FSB multiplier of 16.0x, initial reports suggest the Deneb to sport a maximum 25.0x multiplier, 200 MHz x 25 = 5.00 GHz, with the FSB left to play with. Considering at 2.30 GHz the Deneb draws in 57.3 W (according to findings), it should still leave enough room for AMD to sell premium products clocked at high frequencies.
294 Comments on Phenom FX in the Works, AMD to take Another shot at...Kentsfield
Do not confuse chip/package features with the core's architectural design.
and don't forget how much its going to cost to adapt this new platform from Intel (i7), where as AMD is using the same socket for there server and desktop, meaning amd has already a platform in place for both server/desktop. that's a few points to amd, and their cpu will be cheaper to make and market including higher gains for motherboard makers but cheaper for users as it will use an am2/+ platform (am3 + ddr3 in between)
and do i remember correctly you saying there isnt much gains in transition
Do not confuse the arch tech of a AMD to a arch tech of a C2D of now, and the similarities that will be of i7.
AMD used to make up for having a less efficient/powerful core design by incorporating the above mentioned features in their chips, but with Intel readying the release of i7, AMD has lost that advantage (assuming Intel doesn't royally screw it up). They will need to make it up by coming up with a better core.
It's unlikely the 4-cored fx will take on a 8-logical core i7 in multi-tasking, and to me it seems pretty unlikely their architecture will all of the sudden jump from being less efficient than most core 2s to being more efficient than nehalem. i7 after all, is purely core for core speed 15-20% faster than core 2. Oc'ing they could have an advantage maybe if intel is stupid and gets greedy by locking the multi's of the chips people would actually buy, but they're gonna need quite a speed boost to really compete.
It has been established from multiple sources that AMD has done NO Barcelona development after the B3 stepping that fixed the TLB bug. They instead decided (I think correctly) to focus on Deneb/shanghai CPU. The result is that Deneb is more than a simple shrink, more than a stepping evolution, and actually introduces significant (m)architectural changes. The result? With the die shrink and internal changes, using the Barcelona Phenoms as a guide to what speeds Denebs can reach is pointless. :banghead:
The text above (by me which you call delusional) is researched from well respected sites e.g toms-anandtech-overclockers-xbit-technews-wikipedia etc. and etc.
if you still disagree which you will am sure, because you have no idea what you're talking about whatsoever, let me point it out for you, since you have not clearly read or even made an attempt to read what I and others have said on page 1 to 12!. I will say it again for your sake but will say it only once ok?. ok, from K8 to k10.5 and well into the future AMD WILL HAVE THE SAME ARCHITECTURE but instead core revisions only did you understand that. since there not bringing anything else out apart from deneb and shanghai still based on the same architecture, its common sense its what they have been working on coz they have been made by amd not anyone else, DUH :nutkick:right from the start you have been claiming that there is minor revisions only whereas the rest of the world including AMD them selves (who are gonna make the chips) claim big improvements including 45nm which in it self is not minor, then there is the Immersion lithography, 4th generation of strained-silicon, more transistors/pins, ddr3, new leading edge technologies??????, Ultra-low-k Dielectrics, 6mb L3 cache, HyperTransport 3.1, PCIe 3.0. K10.5 rev... Look i could be here all day :nutkick:
But X1REME, I think AMD hasn't increased IPC. That is the key there. No matter what they do I7 is going to win. I hope they come out with a proc that has more IPC than their I counterpart.
plus there's a chance they could be trashed for something else (e.g hydra) as you have not seen samples nor has anyone else. :nutkick:
HT3.1 and PCIe 3 aren't going to do a damn thing for performance, when PCIe 2 and the current HT are already overkill, and nowhere near maxed out in desktop environments. The only area that could see a benefit from HT3.1 is multi socketed servers. Nothing will see a boost from PCIe 3 as of yet.
The only things you mentioned that will effect the per clock performance is the higher cache, and possibly DDR3.
Those 2 things will not be enough to push them ahead of (or even to match, for that matter) Intel, clock for clock. Thus, only minor revisions are being made, from a performance standpoint.