• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

AMD Dragged to Court over Core Count on "Bulldozer"

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
17,865 (2.89/day)
Location
Quantum Well UK
System Name Quantumville™
Processor Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling Noctua NH-D14
Memory 16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s) MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 256GB | WD Black 4TB | WD Blue 6TB
Display(s) ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) | Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply Corsair AX1600i
Mouse Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard Yes
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
No you can set it to 1,2, or 4.
I can set it to 3, I double checked just before posting. Note that I've got a 2700K, so perhaps this restriction applies to later CPUs?

I can even set it to 3 cores + HT if I want to. Weird but true.

And when Ford rebutts something it stays rebutted. Especially when he has qubit backing him up.
I think I've just been Fricked. :wtf: :p
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
1,104 (0.31/day)
I can set it to 3, I double checked just before posting. Note that I've got a 2700K, so perhaps this restriction applies to later CPUs?

I can even set it to 3 cores + HT if I want to. Weird but true.


I think I've just been Fricked. :wtf: :p

Are you referring to 3 active cores or limiting boost per core?
 

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
17,865 (2.89/day)
Location
Quantum Well UK
System Name Quantumville™
Processor Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling Noctua NH-D14
Memory 16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s) MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 256GB | WD Black 4TB | WD Blue 6TB
Display(s) ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) | Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply Corsair AX1600i
Mouse Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard Yes
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Are you referring to 3 active cores or limiting boost per core?
3 active cores. Task Manager actually shows three graphs. Perhaps we're at cross purposes? lol. :)

Incidentally, when I first built my system, I of course posted about it on TPU. I then couldn't resist playing a little joke on everyone by saying how pleased I was with my new "5 core" CPU and actually posted a screenshot of TM running 5 threads. :laugh: The best bit was that it actually took a little while for people to catch on, lol.
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
1,104 (0.31/day)
3 active cores. Task Manager actually shows three graphs. Perhaps we're at cross purposes? lol. :)

Incidentally, when I first built my system, I of course posted about it on TPU. I then couldn't resist playing a little joke on everyone by saying how pleased I was with my new "5 core" CPU and actually posted a screenshot of TM running 5 threads. :laugh: The best bit was that it actually took a little while for people to catch on, lol.

Well I swear the bios in my PC doesn't let me do it - and it is one of the highest end Z87 motherboards. Maybe they did just disable it in later archs.

Still though , I maintain my position that if they could, they would have made 3 core cpu's.
 
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
576 (0.11/day)
System Name Home PC
Processor Ryzen 5900X
Motherboard Asus Prime X370 Pro
Cooling Thermaltake Contac Silent 12
Memory 2x8gb F4-3200C16-8GVKB - 2x16gb F4-3200C16-16GVK
Video Card(s) XFX RX480 GTR
Storage Samsung SSD Evo 120GB -WD SN580 1TB - Toshiba 2TB HDWT720 - 1TB GIGABYTE GP-GSTFS31100TNTD
Display(s) Cooler Master GA271 and AoC 931wx (19in, 1680x1050)
Case Green Magnum Evo
Power Supply Green 650UK Plus
Mouse Green GM602-RGB ( copy of Aula F810 )
Keyboard Old 12 years FOCUS FK-8100
This thread broke new world record? :eek:
 
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
101 (0.03/day)
AMD is always up to shady business like this. They need to learn a big lesson and stop trying to cheat
 
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
3,427 (0.65/day)
System Name My baby
Processor Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.5GHz, 1.45v, NB @ 2700Mhz, HT @ 2700Mhz - 24hr prime95 stable
Motherboard Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling Sonic Tower Rev 2 with 120mm Akasa attached, Akasa @ Front, Xilence Red Wing 120mm @ Rear
Memory 8 GB G.Skills 1600Mhz
Video Card(s) ATI ASUS Crossfire 5850
Storage Crucial MX100 SATA 2.5 SSD
Display(s) Lenovo ThinkVision 27" (LEN P27h-10)
Case Antec VSK 2000 Black Tower Case
Audio Device(s) Onkyo TX-SR309 Receiver, 2x Kef Cresta 1, 1x Kef Center 20c
Power Supply OCZ StealthXstream II 600w, 4x12v/18A, 80% efficiency.
Software Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
AMD is always up to shady business like this. They need to learn a big lesson and stop trying to cheat

And hyperthreading wasn't Intel's way of trying to trick their less technology aware consumers into thinking they have a genuine 8 core?

Anyways its up to the judge to determine if AMD is a cheat. Not us.
 
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
101 (0.03/day)
And hyperthreading wasn't Intel's way of trying to trick their less technology aware consumers into thinking they have a genuine 8 core?

Anyways its up to the judge to determine if AMD is a cheat. Not us.
Intel never said it was 8 cores while amd did. BIG difference
 
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
3,427 (0.65/day)
System Name My baby
Processor Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.5GHz, 1.45v, NB @ 2700Mhz, HT @ 2700Mhz - 24hr prime95 stable
Motherboard Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling Sonic Tower Rev 2 with 120mm Akasa attached, Akasa @ Front, Xilence Red Wing 120mm @ Rear
Memory 8 GB G.Skills 1600Mhz
Video Card(s) ATI ASUS Crossfire 5850
Storage Crucial MX100 SATA 2.5 SSD
Display(s) Lenovo ThinkVision 27" (LEN P27h-10)
Case Antec VSK 2000 Black Tower Case
Audio Device(s) Onkyo TX-SR309 Receiver, 2x Kef Cresta 1, 1x Kef Center 20c
Power Supply OCZ StealthXstream II 600w, 4x12v/18A, 80% efficiency.
Software Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
Intel never said it was 8 cores while amd did. BIG difference

Maybe Intel dont say 8 core on the box but its clear that most non enthusiasts think when they see 8 graphs in the task manager they assume it means 8 cores. Intel have done little in terms of trying to educate the non-enthusiasts consumer about how hyper threading works. Intel are happy for consumers to believe what they believe which is fine.

Anyways AMD might have a genuine 8 core, its all up to interpretation look at this thread alone you can make a good argument either way. None of us here can say definitively whether AMD is in breach of anything. Lets wait for the legal system to decide.
 
Joined
Jul 18, 2007
Messages
2,693 (0.43/day)
System Name panda
Processor 6700k
Motherboard sabertooth s
Cooling raystorm block<black ice stealth 240 rad<ek dcc 18w 140 xres
Memory 32gb ripjaw v
Video Card(s) 290x gamer<ntzx g10<antec 920
Storage 950 pro 250gb boot 850 evo pr0n
Display(s) QX2710LED@110hz lg 27ud68p
Case 540 Air
Audio Device(s) nope
Power Supply 750w superflower
Mouse g502
Keyboard shine 3 with grey, black and red caps
Software win 10
Benchmark Scores http://hwbot.org/user/marsey99/
Pretty sure he's going to win. I don't think there's any nomenclature to properly describe Bulldozer's design and even if it had existed, AMD wasn't using it.


x264 HD Benchmark runs on GPU and AMD undeniably has a stronger GPU in FX-8150 than Intel has in i7-2600K. The problem stems from floating point operations executed on the CPU. If you heavily load the FPUs in one core, the FPU performance of both cores will effectively half.


you can overload HT too.

amd will win this if the judge is clued up, if not.....
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
2,181 (0.51/day)
Location
Deez Nutz, bozo!
System Name Rainbow Puke Machine :D
Processor Intel Core i5-11400 (MCE enabled, PL removed)
Motherboard ASUS STRIX B560-G GAMING WIFI mATX
Cooling Corsair H60i RGB PRO XT AIO + HD120 RGB (x3) + SP120 RGB PRO (x3) + Commander PRO
Memory Corsair Vengeance RGB RT 2 x 8GB 3200MHz DDR4 C16
Video Card(s) Zotac RTX2060 Twin Fan 6GB GDDR6 (Stock)
Storage Corsair MP600 PRO 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD
Display(s) LG 29WK600-W Ultrawide 1080p IPS Monitor (primary display)
Case Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow (White) w/Lighting Node CORE + Lighting Node PRO RGB LED Strips (x4).
Audio Device(s) ASUS ROG Supreme FX S1220A w/ Savitech SV3H712 AMP + Sonic Studio 3 suite
Power Supply Corsair RM750x 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular
Mouse Corsair M65 RGB FPS Gaming (White)
Keyboard Corsair K60 PRO RGB Mechanical w/ Cherry VIOLA Switches
Software Windows 11 Professional x64 (Update 23H2)
no wonder he's a dick lol
 
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
3,427 (0.65/day)
System Name My baby
Processor Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.5GHz, 1.45v, NB @ 2700Mhz, HT @ 2700Mhz - 24hr prime95 stable
Motherboard Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling Sonic Tower Rev 2 with 120mm Akasa attached, Akasa @ Front, Xilence Red Wing 120mm @ Rear
Memory 8 GB G.Skills 1600Mhz
Video Card(s) ATI ASUS Crossfire 5850
Storage Crucial MX100 SATA 2.5 SSD
Display(s) Lenovo ThinkVision 27" (LEN P27h-10)
Case Antec VSK 2000 Black Tower Case
Audio Device(s) Onkyo TX-SR309 Receiver, 2x Kef Cresta 1, 1x Kef Center 20c
Power Supply OCZ StealthXstream II 600w, 4x12v/18A, 80% efficiency.
Software Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
you can overload HT too.

amd will win this if the judge is clued up, if not.....

In big cases there will be a panel of impartial technology lawyers which will explain the technologies behind the architecture to the judge. I would think AMD would bring their own engineers as part of their defence too
 
Joined
Sep 6, 2013
Messages
3,308 (0.81/day)
Location
Athens, Greece
System Name 3 desktop systems: Gaming / Internet / HTPC
Processor Ryzen 5 5500 / Ryzen 5 4600G / FX 6300 (12 years latter got to see how bad Bulldozer is)
Motherboard MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max (1) / MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max (2) / Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3
Cooling Νoctua U12S / Segotep T4 / Snowman M-T6
Memory 32GB - 16GB G.Skill RIPJAWS 3600+16GB G.Skill Aegis 3200 / 16GB JUHOR / 16GB Kingston 2400MHz (DDR3)
Video Card(s) ASRock RX 6600 + GT 710 (PhysX)/ Vega 7 integrated / Radeon RX 580
Storage NVMes, ONLY NVMes/ NVMes, SATA Storage / NVMe boot(Clover), SATA storage
Display(s) Philips 43PUS8857/12 UHD TV (120Hz, HDR, FreeSync Premium) ---- 19'' HP monitor + BlitzWolf BW-V5
Case Sharkoon Rebel 12 / CoolerMaster Elite 361 / Xigmatek Midguard
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Chieftec 850W / Silver Power 400W / Sharkoon 650W
Mouse CoolerMaster Devastator III Plus / CoolerMaster Devastator / Logitech
Keyboard CoolerMaster Devastator III Plus / CoolerMaster Devastator / Logitech
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10&Windows 11 / Windows 10
Wow.... 9 pages? Have the jury come to a decision yet?
 
Joined
Sep 6, 2013
Messages
3,308 (0.81/day)
Location
Athens, Greece
System Name 3 desktop systems: Gaming / Internet / HTPC
Processor Ryzen 5 5500 / Ryzen 5 4600G / FX 6300 (12 years latter got to see how bad Bulldozer is)
Motherboard MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max (1) / MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max (2) / Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3
Cooling Νoctua U12S / Segotep T4 / Snowman M-T6
Memory 32GB - 16GB G.Skill RIPJAWS 3600+16GB G.Skill Aegis 3200 / 16GB JUHOR / 16GB Kingston 2400MHz (DDR3)
Video Card(s) ASRock RX 6600 + GT 710 (PhysX)/ Vega 7 integrated / Radeon RX 580
Storage NVMes, ONLY NVMes/ NVMes, SATA Storage / NVMe boot(Clover), SATA storage
Display(s) Philips 43PUS8857/12 UHD TV (120Hz, HDR, FreeSync Premium) ---- 19'' HP monitor + BlitzWolf BW-V5
Case Sharkoon Rebel 12 / CoolerMaster Elite 361 / Xigmatek Midguard
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Chieftec 850W / Silver Power 400W / Sharkoon 650W
Mouse CoolerMaster Devastator III Plus / CoolerMaster Devastator / Logitech
Keyboard CoolerMaster Devastator III Plus / CoolerMaster Devastator / Logitech
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10&Windows 11 / Windows 10
Verdict is amd screwed their costumers by lying for years
They screwed their financials for 5 years and brought the company very close to bankruptcy. They also screwed the hopes of AMD fans with processors that unfortunately are not competitive to Intel and with no money to support their platforms we haven't seen Steamroller FX chips, Excavator APUs, or Beema based AM1 chips. They didn't even had money to create a totally new GPU to take full advantage of HBM1. They could just implement HBM memory on two Tonga cores, that they glued together, and here it is, the new Fiji GPU, with only 32+32=64 ROPs losing from GM200 when it should be beating it.
But no, they didn't screw their customers because they always price their products based on the performance those products offer compared to Intel products. Anyone hoping to get a quad core FX chip and beat a 3-5 times more expensive i5, well, why pay for an FX chip? Go and buy a cheap quad core Braswell tablet/miniPC/Stick/whatever and destroy that i5 Skylake. Right? Riiiiiiiggghhhttttt.........
 

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
13,162 (2.82/day)
Location
Concord, NH, USA
System Name Apollo
Processor Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory 64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage 1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s) Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s) AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply 96w Power Adapter
Mouse Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software MacOS 12.1
AMD has, in a very real sense, been thoroughly punished for the CPU it brought to market in 2011 — and this lawsuit makes claims that don’t hold up to technical scrutiny.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...lse-bulldozer-chip-marketing-is-without-merit

It's an argument which appears to rest wholly on the presence of only four FPU cores on the eight-core chip, but one which Dickey may struggle to win: floating-point units have not always been integral to processor designs, with early processors being integer-only models which emulated floating-point mathematics internally and the first FPUs themselves being entirely separate chips used as a co-processor, so to argue that the core-count of a chip is tied directly to the number of FPU units present is an interesting tactic - doubly so when it is entirely possible for the processor in question to run eight integer-based threads simultaneously.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2015/11/09/amd-bulldozer-core-count-suit/1

I'm apparently not the only person who thinks the FPU claim for what constitutes a core is bogus.
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.48/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
Maybe Intel dont say 8 core on the box but its clear that most non enthusiasts think when they see 8 graphs in the task manager they assume it means 8 cores. Intel have done little in terms of trying to educate the non-enthusiasts consumer about how hyper threading works. Intel are happy for consumers to believe what they believe which is fine.
They always refer to # cores w/ HT or # cores w/o HT. Intel never claims SMT is equal to more cores like AMD does with Bulldozer.

you can overload HT too.
Not really. The underlying core will report 100% use. All threads are still simultaneously executed.

As previously discussed: You have to go back 25 years to find those dinosaurs in the x86 market. They're dead for a reason and Bulldozer suffered a similar fate.

The FPU uses SMT. I'd argue that any core that uses SMT excludes itself from equating threads to cores.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 6, 2013
Messages
748 (0.18/day)
Location
Oceania
They always refer to # cores w/ HT or # cores w/o HT. Intel never claims SMT is equal to more cores like AMD does with Bulldozer.


Not really. The underlying core will report 100% use. All threads are still simultaneously executed.
No they're scheduled, not executed. It states that in the whitepaper as I said earlier. 12 "core" Xenon can send 6 commands per clock. If it was 12 the scaling would be a lot closer to Piledriver.
The redeeming feature for Intel is AMD's slow cache.
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.48/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
A lot of every processor in existence takes more than one clock to complete a task. While the FPU is crunching on something, SMT allows another thread to be processed through the ALU which takes far fewer clocks. Another example is a thread having to wait because of a cache miss, the other thread keeps executing. Like Bulldozer, after instructions are decoded, a lot of the processor is out-of-order and that is where SMT occurs. The only thing different about Bulldozer is that there are two ALUs instead of one. The rest of the processor mimics SMT. I would never call a core with two ALUs a dual core.
 
Last edited:
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
3,427 (0.65/day)
System Name My baby
Processor Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.5GHz, 1.45v, NB @ 2700Mhz, HT @ 2700Mhz - 24hr prime95 stable
Motherboard Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling Sonic Tower Rev 2 with 120mm Akasa attached, Akasa @ Front, Xilence Red Wing 120mm @ Rear
Memory 8 GB G.Skills 1600Mhz
Video Card(s) ATI ASUS Crossfire 5850
Storage Crucial MX100 SATA 2.5 SSD
Display(s) Lenovo ThinkVision 27" (LEN P27h-10)
Case Antec VSK 2000 Black Tower Case
Audio Device(s) Onkyo TX-SR309 Receiver, 2x Kef Cresta 1, 1x Kef Center 20c
Power Supply OCZ StealthXstream II 600w, 4x12v/18A, 80% efficiency.
Software Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
Verdict is amd screwed their costumers by lying for years

So your a lawyer or a judge? Maybe you are a clairvoyant and can predict the outcome of the court case?

They always refer to # cores w/ HT or # cores w/o HT.


I agree Intel has done nothing wrong. Just saying Intel doesn't go out of their way to educate consumers what Hyperthreading is and 90% of their customers will assume its a core or functions the same as one. I'm not saying Intel should be obliged morally or legally to explain either just pointing out this fact.


Intel never claims SMT is equal to more cores like AMD does with Bulldozer.

To be fair it could be equal to, or equivalent to or classified as more cores until the verdict of the court case says otherwise. At the moment AMD has done nothing wrong. Its like a guilty until proven innocent witch hunt.
 
Last edited:

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
13,162 (2.82/day)
Location
Concord, NH, USA
System Name Apollo
Processor Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory 64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage 1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s) Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s) AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply 96w Power Adapter
Mouse Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software MacOS 12.1
A lot of every processor in existence takes more than one clock to complete a task.
Bullshit. There are a lot of instructions that not only execute in 1 second cycle, it can sometimes do several of the same instruction at once.

Before I grab part of this document, I will quote it:
LNN means latency for NN-bit operation. TNN means throughput for NN-bit operation. The term throughput is used to mean number of instructions per cycle of this type that can be sustained. That implies that more throughput is better, which is consistent with how most people understand the term. Intel use that same term in the exact opposite meaning in their manuals.
instructions-jpeg.jpg

Source: https://gmplib.org/~tege/x86-timing.pdf
Lets look at Sandy Bridge for a minute:
add, sub, and, or, xor inc, dec, neg, and not all execute in a single clock cycle and can process 3 of these uOps at once per core. Haswell expanded that to 4 uOps per cycle from 3 on SB. Even AMD's K10 was the same way but then you look at AMD's BD1 (which is what we're all huffy about,) and you notice that these same instructions can only do 2 uOps per clock cycle on Bulldozer. Then there are cases like double shift left and right which has a fraction of the performance on BD versus modern Intel CPUs.

People need to get their information right. Bulldozer is slow because dedicated components are skimped on, the fact that instructions usually take the same number of cycles as its Intel counterpart in many cases however, have much less throughput resulting in uOps having to be run more often than they would otherwise, which increases latency and translates certain full instructions into a longer set of uOps because of the CPU. So you might have an instruction with uOps that an Intel CPU could execute in one clock cycle but the AMD CPU might need two because it doesn't have enough resources in a single core to do it all at once.

For what its worth, Intel cores might not execute instructions "faster" but, it's that they can do more of them in a single clock cycle but both AMD and Intel both have a lot of core x86 instructions that not only occur in one cycle but, can execute multiple of the same uOps in the same cycle, which is where pipelining comes into play for instructions that allow pipelining.

It's also worth noting that there are x86 instructions that are not pipelined for various reasons. That's in this other document:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...-ia-32-architectures-optimization-manual.html
 
Last edited:

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.48/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
Bullshit. There are a lot of instructions that not only execute in 1 second, it can sometimes do several of the same instruction at once.
Obvious typo is obvious: 1 clock != 1 second. 4.0 GHz = 4 billion clocks per second.


It does appear I was backwards...assuming no cache misses; that's the point though, isn't it? With two threads in the core, more usually gets done. The difference between HTT and Bulldozer's implementation is that Bulldozer should theoretically (assuming all else was equal) be able to do more integer operations in the same time frame. That still doesn't change the definition of a core.

I have no problem with Bulldozer's design. I have a problem with AMD calling it 8-cores (except where appropriate in some Opterons).


I find it ironic K10 beats Bulldozer on pretty much every one. The only advantage Bulldozer has over K10 is the higher clockspeeds.
 
Last edited:

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
13,162 (2.82/day)
Location
Concord, NH, USA
System Name Apollo
Processor Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory 64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage 1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s) Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s) AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply 96w Power Adapter
Mouse Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software MacOS 12.1
Obvious typo is obvious: 1 clock != 1 second. 4.0 GHz = 4 billion clocks per second.
My bad, I corrected it.
It does appear I was backwards...assuming no cache misses; that's the point though, isn't it? With two threads in the core, more usually gets done. The difference between HTT and Bulldozer's implementation is that Bulldozer should theoretically (assuming all else was equal) be able to do more integer operations in the same time frame. That still doesn't change the definition of a core.
The point is that overall poor performance is due to a slim core, not a shared module and the throughput of BD in my last post is a very clear indicator of that.
I find it ironic K10 beats Bulldozer on pretty much every one. The only advantage Bulldozer has over K10 is the higher clockspeeds.
Clock wise, K10 was a significantly larger core but, it also had a lot more under the hood dedicated for one core. I'll give AMD that they were able to squeeze quite a bit of parallel throughput on these CPUs but that's never the kind of workload consumers really need to care about.

The simple fact is that BD has two real cores, the problem is that while uOps execute just as fast, instructions that have certain combinations of uOps is going to impact AMD's BD core a lot more than one of Intel's. Even Intel has shown that they would rather beef up a core and AMD's problem is that two lanky cores isn't going to provide the single-threaded throughput you want. If there are instructions that are taking fewer cycles to complete on Intel CPUs, that's a pretty tell tale sign that it's the cores themselves. Add to that the fact that BD cores scale almost linearly on purely parallel workloads (excluding certain FP applications but, that really depends on the particular instructions being used.)

Nothing here to me says they're not 8 real cores. What people are pissed off about is that they're 8 gimped cores, even for integer operations but, that's not because of shared components. If it was a real implementation of hardware SMT like hyper-threading, we wouldn't see the kind of scaling we're seeing with modules which is near linear for purely parallel workloads. What we're seeing is 8 core CPUs where every core is something like 80% of what it should be. It scales properly and runs properly, with the exception that single threaded performance is 20% less than where it should have been and that people were expecting Phenom II like performance in single-threaded applications but BD performance on multi-threaded applications which wasn't the result.

AMD made some choices and it resulted in focusing on more cores and less on individual core performance. As a result, people got irritated that their skinny cores couldn't bite off enough at once and wanted their fatter cores that were more efficient in single threaded applications back (here comes Xen!)

Our disagreement isn't that Bulldozer blows, it's how it blows, and I think blaming the FPU and shared components is a bit of a stretch given the amount of information that indicates that even integer performance is tailing K10 per clock. They only try to make up for that with clock speeds, as you said. None of this has to do with whether it has 8 real cores or not, it has to do with how shitty the slimmed down integer cores are. Mix that with the shared FPU and added latencies on FP instructions, and you have a recipe lackluster performance. All of which still can happen even if there are 8 real cores.

Take Intel's 8c Atom the C2750 I think it is. It's performance trails core series CPUs at the same clock speed with half as many cores but with SMT, so does it mean that the Atom doesn't have real cores? NO! It means the Atom's core is lacking in performance despite having 8 real cores and doesn't efficiently use every clock cycle like the i5 and i7s, just like Bulldozer.
 

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman
Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
41,882 (6.61/day)
Location
Republic of Texas (True Patriot)
System Name PCGOD
Processor AMD FX 8350@ 5.0GHz
Motherboard Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2 2901 Bios
Cooling Scythe Ashura, 2×BitFenix 230mm Spectre Pro LED (Blue,Green), 2x BitFenix 140mm Spectre Pro LED
Memory 16 GB Gskill Ripjaws X 2133 (2400 OC, 10-10-12-20-20, 1T, 1.65V)
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon 290 Sapphire Vapor-X
Storage Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, WD Velociraptor 1TB
Display(s) NEC Multisync LCD 1700V (Display Port Adapter)
Case AeroCool Xpredator Evil Blue Edition
Audio Device(s) Creative Labs Sound Blaster ZxR
Power Supply Seasonic 1250 XM2 Series (XP3)
Mouse Roccat Kone XTD
Keyboard Roccat Ryos MK Pro
Software Windows 7 Pro 64
Good Point, Yea I did a CPU z comparison of the 8350 vs Intel, the Intel parts lead AMD by 8% in Single Thread Performance. 16vs24. the OCing of the BD only pushes its multithread performance up.

My bad, I corrected it.

The point is that overall poor performance is due to a slim core, not a shared module and the throughput of BD in my last post is a very clear indicator of that.

Clock wise, K10 was a significantly larger core but, it also had a lot more under the hood dedicated for one core. I'll give AMD that they were able to squeeze quite a bit of parallel throughput on these CPUs but that's never the kind of workload consumers really need to care about.

The simple fact is that BD has two real cores, the problem is that while uOps execute just as fast, instructions that have certain combinations of uOps is going to impact AMD's BD core a lot more than one of Intel's. Even Intel has shown that they would rather beef up a core and AMD's problem is that two lanky cores isn't going to provide the single-threaded throughput you want. If there are instructions that are taking fewer cycles to complete on Intel CPUs, that's a pretty tell tale sign that it's the cores themselves. Add to that the fact that BD cores scale almost linearly on purely parallel workloads (excluding certain FP applications but, that really depends on the particular instructions being used.)

Nothing here to me says they're not 8 real cores. What people are pissed off about is that they're 8 gimped cores, even for integer operations but, that's not because of shared components. If it was a real implementation of hardware SMT like hyper-threading, we wouldn't see the kind of scaling we're seeing with modules which is near linear for purely parallel workloads. What we're seeing is 8 core CPUs where every core is something like 80% of what it should be. It scales properly and runs properly, with the exception that single threaded performance is 20% less than where it should have been and that people were expecting Phenom II like performance in single-threaded applications but BD performance on multi-threaded applications which wasn't the result.

AMD made some choices and it resulted in focusing on more cores and less on individual core performance. As a result, people got irritated that their skinny cores couldn't bite off enough at once and wanted their fatter cores that were more efficient in single threaded applications back (here comes Xen!)

Our disagreement isn't that Bulldozer blows, it's how it blows, and I think blaming the FPU and shared components is a bit of a stretch given the amount of information that indicates that even integer performance is tailing K10 per clock. They only try to make up for that with clock speeds, as you said. None of this has to do with whether it has 8 real cores or not, it has to do with how shitty the slimmed down integer cores are. Mix that with the shared FPU and added latencies on FP instructions, and you have a recipe lackluster performance. All of which still can happen even if there are 8 real cores.

Take Intel's 8c Atom the C2750 I think it is. It's performance trails core series CPUs at the same clock speed with half as many cores but with SMT, so does it mean that the Atom doesn't have real cores? NO! It means the Atom's core is lacking in performance despite having 8 real cores and doesn't efficiently use every clock cycle like the i5 and i7s, just like Bulldozer.
 

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
13,162 (2.82/day)
Location
Concord, NH, USA
System Name Apollo
Processor Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory 64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage 1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s) Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s) AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply 96w Power Adapter
Mouse Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software MacOS 12.1
Good Point, Yea I did a CPU z comparison of the 8350 vs Intel, the Intel parts lead AMD by 8% in Single Thread Performance. 16vs24. the OCing of the BD only pushes its multithread performance up.
Then on multi-threaded score it only starts to catch up when the Intel CPU starts relying on hyper threading which goes back to "if they're not real cores, why do they scale like they are?"
 
Top