AMD Details Bulldozer Processor Architecture

[nt300]

New chipset with dual channel DDR4 support next year? 990FX?

More like very late 2012 to 2013 that was already confirmed by many ram manufacturers. I still think DDR3 has a lot more legs to run on and now that price is comig down it very good.

 

[JF-AMD]

RAM transitions are generally over estimated by the manufacturers. There is the "introduction" timeframe and the "mass acceptance" timeframe.

The earliest availability date typically means huge price premiums, spotty supply and less than stellar capabilites until the companies get their processes in line.

 

[cheezburger]

unfortunatly it should be around 2015 we see DDR4, would be nice to have some DDR4 next year but i would be happy with some DDR3 if i can push it over 2000mhz on an amd board.

why bother go DDR4 when you realize it's going to be 20+ in cycle latency......

now all we need is to fix these latency per clock on the current ram technology. not just more clock

 

[Wile E]

Thats not how it worked Palit guy posted for along time but during the USA financial melt down Palit closed up shop in the USA and he lost his job. So thats not really a good comparison but we get your point.

I miss Palit Guy and my free hardware.

why bother go DDR4 when you realize it's going to be 20+ in cycle latency......

now all we need is to fix these latency per clock on the current ram technology. not just more clock

Latency per clock on DDR3 is already better than both DDR2 and DDR. To get the same latency per clock as my ram on DDR2, you would have to run it at CAS4 1066Mhz, or CAS5 1333Mhz. Not too many ram kits could do that stable and live for very long, and none were sold with those as their stock speeds.

 

[Neo4]

I miss Palit Guy and my free hardware.

Must have been nice that..

Latency per clock on DDR3 is already better than both DDR2 and DDR. To get the same latency per clock as my ram on DDR2, you would have to run it at CAS4 1066Mhz, or CAS5 1333Mhz. Not too many ram kits could do that stable and live for very long, and none were sold with those as their stock speeds.

Timing and speed matter little in real world applications and games. All the reviews show only a very few frames per second difference. It takes fast L1, L2 and L3 cache to keep our hungry processors feed. Compared to that, system memory is dog slow and only hard drives and optical drives are slower. Thank goodness solid state drives are slowly taking over both those antique mechanical technologies..

 

[largon]

DDR4 can't come soon enough.

Miniaturization of CPUs and as such, IMCs, has brought problems regarding memory DDQ voltages; remember i7 doesn't run safe with RAM vDD > 1.65v? You can't have huge voltage differences between IMC and the rest of the core or things between them two parts of the die go *poof*. Even ULV DDR3 running a 1.35V vDDQ will cause a conflict with CPU core vDDs, sooner or later. And since CPU vDDs are continuously going down... Anyways, more aggregate bandwidth never hurts, and considering GPUs are getting more and more integrated in the CPU, so in near future the industry will be screaming for faster RAM.

 

[Wile E]

Timing and speed matter little in real world applications and games. All the reviews show only a very few frames per second difference. It takes fast L1, L2 and L3 cache to keep our hungry processors feed. Compared to that, system memory is dog slow and only hard drives and optical drives are slower. Thank goodness solid state drives are slowly taking over both those antique mechanical technologies..

I know it makes little difference. Just commenting on his apparant misunderstanding of ram performance. Good DDR3 has both lower real world latency and higher bandwidth than both DDR 1 and 2. I was just speaking in terms of the hardwares' raw abilities, not the effect it has on our apps.

And yes, getting free hardware to OC to death was a blast. lol.

DDR4 can't come soon enough.

Miniaturization of CPUs and as such, IMCs, has brought problems regarding memory DDQ voltages; remember i7 doesn't run safe with RAM vDD > 1.65v? You can't have huge voltage differences between IMC and the rest of the core or things between them two parts of the die go *poof*. Even ULV DDR3 running a 1.35V vDDQ will cause a conflict with CPU core vDDs, sooner or later. And since CPU vDDs are continuously going down... Anyways, more aggregate bandwidth never hurts, and considering GPUs are getting more and more integrated in the CPU, so in near future the industry will be screaming for faster RAM.

I also wouldn't mind seeing ram and core speeds match, bet that would help latency nicely. Having both ram and cpu running locked at 4Ghz (for example) has to have some sort of positive benefits in overall performance.

 

[JF-AMD]

DDR4 can't come soon enough.

What if it is slower, higher latency and more expensive? Will you make the jump then?

You don't need the newest technology, you need the best technology. I haven't seen enough on DDR4 to make me wish it was here any time sooner. And, it's quite a ways off.

 

[Super XP]

DDR3 is more than enough. I think a good set of DDR3-1866 is perfect with ultra low timings. That should be enough for at least 2+ years for solid gaming with a nice 4GB x 4 = 16GB.

 

[bear jesus]

I'm still on 1066mhz DDR2 at cas5 and it's still serving me very well, i will be happy if i can get around 2000mhz DDR3 on my next board and would be happy to wait the few years untill DDR4 is in mass production.

 

[JF-AMD]

Anyone that raced out to get DDR-3 when it came out was treated to a pretty significant price premium and the first rounds were at 800MHz, maybe 1066MHz, but definitely no 1333MHz. It took until the first process node change to get prices and speeds in line.

Memory is one area where being an early adopter rarely has a benefit.

 

[largon]

As was the case with at least DDR2 and DDR3 one can reasonably expect that DDR4 will be worse than DDR3 at start but that doesn't invalidate my statement. It didn't take that long for DDR2, DDR3 to clearly overcome DDR1, DDR2 respectively.

I'm not going to be among the first adopters... Hell, I'm still using DDR2 and personally I don't see any compelling reason to go DDR3 until, of necessity, when I'll do a platform overhaul sometime in 2011.

 

[JF-AMD]

Then your statement should have been "volume second generation DDR4 can't come soon enough"

 

[Neo4]

As was the case with at least DDR2 and DDR3 one can reasonably expect that DDR4 will be worse than DDR3 at start but that doesn't invalidate my statement. It didn't take that long for DDR2, DDR3 to clearly overcome DDR1, DDR2 respectively.

I'm not going to be among the first adopters... Hell, I'm still using DDR2 and personally I don't see any compelling reason to go DDR3 until, of necessity, when I'll do a platform overhaul sometime in 2011.

Seriously, DDR4 is pie in the sky as far as I'm concerned. When I was younger I'd have been fired up about it but not any more. The hardware performance numbers don't lie and each and every memory architectural advancement has been a great big yawn. CPU's, GPU's and the new SSD's are where all the performance action is and I can't wait for a year from now when I'll be able to jump on the Bulldozer platform.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Interesting discussion. What I'd like to ask JF is if AMD is going to introduce any Liano based APUs for the server market. I'd guess openCL programers would be pretty interested in those if they are competitive in Gflops/wat.

 

[JF-AMD]

I actually cover that in my blog. APUs for the server market might happen, but not in the near term. There is a lot of work that has to happen on the software side first before we start embedding GPUs into CPUs.

Today customers want threads. There is a definite need for GPGPU technology, but for now the speeds/sizes that customers want make them difficult to integrate into a CPU package. There is also the issue of CPU:GPU ratio, which is different by application.

 

[Super XP]

I agree the software needs to catch up but that is not stopping Intel.

 

[JF-AMD]

That was a server statement that I made, not a client statement.

 

[Neo4]

DDR3 is more than enough. I think a good set of DDR3-1866 is perfect with ultra low timings. That should be enough for at least 2+ years for solid gaming with a nice 4GB x 4 = 16GB.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/phenom-ii-x6-ddr3-2000.html

Conclusion

The main thing we have discovered in our today's tests is that DDR3-2000 SDRAM is indeed possible on Socket AM3 systems. We now know the prerequisites for that: 1) any Phenom II X6 processor, 2) any of the many mainboards based on AMD’s 800 series chipsets, and 3) specially optimized memory modules.

As you can see, the most difficult requirement is to get such optimized memory. We were lucky to have a dual-channel 4GB kit from G.Skill (F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS) which proved to be capable of working as DDR3-2000 on our Socket AM3 testbed. This memory kit is not without downsides, of course. For example, the modules are rather large because of the cooling elements, but we don't want to find fault with them as there are almost no alternatives available on the market. If you want high-speed DDR3 for your overclocked Phenom II X6-based computer, we do recommend you this memory kit from G.Skill.

Well, you shouldn’t be disappointed if you don’t find DDR3-2000 modules compatible with the Phenom II X6 as the performance benefits of such memory over DDR3-1600 only amount to 1-2% while memory kits like the G.Skill F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS are some 50% more expensive. So, we are prone to regard the use of DDR3-2000 modules in an overclocked Socket AM3 system as a luxury rather than a necessity.

Although the optimized modules have no problems working with Phenom II X6 processors as DDR3-2000, there are obvious problems with AMD's memory controller in general. The highest memory frequency this controller permits is much lower than what you can get with Intel processors.

Hopefully, AMD will revise its memory controller so that the company’s upcoming Bulldozer and other architectures will work with high-speed memory without any limitations and reservations, especially as JEDEC-approved speeds of DDR3 SDRAM modules may go as high as 2000 and more megahertz in the very near future.

 

[mastrdrver]

Yet again XBit Labs proves they don't understand AMD at all.

They also have another article showing that there is no to negligible improvement when overclocking the CPU-NB. I think that speaks enough about it.


Back to the topic............
Everyone see the little Bulldozer preview AMD did on their Youtube channel?

 

[Wile E]

But they are right in claiming that running 2000Mhz ram provides little, if any benefits, regardless of platform. 1600 CAS6 is better than 2000 CAS8, for example. So the true value of running 2000Mhz depends on both timings, and price. The gains will be small with significant increases in money at these levels.

But of course, CAS7 @ 2000 is better still, and some darn good sticks.

 

[hat]

DDR4 can't come soon enough.

Miniaturization of CPUs and as such, IMCs, has brought problems regarding memory DDQ voltages; remember i7 doesn't run safe with RAM vDD > 1.65v? You can't have huge voltage differences between IMC and the rest of the core or things between them two parts of the die go *poof*. Even ULV DDR3 running a 1.35V vDDQ will cause a conflict with CPU core vDDs, sooner or later. And since CPU vDDs are continuously going down... Anyways, more aggregate bandwidth never hurts, and considering GPUs are getting more and more integrated in the CPU, so in near future the industry will be screaming for faster RAM.

I thought it was the QPI voltage that had to be in line with the RAM voltage, not CPU core voltage.

 

[Nick89]

Lower clock speeds but better math crunching abilities... interesting.

And am I alone in thinking these will be big chips? What with everything on them...

I'm hoping they will be ether 32nm or 28nm.

 

[Steevo]

Burn the Intel infadels.


I am not upgrading again until either the bulldozer is real, and really competitive for price and performance, or it fails and I go back Intel.


I need more video processing power m2ts, 1080P with effects in Adobe, pixela, and ATI has failed me on that front too. So. Green and blue might be my new colors if they don't pull their shit together by next spring.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Honestly I'm fine with DDR2 and low timings. My board can run DDR2 @1333. But currently I run at 1067. But look at my timings.