AMD Quad-Core Design Advantages

awhir

AMD is currently walking in the shadow of Intel's Core 2 Duo and quad-core CPUs but as more details are revealed about AMDs native quad-core architecture, Intel may have to reconsider its strategy.

AMD has always claimed that its native quad-core design is superior to Intel's plan of bundling two dual-cores in one chip. The company has already started revealing the details that back-up its superiority claims. At the heart of the issue lies AMDs Direct Connect architecture which utilizes serial hypertransport links to directly connect memory, CPUs and some IO subsystems. The design offers great advantages in scalability and is allowing AMD to even consider octal-core implementations.

Intel's Kentsfield design is based on the sharing of the front side bus, a hurdle which AMD avoids using the dedicated HT links for each dual core CPU. This is stressed as a performance difference but we have to remind you that until AMD has a product out that can be tested rigorously and compared to Intel's chips we will not be able to offer any real world comparisons, although we have to admit that on paper it does look good for AMD provided they can deliver the chips soon enough.

AMD has now also confirmed that its CPUs will be available in speeds varying from 2.6 to 3.0 GHz.

8T8

That's the tricky question will AMD's more elegant design with its I/O advantage to transfer data between cores and the Hypertransport etc negate the brute force approach of Intel's quad parts.

AMD will be making additional changes to the K8L core but more knowledgeable folk than I on other sites have said it will close the gap but K8L wont be a head-shot to the Core 2 line.

At the high end server line that is a different area & AMD may well come out tops again.

On the desktop it should be enough to stem any further defections to Intel but they need to get K8L out the door on time.

Those Core 2 Quad's look mighty tempting to me as I have a lot of video encoding to do but the price ouch!

Psycopat

8T8 wrote:

Those Core 2 Quad's look mighty tempting to me as I have a lot of video encoding to do but the price ouch!

any figures?

unklerosco

Intel will be following amds native quad core soon after amds chips are released... Seemingly there's gonna be little if any difference for the time being..

awhir

awww i so want amd to kick intels asss..

Cuddlesworth

The question is do you care?I know 8T8 has already said he does video encoding(multiple threads) but for the average user dual core is overboard. And for anybody who says that games are going to be faster, simply put dont bet on it. For me a core2duo at a high overclock is going to be the best performing chip I will need for a long time.

Also it was said that Intels dual core designs would never be that fast due to cores communicating over the fsb. Well the Fsb is more then capable of handling the traffic and Intels roadmaps show only more bandwidth in the future with Fb-dimm2 and DDR3.

And lets not forget that Amd have apparently taped out the first bunch of K8L chips. Now, if they were the performers that Amd fanboys want them to be then why havnt Amd started to put out samples to overclockers and sites, the same thing Intel did with Core2duo. Christ all I ever heard about Core2dou before it came out was that it was faster then Amd chips by a huge margin.

8T8

The price of the Core 2 Quad will be pretty high as they will take the place of the Core 2 X6800 though some cheaper parts will enter the chain eventually.

But yeah as krazy_8s it's fairly nice stuff for power users only of no benefit to the average joe.

One cool feature I like the sound of mentioned somewhere is that the 4x4 platform which is just 2x dual or quad core CPU's gives each CPU it's dedicated own bank of memory could possibly mean for example encoding a video on 2 cores while playing a game on the others with minimal performance hit. Though managing cores in Windows can be a pain in the ass so it sounds cool but the practicality will sink it no doubt.

Psycopat

krazy_8s wrote:

The question is do you care?I know 8T8 has already said he does video encoding(multiple threads) but for the average user dual core is overboard. And for anybody who says that games are going to be faster, simply put dont bet on it.

I'd bet on it actually, look at the PS3, it doesnt have multiple cores just for the crack ya know, there are gona be games made for it which will many cores (6 or 7 i believe) so im sure pc games developers will see all this hullahhhbulllullaa about 2, 4, 8 :eek: cores and say hmmmm, we could have a huge game for example oblivion and lets say 1 processor controlled the AI, 1 controlled physics (for non agiea physix users), 1 controlled the draw distance, etc etc, and if there arent that many cores present do it normally.

Isnt Quake 4 dual core? Im sure there will be many multi core optimised games in the future, and it looks bright

Cuddlesworth

Sigh, 4 cores < 2 cores.

Reasons why:
To code for 4 separate threads is more than 4 times the work. Eg; more than 4 times the money spent.

Playstation 3 is not a pc, the whole architecture of its cpu is different from pc's in the way it is coded for. Also do you have any idea of how many of its cores games are going to be using? Or of the statement from various developers saying that they cant make use of that many cores and that it is overboard to requirements? Why does it look better than the x-box 360? Better card is the obvious choice.

Should you have 4 cores doing 4 things, in what order do they do them? The Ai core needs to wait for the physics core, which is waiting for the general cpu, which is waiting on the render from the last frame, which is waiting on the ........
Realise this, 4 cores/4 threads does not make a better game in the short term.


I have no doubt that in 2 years we will be seeing solutions that make it a viable solution but for the moment simple brute force tasks like video encoding or for large servers with huge multiple users/workloads/requests is the only time you will see these chips making a difference. The same way it has been for last few years. Just because Amd and Intel are pushing this down your throat doesn't mean you need it.

unklerosco

krazy_8s wrote:

I have no doubt that in 2 years we will be seeing solutions that make it a viable solution but for the moment simple brute force tasks like video encoding or for large servers with huge multiple users/workloads/requests is the only time you will see these chips making a difference. The same way it has been for last few years. Just because Amd and Intel are pushing this down your throat doesn't mean you need it.

Exactly....

Psycopat

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/

have a quick read through that there web site

developers will always find ways to exploit hardware, wether it be graphics cards, physics cards, better monitors or even more cores.....

Cuddlesworth

Psycopat wrote:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/

have a quick read through that there web site

developers will always find ways to exploit hardware, wether it be graphics cards, physics cards, better monitors or even more cores.....

Right clearly I am not getting my pint across. So I'm going to try 1 last time. 4+ cores will end up as a better system for the gamer in the future. Rough guess would be around 2-3 years. Because as you say above "developers will always find ways to exploit hardware". But there is no possible use for these chips at the moment aside from the odd application.

This is a case of the horse before the cart. Both Amd and Intel are pushing for multiple cores, when dual core is barley used. Its a gimmick and anybody who buys these cores for gaming deserve to have their money fleeced from them.

As for the above article, its for dual core not quad core. And when looking at that the specs I see performance gaps when using really low res's, but when they were jacked up you see almost no difference. Reason being both cores are waiting on the gpu. This is the same thing that will happen with more cores doing simple processes and with a gpu or even ppu. Its going to slow things down.

Psycopat

@krazy8s

lol im not saying games will support quad core overnight, im meerly saying that there are dual core games out atm and in the future (1-3 years) im sure developers will be using dual and quad core. however you cant just say over 2 years because if somone releases a dual/quad optimised game in 8 months other games will take heed and a "my game is better optimised than yours" war will follow (so i hope).

What i would say to anyone looking to build a top quality rig for games is, dont bother waiting for Kentsfield, as you said only video encoding, photoshop, etc will use it right now. however wait for DX10 cards to arrive, but dont buy one (im sure there'll be bugs), get a 7950 GX2 when their price drops after the DX10 cards release (maybe even adverts will have nice deals).

*EDIT*

krazy8s wrote:

Right clearly I am not getting my pint across.

no no i understand what your saying, i just thought that site was interesting