BIOS update kills Phenom performance

Peter G. 6 Dec, 2007 at 3:27pm ET Article published in Tech

Comments

1. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 3:35pm GooD Outch... This is not the publicity they are looking for to help them compete against Intel.
   
   Intel must be smiling a this time :rolleyes2
2. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 3:35pm Thrax In order to fix the TLB errata on the Phenoms, they had to nerf the performance of the chip. Two steps forward, five steps back.
   
   The chips with fixed TLBs at the silicon level will not have this performance penalty, and should be faster than the "Broken" Phenoms.
3. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 3:40pm primesuspect So essentially what this means is: Under no circumstance should you buy a Phenom until the rev.2 silicon comes out? o.O
   
   AMD.
4. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 3:49pm Thrax Yep, it'll be the third "Final" silicon spin for AMD. B1 was in-house, B2 is what we see, and B3 is supposed to be something like the Yorkfield for AMD.
5. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 5:48pm lemonlime
   
   The performance drop with the errata fix applied is really unacceptable. It was difficult enough seeing the Phenom numbers before the quote-unquote "fix"..
6. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 8:30pm Leonardo

   The performance drop with the errata fix applied is really unacceptable.

   It may be bad news for those of us who may have considered crossing fingers and trying AMD again, but it may actually not hurt AMD very much. I don't think it will make much of a difference with sales of branded machines. Will the average Dell, HP, or Acer Gateway buyer know anything about "TLB", errata, or 'performance loss' when he looks at a PC display at Best Buy or CompUSA? Probably not. Sure, we will, but what impact do we have on AMD sales? I'm sure the major manufacturers will use this information to leverage lower prices out of AMD, but I don't think it will hurt AMD much more than they've already hurt themselves.
7. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 9:03pm Qeldroma

   Leonardo wrote:

   ... I'm sure the major manufacturers will use this information to leverage lower prices out of AMD, but I don't think it will hurt AMD much more than they've already hurt themselves.

   
   Yes. They could try to underprice Intel- but that is going to be a tough gig to pull again when all Intel has to do is lower the price of their bottom teir ... and still sell a better processor.
8. 
   6 Dec 2007 ~ 9:37pm Leonardo

   They could try to underprice Intel-

   They will have no choice.