All of this and AMD has really improved its financial positioning this year. A really tough run seems to be in the rear-view mirror. They have fought back against insurmountable odds, and we will all benefit from it, weather you choose AMD or not, having them in the market is paramount to continued progress in what has become a really competitive chip market again.
Not just looking forward, but just think about where we are at, six cores for about $200 and, they are making money on them.... Unbelievable. Moore's law is not dead yet.
I'm drooling over the bulldozer writeup. It's sounds downright beastly. It makes me really glad I went with a Phenom II and a ddr3 board. I almost didn't. I hope we see some leaked bench marks in the coming months.
I think Thrax did the unthinkable and actually made my heart race over a processor preview. All three of these architectures are exciting. It means a wonderful performance processor for me in the coming months, a nice netbook option next year, and the mainstream will be getting some awesome options in the Best Buy-level markets so my friends on a budget can still get on a game like the rest of us with integrated graphics that are worth their salt.
Thrax, dude, awesome writeup, and I LOVED the lay-man's analogy of a vehicle assembly line.
Very nice write up guys, well done. Im running a 955 on AM3 and was considering a 1090T upgrade at the end of the year but with zambezi launching the 1090T options gone out the window. So the obvious question is, how did you get the bulldozer release date? Is this going to be announced officialy? Everything else i've heard about it has zambezi launching well into next year. Cheers
Your article states that bulldozer (zambezi) will release in late 2010 and Llano will release in 2011. All other reports say the opposite; zambezi will release in 2011 and Llano will release in late 2010. Are you sure what you wrote is accurate?
This is the best article I have read so far about the upcoming AMD processors. The comparison with car assembly helps to understand the concepts underlying the architecture. However, AFAIK, Bulldozer is set for release in "2011", with no indication of a Quarter or even Half.
There is a reason why AMD's products hasn't been exciting in 2010; they've dedicated a bulk of their resources for 2011 products!
"We also know for a fact that Zambezi will use socket AM3, meaning anyone with a DDR3 Phenom II motherboard will be ready to rock with a BIOS upgrade."
=> It is said to be using Socket AM3 Revision 2 specification. (Socket AM3+ ???)...It depends on how the electricals are implemented by the motherboard manufacturer; a user of an existing Socket AM3 motherboard *is very likely* to be able to do a drop-in install with the new "Zambezi" processor and a BIOS upgrade. Regardless, it explains why AMD is re-using the same 2010 chipsets in 2011 roadmaps. ie: Will keep using the 8xx series chipsets for Bulldozer architecture.
"It is certainly worth noting that the above x-ray of the Llano is not complete; the bottom section of the chip has been cut off in press materials, meaning there’s even more silicon at play than we can see at this time."
=> Correct. What AMD doesn't show is that in Llano; the whole northbridge is now part of the processor. The motherboard will only have the SouthBridge. In Llano's case, the SouthBridge is codenamed "Hudson-D"...It also means you are very likely needing a new mobo!
"However, judging from what we can see, the Llano APU will feature 512k-1MB L2 cache per core, no L3 cache and six Radeon HD 5000-series units for a total of 480 stream processors."
=> Its definitely 1MB L2 cache per core. But I'm not sure about the number of stream processors. Some say 400; others say 480.
"In short, Llano is shaping up to be an Athlon II X4 with 66% of a Radeon HD 5750 on board. If that bears out, then it is more than capable slugging Intel’s Clarkdale and Arrandale (Core i5) designs into the pavement without lifting much more than a few fingers."
=> Its going to be a slightly tweaked up version of the Athlon II X2/X3/X4 line; and the graphics part is going to be more like somewhere between the Radeon HD 5500 and 5600 series. Regardless, I agree its going to raise the bar IGP performance quite dramatically.
Other things you've missed about Llano:
* It will feature power saving technologies as similarly found on Intel's Core i3/5/i7 lines. ie: Power gating, dynamic speed scaling, etc. (Its likely to have a "Turbo mode".)
* Is said to use 0.8V – 1.3V voltage.
* Has target clock-speeds over 3.0GHz.
* TDP numbers: 20W to 59W depending on the version.
=> Lower power dual-core version: 20W
=> Mainstream dual-core version: 30W
=> High-end dual-core, triple-core and quad-core chips: 35W and 59W.
"For example, Bulldozer may not be an APU now, but its relatively small floating point unit speaks to a future architecture that cedes floating point operations entirely to the GPU, a component that crushes the CPU in floating point performance."
Hi, Aussiebear! Thanks for taking the time to stop by and leave your fantastic comment.
Your points about Llano are all true, and we've reported on many of them previously, but this article was designed to be a simple primer on the processors so consumers know what to expect.
As their release dates draw closer, we will undoubtedly plunge deeper into their technical merits as you have done here.
Thankyou for the excellent read! I've been following the developments on these for a while, and I'm not quite sure whether I agree with your car manufacturing analogy.
If I'm not mistaken, Intel's hyperthreading basically uses a second thread to feed the execution units while the other thread has stalled or doesn't use the full width. So, to keep in line with your assembly line: There are several robotic arms that assemble a car, working together whenever possible. However, sometimes the parts supply has stalled - that's when Intel's second parts supply brings in different parts for a different car for the arms to work on. This way the arms are busy more of the time, resulting in a more efficient execution.
What AMD does is simply arranging for a second set of robotic arms right next to the original set, so creating two execution sites with two parts supplies. Some of the arms can temporarily help out on the other line (the FPUs doing AVX, as you explained), and there are many other ways in which these two assembly lines work together.
So in essence, one module is a highly optimised dual core, that can really boost multithreaded performance at not that much cost. I believe that's CMT. I've never seen anything about the breaking down of the "main" thread in little parallel ones, and I don't think that's what meant with CMT. Perhaps it's speculative multithreading what you're on about? That one isn't expected for the first iteration of Bulldozer just yet, but could well emerge in future versions. I could be mistaken in all of this of course.
Some minor corrections I would like to make are the following:
- The L2 will be devoted to a single module, while the L3 is still for all modules and cores. So this is actually different from the current way, be it slightly.
- Orochi will be made on 40 nm bulk (so, not SOI like Zambezi and Llano), not 32. 32 nm Bulk actually got canceled by both TSMC and Global Foundries.
- Zambezi is planned for somewhere in 2011, not 2010.
It's absolutely great to read the guys at AMD are excited though, that's a very good sign! I certainly grant them a victory, especially after all the nasty bullying by Intel. Intel will of course be quite the competitor still I'm sure - I'm pretty sure they know about AMD's plans better than any of us, and must be cooking something up to counter them right now.
"For example, Bulldozer may not be an APU now, but its relatively small floating point unit speaks to a future architecture that cedes floating point operations entirely to the GPU, a component that crushes the CPU in floating point performance."
HLS is a fascinating way to rapidly design and produce a chip that can easily be modified or ported to other processes for outstanding flexibility in the market. The trade off for this agility is frequency—Bobcat’s maximum clockspeed with an HLS-driven design is about 20% lower than it could have been were it designed “by hand.â€
That's a pretty major achievement. The HLS systems I've seen at school deliver at best 20% of the performance possible with a manually-routed design.
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
Not just looking forward, but just think about where we are at, six cores for about $200 and, they are making money on them.... Unbelievable. Moore's law is not dead yet.
Thrax, dude, awesome writeup, and I LOVED the lay-man's analogy of a vehicle assembly line.
"We also know for a fact that Zambezi will use socket AM3, meaning anyone with a DDR3 Phenom II motherboard will be ready to rock with a BIOS upgrade."
=> It is said to be using Socket AM3 Revision 2 specification. (Socket AM3+ ???)...It depends on how the electricals are implemented by the motherboard manufacturer; a user of an existing Socket AM3 motherboard *is very likely* to be able to do a drop-in install with the new "Zambezi" processor and a BIOS upgrade. Regardless, it explains why AMD is re-using the same 2010 chipsets in 2011 roadmaps. ie: Will keep using the 8xx series chipsets for Bulldozer architecture.
"It is certainly worth noting that the above x-ray of the Llano is not complete; the bottom section of the chip has been cut off in press materials, meaning there’s even more silicon at play than we can see at this time."
=> Correct. What AMD doesn't show is that in Llano; the whole northbridge is now part of the processor. The motherboard will only have the SouthBridge. In Llano's case, the SouthBridge is codenamed "Hudson-D"...It also means you are very likely needing a new mobo!
"However, judging from what we can see, the Llano APU will feature 512k-1MB L2 cache per core, no L3 cache and six Radeon HD 5000-series units for a total of 480 stream processors."
=> Its definitely 1MB L2 cache per core. But I'm not sure about the number of stream processors. Some say 400; others say 480.
"In short, Llano is shaping up to be an Athlon II X4 with 66% of a Radeon HD 5750 on board. If that bears out, then it is more than capable slugging Intel’s Clarkdale and Arrandale (Core i5) designs into the pavement without lifting much more than a few fingers."
=> Its going to be a slightly tweaked up version of the Athlon II X2/X3/X4 line; and the graphics part is going to be more like somewhere between the Radeon HD 5500 and 5600 series. Regardless, I agree its going to raise the bar IGP performance quite dramatically.
Other things you've missed about Llano:
* It will feature power saving technologies as similarly found on Intel's Core i3/5/i7 lines. ie: Power gating, dynamic speed scaling, etc. (Its likely to have a "Turbo mode".)
* Is said to use 0.8V – 1.3V voltage.
* Has target clock-speeds over 3.0GHz.
* TDP numbers: 20W to 59W depending on the version.
=> Lower power dual-core version: 20W
=> Mainstream dual-core version: 30W
=> High-end dual-core, triple-core and quad-core chips: 35W and 59W.
"For example, Bulldozer may not be an APU now, but its relatively small floating point unit speaks to a future architecture that cedes floating point operations entirely to the GPU, a component that crushes the CPU in floating point performance."
=> Its going to go beyond that. In the 2nd generation Fusion processor (somewhere in 2015); AMD has plans to incorporate GPU elements into the CPU core itself! Meaning there won't be distinct GPU and CPU sections on the processor like we see with the x-ray of Llano.
=> See here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20100512150105_Second_Iteration_of_AMD_Fusion_Chips_Due_in_2015_AMD.html
Anyway, I've been saving up for 2011 releases since the beginning of this year!
Your points about Llano are all true, and we've reported on many of them previously, but this article was designed to be a simple primer on the processors so consumers know what to expect.
As their release dates draw closer, we will undoubtedly plunge deeper into their technical merits as you have done here.
Isn't it all exciting?
Thankyou for the excellent read! I've been following the developments on these for a while, and I'm not quite sure whether I agree with your car manufacturing analogy.
If I'm not mistaken, Intel's hyperthreading basically uses a second thread to feed the execution units while the other thread has stalled or doesn't use the full width. So, to keep in line with your assembly line: There are several robotic arms that assemble a car, working together whenever possible. However, sometimes the parts supply has stalled - that's when Intel's second parts supply brings in different parts for a different car for the arms to work on. This way the arms are busy more of the time, resulting in a more efficient execution.
What AMD does is simply arranging for a second set of robotic arms right next to the original set, so creating two execution sites with two parts supplies. Some of the arms can temporarily help out on the other line (the FPUs doing AVX, as you explained), and there are many other ways in which these two assembly lines work together.
So in essence, one module is a highly optimised dual core, that can really boost multithreaded performance at not that much cost. I believe that's CMT. I've never seen anything about the breaking down of the "main" thread in little parallel ones, and I don't think that's what meant with CMT. Perhaps it's speculative multithreading what you're on about? That one isn't expected for the first iteration of Bulldozer just yet, but could well emerge in future versions. I could be mistaken in all of this of course.
Some minor corrections I would like to make are the following:
- The L2 will be devoted to a single module, while the L3 is still for all modules and cores. So this is actually different from the current way, be it slightly.
- Orochi will be made on 40 nm bulk (so, not SOI like Zambezi and Llano), not 32. 32 nm Bulk actually got canceled by both TSMC and Global Foundries.
- Zambezi is planned for somewhere in 2011, not 2010.
It's absolutely great to read the guys at AMD are excited though, that's a very good sign! I certainly grant them a victory, especially after all the nasty bullying by Intel. Intel will of course be quite the competitor still I'm sure - I'm pretty sure they know about AMD's plans better than any of us, and must be cooking something up to counter them right now.
I can't wait to see this happening. :thumbup