# AMD Piledriver Discussion Thread



## Skyh3ck (Oct 16, 2011)

Bulldozer has released and got mixed review or people can say that it didn't meet the expectation set by the hype it created. 

Now the next stop is Piledriver from AMD camp.

I am not a Extreme Tech guy I just try to learn thing from net and forums... Its my passion and hobby. So whatever I write here is found from google search or some Tech sites.

I am starting this thread to discuss the next line of processor from AMD.

"Piledriver" is the codename of AMD's processor micro-architecture that succeeds "Bulldozer", which AMD is referring to as a  "2nd Generation Bulldozer". Piledriver isn't an evolution over Bulldozer as such,and is more of a incremental update to the architecture.

Piledriver features an improved core design to bring about performance improvements of 10% over Bulldozer. It features two new instruction sets: FMA3 (Fast Memory Access 3) and Converged BMI (Branch if MInus). It will feature an improved IOMMU (memory mapping unit), referred to as IOMMU v2. Apart from these, Piledriver will fit into the existing ecosystem of AMD FX Processors, consisting of socket AM3+ and AMD 9-series chipsets. AMD is currently referring to the platform Piledriver-based processors will form around themselves as "FX Next". 

Mods please tell me if anything wrong. I am just a learner and this is my first thread.


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## Skud (Oct 22, 2011)

This was published in July:-

*2a.zol-img.com.cn/product/68_800x600/532/cehuMJ7S3Bqy.jpg


The Komodo CPU has since been canned as per reports. So Piledriver will now head to AM3+ and Trinity will be the 1st CPU on FM2. Frankly speaking, I would like to see AMD moving to a completely new socket now. It's just time.


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## d6bmg (Oct 23, 2011)

> Frankly speaking, I would like to see AMD moving to a completely new socket now. It's just time.



I will vote for this. I also think its just the time to move to a completely new socket.


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## max_snyper (Oct 24, 2011)

frankly speaking....i think amd should move to pin-less configuration as intel did 7 years ago...!
BTW they should stop calling it a core...and start calling it a "module"!!!


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## ico (Oct 24, 2011)

max_snyper said:


> frankly speaking....i think amd should move to pin-less configuration as intel did 7 years ago...!


There is no 'pinless' configuration. Intel too has pins. Albeit on the motherboard. I've seen people bending pins whether it's LGA or PGA. AMD does use LGA for their server sockets.

yea, I am in favour of a new socket. Don't think about backwards compatibility for once and get rid of the sh!t which surrounds this platform. Also, implement new things without any compromises you have to do to maintain compatibility.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2011)

Here's my wishlist for future AMD CPUs:-

1) Make competitive single core performance. Doesn't matter if it beats Intel or not, it just need to be good enough.

2) Multi-core is the way to go. So BD is a step ahead in that direction. Looking forward to see more octa-core or even more core PD CPUs.

3) Make APU universal. So instead of AMD CPUs, they all should be APUs with varied degrees of graphical prowess.

4) Move to a new socket with new chipset without any backward compatibility.

5) Lastly, learn from the history of Radeon 4800.


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## vickybat (Oct 24, 2011)

Skud said:


> Here's my wishlist for future AMD CPUs:-
> 
> * Make APU universal. So instead of AMD CPUs, they all should be APUs with varied degrees of graphical prowess.*



This one seems highly unlikely atleast for the near future.To incorporate a powerful gpu core inside a cpu the tdp has to be checked. 
Unless newer fabrication techniques are introduced and gpu's take the sub 20nm route, its not possible to integrate a higher shader count gpu without increasing the tdp to unacceptable levels.

So get ready to witness a slower evolution rate in this section. From what i had read, amd was planning to add a gpu instead of the floating point execution unit in future bulldozer cpu's. That's because gpu's have excellent floating point throughput. But these are not likely to happen in near future but sometime after wards.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2011)

Yeah, I am aware of that. But given the nature of design of BD, AMD should be faster on this if they really want to challenge Intel. Hopefully GloFlo's problems will be sorted out even quicker.


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## max_snyper (Oct 24, 2011)

dude"ICO" i know that it just that....we always need to take extra care when handling costly CPU's with pins....fear of dropping....lil bit carelessness we easily break off pins
Not in case of motherboards...how often do we handle motherboards carelessly?
bigger surface area to catch on the motherboard.
+1 for Intel for including lga.

And for AMD PD..leave everything just work on single threading improvement..!


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## Tech_Wiz (Oct 24, 2011)

Piledriver is coming on AM3+ right? So that people can go for it skipping BD like people ditched Vista and went on Win 7 directly


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## vickybat (Oct 24, 2011)

^^ I guess its planned for socket FM2. Though it will have backward compatibility with AM3+ mobos most probably.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2011)

As per recent reports, Trinity will be FM2 and PD will be AM3+. Read post #2.


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## vickybat (Oct 24, 2011)

^^ Read it properly mate. Its clearly written in the "corona" block that upto 10 piledriver cores under fm2 infrastructure. It won't be am3+ but will be compatible nonetheless.


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## sukesh1090 (Oct 25, 2011)

^^may be he pointed to this line,


> The Komodo CPU has since been canned as per reports. So Piledriver will now head to AM3+ and Trinity will be the 1st CPU on FM2. Frankly speaking, I would like to see AMD moving to a completely new socket now. It's just time.


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## Skud (Oct 25, 2011)

vickybat said:


> ^^ Read it properly mate. Its clearly written in the "corona" block that upto 10 piledriver cores under fm2 infrastructure. It won't be am3+ but will be compatible nonetheless.





sukesh1090 said:


> ^^may be he pointed to this line,




Exactly. Thanks Sukesh.

*@vicky*: That slide is pretty older, some 3-4 months back. The scenario has changed after that. All these are mere speculation at this moment though. Lets wait and see.


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## Skyh3ck (Oct 25, 2011)

Since the time BD has released and failed (I will say did not meet the hyped)...  No news can be found on PD I am constantly checking all leading Tech news site but Post BD no word about PD....

It seems AMD does not to hype PD hence they are quite...... But it that is good if you don't expect much and get more you feel good..


Also I agree that AMD should move pinless design.... 

I could not wrote much on the first Post as I am posting all this from a mobile phone


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## Skud (Oct 29, 2011)

Something to cheer about?

Maximum PC | AMD Says Trinity Coming 'Very Early Next Year'


*@sumesara*
Hype is good, as long as you keep it practical. AMD went overboard with return of legendary FX comics and all stuff. That was bad and immature marketing.


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## Skud (Nov 6, 2011)

*AMD scrambles to bring Piledriver to market | KitGuru*




> So what can we expect?
> 
> Well, the news from AMD in 2012 centres on an update to the present Bulldozer cores, called Piledriver.
> 
> ...


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## Skyh3ck (Nov 6, 2011)

Thanks for the link.....

Ivy bridge will decide how well people will accept PD......

As the PD is based on BD architecture and windows 7 is not doing what it should do for BD.... Then its AMD to do something so windows take full advantage of PileDrivers architecture....

Also Intel claims that the software are already 5-6 years behind hardware... So can we say that Intel Proccy are backward then AMD..... Or Intel are going parallel to software and AMD is too much advanced.........


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## max_snyper (Nov 7, 2011)

^^ for current generation hardware....u can pretty much say that :"Intel is parallel with software development" but not in the case of AMD they have created a non traditional design with BD...but cant say that they are too much advanced against software development..!


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## Cilus (Nov 7, 2011)

Actually architecture wise AMD has always shown something new to the world. But sometimes they implemented in correctly in one go (like Athlon 64 bit), sometimes after couple of tries (Phenom to Phenom II).
Actually how the architecture is implemented is very muchimportant too. Intel is always ahead on it, their architecture might not be very innovative, but implementation is very good, every small element that are part of the architecture, performs very close to its expected performance.

Now we are seeing that AMD is losing ground in single Core performance or we can say in ILP but it is AMD who actually first implemeted separate L1 Data Cache and l1 instruction cache to reduce the coherency issues of ILP techniques like Pipelining, Superscalar etc. Initially Data and instructions are used to reside inside a single L1 cache, resulting cache coherency problem, slow access and inefficient use of cache size.


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## max_snyper (Nov 7, 2011)

Don't you think Cilus they don't have much to do on the BD front.....instead of revamping the whole architecture to suit for today's need...some where i saw that win 8 could manage a real core as well as hyper-threaded one efficiently...but that doesn't mean it will improve BD performance or Intel's cpu performance.....
New os will do nothing nor updates to win 7 unless design issues are sorted out to suit the application needs..!


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## Cilus (Nov 7, 2011)

Actually Win 8 preview has shown BD performance improvement upto 10% in gaming and Multi-threaded applications. The reason is that it can identify a BD module and the two cores inside it and assign work accordingly. This proper assignment also enables the Turbo core functionality to work in a better way to boost lightly threaded peformance.
But it is true that it does improve the performance of the Sandybridge CPUs too; not in that extent but still. So it is very unlikely that without any revision or hardware tweaks BD will perform better than Sandybridge in Windows 8.


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## sukesh1090 (Nov 7, 2011)

^^before the improvement of BD's performance in Win 8,microsoft should work on win8 to improve its user friendliness for desktop users.if win 8 UI stays exactly same in the final version as it is in the preview then it will be another vista for desktop though it may good for tablet ,mobiles and all but win 7 is far more better than win 8 in desktop.so now the question is will people really upgrade to win 8? If not then AMD should work on their hardware to improve its performance in win 7 only.


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## $$Lionking$$ (Nov 8, 2011)

MAX Snyper - Actually there is a LOOOOOOOOT that can be done on the BD front.

Bulldozer did exactly what Mr. Meyer wanted to get done from it. It paved the way No more no less!!! 

@Piledriver - It will have 7-10 % performance improvement from higher clocks & 3-5% from better IPC. According to AMD.

7-10 % higher - clocks ranging from 3.0 GHz to 4.6GHz!!! (It is 2.8 - 4.2GHz right now.) + 2-3% better IPC - This only means that even if they dont have a good IPC they'll compensate it with better clocks!!!!


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## Omi (Nov 8, 2011)

They have to do something big on this one
Or Intel will be the undisputed master ruling the desktop processor
Sucks to see no competition in processors with 1 company ruling all


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## MyGeekTips (Nov 8, 2011)

Omi said:


> They have to do something big on this one
> Or Intel will be the undisputed master ruling the desktop processor
> Sucks to see no competition in processors with 1 company ruling all



This will give Intel the freedom to price their processor as per they want. No Competition = No Consumer = Overpriced.


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## Cilus (Nov 8, 2011)

MyGeekTips said:


> This will give Intel the freedom to price their processor as per they want. No Competition = No Consumer = Overpriced.



And also no innovation.


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## Skud (Dec 9, 2011)

AMD Piledriver to launch in Q3 2012


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## $$Lionking$$ (Dec 10, 2011)

^^ What is the point of launching it then?? 6months behind IB??


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## Skyh3ck (Dec 14, 2011)

i was just about to post it... but thanks for posting it.

that is a stupid move by AMD.... by then the Ivy bridge would have changed the situation for AMD...


I dont want AMD to fail this time.... better late than never...


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## comp@ddict (Dec 19, 2011)

WTF Piledriver core coming with Trinity APU in Q1 2012, and actual Piledriver coming Q3 2012. Epic F@!l


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## Cilus (Dec 19, 2011)

comp@ddict said:


> WTF Piledriver core coming with Trinity APU in Q1 2012, and actual Piledriver coming Q3 2012. Epic F@!l



There may a reason for it SKUD, APUs are targeted to mid-range and HTPC segments and will be priced accordingly. So it does not need to be a super performer, it just need to provide enough overall multimedia performance to prove itself and will be sold to the budget conscious customers, no matter if it is a top performer in CPU performance or not. So AMD will have some time to check the CPU performance of the APUs and can add some more tweaks and optimization to the final version of Piledriver.


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## max_snyper (Dec 19, 2011)

^^if they can work something out with the PD series and the "pricing" ....it will work some how if win-8 takes its advantage.


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## Skud (Dec 19, 2011)

Cilus said:


> There may a reason for it *SKUD*, APUs are targeted to mid-range and HTPC segments and will be priced accordingly. So it does not need to be a super performer, it just need to provide enough overall multimedia performance to prove itself and will be sold to the budget conscious customers, no matter if it is a top performer in CPU performance or not. So AMD will have some time to check the CPU performance of the APUs and can add some more tweaks and optimization to the final version of Piledriver.




Eh, its not me, Cilus, it's comp@ddict. If we talk about APUs and IGP in general, AMD frankly don't have any competition and neither will have, whatever Intel claims. And I personally think AMD this time is actually doing the right thing, first releasing the lower end before bringing out the mid-high end of Piledriver. They are moving to a newer socket for Trinity with no backward compatibility, so performance might improve.

Actually, I would have loved to see PD to be released in an entirely new socket too. They should have scrapped the whole BD and AM3+ thing at the very first place. Neither 990fx is a great improvement over 890fx.


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## sukesh1090 (Dec 19, 2011)

^^
But what about those who bought 990fx?they never had BD and if now they don't get even PD they will for sure screw amd.


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## Skud (Dec 19, 2011)

That's why I have said they should have scrapped both.


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## sukesh1090 (Dec 19, 2011)

yup bro but they have already released it and people who bought the boards will expect some life for the new socket as amd is known for it.


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## debian (Jan 2, 2012)

PD would be launched with a new FM2 Socket. It is suicidal to upgrade to am3+ now. Amd plans to launch a 10-core processor based on pile-driver. I am holding all my cash and waiting for that. I am no fanboy, but love amd for the value they offer. And Intel seriously needs competition, otherwise their future products will be way overpriced.


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## ico (Jan 2, 2012)

^ well, there isn't anything affirming and there isn't anything denying what you have said.


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## comp@ddict (Jan 2, 2012)

PD on FM2 socket? Really? Well that could very well imply integrated graphic cores into the die.

I think this architecture will finally show it's worth(if there is any) by 2013, with the successor of PD, made on 22nm, and Win8 out already (probably an SP1 too )

But then INTEL will be in some other higher level cloud by then.


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## debian (Jan 11, 2012)

There have been many changes in the linux 3.2 kernel, which address the unique structure of the bulldozer architecture. Testers running the latest kernel have noticed a boost,sometimes even upto 20% on the fx processors. This tells me despite the obvious shortcomings of the bulldozer platform, some of the blame has to be given to Operating systems, for not coming up with schedulers to match the architecture. Many hardware reviewers tend to ignore this fact, instead focussing on the performance of a 2012 processor on a 2009 ( Read windows 7) OS. I am not saying bulldozer is a brilliant product, if at all it is actually a disappointment. But except for gaming, i dont consider any benchmark done on the windows platform as a true measure of anything.


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## Cilus (Jan 11, 2012)

^^Agreed totally. Even if the Packs for Windows 7 or new scheduler in Windows 8 can bring roughly 20% performance improvement in most of the applications that are used frequently then at 11.5 price point, FX8120 is gonna be a winner over 2500K as per the current pricing. 
In fact I'm also waiting for that too.


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## Skud (Jan 17, 2012)

AMD Describes Piledriver Architecture Peculiarities to Software Developers - X-bit labs


Max 10 core with quad channel support possible, but guess they need a newer socket.

*www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2012-01/amd_15h_family_features.jpg


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## Skud (Feb 23, 2012)

AMD Piledriver Chips to Conquer 4GHz Milestone Thanks to Resonant Clock Mesh Tech - X-bit labs


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## Souro_Ray (Feb 23, 2012)

As far as i have seen from different forum websites, most of those who went the intel way went with the i5-2500K or i7-2600K. Now, judging by the specs of IB released, most people wont need to upgrade, unless they want to sample a new piece of tech or are crazy power savers.

Purely in my opinion, those who have these high end SB models shouldnt need to upgrade for another couple of years. Is it possible that AMD PD can benefit from this trend? I have my trusty 880GM-UD2H board and dont want to upgrade till AMD and Intel both play all their cards..


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## Skud (Mar 9, 2012)

AMD FX 8350 Vishera CPU production in Q3



> It all goes well in Q3 2012 AMD enters production and launching this production whenever it feels like it has enough of them. AMD FX 8350 is based on eight Vishera 32nm cores that will support Enhanced AMD turbo core technology, DDR3 1866 and fit the same AM3+ socket. At this time AMD doesn’t mention any clocks.


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## coderunknown (Mar 10, 2012)

^^ 8350? hmmm, i think AMD will clock it close to 3.8Ghz. maybe 4.


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## sukesh1090 (Mar 10, 2012)

^^
And turbocore to 5GHz.but thinking about power consumption i think it will easily beat my water heater.


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## Skud (Mar 10, 2012)

Will be better than SNB most probably. And if Windows 8 releases before that, well, we can always hope.


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## coderunknown (Mar 10, 2012)

sukesh1090 said:


> ^^
> And turbocore to 5GHz.but thinking about power consumption i think it will easily beat my water heater.



most likely power consumption will be fixed but performance won't take any huge leap. say matches Phenom IIs across all applications.


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## sukesh1090 (Mar 10, 2012)

^^
but according to what i heard bro,it is possible for amd to fix the performance of PD over BD but it is not possible to fix the power consumption.
Btw does the production of pd has been moved from glofo to tsmc?as glofo and amd are now completely separated from each other.


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## Skud (Jul 3, 2012)

It's pretty near:-

AMD 8350 is a 4.0GHz eight-core

AMD FX-8350 Piledriver CPU Expected to Launch Mid-Q3


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## Tech_Wiz (Jul 4, 2012)

Sam said:


> most likely power consumption will be fixed but performance won't take any huge leap. say matches Phenom IIs across all applications.



Yeah...Instead with BD AMD could have just thrown in 32 nm Phenoms and it would have been an instant hit due to its OC head room and energy efficiency improvement.


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## vickybat (Jul 4, 2012)

^^ Piledriver will be no match for lga 2011 which is for sure. But it has to beat i7 2700k/3770k in all benchmarks to prove itself. It should not target phenom 2's because we don't want phenom 2 like performance anymore but higher than that at affordable prices. Intel has performance but its processors are too pricey due to lack of serious competition.

Steamroller will take on haswell in 2013.


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## coderunknown (Jul 5, 2012)

From TH's test of desktop trinity:


> Turning off two of FX-8150's Bulldozer modules gives us the opportunity to run a threaded workload like 3ds Max without slanting the result toward Bulldozer. And once again, the Piledriver-based APU wins by roughly 15%.



so add L3 cache and performance should be up another 10% at best. i doubt Piledriver will beat 2nd gen i7s. Though they should match i7 2600 constantly as P2 X6 came quite close.



Tech_Wiz said:


> Yeah...Instead with BD AMD could have just thrown in 32 nm Phenoms and it would have been an instant hit due to its OC head room and energy efficiency improvement.



they should have done that. And in the meantime work on Piledriver instead. Maybe they were in a real hurry to bring forward their Zambezi platform to market and didn't have time to go back and redesign P2 in the 32nm node. But they have done same with Llano so why not do the same for FX? Or was it that A10.5 was not scalable beyond 6 cores


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## Skud (Aug 29, 2012)

Some early details of Steamroller:-


AMD details Steamroller CPU architecture: A refined Piledriver with a dynamic L2 cache | ExtremeTech


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## Skud (Aug 31, 2012)

Some really encouraging words here, but then, only time will tell:- 

AMD Pushes Steamroller and Excavator Forward, Bullish about Performance Increases


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## sukesh1090 (Sep 14, 2012)

so according to that link expect something from steamroller and take out piledriver from your list.lets wait and see or rather what else we can do


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## gameranand (Sep 15, 2012)

Isn't Q3 is going to be over and still no sign of piledriver release ??


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## d6bmg (Sep 15, 2012)

^^ We can do nothing but to wait..


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## gameranand (Sep 19, 2012)

Yeah well we don't have much of a choice in that do we.


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## Skud (Sep 22, 2012)

Pricing and specs, more or less finalized:-



> AMD FX-8350 - eight-core, 4.0GHz/4.20GHz, 8MB L2 + 8MB L3 cache, 125W - $253
> AMD FX-8320 - eight-core, 3.50GHz/4.0GHz, 8MB L2 + 8MB L3 cache, 125W - $242
> AMD FX-6300 - six-core, 3.50GHz/4.10GHz, 6MB L2 + 8MB L3 cache, 95W - $175
> AMD FX-4300 - quad-core, 3.80GHz/4.0GHz, 4MB L2 + 8MB L3 cache, 95W - $131


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## vickybat (Sep 22, 2012)

^^ I really hope these to dethrone 1155 cpu's in terms of performance as they already seem to offer good value in pricing.


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## Skud (Sep 22, 2012)

Waiting for the Windows 8 vs Windows 7 comparison. They are supposed to overcome their weakness in the newer OS, to some extent.

23rd October is the launch date.


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## gameranand (Sep 22, 2012)

23 is launch of above mentioned CPUs ??
As I read that Win 8 will release on 26.


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## d6bmg (Sep 22, 2012)

Price of 8320, 8350. Fail. Should come down to ~$210 eventually.


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## coderunknown (Sep 22, 2012)

i am sure a lot of peoples will be blown off by the (clock) speed and pricing and start wasting money on the 83X0s.


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## ico (Sep 22, 2012)

Sam said:


> i am sure a lot of peoples will be blown off by the (clock) speed and pricing and start wasting money on the 83X0s.


check the ratings and reviews of FX-4100 on Flipkart.


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## sukesh1090 (Sep 28, 2012)

^^
hahaaa from now on i will never see any flipkart reviews for buying products,because there a person have done a comparison between fx4100 and 2500k and has written both has integrated gfx  and the comment has "77% of 22 people found this review helpful".lol.
btw guys does fx4100 has integrated gfx??


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## gameranand (Sep 28, 2012)

Seems like Indian customers are easy to satisfy.


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## Skud (Oct 18, 2012)

The latest leaked pricing looks yummy. 

AMD FX "Vishera" Processors Launch Pricing Surprises | techPowerUp



> AMD FX-8350 - $199: 8 cores, 4.00~4.20 GHz with TurboCore, 16 MB total cache
> AMD FX-8320 - $175: 8 cores, 3.50~4.00 GHz with TurboCore, 16 MB total cache
> AMD FX-6300 - $135: 6 cores, 3.50~4.10 GHz with TurboCore, 14 MB total cache
> AMD FX-4300 - $125: 4 cores, 3.80~4.00 GHz with TurboCore, 8 MB total cache


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## topgear (Oct 19, 2012)

At last a cpu with 4Ghz stock clock speed  - the pricing is great too and nice to see AMD is going to continue their Am3+ cpu lineup.


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## Skud (Oct 23, 2012)

The benchmarks for FX8350 is out; the promised 10% performance improvement is generally there, multi-threaded performance has improved more significantly, power consumption has come down a bit, plus there's improvement in overclocking capability too. But most importantly, introduced at a much cheaper price than FX8150.


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## CarlonSamuels (Oct 23, 2012)

I am pretty happy with the benchmarks for now
will have to wait and see what the pricing will be like in india


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## Skud (Oct 23, 2012)

Much depends on the performance and overclocking ability of the 8320. If it gets it right and priced below 10k, this would be a serious contender.


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## CarlonSamuels (Oct 23, 2012)

I think 8320 would be priced at 11k at least on flipkart maybe lower on other websites


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## Skud (Oct 23, 2012)

Here's the initial pricing from Bitfang:-

1) 8350 - 15366
2) 8320 - 14742
3) 6300 - 11897
4) 4300 - 7971


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## CarlonSamuels (Oct 23, 2012)

I think thats too overpriced if price doesn't come down significantly i will most probably ask someone to get it for me from USA


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## Skud (Oct 23, 2012)

Bad pricing, but it will definitely come down in 2-3 months.


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## CarlonSamuels (Oct 23, 2012)

Do they have stock or is it just for display?


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## Skud (Oct 23, 2012)

No idea, ask them.


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## Minion (Oct 23, 2012)

FX 8350 Review is out at tomshardware it does perform closely to Intel core i7 3770k but with much lesser price.
SOURCE
AMD FX-8350 Review: Does Piledriver Fix Bulldozer's Flaws? : Meet AMD


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## ssk_the_gr8 (Oct 23, 2012)

nice increase all around. Finally beats sandy. AMD needs to get all popular software optimised for Piledriver.
Beating Ivy will only be possible when they hit a new process node. 
But it is good value compared to Intel. Prices need to still come down a bit.


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## topgear (Oct 24, 2012)

looking at the benchmarks I'm really pleased about FX-8350 though the pricing in here is really steep .. it's supposed to be $195 .. so I'm taking the pricing of bitfang with a pinch of salt


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## gameranand (Oct 24, 2012)

Any new motherboards launched lately ??? I mean the present mobos are like Year old and don't offer advanced features.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2012)

What advanced features are you searching for?


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## gameranand (Oct 24, 2012)

Well thats not exactly I mean. I mean they are old so something new should come having like I donno Thunderbolt, more USB 3.0 ports, Wifi etc. I know that these are more of a gimmick rather than actual features but sure these features supported on board won't hurt right. I mean look at Z77 platform, many boards have these type of features and all so I thought since AMD is doing well in CPU part so they should roll out some new Mobos as well for support.

@Skud
My personal request. Please reply in the gaming rig thread I make (my signature) about GPUs and add your valuable suggestions.  Nowadays most of our senior members are not even going to PC buying area for some reasons.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2012)

Well, actually there's no new chipset required, so I don't think mobo makers are going to bring out anything newer.


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## gameranand (Oct 24, 2012)

Yeah you are right about that. But I guess if AMD CPUs will perform well on market then that would catch Mobo manufacturer attention.


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## Skud (Oct 24, 2012)

gameranand said:


> @Skud
> My personal request. Please reply in the gaming rig thread I make (my signature) about GPUs and add your valuable suggestions.  Nowadays most of our senior members are not even going to PC buying area for some reasons.




Everyone has got their rig I guess. So may be none of us are really in touch with the market.


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## gameranand (Oct 24, 2012)

But you guys are in touch with the tech. Don't worry about market, I'll take care of that. Just give your suggestions and recommendations thats all.


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## ssk_the_gr8 (Oct 24, 2012)

i'm really interested to see a detailed comparison of piledriver on win8 and win 7 .


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## topgear (Oct 25, 2012)

gameranand said:


> Yeah you are right about that. But I guess if AMD CPUs will perform well on market then that would catch Mobo manufacturer attention.



why would you need a newly launched mobo for socket AM3+ - just wait a bit and then a grab featured pack mobo like Crosshair V Formula-Z / Crosshair V Formula or a workhorse like SABERTOOTH 990FX  - - they all support Vishera cpus though a bios updatre may be required.


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## Cilus (Oct 26, 2012)

Here goes the REVIEW of PILEDRIVER, FX 8350 AMD FX-8350 Review: Does Piledriver Fix Bulldozer's Flaws? : Meet AMD.

Priced at $196, this one performs as good as i7 3770K n most apps and couple of times beating it in most multithreaded applications. Although in gaming and single threaded performance it stills lagging to the 3rd gen i processors, overall performance is better than i5 3570k .  At the sub 200K price point, it is a worthy opponent to the i7 3770K which is almost $128 costlier. But still IPC and Gaming performance is not up to the mark, although there are good amount of improvement in terms of performance and power consumption over previous BD design.

Here is the Guru3D review of the whole Piledriver lineup: *www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8350_8320_6300_processor_4300_performance_review,1.html


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## topgear (Oct 26, 2012)

and here's what Anadtech saying about Vishera :



> Ultimately Vishera is an easier AMD product to recommend than Zambezi before it. However the areas in which we'd recommend it are limited to those heavily threaded applications that show very little serialization. As our compiler benchmark shows, a good balance of single and multithreaded workloads within a single application can dramatically change the standings between AMD and Intel. You have to understand your workload very well to know whether or not Vishera is the right platform for it. Even if the fit is right, you have to be ok with the increased power consumption over Intel as well.



AnandTech - The Vishera Review: AMD FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-6300 and FX-4300 Tested

my two cents : best VFM workstation cpu at a great price and if the pricing is right I may go for one


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## Skud (Oct 26, 2012)

I think apart from gaming it is good VFM for everything else. Whereas it is slower in iTunes, other popular software like dbpoweramp, mediacoder etc. run faster. A general desktop user will hardly spot the difference of a few seconds. Power consumption is a sore point, but then again our systems hardly remains under full load all the time.

Here's some undervolting results:-

Google Translate


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## Cilus (Oct 26, 2012)

Itunes should not be considered as it has some Intel Compiler optimization and one of the worst apps for converting music with quality settings. Although Lame is faster in Ivy Bridge due to its single threaded nature, it can convert multiple tracks at a time using one file per core. If you are converting one album using LAME Encoder UI then the total time needed for the conversion will be lower in Piledriver than its Intel Counter parts at the same price point. And tell me, how many times you convert just a single track?


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## topgear (Oct 27, 2012)

here's one more review in which FX-8350 tested at undervolted state - it's in English and used one of my favorite test app cinebench 11.5 

AMD Piledriver FX Review - FX 8350, 8320, 6300 vs Intel Core i5 and i3


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## Cilus (Oct 27, 2012)

^^ Thanks for the link Topgear, like the way they've done the Price range comparison. Also the undervolting is a new thing here which is not present in any of the other reviews.


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## topgear (Oct 28, 2012)

^^ you are welcome.

BTW, time for some new record 

AMD FX-8350 Overclocked to 8.176 GHz with 8 Cores Enabled | techPowerUp


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## Skud (Oct 31, 2012)

Confirmation of what we were suspecting for a long time:-

Windows 8: Does AMD's Bulldozer Architecture Benefit? : Can Bulldozer Be Fixed By Windows 8?

These words are golden:- 


> Installing Windows 8 does translate to slightly faster benchmark numbers, and without the power spike. But Microsoft's latest certainly cannot be expected to uncork results that many enthusiasts were hoping might have been bottled up by a poorly-optimized operating system. The onus for fixing Bulldozer was clearly on AMD, and we saw the company take a first step toward that goal with its Piledriver-based FX parts.
> 
> AMD told us not to expect any additional performance from FX-8350 prior to our review. But now that we know Microsoft plans to roll out performance- and power-altering updates to Windows 8 right away, rather than waiting for a service pack, there's renewed hope for even a small nudge forward.
> 
> ...


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## Cilus (Oct 31, 2012)

Ya, AMD really needs to do something to optimize both single and Multi threaded performance of Bulldozer architecture on Windows  OS rather than expecting the OS to be optimized for their Architecture. Lets wait and see what happens after the *Performance- and power-altering updates* release


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## ssk_the_gr8 (Oct 31, 2012)

sigh, disappointing


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## topgear (Nov 1, 2012)

here's a new review :
AMD Vishera FX-6300 & FX-4300 Review

and the most interesting parts 
AMD Vishera FX-6300 & FX-4300 Review - Page 15
AMD Vishera FX-6300 & FX-4300 Review - Page 16


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## sukesh1090 (Nov 1, 2012)

ok i read that toms review and it performed more than what i expected from piledriver.it completed just behind 3770k( >$300) and above 3550k ( >$230) in almost all tsts except some single threaded tests.according to me if it looses in single threaded benchmark then those software developers who has to be blamed here rather than AMD because in 2012 they are still giving single threaded softwares almost ten years after the launch of multi core processors and in the world where even mobiles have quad core processors and even intel atom has two threads.
piledriver what i refer as just food for the people to keep thinking about that AMD still has talent in it and it will mostly comeback with a bang with steamroller.


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## topgear (Nov 2, 2012)

Still Phenom II offers better Multi Threaded performance and to get the best possible multi threaded performance from BD/PD you need to have the top end Octa Core cpu


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## Skud (Nov 8, 2012)

This is apparently AMD's 2013 Desktop roadmap:-

*img.donanimhaber.com//images/haber/37297/amd2013rdmp_dh_2_fx57.jpg

Apart from Radeon HD8xxx & Kabini, nothing to exciting there. Steamroller seems delayed or may be AMD is devoting more to ARM based processors.

Bad. I was looking forward to Kaveri.


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## mohiuddin (Nov 8, 2012)

are they slowly leaving desktop cpu market ?


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## vickybat (Nov 8, 2012)

^^ No, but they aren't competing with intel on performance front.

Amd launches piledriver based opteron 6300 for the server market. Its codenamed "Abu Dhabi".

Check more info below:

AnandTech - AMD Launches Opteron 6300 series with "Piledriver" cores


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## sukesh1090 (Nov 9, 2012)

@skud,
i guess steamroller was set to release in 2014 i guess.may be its like they will launch it in late 2013 and will enter the market in the starting of 2014 as they did with piledriver but nothing can be assured.
one main thing to keep eyes on is HSA improvements.lets see what it brings to dinner table.


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## Skud (Nov 9, 2012)

Kaveri (Steamroller based APU) was expected early half of next year. This would be disastrous if delayed.


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## topgear (Nov 10, 2012)

this should be helpful 
Leaked roadmap suggests no Steamroller desktop chips next year - The Tech Report


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## mohiuddin (Nov 13, 2012)

will steamroller be on am3+ socket?
and any review on how piledrivers perform in gaming in windows8 vs win7??


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## vickybat (Nov 14, 2012)

^^

Ist - Yes, there will be an AM3+ version along with a different socket version.

2nd- Windows 8: Does AMD's Bulldozer Architecture Benefit? : Can Bulldozer Be Fixed By Windows 8?

       Windows 8 Versus Windows 7: Game Performance, Benchmarked : Does Windows 8 Let You Play Just Like Windows 7?

The first link is for bulldozer and it showed no gains. So piledriver will be more or less similar.


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## topgear (Nov 14, 2012)

vickybat said:


> ^^
> 
> Ist -* Yes, there will be an AM3+ version* along with a different socket version.



are you sure about this ?? any link would be helpful . I though SR is only for APUs and server market.


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## prudhivisekhar (Nov 26, 2012)

Was thinking to upgrade the system with FX processor, but after reading all this , I am not sure which t select.


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## Skud (Nov 26, 2012)

Forget about SteamRoller, if AMD survives the next year then we can talk about it in 2014.


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## vickybat (Nov 26, 2012)

topgear said:


> are you sure about this ?? any link would be helpful . I though SR is only for APUs and server market.



Check wikipedia mate. Its clearly stated there.


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## topgear (Nov 27, 2012)

got that - it would be the 3rd Generation FX-series CPU family and we will get to see them on 2014 ...


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## topgear (Dec 5, 2012)

here's new set of benchmark with interesting results : 
*www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300.html


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## vickybat (Dec 5, 2012)

^^ 6300 looks pretty strong overall. Its very good in games as well as in multithreaded tasks.
It even beats the 8150 in gaming. Its a better buy than i3 3220 for sure.


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## sukesh1090 (Dec 5, 2012)

Skud said:


> Forget about SteamRoller, if AMD survives the next year then we can talk about it in 2014.



wow bro i don't have any doubt in survival of AMD. they survived after BD release and PD is better than that so there is no reason to doubt about their survival.


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## vickybat (Dec 5, 2012)

^^ *Haswell* is a very big threat. Skud was pointing that.


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## Skud (Dec 5, 2012)

Not Haswell, AMD's financial positions. 

Not Haswell, AMD's financial positions.


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## Xai (Dec 5, 2012)

Talking about Haswell, when is it expected in Indian markets?


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## sukesh1090 (Dec 5, 2012)

^^
lol there is still lot of time for haswell release in international market.


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## vickybat (Dec 5, 2012)

Xai said:


> Talking about Haswell, when is it expected in Indian markets?



Q2 2013 and its going to be revolutionary.This is even much bigger threat to AMD than sandybridge ever was.


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## topgear (Dec 6, 2012)

vickybat said:


> ^^ 6300 looks pretty strong overall. Its very good in games as well as in multithreaded tasks.
> It even beats the 8150 in gaming. Its a better buy than i3 3220 for sure.



FX 6300 is good indeed ( for the time being at-least ) but what is going to happen if Intel decides to reduce the price of it's quad core cpus around ~8-8.5k.



vickybat said:


> Q2 2013 and its going to be revolutionary.This is even much bigger threat to AMD than sandybridge ever was.



AMD better prepare themselves but as always Intel cpus will be priced higher (as well as the new  mobos ) - so AMD may get a price advantage over this but if Intel is going to price their cpus/mobos right even with 10% performance advantage things will be very different.


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## vickybat (Dec 6, 2012)

topgear said:


> FX 6300 is good indeed ( for the time being at-least ) but what is going to happen if Intel decides to reduce the price of it's quad core cpus around ~8-8.5k.



Intel dropping prices is highly unlikely and has never happened since the core 2 duo days.





topgear said:


> AMD better prepare themselves but as always Intel cpus will be priced higher (as well as the new  mobos ) - so AMD may get a price advantage over this but if Intel is going to price their cpus/mobos right even with 10% performance advantage things will be very different.



Actually topgear this time mere pricing won't make a difference. That 10% performance improvement you see in most sites is half true. Its 10-15% in existing apps and ecosystem i.e win 7.
But there is a complete different ecosystem in the horizon read windows 8 and its not about scheduling advantage. Haswell has some significant improvements which even sandybridge did not have against nehalem. Not only the architecture but the instruction sets intel is supporting with haswell are a first time in x86/64 platform. These have never been used before.

I'm writing an article discussing all of these in detail and share them here very soon. We can discuss everything then.


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## Cilus (Dec 6, 2012)

Vicky, I guess you are referring to TSX or Transactional Synchronization Extensions X86 instruction which has been added in Hashwell architecture. Obviously it is a break through as Hashwell is going to be the 1st X86 Processor to incorporate it and there is no doubt, applications with TSX support will show a huge performance boost due to better multi-threading support. But the problem is whenever a new instruction set comes into the picture, software developers just can't adopt it as it requires huge amount of effort to port an existing application into the new framework with newer instruction set support. It needs several code paths for different processors, one with TSX support and one without it. For that reason you need couple of years for the new Instruction sets to become Mainstream.
But even though the approach Intel has shown is a positive path and there are a lot of Database and Server application with TSX support through software. With minor changes they can adopt the hardware support for the same and can show a huge performance boost, better than the 10-15% predicted.


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## topgear (Dec 7, 2012)

Thanks for the posts - _Vicky_ and _Cilus_ - did not read much Haswell but now I'm getting interested 

anyway, check this out :
AMD debuts new Piledriver-based Opteron server chips | Hardware.Info United Kingdom


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## sukesh1090 (Jan 9, 2013)

i don't know if any one saw this but thought it will be interesting,
here it is,
Projected Performance: Can AMD Catch up with Intel?


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## NoasArcAngel (Mar 13, 2013)

Cilus said:


> Vicky, I guess you are referring to TSX or Transactional Synchronization Extensions X86 instruction which has been added in Hashwell architecture. Obviously it is a break through as Hashwell is going to be the 1st X86 Processor to incorporate it and there is no doubt, applications with TSX support will show a huge performance boost due to better multi-threading support. But the problem is whenever a new instruction set comes into the picture, software developers just can't adopt it as it requires huge amount of effort to port an existing application into the new framework with newer instruction set support. It needs several code paths for different processors, one with TSX support and one without it. For that reason you need couple of years for the new Instruction sets to become Mainstream.
> But even though the approach Intel has shown is a positive path and there are a lot of Database and Server application with TSX support through software. With minor changes they can adopt the hardware support for the same and can show a huge performance boost, better than the 10-15% predicted.



i heard devs, crying about HSA too... i understand their pain



sukesh1090 said:


> i don't know if any one saw this but thought it will be interesting,
> here it is,
> Projected Performance: Can AMD Catch up with Intel?



that was *if* the steamroller would release in 2013, and that was *if* amd would even consider releasing steamroller now. Too many ifs.

another problem with amd, is that apart from oc freaks people who have big $$$ and want extreme performance have always stuck with intel, and with the doubt of running the steamroller on AM3+ socket... its becoming a little clear on the acceptability part, that amd will only sell if the steamroller ends up supporting the am3+ socket and that means, amd is betting on releasing a ddr3 based solution in 2014, where intel will definitely release a pci 4 + ddr4 by 2015


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