Holy Smoke Batman, New Barton PR Ratings

[Deviant]

Have a look at the table in this webpage:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1025349410

Seems doubling the cache in T-Bred gives a big performance increase, 600+ to be exact.

[KingJackal]

D@mn....

Those frequencies on Barton are rather dissapointing. With a 3100+ the biggest thing mentioned, and that to be released in Q4, that's rather unimpressive. The P$ should be closer to 4GHz by then, leaving those chips utterly and completely overwhelmed. So either AMD's betting mainly on their 64-bit chips, or AMD may soon be a budget chip maker rather than a performance chip maker again ( or those numbers don't turn out to be 100% ;) ).

And those Thoroughbred numbers are also very dissapointing. If XP2500+ is the fastest thing they're gonna make, and Intel ALREADY SELLS 2.4GHz chips, then AMD's return to being a budget chip maker may be the way of things....

:( :( :(

[Deviant]

Originally posted by KingJackal
D@mn....

Those frequencies on Barton are rather dissapointing. With a 3100+ the biggest thing mentioned, and that to be released in Q4, that's rather unimpressive. The P$ should be closer to 4GHz by then, leaving those chips utterly and completely overwhelmed. :( :( :(

Where do you get 4Ghz from KJ? Are you saying they are going to go from 2.53 GHz to 4 Ghz in less than 6 months, nearly double the speed.

Don't you mean 3 GHz, which would make Barton quite compeditive at 3100+.

[Deviant]

P4 roadmap here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/20060210.htm

Its says P4 will be 2.8GHz in Q4.

If AMD have Barton at 3100+ and Hammer at 3400+, then it looks like AMD would have ripped P4's ring-piece out.

Will Intel become the slow budget chip?

Intel who?

[Gh0s7 L3mUr]

Well hopefully things remain too close to call. That way they will have to continue to compete on price. :)

[KingJackal]

Yeah - sorry, at the time I was tossing up 3 or 4 - should've tried 3.5 ;).

Well, if the P4 currently sits at 2.53GHz, and if CPU speeds ( roughly ) double in speed every 12-18 months or so ( not moores law, but it actually winds up that way ), then ( square root of 2 times current speed for best case, cube root of 2 times current speed for worst case ) the P4 should be at around 3.2GHz - 3.6GHz come the end of the year. 2.8GHz you say? That seems particularily unambitious - maybe Intel reckon they can just cream off a higher margin with the extreme yeilds they'll get down at 2.8GHz and below.

It's nice to see a PR rating so high - but I'm wondering if the 'add 600' bit is just to keep up AMD's poorly scaling and overused architecture with the newer P4 architecture.

I mean - the PR rating up there is 1.5X the frequency. Now MHz may not mean much - but that 600 is an awefull lot to pin on nothing but a larger cache. Especially when the Athlon already has a large ( compared to other chips ) L2 cache. And MHz sells.... it really does...
( unfortunately )

*mental note to self: do calculation BEFORE posting, not later in defense of post* :rolleyes:

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Deviant
If AMD have Barton at 3100+ and Hammer at 3400+, then it looks like AMD would have ripped P4's ring-piece out.

Will Intel become the slow budget chip?

Intel who?

And what - you think AMD are the ONLY one's working on a future architecture? Please.....

I wouldn't be surprised to see the P4 phased into becoming the mainstream and then value chip through 2003, like the Athlon will be.

I don't think Intel are going to thrash AMD, not at all. I just also don't think any of these AMD chips are going to be revolutionary. Especially given they use the same architecture, and offer NO new ISA's ( NO SSE2, NO 64-bit ISA's, etc etc ). The Thoroughbred and Barton chips seem to be nothing but EVOlutionary to me.... :confused:

[Wibber]

+600 for 512k cache? soundslike a dodgy marketing tactic to me... hope the XP2600 OCs well!

[Deviant]

Originally posted by KingJackal


And what - you think AMD are the ONLY one's working on a future architecture? Please.....

I wouldn't be surprised to see the P4 phased into becoming the mainstream and then value chip through 2003, like the Athlon will be.

I don't think Intel are going to thrash AMD, not at all. I just also don't think any of these AMD chips are going to be revolutionary. Especially given they use the same architecture, and offer NO new ISA's ( NO SSE2, NO 64-bit ISA's, etc etc ). The Thoroughbred and Barton chips seem to be nothing but EVOlutionary to me.... :confused:

P4 is mainstream and value market now, I mean Celeron is now a P4 with cut down cache.

Hammer is a new design, and yes T-Bred Barton are just ecolution just like P4, when P4 came out it was on a 0.18 micron process with only 256k of L2 cache. AMD are just improving their chips like Intel has already done. Not coping, just evolution.

You previous post about 600+ for double the cache I think is hitting the nail on the head. I would only expect 5-10% performance increase like we saw with P4. Maybe 100-200+ more like it.

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Deviant
I would only expect 5-10% performance increase like we saw with P4. Maybe 100-200+ more like it.

Yeah - exactly what I was thinking. Guess I won't be the only one eagerly awaiting the first Anandtech/whoever comparison then.... ;)

[mird-OC]

well firstly, this is xbitlabs people... hardly a reliable source. but even if it were, who cares. we all ignore PRs anyway.

as for processor speed, there's only a very small segment of the market that is actually concerned with processing power - that's us... the rest of the consumer world don't (and don't need to) worry about it. but for the ignorant-number-wh0re-masses with too much money, numbers matter - so the new PR ratings make sense.

[Deviant]

Originally posted by mird-OC
well firstly, this is xbitlabs people... hardly a reliable source. but even if it were, who cares. we all ignore PRs anyway.

as for processor speed, there's only a very small segment of the market that is actually concerned with processing power - that's us... the rest of the consumer world don't (and don't need to) worry about it. but for the ignorant-number-wh0re-masses with too much money, numbers matter - so the new PR ratings make sense.

You really don't like Xbit do you Mird. Oh well, maybe they are right this time. Confirmation from another site, and confirmation from AMD. Still doesn't make a lot of sense that a Barton can have that much performance increase.

Read here:
http://www.the-inquirer.com/30060207.htm

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Deviant
You really don't like Xbit do you Mird. Oh well, maybe they are right this time. Confirmation from another site, and confirmation from AMD. Still doesn't make a lot of sense that a Barton can have that much performance increase.

Read here:
http://www.the-inquirer.com/30060207.htm

I don't see ANY AMD confirmation... and I'm not too fond of XBit labs either.

Personally, I don't read any of those rumor sites - I'm more interested in what IS happening than what MIGHT happen. If I want stabs in the dark, I can make those myself.

They'd better announce something though - my TBird is looking older and older...

*hasItchy(wallet.triggerfinger)*

need.... new... CPU...
:D

[Binky Stunt Cat]

and the above post is an example of why I can upgrade at low cost :D

anyway, i am certainly surprised at those ratings...are you sure that the cashe dpoubling is the only change?
and has there been any other cashe increase similar to this one to compare with?

[Deviant]

Originally posted by Binky Stunt Cat
and the above post is an example of why I can upgrade at low cost :D

anyway, i am certainly surprised at those ratings...are you sure that the cashe dpoubling is the only change?
and has there been any other cashe increase similar to this one to compare with?

Yes on both counts, cache is only change from everything I have read, and P4 doubled it's cache between Williamette and Northwood for a avg 7% performance increase.

[Deviant]

Originally posted by KingJackal


I don't see ANY AMD confirmation...
:D

Sorry, it says 'sources close to AMD'

[Binky Stunt Cat]

so now i see where the 10-20% boost comes from... but that means that a XP2100 would be a XP2400 instead of a 2600....somehow either these ratings are false, or AMD have altered something minor that has escaped attention so far....or AMD are puching their PR system to the limits..

[Ragnor]

Yeah the PR ratings have always been just a marketing thing.. they are even more important now to AMD.. They have to hold onto market share until the hammer arrives.

The throughbred was gonna be much more then it is and the barton was gonna be more then just more cache, AMD is not as large as intel, they can't afford to develop both processor lines... all the money is going into developing hammer....

[Deviant]

It all makes sense now, this article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/02070216.htm

Explains that Barton will have some Hammer optimisations as well as double the cache. That may be why there is a 600+ increase in the PR rating, but read this next bit cause it doesn't explain the low 2GHz previously stated speed.

Interesting point to note (don't ask me how true it is), with the changes they expect it will achieve similar clockspeeds as P4 when it arives (ie 3GHz+) but still have a higher PR rating specification. That to me says they must be increasing the pipeline.

This might be an awesome chip if you can't afford a Hammer motherboard and a new CPU cause it will fit straight into our KT266a and KT333 mobos.

[mird-OC]

mmm tasty barton. well i hope so. barton kinda lost it's lustre for me a bit after they dropped SOI... it's still a fair way away tho.