More details about AMD's Bulldozer-based FX lineup emerge

[Jos]

More information is slowly starting to surface regarding AMD's upcoming Llano and Zambezi processors. Following last week's reveal of the expected initial lineup and ship dates, X-bit labs has apparently gotten hold of an AMD slide filled with model specifications and other details. According to the site, the FX-series will initially be comprised of four chips (instead of eight as previously suggested): the four-core FX-4110, the six-core FX-6110, and the eight-core FX-8110 and FX-8130P. All four would be available as 'Black Edition' parts with an unlocked core multiplier for easier overclocking.

Four additional Bulldozer-based FX chips are expected further down the road featuring an incremental bump in performance. All of them will support dual-channel DDR3 1866MHz memory, Turbo Core, will be compatible with AM3+ motherboards and will have 95W TDP ratings, with the exception of the flagship FX-8130P model which boosts the power draw to 125W. They will also include "up to" 8MB of L3 cache memory along with 1MB of L2 cache per core.

Unfortunately there are still no specific details regarding price and clock speeds, but performance-wise, it seems AMD FX-81x0 processors will be pitched as competitors to Intel's Core i7-26xx chips -- the top players of the Sandy Bridge family -- while six and quad-core Zambezi APUs will go up against Sandy Bridge-based Core i5 and Core i3 chips. AMD estimates total system pricing for computers carrying their high-end Zambezi chips to be $700 and up.

Moving down the price ladder, AMD's product positioning slides show the company is reading four A8-3000-series Llano accelerating processing units to compete with Sandy Bridge-based Core i3s and Pentium CPUs. These will fit into the mainstream $600 - $700 range -- again, this is the total system price -- while the currently available E-series chips part of the Brazos platform battle it out with Intel's Celeron (and Atom) in the $400 price point.

The images posted above were obtained by Nordic Hardware and are supposedly the finished box art for the upcoming FX processors. Overall the branding used resembles AMD's popular Radeon series and seems to confirm four and eight-core "Black Edition" models, but box art for the alleged six-core model has yet to be seen.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/42797-more-details-about-amds-bulldozer-based-fx-lineup-emerge.html

 

[princeton]

Dual channel memory? Is this a ****ing joke? I know the speed increases will be marginal for most people but there's no reason not to include it.

Also it's nice to know AMD needs 8 cores to make a cpu that will compete with the new i5. This has got to be a joke.

 

[mosu]

If they use AM3 socket it must be dual channel memory. And it's 8 physical cores against 8 virtual cores (4 cores with hyper threading), all in the same 95 W power envelope.. And again, it's not about speed, it's about processing power.

 

[Guest]

Why am I getting a pop-up ad from Intel over an AMD article???

 

[mosu]

Use a script blocker for ads

 

[princeton]

It isn't the AM3 socket Mosu. It's an improved version known as AM3+. Get your facts straight. Also speed and processing power are directly related. If a cpu processes X amount of information 2 seconds faster then it has more processing power.

 

[mosu]

With roughly the same 940 pins even if it's called AM3+ it won't aloud three or four channel memory.Yes, they may increase memory speed, but not connectivity in a broader sense

 

[princeton]

mosu said:
With roughly the same 940 pins even if it's called AM3+ it won't aloud three or four channel memory.Yes, they may increase memory speed, but not connectivity in a broader sense

It still shows new technology has been pushed to the side by backwards compatibility. It's the same reason why anyone wanting more than a modest setup won't even touch AMD.

 

[Raswan]

Guest said:
Why am i getting a pop-up ad from intel over an AMD article???

Happening to me on every page.

 

[princeton]

raswan said:

Guest said:
Why am i getting a pop-up ad from intel over an AMD article???

Happening to me on every page.

I don't get the popup. Is it going right over the text of the article or something?

 

[Jurassic4096]

95w TDP's across the board right out the gate, I'm impressed, even if it is 32nm. Not bad pulling that off using an all new architecture, especially coming from under-performing (versus the competition) 125w Phenom II X4 CPU's. Could I be coming back to AMD? I just pray they fix their Sata III performance and don't break anything that worked well in the past. Oh, and some serious SSD support should be automatic. ie: TRIM (over RAID?)

 

[Guest]

It pops-up over the text.

 

[Jurassic4096]

Princeton said:

mosu said:
With roughly the same 940 pins even if it's called AM3+ it won't aloud three or four channel memory.Yes, they may increase memory speed, but not connectivity in a broader sense

It still shows new technology has been pushed to the side by backwards compatibility. It's the same reason why anyone wanting more than a modest setup won't even touch AMD.

I didn't know the 2500K and 2600K had triple/quad channel IMC's. Can i get a link?

 

[Guest]

yes, it is going over the text of the AMD article.

 

[Puiu]

@Princeton stop the stupid comments when you haven't even seen the numbers yet. Wait for some official benchmarks.
Who cares if it's 8 cores vs 4 cores when you are comparing two entirely different chip designs. And they went for dual channel because it is cheaper for both the producer and the consumer. The fact that an AMD system is cheaper then an intel one is the main reason why people buy it.
PS: Sandy Bridge is also dual channel.

 

[Guest]

Why mention the full system price?, it makes it looks to expensive.

 

[princeton]

jurassic4096 said:

Princeton said:

mosu said:
With roughly the same 940 pins even if it's called AM3+ it won't aloud three or four channel memory.Yes, they may increase memory speed, but not connectivity in a broader sense

It still shows new technology has been pushed to the side by backwards compatibility. It's the same reason why anyone wanting more than a modest setup won't even touch AMD.

I didn't know the 2500K and 2600K had triple/quad channel IMC's. Can i get a link?

LGA 1155 isn't Intel's high end platform. It'll be LGA 2011.

AMD has said that they intend to have cpu's targeting the high end sector. This info shows that it was a lie.

 

[Leeky]

Dual channel memory? Is this a ****ing joke? I know the speed increases will be marginal for most people but there's no reason not to include it.

Also it's nice to know AMD needs 8 cores to make a cpu that will compete with the new i5. This has got to be a joke.

Is this comment also meant as a joke? Because your basing an opinion on nothing more than scraps of information that are currently available.

Now by all means show me the definitive proof to back up your claims Princeton.

I also don't see the point in triple channel memory, yeah it offers more bandwidth, but its marginal at best, and you're likely talking 2-3% difference in overall performance, which in the case of dual channel RAM is I imagine easily accounted for with an additional 1-2GB.

AMD has said that they intend to have cpu's targeting the high end sector. This info shows that it was a lie.

So what your saying if I'm reading your comments correctly is they're lying because they aren't offering triple channel support, and therefore, in your mind couldn't possibly compete with Sandy Bridge?

 

[Vrmithrax]

Guest said:
Why mention the full system price?, it makes it looks to expensive.

Gives a budgeting ballpark, to compare alongside the current Sandy Bridge based system price points. This is way easier than trying to lay out actual component prices up front, because you just KNOW that anti- crowds will scream and point if you go $5 over a target price quoted in passing 3.2 years before a product release.

 

[Raswan]

Princeton said:

raswan said:

Guest said:
Why am i getting a pop-up ad from intel over an AMD article???

Happening to me on every page.

I don't get the popup. Is it going right over the text of the article or something?

It's over the title of each article and the first 2 lines of text. Script-blocker is already enabled...

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

Nice, 95W power envelope. Now let's hope they offer comparable performance to Intel's i5 and i7...

 

[ezodagrom]

Princeton said:
Dual channel memory? Is this a ****ing joke? I know the speed increases will be marginal for most people but there's no reason not to include it.

Also it's nice to know AMD needs 8 cores to make a cpu that will compete with the new i5. This has got to be a joke.

They're not truly eight-cores, the more correct term would be quad-module, but AMD is using eight-core for marketing purposes.
Anyway, each module has 2 integer cores (thus making 8 cores), but there's only 1 FP unit per module, unit that is shared between the 2 cores.
A real 8 core would have 8 integer cores and 8 FP units, but Bulldozer has 8 integer cores and 4 FP units.

 

[Kibaruk]

And then Princeton wonders why he is called a basher... to bash and beyond must be his modo.

This information is so far so good, talking about amd competing against i7 is good enough for me, assuming AMD will have the price lead (Since their procs has always been cheaper) and most AM2+/AM3 users can upgrade without even touching the memory or mobo sounds pretty darn good.

 

[Vrmithrax]

Kibaruk said:
And then Princeton wonders why he is called a basher... to bash and beyond must be his modo.

This information is so far so good, talking about amd competing against i7 is good enough for me, assuming AMD will have the price lead (Since their procs has always been cheaper) and most AM2+/AM3 users can upgrade without even touching the memory or mobo sounds pretty darn good.

Alas, a new mobo (AM3+) will be required for the new processors. So, it's not as simple an upgrade path as we've had in the past with AMD.

 

[red1776]

here is a better article on the BD details that Route44 posted a couple of weeks ago. The BD (as far as the forthcoming information) is not about outdoing Intel with "more cores" , its about ,amongst other things, much better multi-core efficiency and communication.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1083