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AMD has a chance to come back against Intel.

2016 is skylake, no?

Got your work cut out for you guys.

Yeah, really. The title really has no merit, sure it's *possible* AMD can beat Intel in performance again, but hiring one guy back doesn't indicate that they will. AMD will scrap the bulldozer design, Intel will also have new things to show.

Can we be realistic? There was one, maybe two points in history when AMD was on top of the performance ladder. That was also during when Intel made the horrible mistake of having a boner for huge pipelines and high clocks and betting that clock speed gains would keep coming for added performance, and then hitting thermal walls. Apart from that, Intel just has so much more money to throw at R&D than AMD, here's some perspective for you: Intels Itanium division, basically a side project now, is still worth more than all of AMD combined. Intel throws more at advertising than AMD has as a company.

I'm not bashing. To me, frankly, when your opponent can drop 6 billion dollars on a new uarch, and everything you have in total is under that, the fact that AMD can and has competed pretty closely and for so long is incredible to me. I want them to always be around. I just don't expect miracles.
 
Sorry but Intel categorically destroyed AMD when they adopted the new cadence with the son of Dothan....Intel is a scary fucking machine when it clicks.

Hopefully someone comes to challenge Intel again but the fucking obsession with shitty mobile SoC's is ruining the industry.
 
Hopefully someone comes to challenge Intel again but the fucking obsession with shitty mobile SoC's is ruining the industry.

I see what you mean, ARM will challenge Intel from the bottom and moving up, but in the consumer space nothing will from the top end. PowerPC in high end servers, but that's not of interest to consumers.
 
Sorry but Intel categorically destroyed AMD when they adopted the new cadence with the son of Dothan....Intel is a scary fucking machine when it clicks.

Hopefully someone comes to challenge Intel again but the fucking obsession with shitty mobile SoC's is ruining the industry.
Hey hey hey, these mobile SoCs are great. We have power that rivals high-end desktops from 6 years ago in the palms of our hands. The Tegra K1 already beats the 360 GPU in almost everything but memory bandwidth and fillrate.
 
Hey hey hey, these mobile SoCs are great. We have power that rivals high-end desktops from 6 years ago in the palms of our hands.

They are awesome at what they do, but I think he just wants someone to challenge Intel from the top down, rather than bottom up like ARM.

But yeah, our tablets and phones being in some ways more powerful than this thing was is pretty amazing

115550-apple-power-mac-g5-quad-inside.jpg
 
They are awesome at what they do, but I think he just wants someone to challenge Intel from the top down, rather than bottom up like ARM.

But yeah, our tablets and phones being in some ways more powerful than this thing was is pretty amazing

115550-apple-power-mac-g5-quad-inside.jpg
Yup, and only AMD can really do that but they need a huge cash infusion.
 
And yet if your Sandy Bridge was in a laptop, it would get 1/3 to 1/2 the battery life of a Haswell and run much hotter to do it. Just because the improvements in new designs don't necessarily apply to you doesn't mean they don't exist. Intel has been busting their asses to shift to mobile.

Except that we are specifically talking about desktop CPUs, so way to go out of you way to nitpick about something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Nobody cares about power consumption on their desktop, especially if they're PC gamers. From all your other posts you seem to be some kind of Intel fanboy. You should just chill a bit, AMD competing again in the x86 space would be great for both AMD and Intel.
 
I don't think it is. If you're really that strapped for cash that the i3 and 6300 are the only choices, then please note, overclocking is free.



And engines are coming to rely on multiple threads more, not less.

This is all academic though because the fact is, the i3s there cost 150 dollars, while the 6300 is 119.

This talk of 8 and 12 cores CPUs is missing the forest for the trees, anyway. i3s suck, as much or more than AMD CPUs do. You know what the problem is with CPUs at the moment? The barrier of entry for that sexy as heck four core, the i5-4570 is too damned high. 4 Intel cores should be entry level in 2014.

I'm not recommending the AMD with this post btw, before everyone jumps me or calls me stupid. I'm recommending the i5.

no you're suggesting the fx is remotely compareable to the i3 and you're full of it
yes in the 5 games that support 6 cores they are compareable
in the hundreds that do not the i3 shits on the fx 6300
You try playing guild wars 2 or saints row 4 on that fx then speak again, neither game will be playeable on that cpu full stop, unless single digit fps in WvW is your cup of tea...

the haswell i3s are actually the only intel cpus that saw some noticeable improvement over sandy bridge (25 percent or so, still really meager but it's something haha) as they're also higher clocked (and can't be oced so base clock is relevant, unlike the shitty haswell i5s which can't clock as high as the sandy bridge cpus so they lose what small performance lead they have)

They're overpriced and they're dual cores so I wouldn't recommend anyone buy one for a gaming pc , but at least they're dual cores with 3x the IPC of the amd cpus...
At least it will be able to match the i5s in the many games that still only really put load on one or two cpu cores (AC4 is another example of such a game ac4 frametimes), while the fx6300 will be completely useless for those games if they are at all demanding. (e.g gw2, ns2, sr4 etc etc)

I use a phenom II so I am painfully aware of how many recent games require a cpu with good single threaded performance. Too many to suggest anyone buy an amd cpu right now.
 
The Kaveri A8-7600 at 65W has ballpark i3 Ivy Bridge/Haswell performance and much better graphics, it really makes for a good small case build.
 
Boss★Moogle;112297984 said:
Except that we are specifically talking about desktop CPUs, so way to go out of you way to nitpick about something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Nobody cares about power consumption on their desktop, especially if they're PC gamers. From all your other posts you seem to be some kind of Intel fanboy. You should just chill a bit, AMD competing again in the x86 space would be great for both AMD and Intel.

Indeed, explaining what Intel has been doing to somebody who was claiming that Intel has been doing nothing because of lack of competition is a sure sign of being a fanboy. Whether what Intel is doing is relevant to you specifically is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, which is that Intel was in fact doing something and doing quite a lot of it. Apparently pointing out makes me a fanboy though.

You also seem blissfully unaware that AMD has not been performance competitive with Intel since 2006 and the original Core 2 Duo. During these past 8 years Intel has basically controlled the high end x86 market alone. And yet somehow over this past decade we have gone from Conroe in 2006 to Haswell in 2014, without AMD competing with them. If you tell me that Intel's x86 designs have not had an incredible increase in performance from 2006 to 2014 I would tell you that you were fucking crazy.

Maybe Intel are crazy and like making more powerful chips every year for fun even without a credible competitor. Or maybe it's more likely that Intel are a company facing stagnation and decline in their core desktop PC and laptop markets and have been hellbent on trying to get into mobile where all the growth is. And make no mistake about it, Intel are really late to mobile, since sometime in 2014 if it hasn't already happened the 1 billionth ARM-powered smartphone or tablet will be sold to a consumer somewhere on Earth. It's not an exaggeration to say that Intel's long term success as a company will depend on if they can get into mobile or not. But yeah I'm a fanboy for pointing out the the challenges Intel faces and the things they must do to ensure their long term survival, up and including dramatically improving performance per watt of x86 which is what they have been doing even at the expense of focusing on dramatic raw performance increases year over year in the shrinking high-end desktop/enthusiast space which wasn't even very big to begin with.
 
This is completely false. It is not recommended by anyone being honest to go AMD at any pricepoint for a CPU. Intel CPUs outperform AMD at every pricepoint currently. Show your love for AMD if you must with one of their excellent graphics cards.



Yes, you have money for Intel....because Intel destroys them at every pricepoint currently, including the low end.



No, just go Intel at the equal price. You are better off any day of the week with the price equal i3 over the FX part. And it's not close.
The FX6300 was frequently recommended by Toms CPU monthly recommendation for budget segment. So it's not a wash.
 
The FX6300 was frequently recommended by Toms CPU monthly recommendation for budget segment. So it's not a wash.

Tom's is wrong. Completely wrong. And they consistently suck and offer wrong information. It is the internet equal of a magazine fit only to line the litter box.

Go read the system guide released yesterday at Tech Report, where they explain why they recommend no AMD CPUs at any price range.

I don't care about whether Intel did some mean stuff in the past, etc. I am very mercenary when I am building my systems. I want the best for the price I can afford, period. I don't care if Intel chops kittens and dips the new Devil's Canyon chips in their blood to improve performance.

The i3 at the same price range is a better product.
 
Tom's is wrong. Completely wrong. And they consistently suck and offer wrong information. It is the internet equal of a magazine fit only to line the litter box.

Go read the system guide released yesterday at Tech Report, where they explain why they recommend no AMD CPUs at any price range.

The i3 at the same price range is a better product.
Basically Tom sucks because you say so, you're not giving us much to work with here.
 
I really wish they have another "athlon 64" moment, but after the bulldozer hype that was very underwhelming, its hard to believe in amd.

I hope they fight back with something decent
 
I have been following AMD for a while as an investment. AMD is doing much better than it was, making a little profit, making its schedules and moving forward in GPU's and APU's. Of course we know about the huge console chips in massive production. The new AMD 28nm Beema and Mullins APU's are low-end, but apparently power-competitive with Intel, with superior graphics. The recent AMD 28nm Kaveri APU is the very first HSA-enabled chip in history, not a top-end chip, but we should expect a lot of improvement to come. No Intel chip can do HSA / hUMA tight CPU / GPU compute, which may make a difference someday.

But where the OP talks about "coming back," that would be coming back to be a semiconductor chip business of decent size and profit, not coming back as in competing in top-end CPU's. Apparently the immediate goal for AMD is to move into markets which are poorly served and away from Intel dominance. That includes mid-price APU-based computers and ARM, but no classic big-core enthusiast CPU, at least for the time being.

Keller has been back at AMD for a couple of years now, but it takes 3 years or so to do a chip from scratch, and there was no time earlier, so a from-scratch stand-alone CPU may not be in the cards. However, AMD is innovating a new chip design method with a modular floorplan for the SkyBridge 20nm APU family in 2015. There would be one basic SoC layout, with space for 2 compute modules. Typically, one compute module would be an iGPU, with the other being one of: x86-64, ARM 64, low-power x86-64, and low-power ARM-64. So Keller is overseeing the development of 4 at least somewhat different compute cores for 2015, plus the K12 high-performance ARM 64 for 2016, and probably a high-performance x86-64 for 2016, with all developments feeding off each other. Apparently this has already been going on for some time.

Most of the known AMD projects are APU's, which may not get much respect from enthusiasts right now. But AMD has some innovations which Intel does not have, and with this new area of HSA / hUMA tight CPU / GPU compute, the AMD implementation patents may have the teeth to protect their market investment. However, perhaps the main reason for future AMD HSA-enabled APU's is that HSA provides a single on-chip hardware interface for the different compute modules, thus supporting the creation of a range of related products for multiple markets with minimum engineering expense.
 
For those saying Intel are not moving forward, they are not innovating, where are the big performance increases?

The answer is that Intel has a performance to power budget that must be met at each die shrink, currently there is a huge bias to reduce power consumption so that technology is shared across ultra book mobile and desktop CPUs to reduce costs. Generally Intel are already providing enough performance to the consumer, and simply saying our CPU is faster at the local laptop shop doesn't sell products anymore. Battery life is a huge concern at Intel.
 
For those saying Intel are not moving forward, they are not innovating, where are the big performance increases?

The answer is that Intel has a performance to power budget that must be met at each die shrink, currently there is a huge bias to reduce power consumption so that technology is shared across ultra book mobile and desktop CPUs to reduce costs. Generally Intel are already providing enough performance to the consumer, and simply saying our CPU is faster at the local laptop shop doesn't sell products anymore. Battery life is a huge concern at Intel.

Isn't the Intel CPUs using the same core architecture like their older CPUs?
 
Any highschool economics class will make it abundantly clear how competition is only good for consumers. Monopolies never breed innovation.

The article is a fluff piece for the most part, really not making any definitive statements. Just very rraw speculation.

Exactly. You have restored my faith in humanity. Education is a good thing.
 
AMD don't have control of their fabs so they're going to be eternally behind intel unless they get bought out by a rich company who can spend billions on foundries. And even then it'll take years for them to build a competitive fab.
 
Anecdotal fact:

I am a product/test engineer for a semiconductor company.

One designer can make a huge difference on a chip. However, as many alluded to, it requires a huge to team to do things like verification, layout, post layout verification, PG, site qualifications, etc. I would be very surprised to see anything new in less than 12 months.
 
I really wish they have another "athlon 64" moment, but after the bulldozer hype that was very underwhelming, its hard to believe in amd.

I hope they fight back with something decent

A64 moment was more about Intel having Pentium 4 moment at that time.

A64 wasn't some second coming of Christ as Intel had back then separate line of mobile chips which also had good IPC but they were only in laptops.

But well once they get rid of failed bulldozer architecture nothing says they can't deliver good chips.
 
Isn't the Intel CPUs using the same core architecture like their older CPUs?

There can be up to 35% performance increase from 1st gen Core to 4th gen Core. Yes its based on the same architecture, but there are HUGE changes. Its not as simple as saying its the same architecture because its still called Core i. Intel are not sitting on their butts doing nothing. You know how the VRM circuitry is now included in the Haswell CPUs? (Notice how many Haswell boards dont have NB heatsinks anymore). These things are a big deal for power consumption.
 
You guys can show me your pretty benchmark charts all day long. I agree, Intel is better. No denying that.

But I could care less. Like I said, my Phenom six core paired with my radeon 7850 2gb allows me to run any game I throw at it just fine. Is there a chance that maybe if I had an Intel CPU I could run so-and-so game at Ultra settings instead of "merely" High settings? Perhaps. But right now, even with this four year old CPU, I think the first thing I'd upgrade is that 7850 once it gets a bit older (still doing fine for me @1080p for the forseeable future).

Then again, I've heard from some people that Phenom cpus are actually oddly better than FX cores for some games, but I have no idea if that's true. If it is, could be why this old part is doing fine for me.
 
I feel like AMD has its own "Sonic Cycle" at this point. Every few years they have some new secret tech that is going to blow Intel away. Bulldozer, Piledriver, Steamroller... none of these lived up to the hype.
 
I feel like AMD has its own "Sonic Cycle" at this point. Every few years they have some new secret tech that is going to blow Intel away. Bulldozer, Piledriver, Steamroller... none of these lived up to the hype.

Yeah, that's why I try not to get too excited anymore until full reviews are out. Though the ones you mentioned were evolutions of bulldozer, and I think the article is about the next from-the-ground-up architecture.
 
I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll be glad if it happens. More competition is a good thing. The Athlon XP line was a terrific value, probably the golden era for AMD.
 
I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll be glad if it happens. More competition is a good thing. The Athlon XP line was a terrific value, probably the golden era for AMD.

Nah. The Athlon XP was competitive, but not dominating. The Athlon 64 (and the X2 based off it) architecture was when AMD really dominated.
 
I have been following AMD for a while as an investment. AMD is doing much better than it was, making a little profit, making its schedules and moving forward in GPU's and APU's. Of course we know about the huge console chips in massive production. The new AMD 28nm Beema and Mullins APU's are low-end, but apparently power-competitive with Intel, with superior graphics. The recent AMD 28nm Kaveri APU is the very first HSA-enabled chip in history, not a top-end chip, but we should expect a lot of improvement to come. No Intel chip can do HSA / hUMA tight CPU / GPU compute, which may make a difference someday.

But where the OP talks about "coming back," that would be coming back to be a semiconductor chip business of decent size and profit, not coming back as in competing in top-end CPU's. Apparently the immediate goal for AMD is to move into markets which are poorly served and away from Intel dominance. That includes mid-price APU-based computers and ARM, but no classic big-core enthusiast CPU, at least for the time being.

Keller has been back at AMD for a couple of years now, but it takes 3 years or so to do a chip from scratch, and there was no time earlier, so a from-scratch stand-alone CPU may not be in the cards. However, AMD is innovating a new chip design method with a modular floorplan for the SkyBridge 20nm APU family in 2015. There would be one basic SoC layout, with space for 2 compute modules. Typically, one compute module would be an iGPU, with the other being one of: x86-64, ARM 64, low-power x86-64, and low-power ARM-64. So Keller is overseeing the development of 4 at least somewhat different compute cores for 2015, plus the K12 high-performance ARM 64 for 2016, and probably a high-performance x86-64 for 2016, with all developments feeding off each other. Apparently this has already been going on for some time.

Most of the known AMD projects are APU's, which may not get much respect from enthusiasts right now. But AMD has some innovations which Intel does not have, and with this new area of HSA / hUMA tight CPU / GPU compute, the AMD implementation patents may have the teeth to protect their market investment. However, perhaps the main reason for future AMD HSA-enabled APU's is that HSA provides a single on-chip hardware interface for the different compute modules, thus supporting the creation of a range of related products for multiple markets with minimum engineering expense.

I came here to post something along these lines. Thanks for the extra detail I would have left out due to sleep deprivation. AMD is no longer competing with intel at the high end and this has been abundantly clear for quite some time with the FX series being a place-holder design while most of their resources have shifted heavily towards mobile and low TDP desktop design the past 2+ yrs. I believe if you do a little reading between the lines of their recent road-map announcements its fairly obvious they intend to create an ARM / x86 hybrid design that may drop sometime in 2016. Skybridge (2015) is the road that will get them there. Its anyone's guess how successful they will be or how competitive their low TDP designs will pan out...and AMD may yet have a trick or two up their sleeves for another high end desktop part...but I think its safe to say mobile/tablets (ARM / ARM x86 hybrid) is where the money is and AMD clearly wants a piece of this growing market.

Back on topic to AMD's competitiveness in the small (and shrinking) niche market for desktop enthusiasts: people recommending intel at every price point seem to overlook that many gamers have a limited budget and/or dont care about getting 210 frames per second with all eye candy turned on when 30 - 60 fps will do just fine. Just for comparisons sake, an AMD X4 750K can be had for $80 right now. Stock clocked at 3.5Ghz and easily overclockable to 4.5Ghz on air, when paired with an inexpensive HD 7850 (aka R7 265) or a GTX 750ti (~$150) this CPU will produce smoothly playable, consistent frames in just about any modern game at 1080p with eye candy turned all the way up. Sure, you can spend more and get a little more performance out of an i3 (altho overclocked the X4 will beat i3 in many instances). And yes you can get even more frames with i5 / i7, but it will cost a lot more (as will the motherboard). For gamers on a budget AMD chips still have their place. In my household I have systems using AMD and intel and enjoy them pretty much equally. My primary AMD rig is hooked up to a 65" LCD as silent/cool mini-ITX Steam box. My dedicated intel gaming rig sits in a much larger (albeit still svelte) micro atx case and outputs to a 30" Dell in my study.

Honestly, there is pretty much zero difference in terms of noticable frame-rates or enjoyment factor. The intel rig is there when I absolutely need to play something in 2560 x 1600. But I find myself using my Steam box a lot more from the comfort of my couch. It functions like a console for me. The fact that it pumps out 75 frames per second at 1080p in BF3 instead of the 110+ frames per second I can achieve if I hook my intel box to the same TV makes zero difference to my eyeballs. I can, however, tell you that building the 2 machines made a difference to my wallet. I could have stuck intel parts in the same case and gotten more fps. Bit I didnt feel like there was any good reason to spend another $200-$300+ when the AMD rig gets 30-60+ fps in every game I throw at it. The bottom line is in most situations for most gamers (up to 1080p), even an inexpensive CPU like the 750K is going to be more than sufficient and not be a bottleneck.
 
The Kaveri A8-7600 at 65W has ballpark i3 Ivy Bridge/Haswell performance and much better graphics, it really makes for a good small case build.

The 7600's adjustable TDP (45w or 65w) really highlights new efficiencies. However, AMD seem to have intentionally delayed releasing the 7600, possibly in order to sell through a certain number of the higher margin 7700k / 7850k first. AMD announced the 7600 in January along with its big brothers, but I havent been able to find it for sale anywhere, which is a shame bc I think its really the star of the Kaveri show. I heard a rumor that some system integrators had gotten a few trays of the 7600 and put em up for sale but have seen no actual physical proof of this. The 7600 has pretty much been MIA for 6 months. I do think they have a winner if it drops at, say, the $99 - $119 pricepoint. Intel doesnt have a part that will be able to touch the 7600's multi or GPU at that price point.
 
Basically Tom sucks because you say so, you're not giving us much to work with here.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but Tom's isn't too great of a site for a number of reasons. I follow it quite often, but I think their forum posters are often more knowledgeable than the people who work there. There are better sites out there for enthusiasts.

That said, I ended up using the 6300 in a build when given the choice.

Glad to hear Intel is fixing the low quality TIM business, by the way. Kind of pisses me off that it was ever an issue in the first place.
 
AMD seem to have intentionally delayed releasing the 7600, possibly in order to sell through a certain number of the higher margin 7700k / 7850k first.

Or maybe they are sending all the 7600 parts they get to fulfill some OEM contract, thus leaving few available for distribution sales. Hopefully we could get more information from Computex, June 3-7.
 
I'd love some competition in the processor arena. Power gains seem to have really stagnated over the last six years or so. Efficiency gains are great and all, but I want some powerful desktop processors!
 
I'd love some competition in the processor arena. Power gains seem to have really stagnated over the last six years or so. Efficiency gains are great and all, but I want some powerful desktop processors!
Well, if all goes as expected we'll have 8-core Haswell-E by Q3.
 
They need a fundamental design philosophy change to become competitive with Intel. They should start with better branch prediction hardware and find a way to truely leverage there mem access speed advantage instead of just piling more on the chip. Until that begins to happen they can continue to enjoy being the second best.
 
At what price? 1000$? I do hope that AMD bring something good to the table, if not maybe we will have ten more years of 8 core cpus.
I hope they also bring the 8 core version to the $500 level, because that's what I'm going to buy.

Anyway, I'm sure a nicely overclocked Haswell-E will last for 5 years at least (at the top-end no less), so it's not unreasonable.
 
I'd love some competition in the processor arena. Power gains seem to have really stagnated over the last six years or so. Efficiency gains are great and all, but I want some powerful desktop processors!

The chip companies also want that, but have run into a development wall with respect to transistor speed (i.e., power), and diminishing returns with respect to architecture. In the past, shrinking the production node (i.e., transistor size) has delivered both speed and power, along with size, but the latest nodes are not friendly to speed.
 
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