News AMD launches Barcelona

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/09...es_barcelona/1

AMD's quad core "Barcelona" has arrived - it's finally here! Well, it is for servers at least.

[cjoyce1980]

AMD is the King again

[docodine]

Not exactly, from what it sounds like in Anand's article, AMD could be making it worse for itself at this point.

[p3n]

Too late everyone owns a core2duo

[[USRF]Obiwan]

Well.. if its the same performance for half the price, it is not worse but better for me and you

[MilkMan5]

Available, but how many!

What’s the power consumption on these Barcelona CPU…

Interesting times ahead for the CPU business, I wonder who will lead the CPU race next year – 2008

[Jack_Pepsi]

I'll be awaiting the for the desktop Phenoms - all these 'previews' ... pffft!

[DarkLord7854]

Call me an Intel fanboy if you will, but for the amount of time we've waited for this.. a 10-15% improvement isn't that awe-inspiring.. specially with all the hype that got generated, I was expecting something more ground shaking, say like 30 to 35%...

[Phil Rhodes]

Very much looking forward to introducing Mr. After Effects to Ms. Quad Core. May the union be fruitful.

Phil

[kosch]

How many people will flock back to the AMD church and repent in front of their god!

The battle for your soul is on AMD v Intel, which one is the devil though?

[8igdave]

I dont understand why ATI and AMD ever merged. Nor do i understand why they have totaly allowed NVida and Intel to walk over them this year and while the damage is obiously not totaly pernament. It will be untill people need to upgrade again.

How many people are going to flock over to AMD untill they achually need a new cpu or if the AMD's blow away the intels enough to warrent a new board and cpu. As for the graphics cards, well what a joke. If AMD would buck there ideas up we might have had a nice high end nvida card for november. Looks like Nvida are going to hit mid market instead now.

[Techno-Dann]

My system is ready and waiting for an AM2+ Phenom. I specifically got a cute little 4400+ because I knew I'd be upgrading the moment Phenom launched.

[2JSC]

Originally Posted by Techno-Dann

My system is ready and waiting for an AM2+ Phenom. I specifically got a cute little 4400+ because I knew I'd be upgrading the moment Phenom launched.

That was my plan, but since I was going to be building a completely new system, I decided to hold off. I wanna get a decent Phenom and good RD790 board to match it. But I need a new case to fit everything in before spending money on components.

[devdevil85]

Originally Posted by 8igdave

I dont understand why ATI and AMD ever merged.

Oh believe me there was a reason....and how AMD keeps the public informed about what their operations are, I don't think we'll know until they want us to...

Originally Posted by 8igdave

Nor do i understand why they have totaly allowed NVida and Intel to walk over them this year and while the damage is obiously not totaly pernament. It will be untill people need to upgrade again.

AMD isn't like Intel or Nvidia: they don't have the same amount of money for R&D (especially after the merger), so instead of shooting for the present, they are focusing on future technolgies (which they have shown and are already coming out with; mainly in the CPU market). From what I know, AMD's main concerns are in the server market and average consumer market (on a price/performance level of course). With that said, it makes sense AMD isn't fighting to be the "top dog" in the Performance Only category; their intention is to offer a product that is innovative, is a step forward and is still worth the price tag which fills a niche that the other companies aren't filling or focusing on as much.

Originally Posted by 8igdave

How many people are going to flock over to AMD untill they achually need a new cpu or if the AMD's blow away the intels enough to warrent a new board and cpu.

(raises hand), but don't get me wrong. I'm going to wait for benchmarks and reviews before I decide, but if AMD brings what they promised w/ Phenom then I'm biting....

Originally Posted by 8igdave

As for the graphics cards, well what a joke. If AMD would buck there ideas up we might have had a nice high end nvida card for november. Looks like Nvida are going to hit mid market instead now.

For the price you pay, the card isn't bad. Also, with only one native DX10 game (Bioshock) to base performance on so far, it's still quite hard to tell how the card will handle future DX10-based games (espcecially with future updated driver support)....anyways that's my opinion

[GoodBytes]

Compared my AMD Athlon 64 4400+ Socket 939, with my brother Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, with the same OS, RAM, video card. There is no VISUAL difference in games. not even on Max Max settings. FPS and game loading wise I only see 10-15% increase. Not enough to justify it's higher price on my taste. Both comps are mainly slowed down due to the Hard Drives.

[leexgx]

5600X2 here my mobo is awateing new cpu (been thinking of switching to an intel/blue cpu for an long time but the performance of my motherboard an cpu will keep me happy and lag free i not see any dif in games) what i want to know Is the cpu new X4 cpu thats running at 2ghz faster then 3ghz x2 when useing games that are single threded and some what dual threded if not i be buying an slower cpu (like when i whent form an single core to an dual core i knew it was slower but just picked an faster ghz cpu to compensate for it)

[Tyinsar]

@leexqx: 4 cores won't matter in games until more games are properly multithreaded. Until then X2 is at least good enough for most people.

[Amon]

I'm not a connoisseur of anally strict, technically-bound computer games, but I'm rather sick and tired of the "that won't make a difference until it's multi-thread... etc, etc." mitigation. Alright, I know and get the f*cking point, but, bloody f*cking christ, if that's the only argument against what merits using a four-core processor for a power user then some people really need to walk off of a cliff in their sleep.

OK, games are not "properly multi-threaded" (what the flying f*ck does that mean? Wouldn't the on-die crossbar or load distributor already solve this? What is the proposed "proper" way, then?) but that is really a moot argument these days. But, you know, I tend to put together a $2000+ machine to do a few things other than play computer games. Oh boy, don't tell me my operating system from 2003 isn't "properly multithreaded" either...

[GoodBytes]

Ok let me explain from my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong) the simplest way I can think.

To have an application that uses several cores simultaneously to give you great application performance it needs to be programed to do so.
If it's not then your system, will decide which is core is free-er to take the task.
Therefore on a dual core CPU, you will have Core 1 which handles Windows and all your mini and startup apps, and Care 2 takes the game/application. UNLESS the game/application specifically mentions to be in core 1, as it cause issues if on the second core for some reason. (Which is the issue from some application, no so much for games (this includes old games).

[Amon]

Yes, everyone knows that. My argument was that the processor's on-die distributor should be capable of splitting threads across all four cores now, are they not? Folding@Home is one real example in which I specify it to use 100% CPU time (the program doesn't appear to be what you'd call "multi-threaded"), but the processor decides to split the program to 50% per core (on my dual-core processor) without my consent and beyond my control.