AMD Bulldozer in Dec 2010?

[pyroluv]

oops sorry wrong post i thought this was a bulldozer thread.

 

[Martimus]

If AMD has this compiler ready at the time of Llano's lauch, what kind of programs (besides games) could be run on the APU?

We are about talking about speeding up the processing time of everyday programs meant to run strictly on CPUs right? Would this include all programs? Or are we talking about only certain modern programs?

Thanks.

http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2010/05/03/opencl™-and-amd-fusion™/

Here is the SDK leaders take on what will be available at launch. You can read it directly from the source, and ask questions there. My comment is currently comment 3 (http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2010/05/03/opencl™-and-amd-fusion™/#comment-55)

 

[Idontcare]

My comment is currently comment 3 (http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2010/05/03/opencl™-and-amd-fusion™/#comment-55)

:thumbsup:

Looking forward to their response.

Hmmm...I'm thinking to hit up Portland Group support to see if they've got anything to say about support timeline for APU ISA.

 

[Martimus]

:thumbsup:

Looking forward to their response.

Hmmm...I'm thinking to hit up Portland Group support to see if they've got anything to say about support timeline for APU ISA.

According to this source (http://physxinfo.com/news/3060/manju-hedge-former-cuda-and-physx-vp-is-leaving-nvidia-to-join-amd/ ), AMD hired a nVidia VP (head of PhysX and CUDA, from what I gather) to help push their new ISA.

I'm not sure what that means, but it shows they are doing something to push for the adoption of the APU architecture. How much, I don't know.

 

[mhahnheuser]

Superiority of one CPU over the other is not the issue IMO, more likely if Intel intend to change platform, "again," it might be a wiser strategy for AMD to change platform with BD alongside Intel, as then upgrading involves the same process for adopters from either maker. Platform change over is always the biggest hurdle for upgrade community, in what you can carry over to the new platform. I am more interested if AMD can pull another rabbit out of the hat here as they did from AM2 to AM3. This strategy has worked heavily in AMD's favour, certainly should be in the tops of their brains this time round if they have been paying attention to the market. More important to AMD than Intel I feel.

 

[KingstonU]

If they release it on AM3 or AM3+ will they be chocking out some potential performance by trying to make it upgrade compatible with an old socket versus make a dedicated new socket for it?

Both paths have advantages, they are doing the upgrade community a big favor but they really need to try and gain as much performance as possible with the new architecture to secure their future as Intel keeps moving ahead.

But I think more important that these is that they really need to do everything possible to nail 32nm, as PhenomII has shown with 45nm, versus their 65nm PhenomI.

 

[lopri]

If they release it on AM3 or AM3+ will they be chocking out some potential performance by trying to make it upgrade compatible with an old socket versus make a dedicated new socket for it?

Both paths have advantages, they are doing the upgrade community a big favor but they really need to try and gain as much performance as possible with the new architecture to secure their future as Intel keeps moving ahead.

I agree with (?) this dilemma. One thing going for BD, however, is that there is no new memory technology for desktop on the horizon. So DDR3 will still be the norm when BD arrives. But there is definitely performance difference when using DDR2 and DDR3 with AM3 CPUs, and AMD should carefully weigh the benefit/cost between to performance and user-friendliness. And talking about user-friendliness, it's time for AMD to ditch ZIF sockets in favor of LGA sockets

 

[alyarb]

yeah DDR3 is going to be here for a little while, and besides that the only thing that usually gets "faster" with each socket is the HT link to the southbridge, and that link is plenty wide as it is.

 

[Terzo]

Is the socket for BD going to diverge from Llano? I don't see why this would be the case, but I've heard talk about it. I'd think that they would use the same socket; sort of similar to 1156 on intel (1156 is compatible with 1156, you just need a h55/57 if you want to use the IGP with the clarkdales).

 

[alyarb]

Llano has a new socket because PCIe and VGA controllers are coming on-die and those buses need pins. Bulldozer remains on AM3, which implies that the PCIe controller remains off-die, at the HT bridge, so Llano is kind of AMD's version of H55 and AM3 is AMD's version of X58.