AMD demos four-core tech

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2006-07-26 09:22am

Gamespot wrote:AMD demos four-core tech, talks ATI acquisition
Chip-maker shows off new CPU at its HQ, refers to buyout of Canadian GPU maker as an "acquisition of growth."
By James Yu, GameSpot
Posted Jul 25, 2006 5:36 pm PT

SUNNYVALE, California--Fresh from its ATI acquisition announcement, processor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today demonstrated a working four-core desktop system at a technology event held at its company headquarters. The four-core test system used two dual-core 2.8Ghz CPU engineering samples, clocked at the same speed as AMD's flagship Athlon 64 FX-62 dual-core processor.

The four-core system outperformed a dual-core Athlon 64 FX-62 comparison system in several multithreaded, processor intensive applications ranging from 3D rendering to video transcoding. AMD didn't reveal benchmark scores at Microsoft's request because the systems were running on Windows Vista software, which is still in beta. However, AMD representatives were able to show the performance differences by running the systems side-by-side in race scenarios. Not surprisingly, the four-core system finished ahead of the dual-core comparison system, often by a huge time margin.

During the demonstration, Pat Moorhead, AMD's vice president of advanced marketing, made special care to explain that multi-core PCs won't necessarily run all applications faster than single-core systems. Instead, he said that multiple cores will help the most in what AMD calls "megatasking" scenarios that involve running several processor intensive applications at the same time such as playing a game while coding a video in the background.

Speed and power characterized the last two decades of desktop processors, but parallelism has become the new mantra for manufacturers as heat and production challenges make it more difficult to increase processor speeds. If a CPU-maker can't increase single-core performance through clock speeds, the next best option is to add additional cores that work in tandem.

Multi-core CPUs, once the domain of severs and high-performance workstations, have gone mainstream over the past year. AMD's Athlon 64 X2 and Intel's Pentium D, the first dual-core processors from both major manufacturers, have gained a solid foothold in consumer desktops. Both companies are now preparing to push parallelism even further by adding four or more processing cores into each system.

AMD presented today's four-core system demo as a preview of the 4x4 "Quad-Father" enthusiast multiprocessor platform announced earlier this summer. The first "4" in 4x4 represents the four processing cores present in a two-socket system populated with two dual-core processors. Many assumed that the second "4" referred to quad GPUs when AMD first made the 4x4 announcement, but Moorhead clarified today that the second four represents any kind of high-performance hardware, anything from four hard disks to four GPUs or even 4GBs of system memory.

The four-core prototype system itself didn't have the complete 4x4 feature set enabled, which is why AMD was careful to label the demo as a four-core demo, not a 4x4 demo. The four-core system had two engineering samples featuring the same cache amount and clocked at the same speed as the Athlon 64 FX-62, but the motherboard used buffered memory instead of the unbuffered memory that shipping 4x4 systems will support.

Moorhead announced that the 4x4 platform will be upgradeable to eight cores once AMD releases quad-core processors in 2007. Consumers that pick up a 4x4 system this holiday season will be able to upgrade from dual-core CPUs up to quad-core CPUs without purchasing a new motherboard.

Rahul Sood, founder and CTO of high-end system manufacturer VoodooPC, contends that AMD's multiprocessor platform is particularly well-suited to gamers because each CPU has its own dedicated memory. Serious game players have long avoided multitasking for fear of decreasing game performance, but the new platform will allow gamers to run applications without affecting gameplay. "The hardcore gamers are all about the bare minimum--they don't want garbage running," said Sood.

AMD also addressed questions regarding its recent acquisition of Canadian graphics manufacturer ATI. Moorhead reiterated AMD's stance that ATI was an "acquisition of growth" and that the "goal is to build a processing powerhouse" where AMD provides the CPU muscle in the server and PC space while ATI offers graphics chipsets for PCs, GPUs for consumer electronics like the Xbox 360 and Wii, as well as processors for digital televisions and handsets.

When asked if AMD planned on changing its Turion mobile CPU branding to include an ATI chipset requirement, Moorhead took a swipe at Intel's mobile strategy. "No, we won't force our customers to buy a chipset for the privilege of using the branding," he said.

Moorhead declined to comment on how the deal may affect ATI's license to produce chipsets for Intel-based platforms, but he did point out that the company's estimates have been very conservative. "We've zeroed out all that Intel business," said Moorhead.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-07-26 09:51am

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like they just took a dual-socket motherboard and put dual-core chips in it. Is that all this is? Here I thought this thread was going to be about four cores on the die.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-07-26 10:30am

Moorhead announced that the 4x4 platform will be upgradeable to eight cores once AMD releases quad-core processors in 2007.

Quad core is there, just further off. The quick answer to Intel's latest processor lineup appears to be a push to dual-processor motherboards, however it sounds like a stop-gap solution until they can actually make quad-core processors

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-26 10:31am

Uraniun235 wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like they just took a dual-socket motherboard and put dual-core chips in it. Is that all this is? Here I thought this thread was going to be about four cores on the die.

IIRC, there's also two dedicated HT links between those sockets. Yeah, big deal, I know. I'd rather have true quad core as well, and better yet, games that take full advantage of those cores.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-26 11:04am

This 4 x 4 stuff strikes me as a bunch of marketing crap to make it seem as though Intel isn't commanding them to "squeal like a pig". Dual processors aren't exactly new. If they had any real application outside of servers, we'd have seen them in enthusiast systems already.

Azrael · Post by **Azrael** » 2006-07-26 11:29am

^^Quad Core wankers can get ther fix right now if their pockets are deep enough. Dual Core DP Opterons have been on the market for some time now. But when you have to speen $700-900 each on a two CPUs for a system that can only realistically use one of those CPUs for most games, it's at that point that "enthusiast" becomes code word for "sucker".

Gamer are going to be the ones who suck up all this pricey hardware, but with only a few games using 2 cores and none using four, 4x4 tech's gonna be a hard sell even for them.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-26 02:06pm

I don't think many gamers will go for it. Most gamers don't even buy high-end video cards. But having the fastest thing on the block in your company's stable is important for peoples' perception of the products, even if they buy stuff from the midrange. That's one of the reasons why big car companies participate in auto racing. But I'm not sure that it will work this time because I'm not sure that people are ignorant enough to buy into it. The people themselves might be, but if all the gaming sites are saying "This 4 x 4 stuff is a bunch of crap", then the marketing ploy will get them precisely nothing.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-07-26 04:53pm

The ironic thing, if they're true, is that I've heard rumors that Intel will probably beat AMD to quad-core chips.

And on another note, who cares about having four hard drives in your computer? Who wants that many? Maybe it's just me, but in my opinion once you start looking at that many hard drives, it's time to look at slapping together a cheapo file server for all those drives to sit in, not cluttering up/weighing down/heating up your main computer with them.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-07-26 08:48pm

The four-core system outperformed a dual-core Athlon 64 FX-62 comparison system in several multithreaded, processor intensive applications ranging from 3D rendering to video transcoding.

OMG! Four 2.8 GHz processors outperform two 2.8 GHz processors! I would never have guessed!

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-07-26 09:19pm

Wouldn't this confuse the software companies in the "just how many cores are we supposed to design for anyways" kind of the way?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-26 09:45pm

Ypoknons wrote:Wouldn't this confuse the software companies in the "just how many cores are we supposed to design for anyways" kind of the way?

Shouldn't. Its the responsibility of the OS to divide work between cores. The developer only has to make the app multithreaded, and the OS should handle the thread scheduling for one core or for 32 cores. Basically, the developer doesn't need to be concerned about the number of cores, but instead needs to be concerned with how to best take advantage of an OS's threading model, so the OS can divide up work between the cores in the most optimial manner, while not doing something stupid to cause the threads to step on each other.

EDIT: Its up to the OS manufacture to know how many cores to handle. WinXP Pro handles up to four cores, IIRC. I think Win2k3 will handle more than that. As for Linux, I have no idea what the cap is, and if/how it varies between distros.