AMD faces Lawsuit over Core Count on Bulldozer

Oh dear, could be that straw.......

 

well i remember pretty clear that at the launch of this cpu's, you, Hilbert, presented some info on this and said something about 7,5 CPU or something like that.
Also how can this lawsuit stand when the performance of the CPU's drastically depends on how a application uses them, and as far as i know amd's 8 core cpu's work as they should in multi threaded apps and use the cores properly.

or maybe i'm missing something, anyway the suit it's pretty shady.

 

quick, post those gtx970 3.5gb articles to protect AMD.

 

This is like saying bloody mary for the first time.

 

**** you, Tony Dickey.

 

The way AMD designed their architecture for these CPU's (bulldozer, steamroller, etc) was much like Intel's Hyper Threading, or PS3's Cell CPU.

It DOES NOT actually have 8 full cores. But consists of modules that act like CPU cores that can each handle 2 threads of data.

Their "8 core" CPU's contains 4 modules. Basically 4 cores, that can each handle 2 threads and they act and show up like 8 cores in windows and in the BIOS.

Only real difference AMD did was allow these modules to access L1, L2, & L3 cache simultaneously. So they can each draw from the same pool. Where as Intel has L1, and L2 cache per core and then a larger shared L3 cache.

AMD did this approach to improve multi core performance and it does work. When their CPU's are crunching proper coded multi-threaded workloads their CPU's are actually really really good and show some strong performance and efficiency but it's their single threaded performance where its weakest.

The modules they use are not very strong when working alone, they are best used when they are all working together on the same data or different types of data at the same time.

AMD also didn't expect multi threaded coding to take so long to catch on and when it did it's not the way they had hoped. Multi threaded applications now share streams of data to each core. So 1 core is working on 1 thing and the 2nd is working on something totally different. AMD expected multi threaded coding to split each stream of data up. So core 1 and 2 for example would be working on the same data that has been divided up for it. This hasn't really happened apart from in Windows it self, video editing, photo editing, gaming, etc all go the route of splitting data up separately so for example sound will be on 1 core, A.I will be on another. It's still technically single threaded but instead of everything being processed sequentially its processed on its own and at the same time as other streams of data. We see a boost in performance because of it. Getting really technical would be to code a program to split each stream of data up even further and allowing different parts of the same data to be processed across multiple cores/threads (kinda how a GPU works with "stream processors").

Basically AMD used weaker cores but used more of them and allowed them access to more memory to try and compensate for it.

Intel used stronger cores and allowed each one to access 2 threads. Meaning they have the best of both worlds strong single threaded and strong multi threaded performance.

There is a lot more to it then this, Intel has been getting into performance per watt for years now and their efficiency is through the roof per watts used. AMD on the other hand switched from the efficiency route of their Athlon days to a cores and GHz race. Whereas Intel left the GHz race behind and we got Conroe (Intel Core 2) which was amazing for its time.

 

Not good, not good at all..

This is way worse than the 3.5 mem issue vn went through. It's out and out *****ulent and they will certainly take a big hit on this one as that is a lot of cpu's to replace. What is interesting is that the company just shed it's graphics division and now news of this.

Things don't bode well for them and this is the sort of things that ends companies.. I don't think it will be the case with them but it is really going to hurt them.

I can't recall the specs on the PS and X1 but don't both of them use bulldozer cpu?

 

Kaveri based architecture called Jaguar.

It's low end APU stuff in those boxes not full bulldozer otherwise they wouldn't meet the 150W requirements of the FCC.

 

Better call Saul...
I know a guy who knows a guy that has a true 8 core CPU.

 

The final nail in the coffin?

 

srsly? a class action suit?? how underhanded

poor amd

 

pfff...
AMD can easily win this. Some losers just trying to make money.

 

Another frivolous lawsuit that should be summarily dismissed. The cores of a bulldozer CPU do work independently as can easily be seen by running a utility like HWinfo. This shows the speeds of each core changing independently of each other which proves that they do function as separate units.

 

I would really be shocked if this so called (Dickey) guy actually wins this law-suit,In my opinion just another loser that is looking for a free-ride on someone else back!

I am curious tough as some have Stated Amd already being in trouble,this could be the Final nail in there coffin,Zen cannot come soon enough I tell you.

 

Yes, but AMD themselves market the processors as 8-core processors which is clearly not true. It's not as bad as if Intel would say that the 6700k is an 8-core, but it's still not very accurate.

To expand CPC_RedDawn's answer, AMD's FX-8350 (we'll take this as an example) is not a true 8-core processor. A core needs (among other things) one ALU and one FPU (else it cannot be classified as a full core by today's standards). AMD's cores in the FX-8350 do not have one FPU per core, but one FPU per 2 cores.

If we put this in perspective, the FX-8350 has 8 ALUs and 4 FPUs. You can see how this is misleading. They are not 8 full cores. They are going to have the arithmetic performance of 8 cores, but the floating-point performance of 4 cores.

I believe this is what the lawsuit is referring to but it's quite vaguely explained.

I don't think it's as big as Nvidia's 3.5Gb issue. At least not in my perspective.
I believe it was common knowledge for the tech enthusiasts, but the average consumer would surely be mislead. Many of us here have known since the beginning that the FX-8350 cannot exactly be called '8-core' due to it's ALU/FPU configuration (see my quote reply above).

Ps:

You might say that the FX-8350 actually has 8 FPUs. That is correct, but it's not how they work. They are 128-bit FPUs, which couple up to perform 256-bit AVX instructions. Making them 4 effective FPUs.

 

Dickey and his two PC stores will lose this, obviously. I reckon the US justice system isn't as poor as the US patent office, so it looks like a clear case. Who knows why they even bother to try.

 

People saw all those SH*TTY results of initial benchmarks. Most of us were pretty disappointed with single threaded performance and very few of us had use for all 8 cores.

There are 2 types of people:
1st) people who made informed decision, had use for Bulldozer and bought it. Or bought intel as Bulldozer was not been good enough for them.
2nd) incompetent idiots who shopped randomly without smallest of efforts put towards knowing product.

One should note that Total performance per $ was better than i5s upon release.