AMD Phenom Preview: Barcelona Desktop Benchmarks
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 10, 2007 12:03 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
We can't draw too many sweeping conclusions based on the data here today, but here's what we do know:
- Gaming performance is much improved with Barcelona over K8, this is most likely a result of the improvements to the SSE engine and the wider front end of the core.
- Encoding performance is improved (again SSE128 rearing its head), but 3dsmax saw an unexpectedly large performance improvement.
- With a 10 - 15% increase in performance on average, Phenom should be more competitive than K8 was on the desktop (as expected).
Here's where things get complicated; we knew Phenom/Barcelona would be faster clock for clock, it was only a matter of how big of an improvement we'd get. If we are to believe that 15% is the best we'll get on average, taking into account that Penryn is around 5% faster than Conroe, the updated architecture from AMD alone isn't enough to really compete with Intel. In other words, price matters.
We saw how competitive AMD became after the first round of price cuts this year, but after the second set Intel went back to dominating. The trouble for AMD this time around is that Phenom is a much larger chip than the outgoing Athlon 64 X2, whereas Intel's Penryn family will actually be smaller than Conroe. AMD is already losing a considerable amount of money each quarter, so fabbing a larger chip at the same price as current CPUs will only make the situation worse. However, Intel can afford to continue to keep its processors as aggressively priced, especially moving to 45nm.
To put it plainly: Phenom/Barcelona make this price war more difficult on AMD, while Penryn makes it easier on Intel. What's the end game? Is there a solution? We're not sure, all we know today is a starting point for Phenom expectations.
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Regs - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Sorry, I did not mean to sound like a Dick Jack.The L3 cache is specifically designed with data sharing in mind. Which means all data unshared is evicted from the cache back into main memory. The L3 is also shared between four different cores and the access to the L3 must be arbitrated between them. This means the latency of the L3 actually depends on the core frequencies.
Pre-fetches are made by the core and stored in the L1D cache of the Barc. They used to be stored in the L2 on the K8. So if the pre-fetch misses, it will look for information in the L2 and not the L3.
xenon74 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
So if I understand this correctly:1.) You were trying to overclock registered DDR2 memory to give us a bit more even comparison between Athlon X2 and Phenom X4 using Opteron Barcelona QC and old Opteron DC.
2.) OCing reg.DDR2 memory was unsuccessful which resulted that AMD sever stopped POSTing.
3.) In two hours you come up with this "Phenom preview".
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Not exactly :) The server not POSTing had nothing to do with trying to run faster DDR2 memory in the system, all of the benchmarking for the Phenom preview was done before the board stopped POSTing, I was simply trying to add more benchmarks to Johan's article when it ceased operation. Apparently others have been having issues with these motherboards and it appears that a new rev of the board may correct the problems.Take care,
Anand
Reynod - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Great first article Anand.As usual exceptionally well written and you avoided all of the fanboi nonsense.
I'd like more detailed stuff when you get the chance please?
Cheers :)
Regs - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
I guess only more clock speed, a better revision of the processor, and maybe a AM2-AM3 mobo will be a bit better for the Phenom?I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of AMD's barc. Though I do wonder what they have planned to help it for the retail desktop version. Like you said it just makes it more difficult to price it unless it can compete better.
Locutus465 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
I've been waiting to see what AMD would do as a frist step on the comeback trail... This is a good opening salvo... True it's not going to be a Core 2 killer, but coupled with future technologies this is a great start! I hope they can afford to continue keeping pricing low while producing newer/better chips...Etern205 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Hope this preview about Barcelona is as honest article where it tellsthe consumer the truth as to how well this cpu performs.
Anandtech is all about honesty right?
If that is true (which it always is), then this article better not be one
of those that got approved by AMD before it was pubished!
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=441">http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=441
Locutus465 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Not sure why you're questioning anand's honesty, they've always been fair and accurate as far as I can see. And frankly, this artical fits with everything that's been said thus far about the new chip, it'll be much more competitive, but not to the point of winning the battle for AMD.retrospooty - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Agreed AT has always been fair and unbiased with reviews, that is why it is so popular.Even if there was an error in the test methodology, and someone points it out, they will update the article with the correction.
Etern205 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Anandtech is a great site and their article is always gives thebest info, which is why when I'm about to get a new part like a cpu, or video card, I'll
come to this site for reviews. And 100% of the time the results are always correct.
But as for this "Barcelona"... mmm I don't know
not just this site but to all the other sites as a whole.