In their own side event this week, AMD invited select members of the press and analysts to come and discuss the next layer of Zen details. In this piece, we’re discussing the microarchitecture announcements that were made, as well as a look to see how this compares to previous generations of AMD core designs.
AnandTech – so the only article you’ll need to read on Zen.
Let’s see if they can keep up the pressure.
Was pleased by the Athlon XP (Palomino) and A8-3500M APU (Llano) but they heat too much for medium throughput to my taste.
They have really good technical architecture that most of the time doesn’t scale into real world performance.
I am very much looking forward to the release of these new CPUs. Most of my desktops have had AMD chips because of their price, and while I have never been disappointed with how they performed based on what I paid, improvement is always welcome.
My main desktop is still running on a Phenom II/X4, and while I want to upgrade when the new Zen chips come out, it may be difficult to justify since my current machine still works so well for my needs.
If that is the case you are an obvious candidate for waiting for Zen+…
Besides you never buy the first year of a car model (the kinks aren’t out yet) …CPUs are similar.
The problem with cpu:s, is that if you do not buy it the first year, then it have been replaced next year 🙂
I’m still on an i7 2600 because Intel’s performance increases since then have been quite disappointing. I’d love an 8-core CPU that didn’t have a UK RRP of 1,366 pounds (I kid you not!) – if Zen’s 8-core comes out at a sensible (e.g. 500 pounds) price, it might at least force Intel to rethink its frankly lunatic high-end desktop CPU prices.
619,6 kgs vs. 226,8 kgs, that sure is a difference.
Never had a computer that weight so much though.
What is a pound other than the local UK currency? A unit of weight you mean? Surely you jest, because gram is the only unit of weight in existence. Imperial Units you say? What is this, the year 1701? Keep up with the times, you peasant!
What are inches, foot, yards, miles ? Oz, pint, gallon ? Still used in america too. Get your facts straight.
Those units are unknown to me. I live in the civilised world where people use the metric system.
I know I come over all ranty, but the fact that the imperial system is still in use somewhere in this world is for me far from humorous. Oh how I lament thee, imperial system!
It also leaks north. We’re supposed to be metric here in Canada, but we still use feet, inches, and US Letter paper.
(Then again, the UK is supposed to be metric and they still use miles.)
I suspect it doesn’t help that fully metric countries don’t seem to see the need to use decimetres in day-to-day life and, without being made aware of something in roughly the same size class as the foot, we dismiss metric as impractical.
That’s a bummer, treating the US like they and their ways are better you and yours. I refuse to do that, because most people of the US need to wake up and realise that they aren’t special.
Edited 2016-08-20 15:01 UTC
On the plus side, it’s always pleasing to hear how American media tends to use our “kih-LAW-meh-ters” pronunciation, rather than “KIH-lo-mee-ters” or “KEE-lo-mee-ters” when they have scientists or future people talking about distance.
To-may-to, to-mah-to
I thought you called it clicks. Just as you call digital time “military time”. 16:45 is clear to me whereas 4:45 pm seems in the middle of the night until you read the extra pm.
Depends on the person. I can’t remember the last time we used “clicks”, though I definitely recognize it readily enough to know other people used it while I was growing up.
That said, I’m from a geeky, university-educated family and personally responsible for getting everyone in the house to use 24-hour time and ISO 8601 date format on our PCs, smartphones, and digital watches.
Canada’s a bit messy with dates because, if ISO 8601 is dash-separated big-endian (YYYY-MM-DD), we’re officially supposed to use slash-separated little-endian (DD/MM/[YY]YY) but too many people are used to misconfigured computers using the US’s “middle-endian” MM/DD/[YY]YY format. (Which I can only assume to be a literal translation of the long-form “May 15th, 1885” way of saying dates.)
As for “military time”, I don’t know about the rest of my family, but I know it’s not “military time” unless you omit the colon, zero-pad to four digits (eg. 0830), and always say the leading zero if present.
Edited 2016-08-21 22:03 UTC
It’s actually primarily any lumber/forestry related industry that still uses imperial. This relates to the fact that most of the CA lumber products go to the US.
This has far eaching repercussions; for example, most construction in Canada is still done using imperial units, because all wood is still cut to imperial. Most construction trades still use imperial, so that they can fit into constructed walls.
Zen only has to be in the ballpark of Intel for performance because they will be much cheaper. Even talking in terms of power saving is meaningless because it will take you years to recoup that, if ever.
The difficulty with AMD over the past ten years as been even if you didn’t like Intel’s prices you had no choice as AMD were so far behind. Not so for much longer.
Until the beasts are out in the wild. Sipping ‘aperitifs’ with AMD has always proven misleading.