Computex 2007: AMD's Barcelona and Other Products
by Gary Key on June 11, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Barcelona Clock Speed and Release Schedule
The CPUs themselves work, once again, as we've seen from AMD's own demos. But the real question we've been asking has been "at what clock speed?" The chips we saw at Computex ran at either 1.4GHz or 1.6GHz, the latter being the latest B01 stepping. AMD's Tier-1 server partners are starting to see 1.8GHz chips, but that's the fastest we've heard of at this point. We understand from the motherboard partners that AMD should hit 2.0GHz by September for the Barcelona launch, but according to AMD the partners will see at least 2.3GHz by the end of summer.
None of the partners we talked to are really impressed with Barcelona yet, but then again none of the true potential of the chip and chipsets have been realized due to CPU stepping issues, BIOS maturity, and generally low clock speeds. AMD simply hasn't gotten the process under control yet and after hearing our friends at the motherboard companies talk, AMD is close to near/total panic mode right now as the Q3 Barcelona product launch schedule rapidly approaches.
The general consensus is that until AMD gets to at least 2.0 - 2.3GHz, we will not see any significant volumes of Barcelona chips in the channel. Alternatively, AMD may delay the actual launch until September, with true volumes hitting the channel and partners by November. If this worst case scenario pans out, we're hearing that Agena would be pushed out to Q1 '08, or a slightly better option being a small trickle of Agena into the channel by December to keep AMD's Christmas promise.
Continuing on the worst case scenario track, some partners don't expect to see 2.3 - 2.6GHz Barcelona parts in volume until Q2 next year, and based on AMD's simulations the processor doesn't come "alive" until it hits the 2.6GHz mark. At the same time, others have said that an earlier stepping of the core was overclocked from 1.8GHz to 2.5GHz without too much trouble. All in all it's tough to say what clock speeds will be possible and when, but we do know for a fact that what we saw at Computex (Barcelona) ran slower than 2.0GHz.
One interesting rumor that we heard on the plane back home is that Agena parts are likely to scale to higher speeds quicker than Barcelona. The reason for this is getting the server oriented Barcelona to work reliably in 2P or above configurations is a leading factor in the reduced core speeds expected at launch. According to our sources, AMD seems very confident at this point that a 2.6GHz Agena part is likely when this processor series launches on the desktop. Of course, the question being just when is AMD planning the launch of Agena. We expect the product to be introduced publicly in the October time frame but actual availability dates and volumes is anyone's guess at this point.
The biggest story in all of this is that AMD is just not ready yet, the chips are not scaling well, and today it's looking like Intel may eat their lunch the rest of this year. AMD seems very optimistic with internal roadmaps showing 2.9GHz cores by Q1 2008, but everything we've seen or heard today makes this seem unlikely. However, as the original Athlon64 launch showed, AMD is certainly capable of surprising us and we certainly hope they do. For all of us who have been crying for Barcelona benchmarks, you really don't want to see them yet. Performance will improve quickly over time, but it's just not there today.
The CPUs themselves work, once again, as we've seen from AMD's own demos. But the real question we've been asking has been "at what clock speed?" The chips we saw at Computex ran at either 1.4GHz or 1.6GHz, the latter being the latest B01 stepping. AMD's Tier-1 server partners are starting to see 1.8GHz chips, but that's the fastest we've heard of at this point. We understand from the motherboard partners that AMD should hit 2.0GHz by September for the Barcelona launch, but according to AMD the partners will see at least 2.3GHz by the end of summer.
None of the partners we talked to are really impressed with Barcelona yet, but then again none of the true potential of the chip and chipsets have been realized due to CPU stepping issues, BIOS maturity, and generally low clock speeds. AMD simply hasn't gotten the process under control yet and after hearing our friends at the motherboard companies talk, AMD is close to near/total panic mode right now as the Q3 Barcelona product launch schedule rapidly approaches.
The general consensus is that until AMD gets to at least 2.0 - 2.3GHz, we will not see any significant volumes of Barcelona chips in the channel. Alternatively, AMD may delay the actual launch until September, with true volumes hitting the channel and partners by November. If this worst case scenario pans out, we're hearing that Agena would be pushed out to Q1 '08, or a slightly better option being a small trickle of Agena into the channel by December to keep AMD's Christmas promise.
Continuing on the worst case scenario track, some partners don't expect to see 2.3 - 2.6GHz Barcelona parts in volume until Q2 next year, and based on AMD's simulations the processor doesn't come "alive" until it hits the 2.6GHz mark. At the same time, others have said that an earlier stepping of the core was overclocked from 1.8GHz to 2.5GHz without too much trouble. All in all it's tough to say what clock speeds will be possible and when, but we do know for a fact that what we saw at Computex (Barcelona) ran slower than 2.0GHz.
One interesting rumor that we heard on the plane back home is that Agena parts are likely to scale to higher speeds quicker than Barcelona. The reason for this is getting the server oriented Barcelona to work reliably in 2P or above configurations is a leading factor in the reduced core speeds expected at launch. According to our sources, AMD seems very confident at this point that a 2.6GHz Agena part is likely when this processor series launches on the desktop. Of course, the question being just when is AMD planning the launch of Agena. We expect the product to be introduced publicly in the October time frame but actual availability dates and volumes is anyone's guess at this point.
The biggest story in all of this is that AMD is just not ready yet, the chips are not scaling well, and today it's looking like Intel may eat their lunch the rest of this year. AMD seems very optimistic with internal roadmaps showing 2.9GHz cores by Q1 2008, but everything we've seen or heard today makes this seem unlikely. However, as the original Athlon64 launch showed, AMD is certainly capable of surprising us and we certainly hope they do. For all of us who have been crying for Barcelona benchmarks, you really don't want to see them yet. Performance will improve quickly over time, but it's just not there today.
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TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
And if they had, they would have probably gone with the memory disambiguation of the Core 2, instead of the non-speculative load reordering of the Pentium Pro to III. They may not have realized when they were making it Intel was going to raise the bar.Either way, it's impossible.
Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Sure..maybe they just decided to pick up a plan that was considered dead and go through with it. It was all ready reported they were trying to re-spin the K8 before the Core Duo was ever announced though it was cancelled because it was dependent on highly-threaded applications that are simply not coming any time soon.TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
That's a different processor design that they killed. But, you bring up a huge misconception that most non-programmers have, that with more work you can get really great performance out of threading. All you have to do is put in the time and rethink how to code. It's utter nonsense, and there is something called Amdahl's Law that is worth reading for people that don't understand or believe this.Some algorithms will work well with threading, many, many will not. So, yes, AMD killed that dog and luckily so. If they came out with that, I'd be really, really worried for the company.
But this new processor isn't anything particulary risky or scary. It's a very nice upgrade in many areas, and considering the K8 is obsolete, but not horrible like the P7, it should turn out to be a fine processor and at the minimum competitive for a while.
6-12 months is absolutely incorrect. If you're saying that because you believe it, you need to do a little more research on this type of thing because it's entirely implausible. If you're saying it because you're frustrated with AMD and just lashing out, I can understand that completely. But, try to keep it in perspective; it's still a good processor but it just has a few problems before it's release.
Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Highly frustrated. If this was a long planned project then their execution is well, I guess we have to see. Like the bias before the Opteron launched I guess we should not make the same mistake twice.TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
While I can understand your frustration, try to keep a few things in common.This is pre-release silicon, of course, and that might not seem like such an important thing, but keep in mind that EVERY processor on that core has to run at the designated speed. So, if one can run at 2.8 GHz, one at 2.6 GHz, another at 2.3 GHz, and one at 1.8 GHz, you're stuck at 1.8 GHz for the entire part. The margin for error is so small because of native quad core decision, it's not surprising the numbers are so low considering the stage of development it's in. At this point, the manufacturing is still fairly new, the processor is of course very new, and with the low margin for error it's going to look bad. But, AMD is a weird bird, they seem to come out with terrible processors on the first version of a new lithography, and continue to improve it quite a bit, much moreso than Intel does. This and getting less scatter with regards to maximum frequency should allow the Barcelona to improve pretty quickly through the iterative improvements AMD does with their manufacturing.
I can understand why you'd be frustrated, but I think it's early to give up on them compeletely. I think most of it is the sting of going native quad-core right off the bat with a brand new processor architecture. It's a lot to deal with in one shot, especially with a fairly new manufacturing process. They probably should have done one thing at a time, but sooner or later they'll get it right. I don't think it will be too late for it to matter either, but who knows?
Regs - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Yes trust me I read a lot of articles about the "Bark". From its symmetric ALU's, down to the non-speculative memory access reordering.I'm not giving up on AMD at all but it's a ton of fun seeing too CPU manufactures diverge. Just like how you talk about how badly your team is doing mid-season, it some how enlightens your hope for them during the post-season.
TA152H - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link
Go Yankees?TowerShield - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
I was figuring the product might have died after it didn't show up in May.Gary Key - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
It worked beautifully under XP Pro with my laptop, Vista compatibility still needs some fine tuning before the unit is launched. ASUS is intent on completing the project within the next four to six weeks.poisondeathray - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Is the XG Station still designed with the Express Card interface (480Mbit or 2.5Gbit depending on USB or PCI Express)?What impact on high resolution gaming does this limited interface bandwith present?