Barcelona Architecture: AMD on the Counterattack
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 1, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
When Intel launched its first Core 2 based microprocessors, the performance improvement was beyond revolutionary. It was the biggest single performance improvement we had seen from a new microprocessor in several years at that point. A large part of Core 2's success was its architecture, but you cannot ignore that it couldn't have come at a better time for Intel.
All Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest had to do was outperform Intel's aging and misguided NetBurst based Pentium 4 processors. Doing so proved quite easy for AMD, which had been doing just that pretty much since the 2000 launch of the processors. With no competition from within Intel, AMD wasn't really doing that much better. While the K8 was a strong architecture, it was getting old. Without any serious performance enhancing architectural updates since its introduction back in 2003, AMD left Intel with a stationary target to aim for. With each successive iteration of the Pentium M architecture, Intel came closer and closer to developing its own Athlon 64 killer, eventually culminating in the release of such a product - the Core 2 Duo.
It wasn't some mystical force of microprocessor design prowess that allowed Intel to pull ahead last year; it was a good architecture and excellent timing. Ironically enough, it was the same two elements that orchestrated much of the success of AMD's K7 and K8 architectures; they were both good designs released at times when the competition was at its worst.
In terms of actual product releases, the first incarnation of AMD's new architecture will be found in the next-generation Opteron due out at the middle of this year. AMD will initially launch at speeds ranging from 2.1GHz to 2.3GHz, but by the end of this year you can expect higher clock speeds. On the desktop, AMD's Agena core will be a Barcelona equivalent shipping at between 2.7 - 2.9GHz. Kuma will be a dual-core variant of Agena shipping in the 2.0 - 2.9GHz range.
Barcelona will be a success for AMD; the long awaited architectural update to K8 should yield significant performance improvements, especially in current areas of weakness for the K8 (e.g. video encoding). Our review of the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ showed that with aggressive pricing, AMD could come close to offering something competitive to Intel. At current prices, we suspect that Barcelona would be enough to close the gap between AMD and Intel. Chances are that we won't see bargain basement prices on AMD's new cores, but we'd expect that AMD would have to maintain a competitive market.
The real catch here is what happens after Barcelona; as we mentioned before, Intel's current successes were born out of steady but regular evolution of a good starting architecture. With yearly updates to the Pentium M, Intel achieved a snowball effect that proved difficult to stop. It would seem that a similar approach by AMD would be necessary to avoid sticky situations like the one it finds itself in today.
When Intel launched its first Core 2 based microprocessors, the performance improvement was beyond revolutionary. It was the biggest single performance improvement we had seen from a new microprocessor in several years at that point. A large part of Core 2's success was its architecture, but you cannot ignore that it couldn't have come at a better time for Intel.
All Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest had to do was outperform Intel's aging and misguided NetBurst based Pentium 4 processors. Doing so proved quite easy for AMD, which had been doing just that pretty much since the 2000 launch of the processors. With no competition from within Intel, AMD wasn't really doing that much better. While the K8 was a strong architecture, it was getting old. Without any serious performance enhancing architectural updates since its introduction back in 2003, AMD left Intel with a stationary target to aim for. With each successive iteration of the Pentium M architecture, Intel came closer and closer to developing its own Athlon 64 killer, eventually culminating in the release of such a product - the Core 2 Duo.
It wasn't some mystical force of microprocessor design prowess that allowed Intel to pull ahead last year; it was a good architecture and excellent timing. Ironically enough, it was the same two elements that orchestrated much of the success of AMD's K7 and K8 architectures; they were both good designs released at times when the competition was at its worst.
In terms of actual product releases, the first incarnation of AMD's new architecture will be found in the next-generation Opteron due out at the middle of this year. AMD will initially launch at speeds ranging from 2.1GHz to 2.3GHz, but by the end of this year you can expect higher clock speeds. On the desktop, AMD's Agena core will be a Barcelona equivalent shipping at between 2.7 - 2.9GHz. Kuma will be a dual-core variant of Agena shipping in the 2.0 - 2.9GHz range.
Barcelona will be a success for AMD; the long awaited architectural update to K8 should yield significant performance improvements, especially in current areas of weakness for the K8 (e.g. video encoding). Our review of the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ showed that with aggressive pricing, AMD could come close to offering something competitive to Intel. At current prices, we suspect that Barcelona would be enough to close the gap between AMD and Intel. Chances are that we won't see bargain basement prices on AMD's new cores, but we'd expect that AMD would have to maintain a competitive market.
The real catch here is what happens after Barcelona; as we mentioned before, Intel's current successes were born out of steady but regular evolution of a good starting architecture. With yearly updates to the Pentium M, Intel achieved a snowball effect that proved difficult to stop. It would seem that a similar approach by AMD would be necessary to avoid sticky situations like the one it finds itself in today.
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agaelebe - Friday, March 2, 2007 - link
Wow! A lot of dicussion in here.And, by the way, very interesting article.
I'm a software engineer from Brazil and I'm planning to change my PC this year.
I've bem using AMD processors since the K6.
Today I've a XP Mobile 2500+(@2.2ghz), 1gb ram, 200gb and an AGP 6600GT
My PC is not very slow, but I'm thinking in going dual core to speed things up(office applications, web development and some games).
I can run some of the newest games, but not in high graphics.
I expect that my PC can run C&C 3 (Already run the demo in 1024 medium, but have some craches although it's not running it slow)
So, today I'm thinking in 3 options:
1) Stay with this computer and wait until AMD launchs it's new architecture (I pretend to go with an average price Kuma)
2) Go with Intel Core 2 Duo (e6300 or e6400). They're not expensive and for games I can easily make an overclock and gain more performance.
3) Buy a good AM2 board and a cheap Atlhon X2 (3600) and wait new AMD processors and then change only the processor.
Here in Brazil the taxes are to high, so I'm planning in buying a PC with these specs:
- CORE 2 Duo e6300/6400 or X2 3600/3800
- mid-tier motherboard (
- 2 x 1gb DDR 800 4-4-4-12
- 2 x 250 gb
- X1950pro 256 or 512
- 500watts power
So the prices are below:
e6300 box US$ 300 (same price for a X2 4200+ box)
x23800 box US$ 220
motherboard: US$ 220
ram: US$ 400
video: US$ 450
DVD: US$ 70
case: US$ 150
HDs : US$ 250
Power: us$ 180
So I plan to spent about 2000 dollars (Sadly, I can buy this same PC in US for the half of the price).
My new PC should spent not to much power so I can leave it turned onall day long(max 150watts on iddle without monitor), otherwise I'll keep my old computer turned on just for downloding stuff)
So, If someone has an opinion, I'd like to "hear" it. You can give another options to, or make some comments about the specs I'm choosing now.
I had Pentium 75 and after that only AMD CPUs... Should know I surrender to the Core 2 Duo or believe that AMD can really beat it until the end of 2008?
And thanks for the cooperation and patience.
Zebo - Saturday, March 3, 2007 - link
Athlon 64 AM2's arnt exactly slow so if you're an AMD fan just get one..like a 3800+ or 3600+ and overclock it. It will be at least 4x faster than what you have now and accept K8L Agena core later. It will be cheaper than C2D by about $50 USD and You'll also pay cheap for a GeForce 6100 Motherboard which is only $50 USD. Overall expect the the AM2 system to be about $100 USD cheaper.Keep in mind that C2D is 20% faster clock for clock in most apps so it's not exactly a quantum leap here getting a C2D.. Gap gets a lot larger when overclocking since C2D's overclcok higher like 3.2Ghz is common on air vs. only 2.8Ghz for AM2, so, at the end of the day a C2D setup is able to be about 40% faster over most benchmarks. That is getting significant and why enthusiasts are buying C2D's.
agaelebe - Friday, March 2, 2007 - link
And,as always, sorry with the errors and not so good writing...Kiijibari - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Hi,never heard of of that before, does anybody know what it is ?
So far I see 2 pad areas at the DIE photo, therefore I assume that it would be also 2 interfaces, e.g. x8 PCIe like Sun uses ?
bb
Kiijibari
mino - Friday, March 2, 2007 - link
It should be some management/coodrination stuff (can-t remember the name of that bus).Every northbridge and CPU has that.
davecason - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Anand,Great article! I know it took a lot of time and I wanted you to know I really appreciate your effort. It is the kind of article that keeps me coming back to your site.
-Dave
yyrkoon - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Page 5, paragraph 4 'pretty significantly'. Well is it, or is it not it ?
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Colloquial-%28Informa...">http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Colloquial-%28Informa...
Aside from my gripe concerning writing style, good article :)
trisweb2 - Friday, March 16, 2007 - link
Usually we criticize writing style based on a whole experience... obviously Anand is one of the best technical review writers on the Internet; if you bother to read his articles more fully perhaps you'd realize that. The colloquial writing sometimes brings it to a more personal level that a reader can better relate to and understand -- it works especially well in this case, where it's a future design, we really don't know how it's going to perform. That he can guess and say "pretty significantly" tells me he understands the uncertainty of the situation, and the language communicates that fact perfectly well. It would be more confusing if he said it would impact performance "significantly" as you want him to, as that would imply that he was more certain than he might actually have been.Masters are allowed to bend the rules, and Anand is one, so lay off.
yyrkoon - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
*Is it, or is it not*/me hangs head in shame
baronzemo78 - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Any rough guess as to how Barcelona will compete with Core2 in gaming? Many articles have shown how Core2 gets you a slight FPS boost in games that aren't graphics card limited. I'm curious how Barcelona will fit in with the overall picture of DX10 cards like G80 and R600.