Barcelona Architecture: AMD on the Counterattack
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 1, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
A Faster Memory Controller
When AMD integrated a memory controller on-die, we knew that every time we saw a new AMD processor, we'd get a slightly enhanced memory controller. In Barcelona, the tweaks are significant and should provide for a tangible improvement in memory performance.
One strength of Intel's FB-DIMM architecture used in Xeon servers is that you can execute read and write requests to the AMB simultaneously. With standard DDR2 memory, you can do one or the other, and there's a penalty for switching between the two types of operations. If you have a fairly random mixture of reads and writes you can waste a lot of time switching between the two rather than performing all of your reads sequentially then switching over to writes. The K8's memory controller made some allowances for preferring reads over writes since they take less time, but in Barcelona the memory controller is far more intelligent.
Now, instead of executing writes as soon as they show up, writes are stored in a buffer and once the buffer reaches a preset threshold the controller bursts the writes sequentially. What this avoids is the costly read/write switch penalty, helping improve bandwidth efficiency and reduce latency.
The K8 core (Socket-940/939/AM2) featured a single memory controller that was 128-bits wide, but in Barcelona AMD has split up the DRAM controller into two separate 64-bit controllers. Each controller can be operated independently and thus you get some improvements in efficiency, especially when dealing with quad core implementations where the individual cores working on independent threads all have their own memory access patterns.
Barcelona's Northbridge is also set up to handle higher bandwidth than before. Deeper buffers are present, allowing for higher bandwidth utilization, and the Northbridge itself is ready for use with future memory technologies (e.g. DDR3). We'd expect one or two revisions past Barcelona will be when AMD switches memory technologies, but the new core will initially debut with DDR2 support.
When AMD integrated a memory controller on-die, we knew that every time we saw a new AMD processor, we'd get a slightly enhanced memory controller. In Barcelona, the tweaks are significant and should provide for a tangible improvement in memory performance.
One strength of Intel's FB-DIMM architecture used in Xeon servers is that you can execute read and write requests to the AMB simultaneously. With standard DDR2 memory, you can do one or the other, and there's a penalty for switching between the two types of operations. If you have a fairly random mixture of reads and writes you can waste a lot of time switching between the two rather than performing all of your reads sequentially then switching over to writes. The K8's memory controller made some allowances for preferring reads over writes since they take less time, but in Barcelona the memory controller is far more intelligent.
Now, instead of executing writes as soon as they show up, writes are stored in a buffer and once the buffer reaches a preset threshold the controller bursts the writes sequentially. What this avoids is the costly read/write switch penalty, helping improve bandwidth efficiency and reduce latency.
The K8 core (Socket-940/939/AM2) featured a single memory controller that was 128-bits wide, but in Barcelona AMD has split up the DRAM controller into two separate 64-bit controllers. Each controller can be operated independently and thus you get some improvements in efficiency, especially when dealing with quad core implementations where the individual cores working on independent threads all have their own memory access patterns.
Barcelona's Northbridge is also set up to handle higher bandwidth than before. Deeper buffers are present, allowing for higher bandwidth utilization, and the Northbridge itself is ready for use with future memory technologies (e.g. DDR3). We'd expect one or two revisions past Barcelona will be when AMD switches memory technologies, but the new core will initially debut with DDR2 support.
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BitByBit - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
One apparently overlooked detail of Barcelona's architecture is its instruction fetch ability: Barcelona is able to send 32 bytes (128 bits) to its decoders per cycle, where Core can send only 16 bytes to be decoded, increasing the likelihood of 'split fetch' cases in the latter. This means that, even if Core does have more raw FP power in terms of its execution units, Barcelona can expect greater utilisation of its FPUs/SSE, and the impact of this will be even more pronounced when running 64 bit code, due to the increased size of 64 bit instruction blocks. If Barcelona does, as expected, outperform Core in IPC in 32 bit mode, the performance gap may well increase in 64 bit mode.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Did you miss page 3? The SSE128 stuff largely deals with FP and cache improvements. Standard FP is still used, but most programs are optimizing for SSE2/3 as that can run circles around x87 FP performance.Spoelie - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Is there no information on the bandwidth between the new caches? Or are they left the same? I'm only asking because last I read, Intel had a huge advantage in that department, with double or so the bandwidth between the caches. Isn't that important in FP-code, especially if you have to feed 4 cores (so the bw at the level 3 cache..)JarredWalton - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Page 3: the cache bandwidth as I understand it should be doubled (128-bit vs. 64-bit), and several other areas have wider data paths as well. I think Intel has a 256-bit cache bus, so they still have more cache bandwidth, but as a whole it's difficult to say which will end up faster right now. The integrated memory controller has a lot of influence on a lot of areas, after all.Spoelie - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
K7 to K8 transition did the doubling of the 64bit interface to the 128bit one.. Core indeed has a 256bit interface (as far as I remember, even the P3 had a 256bit interface to L2). So according to page 3 the interface would be doubled again this time around?I'm only asking because I remember this quote from Johan De Gelas' article a while back.
"The Core architecture's L1 cache delivers about twice as much bandwidth (Measured by ScienceMark), while it's L2-cache is about 2.5 times faster than the Athlon 64/Opteron one."
And that must have *some* impact on performance. I think the bandwidth of the L3 cache will also be key, but haven't seen any official information about it.
BitByBit - Friday, March 2, 2007 - link
K8 had a 64-bit read and a 64-bit write path to its L2 cache, giving a total of 128 bits. Barcelona has a 128-bit read and 128-bit write path to its L2, giving a total of 256 bits - the same as Core.One thing that surprised me on the subject of cache was the associativity of the L1, which I had expected to see increased to 4-way. This would have allowed AMD to extend its lead in L1 hitrate and regain the ground lost in this area since the introduction of Core. Maybe we'll see an improvement to L1 associativity in future iterations of Barcelona.
haplo602 - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Great article, was a very interesting read.Looks like I'll invest in an upgrade sometime beginning of 2008 when these new CPUs make their 2nd revision :-)
Gigahertz19 - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Argh this article is such a cock tease. I read most of it but now I want some prelim benchies or some kind of numbers. Guess we'll have to wait till Mid-2007?I can't stand the anticipation, my girlfriend pulls this same shit every now and then, she'll get me going then quit and laugh....I always tell her I'll pull the same thing on her and see how she likes it but I can never gather up enough will power :)
MrJim - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
Hello Anand, great article as always. I suppose your much at home nowadays building your house etc. But when are we going to read more of your blogs or the relaunch of anandtech? I think the plan was to have many of the staff to have their own blogs?Hope you will write more often in the future!
slashbinslashbash - Thursday, March 1, 2007 - link
I agree, I would like to see more Anand blog entries. The blog currently doesn't seem to be working -- I can't pull up any of the older entries. I would like to go back and read through some of the old Macdates.