AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor

Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by yk on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @02:23PM (#5869669)

Anandtech discussed this in their Bulldozer review:

    AMD's architects called this pursuit a low gate count 
    per pipeline stage design. By reducing the number of 
    gates per pipeline stage, you reduce the time spent in 
    each stage and can increase the overall frequency of 
    the processor. If this sounds familiar, it's because 
    Intel used similar logic in the creation of the Pentium 4.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-...

And since I read this, I really wondered what trick AMD has up its sleeves.

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Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by VladRussian2 on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @03:41PM (#5870230)

there is no trick, just desperate attempts to survive.

10 years ago AMD had more efficient architecture, Intel - more GHz (remember 2.2 Athlons having 3700 "PR-rating"?). Intel's approach was commercially more successful - customers were still buying GHz, and AMD was trying to educate market about real performance while radiating impression of a looser who just can't get good process and fabs. AMD gave up and decided to pursue P4-like approach for their new architecture, while Intel hit GHz "sound barrier" and went efficiency way by resurrecting PIII style architecture which resulted in Core CPUs. AMD made a huge, strategic mistake 10 years ago. How the execs in charge of Bulldozer have been BS-ing their way inside AMD last 5 years - that is a typical everyday miracle of a big company internal life.

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Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by tacticus on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @05:24PM (#5870845)

There is also the billions intel spent making sure dell and hp and co. would never buy AMD

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Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by zanny on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @10:03PM (#5871885)

I actually take notice of how many consumer laptops I see in a walmart / target / best buy are actually running AMD APUs. The big brands might not, but they see bigger numbers on the A6 than a Pentium and feel better about the buy even if the Pentium dominates it.

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Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @10:46PM (#5872021)

The trouble is that most computers aren't bought at Best Buy or Walmart, and the ones that are tend to be the low end garbage with no margins for the hardware vendor.

Keeping AMD out of Dell and HP is what kept them out of corporate America. Corporations literally buy PCs by the pallet, and then they pass on the volume discount to employees who want to buy one for home.

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Re:AMD Unleashes First-Ever 5 GHz Processor by csense on Thursday June 13, 2013 @01:01AM (#5872402)

> they pass on the volume discount to employees who want to buy one for home

Really? I don't see the use case for ordering a PC this way for the home. When I'm buying a home PC, or recommending one for others, it's either:

(a) A bottom-of-the-barrel PC. As long as it has 1GB of memory and more than one core, you can use it for web browsing, Youtube, email, and word processing. This is what non-techies usually want (but they don't know they want it and may get upsold by good marketing). This is what I want unless I'm planning on running a specific application that requires more.

(b) A powerful PC for gaming. It needs a decent discrete GPU if it's going to play current games. Most office PC's don't have one, unless you work for Pixar.

AFAIK the machines purchased by corporations for general office use are usually middle-of-the-road beasts that cost more than category (a) but don't have the discrete GPU of category (b). I'd be guessing they'd be a waste of money for home use, even after the volume discount.

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