AMD faces class action suit over Bulldozer missrepresentation

[ManWithBeard1990]

Suing a struggling company like AMD just because you think you've found a reason to is kinda wrong.

Also, it IS an 8-core. Sure, some resources are shared and when those are what the program needs it really only performs like an Intel quad-core (at the time, not anymore now), but still, it counts. 

[Sauron]

the "dude" kinda' has a point, because even if the module has 2 clusters, it has only one FPU

 

He doesn't have a point - the suit defines a core as something that can perform calculations at the same time as the other cores in the same chip, which the bulldozer clusters can do. Nobody is disputing the number of cores on a gpu for example, and those are far from being the ""complete core"" you'd get on a current intel cpu for example as they share a lot of stuff. As long as the specs are clearly listed for those who care enough, I see no fraud attempt or misrepresentation.

[Majestic]

Cause it isn't true....

 

Neither did Nvidia sell 3.5GB cards.

[TechGod]

Neither did Nvidia sell 3.5GB cards.

You damn well know that this is different. 

[Sauron]

Neither did Nvidia sell 3.5GB cards.

 

That's not what sane people were complaining about either. The complaint was that the specs the reviewers got where straight up false. Unlike bulldozers, the way the gpu truly worked was falsely displayed. Now, I was amongst those who figured it wasn't a huge deal breaker because the benchmarks still held true - that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do (of course we don't know if it was intentional or not either).

[Dabombinable]

That's not what sane people were complaining about either. The complaint was that the specs the reviewers got where straight up false. Unlike bulldozers, the way the gpu truly worked was falsely displayed. Now, I was amongst those who figured it wasn't a huge deal breaker because the benchmarks still held true - that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do (of course we don't know if it was intentional or not either).

Bulldozer-sold as something that it wasn't.

[Majestic]

You damn well know that this is different. 

 

It's sold as an 8 core to the layman;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

When you then look at scaling;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

It doesn't do that. Looking at, for example, the R15 scores. You have;

6600K, Single 169, Multi 645

8350, Single 96, Multi 640

 

Intel's MT score is 3.87x the ST score. AMD's MT score is 6.66x the ST score. It doesn't scale up to 8 cores when held under scrutiny, Intel's chip is much close to perfect scaling. If you sell an 8 core, it better damn well work like one. It's more like a 6.5 core.

 

So it's sold as something it isn't, I really don't see how this is any different.

[Dabombinable]

It's sold as an 8 core to the layman;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

When you then look at scaling;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

It doesn't do that. Looking at, for example, the R15 scores. You have;

6600K, Single 169, Multi 645

8350, Single 96, Multi 640

 

Intel's MT score is 3.87x the ST score. AMD's MT score is 6.66x the ST score. It doesn't scale up to 8 cores when held under scrutiny, Intel's chip is much close to perfect scaling. If you sell an 8 core, it better damn well work like one. It's more like a 6.5 core.

Yep, if it used true cores, the scaling would be off by around 98%99% per core-and that's going off my Phenom II N970.

[Sauron]

Bulldozer-sold as something that it wasn't.

 

As I stated earlier, the exact specs where available for anyone who wanted to see them. The benchmarks where also available for everyone. Those that are stupid enough to think "moar cores = moar bettar evry tiem" and do no research got what they asked for. Bulldozer cpus have 8 cores. They're just not the same cores intel uses - because that would be patent infringement. Nobody is suing intel because they don't use cuda cores, the same applies here.

[Majestic]

Those that are stupid enough to think "moar cores = moar bettar evry tiem" and do no research got what they asked for. 

 

So you're calling Caveat Emptor for people falling for AMD's marketing? That's pretty anti-consumerist.

[Dabombinable]

As I stated earlier, the exact specs where available for anyone who wanted to see them. The benchmarks where also available for everyone. Those that are stupid enough to think "moar cores = moar bettar evry tiem" and do no research got what they asked for. Bulldozer cpus have 8 cores. They're just not the same cores intel uses - because that would be patent infringement. Nobody is suing intel because they don't use cuda cores, the same applies here.

OMFG are you that dense? What do you call AMD's K10 architecture? That's got the same base layout as all of Intel's CPU, just with minor differences in how its designed. AMD never needed to copy Intel's designs when they had their own that was very successful. 

[Sauron]

It's sold as an 8 core to the layman;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

When you then look at scaling;

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=1544

 

It doesn't do that. Looking at, for example, the R15 scores. You have;

6600K, Single 169, Multi 645

8350, Single 96, Multi 640

 

Intel's MT score is 3.87x the ST score. AMD's MT score is 6.66x the ST score. It doesn't scale up to 8 cores when held under scrutiny, Intel's chip is much close to perfect scaling. If you sell an 8 core, it better damn well work like one. It's more like a 6.5 core.

 

So it's sold as something it isn't, I really don't see how this is any different.

 

Stating it has 8 cores is not the same as stating it will perform 8 times better than a single core version would. Nowhere is that stipulated. It's also worth noting that the single core performance benefits from a frequency boost that multithreaded performance doesn't have. The more cores, the more this becomes apparent, especially on a pipeline limited architecture like BD.

[Majestic]

Stating it has 8 cores is not the same as stating it will perform 8 times better than a single core version would. Nowhere is that stipulated.

 

It's also worth noting that the single core performance benefits from a frequency boost that multithreaded performance doesn't have. The more cores, the more this becomes apparent, especially on a pipeline limited architecture like BD.

 

But you know it will be by consumers, as by many others around them. 

 

If that where the case, the Intel's score should've been more off it's mark. Since it boosts higher on ST than the AMD does,

 

It's still just a matter of how you look at specifications vs. reality. I don't see 56 instead of 64 ROP's being THAT much different from stating 8C/8T instead of 4M/8T like it should've been. There are certainly degrees to dishonesty, and you can argue which is worse. But dishonest it is, in both cases.

 

Anyway i'm not going to bash you for not agreeing, but I do feel like you're a bit too generous with AMD.

[Sauron]

So you're calling Caveat Emptor for people falling for AMD's marketing? That's pretty anti-consumerist.

 

OMFG are you that dense? What do you call AMD's K10 architecture? That's got the same base layout as all of Intel's CPU, just with minor differences in how its designed. AMD never needed to copy Intel's designs when they had their own that was very successful. 

 

I did not say AMD did a particularly good job with the bulldozer architecture (and for all I'm concerned, I'd have preferred a 10-core phenom II with a die shrink). I'm just calling bs on this lawsuit because not all cores are (or should necessarily) be created equal.

 

Majestic, anti consumerist would be defending a company that lied about their products. I'll say it again, ANYONE could go and see the exact architecture and more importantly. benchmark results. The information was all there for the taking, AMD made no attempt to hide it. In a way, they did better than many companies that don't release precise specs and are like, up to 4x more performance!************ - apple would be a good example of that (not that I think they should be sued for it).

[Sauron]

But you know it will be by consumers, as by many others around them. 

 

If that where the case, the Intel's score should've been more off it's mark. Since it boosts higher on ST than the AMD does, and it  has less cache to work with to boot.

 

It's still just a matter of how you look at specifications vs. reality. I don't see 56 instead of 64 ROP's being THAT much different from stating 8C/8T instead of 4M/8T like it should've been. There are certainly degrees to dishonesty, and you can argue which is worse. But dishonest it is, in both cases.

 

Anyway i'm not going to bash you for not agreeing, but I do feel like you're a bit too generous with AMD.

 

Intel's better scaling is due to a better overall architecture. Nobody is disputing that. But it doesn't mean amd's chips have less cores than they claim. I don't think I'm being too generous, I just don't think this lawsuit has any real basis to go on.

[Sauron]

I think he is going after the wrong product. AMD were pretty open with not all cores being equal in Bulldozer. It is a gray area.

The shit AMD has been pulling with their APUs though... I don't think anyone will disagree that it is a poor attempt at tricking people. They say their APUs got 12 "compute cores". That's 4 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores. Some websites doesn't even list how many CPU and GPU cores so you had to Google the part number to find out how many CPU cores it had. Even AMD's own marketing just called it a 12 core chip.

Kolla in @AMDAPUs tweet:

 

I agree that's marketing bullshit - but all the specs are listed and can be easily found. For what it's worth, almost all phone soc producers are pulling the same bs, think of when apple claimed the ipad has a "quad core gpu" whatever that meant.

[Prysin]

And those ALU can not perform as a processor on their own, so AMD marketing them as cores is false advertising. A core is capable of acting as a CPU in its own right, ALU are only a component of said core.

actually, the ALU CAN do very small and easy calculations. But stuff like a gaming load would cause the ALU to use a lot of time, thus binding up the share resources while it is working.

for small programs, or VERY well parrallellism, the 8 ALUs could and would function as 8 weak cores.

if you read up on bulldozer, and how their ALU is used, you'll find out its not as simple as you think.

however, the notion of a core is usually L1 cache + FPU + INT. However, there is no final answer to what is a core. The misconception and thus fallacy of this lawsuit is based upon calling ONE type of CPU architecture as the "correct and normal type", while calling the other type "wrong".

Then again, both SMT, CMT and pure single threaded cores can do the same workload. How they execute these workloads may differ. But they job still gets done.

This lawsuit, is bullshit and only an attempt at hauling what little money is readily availible.. also, depending on the retailer, many tries to sell i7s as 8core...

the blame in this case is a bit obscure. was the retailer at which he bought the CPU misrepresenting the product out of ignorance? did he not read up on the product before buying? did he ignore the little text and or previous press releases in regards to bulldozer?

If there is anything we should sue AMD for, its for repeatedly dissappointing the market. Because they cause emotional distress by hyping everyone up then failing to deliver.

[Sauron]

Its not about cores being created equal, but the fact that AMD's latest CPU don't actually have the advertised number of cores.

 

-> but they do. It's pretty hard to argue the modules themselves would be a single core.

[Majestic]

I agree that's marketing bullshit - but all the specs are listed and can be easily found. For what it's worth, almost all phone soc producers are pulling the same bs, think of when apple claimed the ipad has a "quad core gpu" whatever that meant.

Intel's better scaling is due to a better overall architecture. Nobody is disputing that. But it doesn't mean amd's chips have less cores than they claim. I don't think I'm being too generous, I just don't think this lawsuit has any real basis to go on.

 

Majestic, anti consumerist would be defending a company that lied about their products. I'll say it again, ANYONE could go and see the exact architecture and more importantly. benchmark results. The information was all there for the taking, AMD made no attempt to hide it. In a way, they did better than many companies that don't release precise specs and are like, up to 4x more performance!************ - apple would be a good example of that (not that I think they should be sued for it).

 

Much like the benchmarks of the 970 didn't change overnight either. They were still good cards for their price, hence the majority stood by their product (for whatever internal reason) as did the press who initially covered them. 

 

I still think it's disingenuous, however I agree that the lawsuit, much like the one with the 3.5GB is ill-defined and will go nowhere.

 

I also don't think this type of marketing will ever change, and people will continue to fall for marketing. But what I can't stand is double standards. Atleast let's hold ALL companies to the same scrutiny and standards, and not base our degree of criticism on their financial status. I feel like much of AMD's wrongdoings get swept under the rug, whilst every little mistake Intel and Nvidia make get blown up out of proportions. We are not in the business to swing media for AMD, nor should we be protecting bad business practices.

[Dabombinable]

-> but they do. It's pretty hard to argue the modules themselves would be a single core.

ALU aren't cores. If bits of a CPU could be called cores, then I've got an 8 core 8 thread i7 4790k. 4 FPU and 4 ALU.

[TheElt]

Intel's better scaling is due to a better overall architecture. Nobody is disputing that. But it doesn't mean amd's chips have less cores than they claim. I don't think I'm being too generous, I just don't think this lawsuit has any real basis to go on.

Uh, not really. Even counting turbo speeds you should see a pretty close direct improvement from single threaded and multi threaded regardless. My Athlon 64 x2 sees about a 1.8-1.9x boost in single threaded vs multi threaded IIRC

[Sauron]

 

 

 

Much like the benchmarks of the 970 didn't change overnight either. They were still good cards for their price, hence the majority stood by their product (for whatever internal reason) as did the press who initially covered them. 

 

I still think it's disingenuous, however I agree that the lawsuit, much like the one with the 3.5GB is ill-defined and will go nowhere.

 

I also don't think this type of marketing will ever change, and people will continue to fall for marketing. But what I can't stand is double standards. Atleast let's hold ALL companies to the same scrutiny and standards, and not base our degree of criticism on their financial status.

 

 

Exactly, that's why I didn't go out of my way to try and lynch nvidia for that. But unlike amd, they really were not clear about what was actually on the gpu. Credit where credit is due. I'm still past the point where I'll recommend any amd cpu that is not an athlon.

[Sauron]

ALU aren't cores. If bits of a CPU could be called cores, then I've got an 8 core 8 thread i7 4790k. 4 FPU and 4 ALU.

 

If you stand by that, bulldozer has 0 cores. I hope you see something's wrong here.

 

Uh, not really. Even counting turbo speeds you should see a pretty close direct improvement from single threaded and multi threaded regardless. My Athlon 64 x2 sees about a 1.8-1.9x boost in single threaded vs multi threaded IIRC

 

Yeah, let's disregard the fact the athlon 64 was a completely different architecture. Take a gpu, do you think if you did a single threaded benchmark and a multithreaded one on a gpu you'd see close to perfect scaling? And yet nobody is disputing the use of the name cuda core.

 

Or, take an arm chip with the big.LITTLE archuitecture. Is anyone arguing that it doesn't contain 8 cores? no. Does it provide 8x single core performance when you do multithreaded? hell no. Because it's a completely different concept. That doesn't mean it contains less cores than advertised. Of course marketing will try to make it seem better than it is, but that doesn't mean they're lieing.

[Dabombinable]

If you stand by that, bulldozer has 0 cores. I hope you see something's wrong here.

 

 

Yeah, let's disregard the fact the athlon 64 was a completely different architecture. Take a gpu, do you think if you did a single threaded benchmark and a multithreaded one on a gpu you'd see close to perfect scaling? And yet nobody is disputing the use of the name cuda core.

 

Or, take an arm chip with the big.LITTLE archuitecture. Is anyone arguing that it doesn't contain 8 cores? no. Does it provide 8x single core performance when you do multithreaded? hell no. Because it's a completely different concept. That doesn't mean it contains less cores than advertised. Of course marketing will try to make it seem better than it is, but that doesn't mean they're lieing.

Bulldozer has 4 cores or modules, with 2 ALU instead of 1-that's the way it is

Hawwell has 4 cores-that's the way it is

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

 

I also don't think this type of marketing will ever change, and people will continue to fall for marketing. But what I can't stand is double standards. Atleast let's hold ALL companies to the same scrutiny and standards, and not base our degree of criticism on their financial status. I feel like much of AMD's wrongdoings get swept under the rug, whilst every little mistake Intel and Nvidia make get blown up out of proportions. We are not in the business to swing media for AMD, nor should we be protecting bad business practices.

 

 

I don't really see that here? Much like the "3.5 gb" incident the ones attacking then are the ones defending now. The ones defending then are the ones attacking now. The roles are simply reversed. If you talk about that double standards, then the ones attacking can't attack and vice versa. That'll be too boring.