AMD faces class action suit over Bulldozer missrepresentation

[Prysin]

Just some guy wanting easy money.

 

The whole 4 cores cut in half thing was exposed a long time ago. What defines a core anyways?

from a near bankrupt company with zero money...

 

he might aswell go rob a homeless man.

[Sauron]

They tried convincing people that more cores are better, because bigger numbers are better, right?

 

Uh... that's what everyone and their dog has been doing in the last 10 years? Qualcomm does it, amd does it, samsung does it, basically anyone who has a number advantage of some sort has been pushing it. Doesn't mean they should get sued for it.

[LAwLz]

actually NO

 

an APU CAN be 12 cores depending on THE APPLICATION YOU USE IT WITH.

 

As long as it is HSA compliant, which Kaveri is. It can under OpenGL 2.0, Vulcan and DX12 by ALL technicality use ALL their cores, even the GPU cores, for other tasks then GPU tasks.

 

yes the workload MUST be parrallellisised to do so.

yes it is a specific use case scenario

yes such use cases are NOT a consumer thing, and probably wont be for years to come.

So you would be totally okay with Intel advertising for example the i5-2500K as having 16 cores?

 

I can actually use the 4 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores in my 2500K at the same time so obviously that should be allowed and would not in any way be just marketing BS to trick people, right?

GPGPU is not something new which only works with HSA, OpenGL 2.0, Vulcan or DX12 parts/programs. I can do it on my 2500K (which doesn't even support DirectX 11).

[Tomsen]

Obviously different cores are built for different applications. Atoms weren't even part of the argument. I'm talking about how pathetic FX processors are in relation to their direct rivals, the i5 chips they were built and sold to compete with. They tried convincing people that more cores are better, because bigger numbers are better, right?

And they still lost. Here we are almost 5 years after Bulldozer was first launched, and Intel has dominated in IPC by leaps and bounds. And AMD has released little to nothing.

Changing the core-counting scheme wouldn't change any of what you are mad about.

8c/8t rather than 4c/8t are, imo, more understandable going from its design choices. Kinda like conjoined twins.

[Prysin]

So you would be totally okay with Intel advertising for example the i5-2500K as having 16 cores?

 

I can actually use the 4 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores in my 2500K at the same time so obviously that should be allowed and would not in any way be just marketing BS to trick people, right?

GPGPU is not something new which only works with HSA, OpenGL 2.0, Vulcan or DX12 parts/programs. I can do it on my 2500K (which doesn't even support DirectX 11).

yes GPGPU isnt new. Its a bitch to deal with from what i understand.

OpenGL2.0 makes the same task easier to code for. I say easier, not easy.

 

Also, GPGPU doesnt go well with gaming. Vulcan and DX12 does...

Technically, if a APU is given the right drivers and the game engine allows it, you can offload large chunks of CPU workloads onto the GPU using compute (yes, it has onboard ACE just like AMDs GPUs does)...

 

 

as for the "@AMDAPU" twitter account.

Is that actually official, or just a fan-group thingy? Cuz really, it makes me wonder.

[Curufinwe_wins]

So I gotta say this totally should have already been a thing. You know how many hundreds of people come on this forum talking up the 8350 etc thinking octo-core must be best thing eva. Hell we have people here that refuse to accept an I5 is an upgrade over a 6300.

And this is a tech forum... The general populous is much worse.

It's even worse than the ghz wars of the p4 era (as amd also uses that idealolgy to boost sales, but at least they never claim to be faster than Intel clock for clock).

[TheElt]

Wall of text here, I went overboard and realised too late

 

I'm afraid you can't use that scaling factor in its own to make that claim. The reality is it scales beyond a multiplication of 4. How much of the program is parallel will determine the score just as much as the number of cores you have. It's Amdahl's Law in benchmark form. That's also not taking into account noisy neighbor effects in the L3 Cache/

Actually, we can use scaling in Cinebench to make these claims since it is probably almost perfectly parallel and that's backed up when you look at the scaling of every CPU other than the FX series. Take a look at the Cinebench thread and you'll see 80% or more on average performance increase when you double the amount of cores being used (Cores, not threads).

 

Athlon 64 x2 3800+ - 1 Core 41CB - 2 Cores 71CB - 1.78x scaling

C2D T8100 - 1 Core 60CB - 2 Cores 109CB - 1.82x Scaling

C2Q Q6700/Q6600 (Both at 4GHz) - 1 Core 102CB - 4 Cores 372CB - 3.64x Scaling This one might be a bit out due to different system configs, no idea how true it is

Phenom II x6 1090T (3.96GHz) 1 Core 102CB - 6 Cores 586CB - 5.74x Scaling

 

The scaling improves when you look at the later chips from Intel, and goes down the pan when you look at the FX chips from AMD

 

Core i5 4690k (4.6GHz) - 1 Core 181CB - 4 Cores 692CB - 3.82x Scaling

Core i5 3570k (4.4GHz) - 1 Core 156CB - 4 Cores 595CB - 3.81x Scaling

Core i5 2500k (4.6GHz) - 1 Core 155CB - 4 Cores 579CB - 3.74x Scaling

 

AMD FX 4100 (4.5GHz) - 1 Core 97CB - 4 'Cores'  312CB - 3.22x Scaling

AMD FX 6300 (5.17GHz) - 1 Core 124CB - 6 'Cores' 626CB - 5.05x Scaling Only score I can find done at the same speeds by the same person, but scaling shouldn't break with overclocking

AMD FX 8350 (4.6GHz) - 1 Core 110CB - 8 'Cores' 736CB - 6.69x Scaling

 

AMD has consistently worse scaling than Intel when you look at the FX series of chips, now this isn't because Cinebench isn't very parallel. Sadly there aren't any people benching the 6 and 8 core Intel chips with HT off, so math needs to be done.

If you look around at some benchmarks from here (Would have liked a sample of 3 CPUs, but damn it's hard to come across) HyperThreading gives a performance boost of 22.29% over those 2 CPUs, so we can use that as a rough idea of the benefits of HT.

 

If we look at a Core i7 4790k at 4.8GHz scores 981CB, if we also use an i5 4690k at 4.8GHz as a comparison, that scores 730CB. If you do the math and pull 22.29% off the score of the i7 it comes to 762CB, higher than the i5 but that's expected due to imperfect math, different hardware and the increased cache. So that 22.29% seems like a good enough value for rough calculations

 

Core i7 5820k (4.4GHz) - Single Core 179CB - All Threads 1323CB - 6 Cores (No HT) 1028CB - 7.39x scaling (HT) - 5.74x Scaling (No HT) Falls in line with what we've seen so far

Core i7 5960x  (4.5GHz) - Single Core 176CB - All Threads 1733CB - 8 Cores (No HT) 1347CB - 9.85x scaling (HT) - 7.65x scaling (No HT)

 

Even on rough calculations, we can see that Cinebench scales extremely well the more cores you add, like it should. I would make a point here by doing the same for the E5-2699 v3 but there are no single threaded scores for that CPU, so instead I'll do it for the closest CPU to it, the E5-2630 v2

 

2x 2699 v3 - All Threads 4447CB - 36 Cores 3456CB

2630 v2 (2.964GHz on the sheet) - Single Thread 124CB

 

35.86x Scaling with HT / 27.87x Scaling without HT

 

Now with this many cores the calculations will not be very accurate, including the fact that there is no single threaded 2699 v3 score makes it worse. But even with 36 cores Cinebench scales extremely well.

 

I've spent far too long doing this now that I realise it was a colossal waste of time so it's getting posted anyway, so it can serve to the thread as well. AMD should scale as well as Intel if they did make true 4, 6 and 8 core CPUs. However the scaling is far worse, because they are not true 4, 6 or 8 core CPUs.

 

The FX-6300 scales 0.69x worse than a Phenom II x6, they are both marketed as 6 core CPUs, it's obvious which one actually is a 6 core.

[thebennyboy]

This thing is bulldozer does have 8 cores, just uses a different but inferior technology. This lawsuit is just people expelling some hot air.

 

Claiming it isn't an 8 core just isn't right. Cus as a matter of fact it is an 8-core CPU. It just uses CMT which still makes it an 8-core CPU.

[Misanthrope]

Lots of discussion on whenever they're cores or not, I have an idea: leave it to the court to decide.

[thebennyboy]

Lots of discussion on whenever they're cores or not, I have an idea: leave it to the court to decide.

 

Everyone is going to have a different opinion on it, hence why there is always arguing.

[KemoKa]

Uh... that's what everyone and their dog has been doing in the last 10 years? Qualcomm does it, amd does it, samsung does it, basically anyone who has a number advantage of some sort has been pushing it. Doesn't mean they should get sued for it.

Let me be perfectly clear, I don't think AMD should be sued over this. Not at all. I just happened to use this thread as a vent for my frustration at AMD for the 4-year train wreck that Bulldozer has been. They screwed up, big time, and we have to wait until 2017 until they have a shot at challenging Intel again. It makes me sad.

[KemoKa]

Lots of discussion on whenever they're cores or not, I have an idea: leave it to the court to decide.

Unless the court members are all processor engineers, or at least have the slightest interest in what CPUs are and how they work, that sounds like a very very bad idea.

 

A core to them could easily be what was left over when His Worship munched on an apple.

 

If members of this forum were in the court, this case would be thrown out instantly.

[Sauron]

Let me be perfectly clear, I don't think AMD should be sued over this. Not at all. I just happened to use this thread as a vent for my frustration at AMD for the 4-year train wreck that Bulldozer has been. They screwed up, big time, and we have to wait until 2017 until they have a shot at challenging Intel again. It makes me sad.

 

Oh yeah, I agree with that much. Zen better be good.

[NumLock21]

Let's hope the judge as well as the judge as well as the jury selected to this case, knows a things or 2 and throw this case out before it even starts. The only looser in here is the person who started this, and them winners are the lawyers. Them lawyer fees.

[Daegun]

Hmm, so in 7-8 years (if amd is still around by then) everyone involved will make about $10. Cool.

Don't we all just love technicalities?

[NumLock21]

Hmm, so in 7-8 years (if amd is still around by then) everyone involved will make about $10. Cool.

Don't we all just love technicalities?

Just need $10 more to get a 5960X...

[Guest]

Total utter bull...

hehe bulldozer.

[Daegun]

Just need $10 more to get a 5960X...

But will you still want one 7-8 years from now?

[Sauron]

Just need $10 more to get a 5960X...

 

what's wrong with the 2620 lol

[Misanthrope]

Unless the court members are all processor engineers, or at least have the slightest interest in what CPUs are and how they work, that sounds like a very very bad idea.

 

A core to them could easily be what was left over when His Worship munched on an apple.

 

If members of this forum were in the court, this case would be thrown out instantly.

 

I can't say I disagree, however this is an inherent issue with the legal system overall. It's why elsewhere for example, there's no "Jury" to speak of: here in Mexico every trial is basically a bench trial.

[NumLock21]

what's wrong with the 2620 lol

that was /s lol

 

@Daegun

7-8 years from now?!

Nah, then I want the best for that time i7 10969X

[totjup5]

For f*** sake stop! This is like going into a hospital to see someone who is sick and still might make it, and just beating them up for no reason.

[marldorthegreat]

IT is 4 modular cores, with 2 "sub" cores. No need to sue AMD about it.

[LAwLz]

yes GPGPU isnt new. Its a bitch to deal with from what i understand.

OpenGL2.0 makes the same task easier to code for. I say easier, not easy.

 

Also, GPGPU doesnt go well with gaming. Vulcan and DX12 does...

Technically, if a APU is given the right drivers and the game engine allows it, you can offload large chunks of CPU workloads onto the GPU using compute (yes, it has onboard ACE just like AMDs GPUs does)...

 

 

as for the "@AMDAPU" twitter account.

Is that actually official, or just a fan-group thingy? Cuz really, it makes me wonder.

You did not answer my question. Do you think Intel should have advertised their i5-2500K as a 16 core processor? If they did do you think they would have done so in an attempt to trick customers? It is exactly what AMD is doing and I think the answers are "no they should not be allowed to do it and yes they are doing it to trick customers".

All that stuff about Vulcan/DX12 is irrelevant to the conversation. The conversation is purely "should you be allowed to take the sum of CPU and GPU cores and advertise that under a generic core term?". AMD is doing it and I think it is wrong. They should specify how many CPU cores it has and how many GPU cores it has. They should not be added together and advertised as a single number, ever.

 

As for the Twitter account, yes it is an official account and it has almost 50K followers.

 

 

 

 

For f*** sake stop! This is like going into a hospital to see someone who is sick and still might make it, and just beating them up for no reason.

Not really. They might have broken the law (that's up to the judge to decide). We don't let robbers get away with their crimes just because they might have cancer. Their health (physical of financial) does not put them above the law.

 

Personally I think the whole "module vs core" debate is not really anything to sue them for. It's kind of a gray zone and I don't think they did it on purpose. It's just a byproduct of how the architecture works. I think the whole concept of "let's advertise the CPU and GPU cores together as a single number" is a far bigger issue that genuinely deserve to get sued over. That is nothing but a dirty attempt to trick people and does not have anything to do with the architecture.

[That Norwegian Guy]

If you only have 4 FPU per 8 Integer units, you have 4 cores. A core must have both integer and floating point capability. So yes, AMD were always lying about Bulldozer.