Chicago (IL) – Two Barcelona benchmark charts published on AMD’s website caused quite a stir yesterday: Intel wasn’t happy about outdated performance numbers causing AMD to remove the charts.

 

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In Pictures: AMD Quad-Core "Barcelona" technical details ...

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AMD today in fact acknowledged that its performance charts were outdated and that new Intel numbers were not included in the comparison. Spokesman Phil Hughes conceded in a conversation with TG Daily that AMD “failed to update the numbers” and has taken down the charts as a result.

In the meantime, Intel had stressed that Xeon performance numbers, which far exceed the numbers used by AMD, are available. And according to Intel, the 2.66 GHz Xeon 5355 does not trail the estimated integer performance of a 2.6 GHz quad-core Opteron by about 20%, but by only about 2% (99.9 vs. 102 points in the Specint_rate2006 benchmark). The 3.0 GHz Xeon 5365, which is shipping in limited numbers at this time, is actually slightly faster than the 2.6 GHz Opteron (106 vs. 102 points) – which is expected to be AMD’s fastest quad-core to be available by the end of this year.

From that perspective, the future does not look favorable for AMD, given the fact that Intel’s 45 nm server chip will be available around the turn of the year and Intel already said that it does expect substantial performance gains in the double-digit range across the board. But the truth of the matter is that we are talking about unreleased products on both ends, with Intel holding the performance lead in products that you can buy today.

So, if AMD has taken down the benchmark numbers, does that mean that Barcelona will not be as fast as AMD claims? Hughes told us that AMD still expects the performance of Barcelona at 2.6 GHz to come in at what the estimate has shown – or “even a bit higher”. However, there is no doubt that the initially available Barcelonas (with up to 2.0 GHz) will not be able to match Intel’s current performance level.

Interestingly enough, plain speed isn’t really the whole story. Power consumption is a performance factor that has not received a whole lot attention. In the light of today’s server environments that try to decrease heat and use the available power as efficiently as possible, this may actually the discipline where the battle between Intel and AMD will be fought. At least according to AMD’s Barcelona website, the firm’s 68w/95w/125w chips will have an advantage over comparable Xeons (65w/80w), at least as long as 65w Xeons are pitched against 68w and 95w Opterons and the 80w Xeon against the 95w Opteron. And yes, the low-power Clovertown processors (50w) were left out of consideration in this comparison.

If industry rumors are right, then AMD will be releasing Barcelona in September and we soon will be able to verify what the processor is really capable of and what impact it may have in the market.

oh

Jul 06, 2007 14:03     

"The 3.0 GHz Xeon 5365,is actually SLIGHTLY faster than the 2.6 GHz Opteron (106 vs. 102 points). hmm intels 400mhz advantage only brings a few percent to the lead. hmm, I don't think amd is down and out at all. Intel, Intel, i'm not an anyalyst but I have a feeling Intel let there lead blow up there heads. For amd's sake that had better have some surprize anouncements and products by 1q 2008. i doubt it though. lets see what happens when they introduce the new ht link.

louie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

yawn......

Jul 06, 2007 14:27     

AMD is in "NEAR PANIC MODE"... ask some mainboard companys. barcelona will be a good product. but to late and with not enough performance to beat intel.
peter report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Good Chip

Jul 06, 2007 15:03     

of course, it will be clocked lower, it's not even out yet... this architecture will come up to 3.0ghz... ddr3 will also be supported by the next generation of the chip... if it's 40% more efficient at the same clock, it's good enough for me... server market is not like desktop market where you want the best performing chip whatever the cost it... it's more like we need this performance and we are ready to invest that much money into it... that's all. a 320$ 1.9ghz part competing with a 2.66ghz intel part... which is worth 1200$ ... 640$ vs 2400$ (two socket) THAT is cost efficiency

Da Tronics report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

At least AMD is not far behind now

Jul 06, 2007 15:38     

Well although neither of these products intel or AMD are currently complaining about(performance numbers wise) AMD's product should come pretty close or like they said better than those numbers show. I mean we've all looked at toms hardware charts, current AMD products aren't a huge leap behind Intels even when you consider comparing Intels Quads to AMD dual cores or even to amd 4 x 4(FX 7x). With these new performance numbes it still looks good for AMD, they are proving once again they can match performance with lower clock speed. "The 3.0 GHz Xeon 5365, which is shipping in limited numbers at this time, is actually slightly faster than the 2.6 GHz Opteron (106 vs. 102 points)" A 400 Mhz increase over AMD's processor and a 102 to 106 difference is all it can muster, hmm shows someone product is not as good as we thought. I dunno how things will turn out I guess we'll just have to wait until someone gets a hold of these processor and put them through the tests

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RE: Oh

Jul 06, 2007 15:59     

I'm not a fan boy, but dude did you read the full article or stop at the first paragraph. because I don't understand your "Intel, Intel, i'm not an anyalyst but I have a feeling Intel let there lead blow up there heads." Vs the very next paragraph "the future does not look favorable for AMD, given the fact that Intel’s 45 nm server chip will be available around the turn of the year" Am I missing something or you?

Enlighten report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Confident?

Jul 06, 2007 16:10     

AMD feels confident? Intel is laughing right now! If Barcelona doesn't deliver, AMD is most likely done...
Justin report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

one benchmark

Jul 06, 2007 16:10     

I hate when people get all worked up about one benchmark, in this case Specint_rate2006. Peter is right- what matters is real world price performance and power performance, especially for servers.
jake report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Why only 2.6Ghz?

Jul 06, 2007 16:39     

Why dont AMD stop being a sissy and put big numbers on their processors?? Ppl can overclock processors above the stock ratings anyway...
snkmad report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

With nothing to compete with Intel, why should they...

Jul 06, 2007 16:46     

With nothing to compete with Intel, why should they sell their server processors cheap? They'll drop in price when AMD releases the Barcelona processors, that is IF they perform just as well. Also with the release of the 45nm processors it will drop even more. Also need to take into consideration Intels new chipset with the higher bus speed and DDR3.
Tim. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

same old same old

Jul 06, 2007 16:56     

AMD is what they are today by being number 2. They have always been number 2 and done quite well. They got lucky and spanked Intel during the entire 2003-2006 years. Now its backt to the same old. Big deal. If we didnt have AMD, we would be paying $2000 for Intel processors that could serve as space heaters.
shady1 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

one benchmark - serves AMD right

Jul 06, 2007 17:42     

It was AMD that plastered SPECint_rate2006 and SPECfp_rate2006 and claimed victory against Intel in their 'simulated benchmarks' So AMD worked itself up a lather and got rightfully hosed down.
Einstein report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

I hope AMD does not...

Jul 06, 2007 20:18     

I hope AMD does not go out of business because we need competition. If it wasn't for AMD we will still be all using intel's netburts crap instead of a core 2 or a athlon 64 microchip.
axt report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

You misunderstand..

Jul 06, 2007 20:35     

"The 3.0 GHz Xeon 5365, which is shipping in limited numbers at this time, is actually slightly faster than the 2.6 GHz Opteron (106 vs. 102 points)" A 400 Mhz increase over AMD's processor and a 102 to 106 difference is all it can muster, hmm shows someone product is not as good as we thought." You don't understand what's going on. AMD's 2.6 ghz benchmarks are ESTIMATED. Their 2.6 ghz chip doesn't even exist, for all we know they just took their 2.0 ghz numbers and interpolated them up to 2.6 ghz. The article also clearly states that AMD's barcelona will initially ship at 2.0 ghz, when, or if they ever ramp that up to 2.6 ghz is anyones guess. On the other hand, Intel's 3.0 ghz Xeon chips are ALREADY shipping, although in limited supply, but they are available and REAL, not theoretical. This looks bad for AMD....

Ray report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

THE ONE benchmark

Jul 06, 2007 20:47     

Unfortuantely These were the main benchmarks that AMD THOUGHT they could lead. All this talk of Price for performance. Well, AMD needed this chip to be a FLAGSHIP. They needed to be able own the performance crown so they could command a higher price and recoup. They will be faced with what they are now and that's MORE price cutting to stay alive. AMD Stock rating: SELL, SELL, SELL
Frags report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD

Jul 06, 2007 21:57     

AMD is living on borrowed time. Buy AMD only if you want them around a little longer. AMD has two cards left, the quad core and the integrated video CPU. And if that doesn't do it, they will go down like the sun (sunw). As for speed, the CPUs don't have a lot of headroom left, so AMD must release lower speeds like 2.6GHz to stall for time. If they release 3GHz now, there wouldn't be anything else to sell later on. The 3.2GHz would melt long before Windows could load. Otherwise, AMD would have release a 4GHz and 5GHz FX long ago. When AMD first introduced the Athlon, it was the best. It was their savior and as such, they never thought about a replacement.

Zen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

its been said

Jul 06, 2007 22:23     

my argument by i buy amd has been said a million times, without them the market would go sour with just intel. i just like making comments, so theres mine. woot.
james report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re: Why only 2.6Ghz?

Jul 07, 2007 00:15     

Because the Ghz race isn't so critical in the multi-core market. Because it's a server chip, and more Ghz means more power consumption. And because it's pointless to even mention overclocking here. No reputable company out there would be stupid enough to overclock their servers. System stability and energy consumption are two important considerations with servers, and overclocking is bad for both.

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Intel Hypocrisy

Jul 07, 2007 01:50     

Intel complaining about benchmarks..makes you laugh. Anyone who remembers benchmarking software will remember a rather cosy relationship Intel had with a certain suite. A bit too cosy.
William report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Why all the Intel fanbois?

Jul 07, 2007 01:57     

Do you not realize that if AMD goes under, you're going to be paying ridiculous prices in an Intel monopoly? Anybody that cares about the computer industry in general should be rooting for AMD to keep up, because a lack of competition means a lack of innovation and price control. If it weren't for AMD, do you think Intel would have near as good of product as they do today?
John report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

shake the disease!

Jul 07, 2007 04:30     

It's all fine on the server market if your speeds don't go higher than 2.6 GHz and you don't have much overclocking potential... because efficiency is the most important aspect... but consider this: the Barcelona core stands at the heart of the desktop Phenom CPUs, it just doesn't spell good for AMD. They need CPUs that go above 2.6 GHz and also good overclocking capabilities. They must realise that even if the Barcelona core is better in clock/clock comparisons, Intel will just raise the clock speeds (because they can easily go above 3 GHz) to still come on top. AMD need to work harder and faster if they are to pose a real threat to Intel. Introducing 45nm chips as fast as possible is of the utmost importance. It's a sad reality, the market needs AMD like air right now but they just can't seem to shake off Core 2 punch.

fastpunk report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

This is the server market right?

Jul 07, 2007 06:49     

Seems to me several people here explained how well the chip will operate in the server market. Its competitive. Those numbers were from when Feb or April? And as for cinfidence, didnt a spokesman say at least if not a lil better? So, we have a chip thats maybe 9% slower, maybe way cheaper to buy and operate. I know this is speculation, but like someone named Jack said along time ago, AMD was heading for this market, and it looks, again, competitive. Who knows what the desktop will bring?

John report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

it's not 3GHz vs 2.6GHz

Jul 07, 2007 07:46     

"the 2.66 GHz Xeon 5355 does not trail the estimated integer performance of a 2.6 GHz quad-core Opteron by about 20%, but by only about 2% (99.9 vs. 102 points" so,it's not a 400MHz difference,but 60MHz instead. There's no evidence a theoretical 3GHz Opteron would perform better than the current Xeon
theWaver report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Here is fact for ya.

Jul 07, 2007 13:48     

Estimated means nothing. Intel could estimate the Penryn will outperfom the Barcelona. They didn't. They ran alpha testing in house first which showed 22% performance gain over the best chip they had. Then in Maximum PC, they showed the testing on real benchmarks that most benchmarks use. Divx6.6, 3Dmark and so on. It showed 22%-44% gains. Those are real numbers, not estimated. And the thing is they are on Intel mobos with generic ram and so on. If you were to get a high end mobo that is tweeked and high end ram and everything else it will probably have even better gains vs the QX6800. So with this real, meaning not estimated, data you can assume it will probably be better than the Barcelona. Come on AMD show us real numbers not estimates. I want to see this "great" chip in action, not what you think it can do. Thinking is great but can lead to being beat badly.

Jimmy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD

Jul 07, 2007 16:52     

It's true, without AMD, we'd probably still be using Intel's 16bit 80286. But you have to thank IBM for giving AMD the x86 contract as well - they were the backup supplier. And it's great that the new CPU can blow away Intel - but it's sad that they were actually using outdated numbers - so the big gains that were promised are probably in the negatives right now. It doesn't look like AMD has any wonder weapons because if they did, they would have released them and charge a premium and force Intel to drop their prices like they did with the Pentium D. What really lost it for me was when AMD was lowering the speed, adding a little extra cache and calling it a faster CPU and demanding even more money. I was forced over to the other side. This resulted in slower CPUs (less cache, higher clock speed) blowing away faster CPUs (more cache, slower clock speed) in benchmarks. Note to Editor: Did someone forget to put AMD in the spell checker dictionary? Intel was added.

Zen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Time to fire people

Jul 07, 2007 19:27     

It is time to fire the CEO of AMD or whomever continues to make these mistakes. The first mistake was the purchase of ATI and the shortsightedness of management staff. Now this. I am going to dump my stock in AMD as well will others if AMD continues to commit costly mistakes.
libby langwash report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re: Intel Monpoly

Jul 07, 2007 21:55     

Did every one here forget VIA and its C7, expecialy how the C7-M can best Pentium M's easily on a clock for clock basis and watt for watt. geeze. If anything, we would see a bunch of AMD engineers heding to A. IBM ,or B. (hopefully) VIA. Intel gains dominance in the x86, IBM does what it alwaysh has, and VIA takes over the mobile and nich, eventualy going into low power (but not low performance) desktops and servers were low power>speed.

Joz report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Top end? or the resonable end...

Jul 07, 2007 22:10     

To many of these "comparisons" are on the top end chips that just don't sell. Even in the server market, the middle range chips sell so much more, and in that arena AMD still is the strongest and cheapest. Why do you guys think that CRAY uses AMD chips in their mid-range computers?
Narg report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Whoa whoa, 3.0ghz barely faster than 2.6ghz?

Jul 08, 2007 02:11     

This is great! I can sway to either Intel or AMD. The better Price for performance (fitting our needs) is good for us consumers. BUT I Hate to crap on any avid fans from the Blue or Green team but werent some of us boasting when c2D came out, Amd had to over clock a Brisbane or Windsor to 3.0ghz to match a stock 2.4ghz Core 2? Intel and AMD are openly admitting more realistic information about upcoming processers that an intel 3.0ghz Xeon is ONLY faster by about 2% compared to a 2.6 Opty? HELLO, share the same "credit" if you could! I hate and love both Intel and AMD. But if both companies are agreeing to those terms some how. I dont think AMD will sink as fast as some of you want it to happen. Both companies cant hold the performance crown at the same time. why would you want Intel or AMD to disappear any ways? They're competeing for OUR money!!! Im glad theyre competing this badly for that stupid 40ghz 80 core Cpu (sarcasm there's no such thing, dont poop your pants yet). This means their last generation bad ass cpus will be cheaper by the time I FEEL like updating when necessary. Dear lord, how many of you honestly are going to buy an ultra core at full price? Just for games? or to run webroot spy sweeper in less than a 1 minute? Id rather buy a PS3 or nintendo Wii if its games you care about. You want 2000 fps in a game? Well all you need is 100fps for any real motion fluidness and blurs. These ultra processors are for workstations not JUST for games.

villain_xx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Q3

Jul 08, 2007 08:55     

If Intel releases there 45nm part in Q3 and with the actual benchmarks shown, AMD is going to be in bad shape. Intel has 3 fabs ramping hard, their product is faster. They can sell the new part at $500-$1000 and dump the "old" slow Core 2s at celeron prices(Which are on par with the new AMD parts?). This will just get ugly. As for the person that said buying ATI was a mistake, AMD had no choice. With the increasing trasistor count, in a couple of years you will just have the CPU/North bridge and a cheap IO hub. Everything is integrating, and this requires that you have the components.

ken report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

CRAY uses AMD because...

Jul 08, 2007 13:34     

"Why do you guys think that CRAY uses AMD chips in their mid-range computers?" Because the AMD chips were once the kings of HPC but not anymore http://scientiasblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-quality-of-things-ive-said.html "There is also no doubt that Intel has gained tremendously in servers. In fact, in HPC, while AMD had modest gains, Intel's gains could only be described as ballistic. This is the sharpest gain by Intel in HPC on the Top 500 list since November 2003 when a flood of 32 bit Xeon systems began replacing the RISC systems like Alpha, Pa-RISC, MIPS, and Sparc. In just one year, Xeon HPC system power had doubled and became the dominant source of computing power in June 2004. Today, Intel has duplicated that feat by surpassing IBM's Power with 64 bit Xeon. As we speak, there is more HPC computing power coming from 64 bit Xeon (primarily Woodcrest) systems than any other. Of all the Top 500 HPC systems, 64 bit Xeon systems provide about 20% more computing power than IBM's Power and about double that of Opteron. AMD does have some large HPC systems lined up for later this year but even 30,000 processors for these systems won't put much of a dent in Intel's lead. AMD would need about 70,000 Barcelona's in HPC today to catch Intel."

Johnny report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Via C7 what?

Jul 08, 2007 15:37     

"Did every one here forget VIA and its C7, expecialy how the C7-M can best Pentium M's easily on a clock for clock basis and watt for watt. " Data please? Come on... If C7> Pentium-M clock for clock, and Pentium-M is > or = K8 clock for clock (at and lower power): http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/298/pc-desktop-le-core-duo-face-a-la-concurrence/page16.php Then C7 > K8 clock for clock.... I just don't see the C7 has an Intel competitor ... AMD is the best hope for the industry to maintain some sort of economic balance between to competing forces.

Jerry A. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Via sucks

Jul 08, 2007 22:45     

I remember when I didn't know better than to check who made the chipsets on my motherboard. After having problems for several years with different MBs, I figured out what the problem was, inferior Via chipsets. Now the first thing I do when I buy I new one is to make sure one of those Via pieces of crap isn't on it.
John report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

boo!!

Jul 08, 2007 23:31     

If only AMD could have started working on Barcelona at an earlier stage.. they wouldn't be rushing today to rollout a lack luster product... with the advent of Intel's 45nm products (which Intel may aleady have cooked and just waiting to launch along side Barcelona)
dudde report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD

Jul 09, 2007 07:12     

AMD is stalling for time. Sometimes it's not easy to develop new products - well, sometimes it is easy but getting the yields and high performance is a different story. Long story short, if you don't have a new CPU to sell, you modify and spice up the old ones till something comes true... that's what happen to the enormous energy Goliath 4X4 FX. I didn't like the ATI deal, AMD should have joined up with NVIDIA since they couldn't buy them. But ATI brings in unique innovations for faster CPUs. The BAD DEAL is IBM. IBM has released Power6 CPUs running at 4-5GHz. Why isn't AMD not shipping CPUs with that speed? Aren't they suppose to be working together on advance chip designs? And AMD is paying big blue big. Oh, I get it, those chips must be so secret you can't even see them. I think AMD should use the Sony's Core CPU and add in x86 instruction sets.

Zen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Tiring

Jul 09, 2007 07:50     

Why does everyone stand up for AMD just because they don't want them to go away? I mean believe me I love the competition against Intel, and I understand the crap we will have to put up with if AMD was to go away. But I for one, am not going to buy or support an inferior product just because of this. Intel is the best right now,hands down, end of story. I've used both AMD and Intel for years, I have a lot of respect for both companeis, but I'm sick of hearing "Don't stand up for Intel we need AMD" blah blah. Intel is doing a fantastic job, they deserve their praise just as AMD did.

Chris report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re: CRAY uses AMD because...

Jul 09, 2007 08:17     

Intel (with help from its partners) nuked the real CPU-developpers-scene. HP killed off the Pa-RISC when the greed squads put their pants down for Intel. Digital's Alpha (ones the world fastest cpu ever) got killed by compaq (who later put their pants down to Intel, which conviently slashed the Alpa and raped the StrongARM-cores). As for MIPS if it wasn't for Sony's rescue then it wouldn't excist anymore. And how long will SUN's Sparc still last as the only independant cpu-developper left? Sure there's IBM but these used to be the bad guys themselves. They more than once pulled their pants down for Intel in the past. As soon as the greed squad rolls in and ditches the cpu-departement it will be over for them too. This is all going for the worst. A shame.

Manu T report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Michael Locker MD

Jul 09, 2007 11:18     

Good info. Michael Locker MD
Michael Locker MD report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re: Cray used AMD because...

Jul 09, 2007 21:13     

"Intel (with help from its partners) nuked the real CPU-developpers-scene." Let's face it: MIPS ->no market Alpha->niche market; great design; bad management PA-RISC->morphed into Intel Itanium Power, PowerPC: we all know where it's at At the end of the day, it's all about cost of business and consolidation. The green squad is different in that they aspired to be just like the big boys and peetered out trying.

Who report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD

Jul 09, 2007 22:45     

Now, now Chris, the ONLY reason why Intel is creating superior CPUs is because the Athlon was kicking their butts big time. As you can remember, they were actually losing market share. And hence, they vowed a vow to never, ever let that crap happen again. And this is the reward, a win-win situation for customers. The QX6800 costs million$ to make but now you can have it for only $1,300 or so.
Zen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

RE: tiring

Jul 10, 2007 23:37     

If theres no competition. Then theres no need to care about how much/how good the product is. If there was no competition Intel would just be selling Pentium 4's forever and with light modifications on Pentium 4's with New naming schemes saying it was "better". Oh wait that did happen! Until some one made something better and faster. Its an endless cycle of who is on top of performance. Gotta Love the competition or your Core 2 duos wouldnt be here in the first place. Fool

villain_xx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Yes, competition is a great thing. But I think no o...

Jul 11, 2007 01:28     

Yes, competition is a great thing. But I think no one likes paper launch. What AMD is doing now is offering those products which they don't have yet. We all hear Barca is this, Barca is that. The only thing AMD must do right now is show it to us and prove that it's better, superior to Intel CPUs. As the old English proverb goes, "Don't cross a bridge till you come to it"!
cyberstranger report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD

Jul 11, 2007 07:41     

It might be quite obvious from months long gone that the only valid reason why AMD hasn't unleashed a powerful super megapower CPU that's light years ahead of the QX6800 as yet, could be for the tiny fact that... they don't have one.
Zen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

AMD can, but..

Jul 13, 2007 18:51     

AMD X2 processor are already in producing since early 2005.. They can come out a lot of great processor which can overtake Intel, but the current main marketing plan is Value, compatible or budjet computing from AMD. Which u pay and get the most in it.. While Intel always want to lead, come out with new motherboards, processor nearly each year.. Do you know each time a new motherboard n CPU came out u need a lot of investment? AMD weakness is that they dont have the $$$ to built more new motherboards faster for their better processor.. That why in market war, Intel leads it coz of better financial support.. If AMD also have that much funding, i think they will do it also.

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