AMD Details Upcoming Bulldozer Architecture

Vigile writes "AMD is taking the lid off quite a bit of information on its upcoming CPU architecture known as Bulldozer that is the first complete redesign over current processors. AMD's lineup has been relatively stagnant while Intel continued to innovate with Nehalem and Sandy Bridge (due late this year) and the Bulldozer refresh is badly needed to keep in step. The integrated north bridge, on-die memory controller and large shared L3 cache remain key components from the Athlon/Phenom generation to Bulldozer but AMD is adding features like dual-thread support per core (but with a unique implementation utilizing separate execution units for each thread), support for 256-bit SIMD operations (for upcoming AVX support) all running on GlobalFoundries 32nm SOI process technology."

Bulldozer?

[Megahard]

Sounds like a slow-moving behemoth. Not the best choice for a name.

Re:Bulldozer?

[RaymondKurzweil]

"Why is that totally useless racecar pasted on the front of that excellent looking tractor, the kind of vehicle that is used to grow all the crops that feed the world?" :

Maybe it's because the people that were selling that "object oriented database" were far more honest than you assumed.

Hamster Farm Analogy

[lymond01]

Processor Speed: Very fast hamsters on well-oiled wheels
Multiple Cores: Many well-oiled wheels
On die memory controllers: dangled cheese
Cache: water trough next to the wheel
L3 Cache: Camelback packs for each hamster
Shared L3 Cache: This is where the real innovation comes in and won't be defined as patent is pending.

Re:Nobody cares.

[Jesus_666]

Well, it's a new computer part. It computes. The computer I already own computes perfectly well so I don't see how a new one is any different. You act as if computers were a field of interest or even an industry.

What's next? People getting excited about new cars?