Gadgetory

the tech jargon is well jargon so let me simplify things for you first up I want you to erase every preconceived notion you've had about AMD FX course when you see the FX 6300 advertised as a hexa core processor or the FX 8350 advertised as an octa-core processor you're looking at facts by acceptable definitions these processors have the correct number of cores specified but they are not designed and do not function in the same way that equivalent Intel cores do and that's what this video will seek to clarify the two architectures we'll be comparing are the bulldozer architecture from AMD most notably found in the FX 8000 series and the Sandy Bridge architecture from Intel which you'll find in their core 2000 series and a few others although you could stretch this to any modern Intel CPU they haven't really changed much in this sense so let's consider the FX 8350 and the i7 2700 K s not a 2700 K but you get my point in these two cases things on paper look fairly similar well apart from price transistor architecture is identical 32 nanometers for both they both have 8 threads they both have 8 megabytes of l3 cache they also both have unlocked multipliers but the FX 8350 is advertised as an eight-core processor whereas the i7 2700 K is only advertised as a quad core with hyper threading a technology implemented by Intel to increase instruction processing essentially here's a crash course in hyper threading a single Intel core is split up into two quote unquote logical cores which share total workload and increased processing efficiency this is explained clearly an Intel's 2012 architecture manual quote if both logical cores are active the queue is partitioned so that both logical processors can make independent forward progress and quote independent that's the key word here an adept scheduler efficiently allocates data between two logical cores one of which could be busy processing and the other of which could be demanding more information so how is this hyper-threaded i7 any different from an eight-core FX processor and why can't Intel just say that there is Evan 27 K is an 8 core processor let's dive a little deeper so in short the reason a B can get away with calling their 8315 octa-core CPU and Intel cannot is because shocker the FX processor is actually featuring aid processing cores each core has its own Niq scheduler which decides what from system memory will be processed next as well as its own level 1 cache this contrasts Intel's logical course setup in which two logical cores rely on a single intelligent scheduler to disperse data these logical cores of by the way are not physical cores in fact there are two logical cores per physical core which means that hyper threading is really just a manipulation of one core or however many cores are in the processor so yes FX processors are special but in both good and bad ways let's take a look at the bulldozer block diagram the FX 8350 features four modules and two integer cores per module these integer cores are legitimate CPU cores no doubt but are packed into condensed modules for the sake of space cost and efficiency but only in some cases each module shares two megabytes of l3 cache for a total of 8 megabytes as described and each also shares a single FPU or floating-point unit this fu handles mathematical functions addition subtraction multiplication you get the point and the fact that bulldozer forces pairs of course to rely on a single FPU is what raises a bit of concern here you see on Intel side the i7 2700 K features four unique cores with four independent FPU so one FPU per core this is a case for any modern Intel CPU and while this alone may not seem like such a big deal it's what ultimately gives Intel CPUs the clock for clock edge in single core performance FP use handle most mathematical functions via the binary system allocating a single FPU per pair of cores can result in delays or quote unquote lag times reducing overall performance and especially intense programs even gaming AMD claims the opposite that a single FP per module allows for overclocking Headroom and higher mathematical complexity and they're correct in theory this should be the case most modern GPUs actually follow the set up as well FX FP is themselves technically have two unique cores but the technology over the years hasn't given the central processing units the edge AMD expected them to have thanks to Windows and other programs assigning tasks and non sequential arrays this means that instead of software seeing an FX CPU as a true quote/unquote eight core it forces data through a pipeline similar to hyper threading which if you remember is nowhere near as efficient as two independent cores this explains why Cinebench for example sees the FX 8350 as a four core processor with eight threads and not an 8 core processor with 8 threads basically AMD banked on software following suit with their new CPU design and that didn't happen at all in fact from what we know about Xen it seems like AMD's falling back on what Intel's been sporting for several years now coming up this entire debate from a different angle processor savvy individuals on the blue team might also make the argument that because each module only features a single fetcher and decoder the two units that receive and prepare data to be processed the pair of cores within each module is essentially bottleneck you see much like hyper threading which we discussed earlier epochs processors feature a single point of entry per se for every two cores meaning the information can be bottleneck up top reducing the overall efficiency of each physical core Intel cores instead do not share these fetchers and decoders with the simple frequency calibration fetchers and decoders can relay information to the scheduler the same rate that the scheduler disperses information to the physical core or logical cores in the case of hyper threading there are a few less relevant things I decided to leave out for the sake of both time and Mull comprehension a lot was mentioned in this video but the gist of this should be rather clear while epics processors do by definition possess the correct number of core specified on their boxes the cores themselves are very dependent on other gates within the die namely the FP use decoders and l2 caches all of which individual Intel cores do not share FX cores are also limited by software and operating system optimization as described a moment ago something it's safe to say is neither the fault of AMD nor developers since Intel chips handle things much differently and it's kind of hard to play both sides of the aisle several other factors play into the differences in processing power between say in FX 8350 and an i7 2700 K overall block diagram design clock speeds and core efficiency are among them just something to keep in mind it would take several semesters to fully explain the architectural differences between the platforms and while I'm about to graduate with a degree in engineering I am eons away from being able to explain these without thorough and extensive research beforehand if there's anything you'd like to add in the comments section below by all means have at it if you'd like what you saw in this video and maybe learn a thing or two be sure to give this thing a thumbs up give it a thumbs down if you feel the complete opposite or if you hate everything about life be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and stay tuned for a future PC build as well as some interesting reviews and head-to-head clash ups I've got planned be sure to stay tuned for the next one folks this is science studio thanks for learning with us