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AMD faces Lawsuit over Core Count on Bulldozer
AMD faces a lawsuit over the core count on Bulldozer processors, reports legalnewsline.com In claiming that its Bulldozer CPU had “8-cores”. The suit alleges AMD built the Bulldozer processors by stripping away components from two cores and combining what was left to make a single “module.” In doing so, however, the cores no longer work independently.
As legalnewsline.com describes: AMD allegedly tricked consumers into buying its Bulldozer processors by overstating the number of cores contained in these chips.
Tony Dickey, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, filed a class-action lawsuit on Oct. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division against Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) for alleged violations of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, California’s Unfair Competition Law, false advertising, fraud, breach of express warrant, negligent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.
As a result, Dickey argues that AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs suffer from material performance degradation, and cannot perform eight instructions simultaneously and independently as claimed. He alleges that average consumers in the market for computer CPUs lack the requisite technical expertise to understand the design of AMD's processors and trust the company to convey accurate specifications regarding its CPUs. Because AMD did not convey accurate specifications, Dickey argues that tens of thousands of consumers have been misled into buying Bulldozer CPUs that cannot perform the way a true eight-core CPU would.
Dickey is suing for damages, including statutory and punitive damages, litigation expenses, pre- and post-judgment interest, as well as other injunctive and declaratory relief as is deemed reasonable. He is represented by Samuel M. Lasser from Edelson PC in San Francisco, California; and Rafey S. Balabanian, Alexander T.H. Nguyen and Amir C. Missaghi from Edelson PC in Chicago, Illinois.
U.S. District Court For the Northern District of California, San Jose Division Case number 5:15-cv-04922-PSG
vbetts
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#5184281 Posted on: 11/06/2015 03:22 PM
They will operate independently, but they will be limited in case of carrying out 256-bit AVX instructions (I've added a PS in my post that you quoted in order to clarify).
For all intents and purposes it does indeed work like an 8-core processor, minus what I mentioned.
I believe the article is either not very well explained, or the lawsuit is not referring to what I think it refers to? I mean the only 'issues' with the CPU that they could point out are the shared FPUs, I really don't know of any other 'faults' with that processor.
Correct.
Personally what I think this is, a small computer sales chain bought these CPUs expecting to sell like hot cakes but they aren't so they're stuck with the back stock.
Let me ask this then, IBM and Sony marketed the Cell as having I believe 8, but in reality it was 1 true core with multiple SPEs? Did not see any lawsuits against them, but then again the PS3 even in its worst times still sold decent enough. I can guarantee you, there are a lot more consumer shops that sell game consoles like the Playstation versus AMD cpus.
They will operate independently, but they will be limited in case of carrying out 256-bit AVX instructions (I've added a PS in my post that you quoted in order to clarify).
For all intents and purposes it does indeed work like an 8-core processor, minus what I mentioned.
I believe the article is either not very well explained, or the lawsuit is not referring to what I think it refers to? I mean the only 'issues' with the CPU that they could point out are the shared FPUs, I really don't know of any other 'faults' with that processor.
Correct.
Personally what I think this is, a small computer sales chain bought these CPUs expecting to sell like hot cakes but they aren't so they're stuck with the back stock.
Let me ask this then, IBM and Sony marketed the Cell as having I believe 8, but in reality it was 1 true core with multiple SPEs? Did not see any lawsuits against them, but then again the PS3 even in its worst times still sold decent enough. I can guarantee you, there are a lot more consumer shops that sell game consoles like the Playstation versus AMD cpus.
Agent-A01
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#5184304 Posted on: 11/06/2015 04:23 PM
**** you, Tony Dickey.
yasamoka
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#5184307 Posted on: 11/06/2015 04:34 PM
The way AMD designed their architecture for these CPU's (bulldozer, steamroller, etc) was much like Intel's Hyper Threading, or PS3's Cell CPU.
It DOES NOT actually have 8 full cores. But consists of modules that act like CPU cores that can each handle 2 threads of data.
Their "8 core" CPU's contains 4 modules. Basically 4 cores, that can each handle 2 threads and they act and show up like 8 cores in windows and in the BIOS.
Only real difference AMD did was allow these modules to access L1, L2, & L3 cache simultaneously. So they can each draw from the same pool. Where as Intel has L1, and L2 cache per core and then a larger shared L3 cache.
AMD did this approach to improve multi core performance and it does work. When their CPU's are crunching proper coded multi-threaded workloads their CPU's are actually really really good and show some strong performance and efficiency but it's their single threaded performance where its weakest.
The modules they use are not very strong when working alone, they are best used when they are all working together on the same data or different types of data at the same time.
AMD also didn't expect multi threaded coding to take so long to catch on and when it did it's not the way they had hoped. Multi threaded applications now share streams of data to each core. So 1 core is working on 1 thing and the 2nd is working on something totally different. AMD expected multi threaded coding to split each stream of data up. So core 1 and 2 for example would be working on the same data that has been divided up for it. This hasn't really happened apart from in Windows it self, video editing, photo editing, gaming, etc all go the route of splitting data up separately so for example sound will be on 1 core, A.I will be on another. It's still technically single threaded but instead of everything being processed sequentially its processed on its own and at the same time as other streams of data. We see a boost in performance because of it. Getting really technical would be to code a program to split each stream of data up even further and allowing different parts of the same data to be processed across multiple cores/threads (kinda how a GPU works with "stream processors").
Basically AMD used weaker cores but used more of them and allowed them access to more memory to try and compensate for it.
Intel used stronger cores and allowed each one to access 2 threads. Meaning they have the best of both worlds strong single threaded and strong multi threaded performance.
There is a lot more to it then this, Intel has been getting into performance per watt for years now and their efficiency is through the roof per watts used. AMD on the other hand switched from the efficiency route of their Athlon days to a cores and GHz race. Whereas Intel left the GHz race behind and we got Conroe (Intel Core 2) which was amazing for its time.
AMD's implementation is nothing like Intel's HyperThreading. AMD's architecture shares resources in every module that would have been dedicated to every "core" in a more traditional architecture. Here you have 8 fully functioning FPUs. However, core performance is not merely determined by FPU performance which is why the architecture returns mixed results.
The way AMD designed their architecture for these CPU's (bulldozer, steamroller, etc) was much like Intel's Hyper Threading, or PS3's Cell CPU.
It DOES NOT actually have 8 full cores. But consists of modules that act like CPU cores that can each handle 2 threads of data.
Their "8 core" CPU's contains 4 modules. Basically 4 cores, that can each handle 2 threads and they act and show up like 8 cores in windows and in the BIOS.
Only real difference AMD did was allow these modules to access L1, L2, & L3 cache simultaneously. So they can each draw from the same pool. Where as Intel has L1, and L2 cache per core and then a larger shared L3 cache.
AMD did this approach to improve multi core performance and it does work. When their CPU's are crunching proper coded multi-threaded workloads their CPU's are actually really really good and show some strong performance and efficiency but it's their single threaded performance where its weakest.
The modules they use are not very strong when working alone, they are best used when they are all working together on the same data or different types of data at the same time.
AMD also didn't expect multi threaded coding to take so long to catch on and when it did it's not the way they had hoped. Multi threaded applications now share streams of data to each core. So 1 core is working on 1 thing and the 2nd is working on something totally different. AMD expected multi threaded coding to split each stream of data up. So core 1 and 2 for example would be working on the same data that has been divided up for it. This hasn't really happened apart from in Windows it self, video editing, photo editing, gaming, etc all go the route of splitting data up separately so for example sound will be on 1 core, A.I will be on another. It's still technically single threaded but instead of everything being processed sequentially its processed on its own and at the same time as other streams of data. We see a boost in performance because of it. Getting really technical would be to code a program to split each stream of data up even further and allowing different parts of the same data to be processed across multiple cores/threads (kinda how a GPU works with "stream processors").
Basically AMD used weaker cores but used more of them and allowed them access to more memory to try and compensate for it.
Intel used stronger cores and allowed each one to access 2 threads. Meaning they have the best of both worlds strong single threaded and strong multi threaded performance.
There is a lot more to it then this, Intel has been getting into performance per watt for years now and their efficiency is through the roof per watts used. AMD on the other hand switched from the efficiency route of their Athlon days to a cores and GHz race. Whereas Intel left the GHz race behind and we got Conroe (Intel Core 2) which was amazing for its time.
AMD's implementation is nothing like Intel's HyperThreading. AMD's architecture shares resources in every module that would have been dedicated to every "core" in a more traditional architecture. Here you have 8 fully functioning FPUs. However, core performance is not merely determined by FPU performance which is why the architecture returns mixed results.
Solfaur
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#5184324 Posted on: 11/06/2015 04:55 PM
quick, post those gtx970 3.5gb articles to protect AMD.
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Another ridiculous lawsuit to tie up the legal system and cost the taxpayers money. If this guy wins he will get nothing while the lawyers will end up with millions.