Phenom has lost to C2D in this round but AMD's next gen Bulldozer is waiting in the wings. Upon it's release (2009-10), it'll probably go up against Nehalem. Details about both chips are scant, but Nehalem will probably be a better performer than Penryn which means Bulldozer needs to be better than K10 by at least 20-30% to match Penryn's IPC. Things are looking tough for the green team but they were in dire straits before when the P4's slaughtered the Athlon XPs.

What do you guys think AMD needs to do to make Bulldozer perform competitively with Nehalem/Penryn? Better L2 cache? MCM? Let's give AMD suggestions to make them better!

you don't have a clue about Nehalem performance (in 2008), let alone 2010 processor. So now AMD can start again with the "just wait for xxx which will bit Intel". lets first see the next generation - nehalem vs AMD 45NM beore you jump to pure speculations (which seems to be the only feild AMD can win)

AMD cant compete at new vs. old core, so how could they compete at old vs. new architecture?

It's a bit too soon for anybody to be predicting the performance of Nehalem or Bulldozer.

Besides, I hope AMD survives long enough to actually release Bulldozer...

This is fiction. And given that AMD has yet to launch a processor on time, i highly doubt we will see "Bulldozer" this decade.

I can tell you firsthand that Nehalem is a monster. It will make you crap your pants.

These things does not exist in labs yet so we cant tell yet.

Even AMD cannot take the crown of the fastest as of this time it doesnt mean it cannot take it in the future. Look at Pentium 4? its equivalent performance is almost only half the Athlons. But here comes Core2 to take the crown, though the Core1 is unsuccessful on performance. Phenom is still struggling now at few gaps over C2Quads. Maybe the Phenom2 or as others say Phenom FX can do the trick. lol

they're actually calling it Bulldozer ?

read up on an American woman named Rachel Corrie and
you'll see what i mean.

the Nehalem plant is in Israel; Rachel Corrie was killed
by a bulldozer operated by Israel, her offense being
to stand in front of the home of a Palestinian family.

The word 'bulldozer' has been around and in common useage since before the unfortunate Miss Corrie stood in front of a bulldozer.

This thread started 12 months too soon.

with amd's reputation lately, i think this thread started a little earlier than 12 months too early.
not picking on them or anything..but it's the truth.

Naaaa.. its not that its too early. Both company's prolly already have it locked away, and on perhaps some kind of time lock. I mean, what else are they going to do with all this time, especially when they have the fastest CPU to help them make a better product.

I'm no designer so this is just a wishlist. Compartmentalize the design - CPU-buffer logic, CPU-core, CPU-cache, GPU/vector-core, GPU-RAM (?), IMC, HT. For the CPU, design huge look-ahead buffers and robust decoding/analysis instead of so much generic read caching. Add raw execution engines to enable multithreading (I'm sure Intel went after this). Add redundant CPU logic units/subunits whenever possible and useful (based on past experience in failure rates; extra units would still be fused off if everything comes out working). Redesign and condense old core components for easier clock scaling and power efficiency. Work on HyperTransport/IMC logic to enable low-latency "MCM" if later called for. Remove separate voltage planes and instead focus on internal ability to turn components on/off.

While thinking through this, I noticed that they may want to put some design effort into how they "glue" components together. Placing an entire performance design on one slab of silicon and microconnecting all the parts seems to be a sure way to cause yields to tank. On the other hand, having every tiny component on separate silicon could cause a manufacturing and assembly nightmare and, depending on the gluing method, unnecessary latency.

Too bad it's too late to be designing like this in time for release in 1H'10.

Where do you get your info at? Intel has had Nehalem up and running at the first step 45nm chips for a while now with full plans to release in Q3/Q4 08. The P4 was stomping the Athalon until 2003 when they released the Athlon 64. The only way the Phenom FX will ever see the light of day is if AMD can fix the L3 mess up and fix the thermal problems they have above 2.4GHz since the only thing different for a FX is the higher frequency. And Phenom is not only struggling in the performance area vs C2Qs but als in power usage. My Q6600 still uses less than the 2.3 or 2.4GHz Phenom.

So lets say AMD can release Bulldozer in late 08 or earl 09. This means all of those who bought a Phenom and want the best performance out of their AMD would need to buy another chip in less than a year. I for one do not forsee AMD being able to release Bulldozer that soon since the Phenom may not sell as well as expected. Or at least not well enough to get them the cash needed to be able to produce them in a large enough volume.