AMD FX

Last updated
AMD FX
Microprocessors AMD FX 8310.jpg
An AMD FX 8310
General information
LaunchedMarch 2011
Marketed by AMD
Designed byAMD
Common manufacturer
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate 2.1 GHz to 5.0 GHz
Architecture and classification
Technology node 32 nm to 28 nm
Microarchitecture Bulldozer, Piledriver
Instruction set AMD64/x86-64, MMX(+), SSE1, 2, 3, 3s, 4.1, 4.2, 4a, AES, CLMUL, AVX, XOP, FMA3, FMA4, CVT16/F16C, BMI1, ABM, TBM, AMD-V
Physical specifications
Cores
  • 4, 6, 8
Socket
Products, models, variants
Core names
  • Zambezi
  • Vishera
History
Predecessor Phenom II
Successor Ryzen

AMD FX are a series of high-end AMD microprocessors for personal computers which debuted in 2011, claimed as AMD's first native 8-core desktop processor. [1] The line was introduced with the Bulldozer microarchitecture at launch (codenamed "Zambezi"), and was then succeeded by its derivative Piledriver in 2012 (codenamed "Vishera").

Contents

The line aimed at competing with the Intel Core line of desktop processors, in particular processors based on Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge architectures. [2] [3]

FX has been succeeded by the Ryzen brand of CPUs, based on the Zen architecture, which initially launched in 2017 to compete with Intel's later generation processors such as Skylake. [4]

History

Prior to FX Launch

In the years prior to the AMD FX range of processors, the AMD Phenom II and Athlon II lineup of processors, while not beating Intel's Core lineup in raw performance, were generally competitive when their price was taken into account. [5] [6] By the end of Phenom's lifespan, however, Intel's Sandy Bridge-based Core processors could provide performance that Phenom II could not compete with. [7] Rumors suggested that the FX line would change that as leaked information suggested improved performance on the upcoming Bulldozer architecture that AMD FX was based on. [8]

FX Launch

The FX series launched on October 12, 2011, on the Bulldozer architecture. The launch lineup included the 4 core FX-4100 at $115, [9] the 6 core FX-6100 at $165, [10] and the 8 core FX-8120 at $205 [11] and FX-8150 at $185. [11] [12] The FX refresh on the Piledriver architecture launched on October 23, 2012. The launch lineup included the refreshed 4 core FX-4300 at $122, 6 core FX-6300 at $132, and 8 core FX-8320 at $169 and FX-8350 at $195. [13] [14]

Features

One notable feature of the AMD FX microprocessors is that they were all unlocked and overclockable, a feature usually reserved for the high-end K suffix SKUs from Intel. This allowed users to gain extra performance by raising the clock speed of their CPU. [15] The personal world record for highest overclock was achieved on an FX-8350, which was clocked up to 8794.33 MHz. [16]

Unlike the majority of their Intel counterparts, FX chips offered no integrated graphics, a feature reserved for AMD's APU line of processors. Both Zambezi and Vishera used a module design containing two cores on one module.

Reception

Upon launch, the FX series was met with criticism from reviewers. [17] Due to multiple cores sharing common resources, most tasks were substantially slower on the FX lineup than the Intel Sandy Bridge equivalent. In many single-threaded applications, it was worse than the previous generation of Phenom II microprocessors. [17] The power consumption of the lineup, while not as poor as the Phenom II generation, was still worse than what Intel was providing at the time. [17] The Piledriver-based FX refresh in 2012 generally improved performance across the board by increasing clock speeds at similar power consumption levels, [18] but Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture was available and provided much better performance per watt and total performance to consumers. [19] With AMD only being responsible for 20% of consumer CPU sales in 2016, [20] Intel continued to gain market share in the industry during the lifespan of the FX series. [21]

Performance

The AMD FX line-up generally performed worse than its Intel competitors during its lifespan. The floating-point performance was relatively poor due to a single shared FPU per module. Most games also could not take advantage of the high core counts that the series provided. In applications that benefitted from more threads, AMD SKUs typically pulled ahead. This came at a great cost, however, as thermal efficiency was often worse than the previous generation of processors. [22] Updates to the architecture that came with the Piledriver revision allowed for higher clock speeds. This led to better performance, but that came with the cost of even higher thermal output on the high end, which can be seen with the FX-9590, with its TDP rating of 220 watts. [23]

Controversy

In 2015, AMD was accused of falsely advertising the core count of its FX lineup. The claim stated that because the FX series' cores shared common resources such as the FPU, AMD was falsely advertising its high core counts. [24] The company settled out-of-court and decided to voluntarily pay out $12.1 million to California residents who bought a high-end FX chip. [25]

Notes

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD</span> American multinational technology company

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that designs and develops central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), system-on-chip (SoC), and high-performance compute solutions. AMD serves a wide range of business and consumer markets, including gaming, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and embedded systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athlon</span> Brand of microprocessors by AMD

Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the first desktop processor to reach speeds of one gigahertz (GHz). It made its debut as AMD's high-end processor brand on June 23, 1999. Over the years AMD has used the Athlon name with the 64-bit Athlon 64 architecture, the Athlon II, and Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) chips targeting the Socket AM1 desktop SoC architecture, and Socket AM4 Zen (microarchitecture). The modern Zen-based Athlon with a Radeon Graphics processor was introduced in 2019 as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clock rate</span> Frequency at which a CPU chip or core is operating

In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the processor's speed. It is measured in the SI unit of frequency hertz (Hz).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land grid array</span> Type of surface-mount packaging for integrated circuits

The land grid array (LGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging for integrated circuits (ICs) that is notable for having the pins on the socket — as opposed to pins on the integrated circuit, known as a pin grid array (PGA). An LGA can be electrically connected to a printed circuit board (PCB) either by the use of a socket or by soldering directly to the board.

In the fields of digital electronics and computer hardware, multi-channel memory architecture is a technology that increases the data transfer rate between the DRAM memory and the memory controller by adding more channels of communication between them. Theoretically, this multiplies the data rate by exactly the number of channels present. Dual-channel memory employs two channels. The technique goes back as far as the 1960s having been used in IBM System/360 Model 91 and in CDC 6600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multi-chip module</span> Electronic assembly containing multiple integrated circuits that behaves as a unit

A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly where multiple integrated circuits, semiconductor dies and/or other discrete components are integrated, usually onto a unifying substrate, so that in use it can be treated as if it were a larger IC. Other terms for MCM packaging include "heterogeneous integration" or "hybrid integrated circuit". The advantage of using MCM packaging is it allows a manufacturer to use multiple components for modularity and/or to improve yields over a conventional monolithic IC approach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandy Bridge</span> Intel processor microarchitecture

Sandy Bridge is the codename for Intel's 32 nm microarchitecture used in the second generation of the Intel Core processors. The Sandy Bridge microarchitecture is the successor to Nehalem and Westmere microarchitecture. Intel demonstrated an A1 stepping Sandy Bridge processor in 2009 during Intel Developer Forum (IDF), and released first products based on the architecture in January 2011 under the Core brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD APU</span> Series of microprocessors by AMD

AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit (CPU) and 3D integrated graphics processing unit (IGPU) on a single die.

The AMD Bulldozer Family 15h is a microprocessor microarchitecture for the FX and Opteron line of processors, developed by AMD for the desktop and server markets. Bulldozer is the codename for this family of microarchitectures. It was released on October 12, 2011, as the successor to the K10 microarchitecture.

The FMA instruction set is an extension to the 128 and 256-bit Streaming SIMD Extensions instructions in the x86 microprocessor instruction set to perform fused multiply–add (FMA) operations. There are two variants:

AMD Piledriver Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD as the second-generation successor to Bulldozer. It targets desktop, mobile and server markets. It is used for the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit, AMD FX, and the Opteron line of processors.

AMD Steamroller Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD for AMD APUs, which succeeded Piledriver in the beginning of 2014 as the third-generation Bulldozer-based microarchitecture. Steamroller APUs continue to use two-core modules as their predecessors, while aiming at achieving greater levels of parallelism.

AMD Excavator Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD to succeed Steamroller Family 15h for use in AMD APU processors and normal CPUs. On October 12, 2011, AMD revealed Excavator to be the code name for the fourth-generation Bulldozer-derived core.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zen (first generation)</span> 2017 AMD 14-nanometer processor microarchitecture

Zen is the first iteration in the Zen family of computer processor microarchitectures from AMD. It was first used with their Ryzen series of CPUs in February 2017. The first Zen-based preview system was demonstrated at E3 2016, and first substantially detailed at an event hosted a block away from the Intel Developer Forum 2016. The first Zen-based CPUs, codenamed "Summit Ridge", reached the market in early March 2017, Zen-derived Epyc server processors launched in June 2017 and Zen-based APUs arrived in November 2017.

AMD Turbo Core a.k.a. AMD Core Performance Boost (CPB) is a dynamic frequency scaling technology implemented by AMD that allows the processor to dynamically adjust and control the processor operating frequency in certain versions of its processors which allows for increased performance when needed while maintaining lower power and thermal parameters during normal operation. AMD Turbo Core technology has been implemented beginning with the Phenom II X6 microprocessors based on the AMD K10 microarchitecture. AMD Turbo Core is available with some AMD A-Series accelerated processing units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryzen</span> AMD brand for microprocessors

Ryzen is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors designed and marketed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mainstream, enthusiast, server, and workstation segments and accelerated processing units (APUs) marketed for mainstream and entry-level segments and embedded systems applications.

References

  1. ↑ "AMD FX Processors". AMD FX Processors. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
  2. ↑ Hruska, Joel (4 November 2013). "AMD vs. Intel, the ultimate gaming showdown: 5GHz FX-9590 vs. i7-4960X". extremetech.com. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  3. ↑ "AMD Ships First "Bulldozer" Processors" . Retrieved 2016-12-05.
  4. ↑ "AMD's Ryzen launches March 2, outperforming Intel's Core i7 at a fraction of the price". PCWorld. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
  5. ↑ Shimpi, Anand Lal. "AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  6. ↑ Shimpi, Anand Lal. "AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  7. ↑ Shimpi, Anand Lal. "The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  8. ↑ Portnoy, Sean. "Performance info leaks about AMD's upcoming FX desktop CPUs, Llano APUs". ZDNet. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  9. ↑ "AMD FX-Series FX-4100 - FD4100WMW4KGU / FD4100WMGUSBX". www.cpu-world.com. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  10. ↑ "AMD FX-Series FX-6100 - FD6100WMW6KGU / FD6100WMGUSBX". www.cpu-world.com. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  11. 1 2 "AMD adds a pair of new FX-series chips". The Tech Report. 2012-02-27. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  12. ↑ "AMD FX-Series FX-8150 - FD8150FRW8KGU / FD8150FRGUBOX / FD8150FRGUWOX". www.cpu-world.com. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  13. ↑ "AMD launches Piledriver-powered FX processors | bit-tech.net". bit-tech.net. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  14. ↑ Mujtaba, Hassan (2012-10-23). "AMD FX-8350 Officially Priced at $195 US". Wccftech. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  15. ↑ Torres, Gabriel (2 October 2013). "All AMD FX CPU Models". hardwaresecrets.com. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
  16. ↑ "CPU-Z Validator - World Records". valid.x86.fr. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  17. 1 2 3 Shimpi, Anand Lal. "The Bulldozer Review: AMD FX-8150 Tested". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  18. ↑ "AMD's FX-8350 analyzed: Does Piledriver deliver where Bulldozer fell short? - ExtremeTech". www.extremetech.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  19. ↑ "AMD FX-8350 and FX-6300 Piledriver Review". TechSpot. 23 October 2012. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  20. ↑ Burke, Steve. "GN Special Report: Intel vs. AMD Volume - AMD Moves 93% of CPU Sales to GN Readers". www.gamersnexus.net. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  21. ↑ "Intel/AMD x86 computer CPU market share 2012-2020". Statista. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  22. ↑ Schmid, Patrick; October 2011, Achim Roos 27 (27 October 2011). "AMD FX: Energy Efficiency Compared To Eight Other CPUs". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 2020-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  23. ↑ "AMD FX-9590 Review". PCMAG. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  24. ↑ "Important Documents | AMD". www.amdcpusettlement.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  25. ↑ Gartenberg, Chaim (2019-08-28). "AMD to pay out $12.1 million in false advertising class action suit over Bulldozer chips". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.