Piledriver (microarchitecture)

Piledriver - Family 15h (2nd-gen)
General information
LaunchedMay 15, 2012; 12 years ago (May 15, 2012)
Common manufacturer
Architecture and classification
Technology node32 nm SOI GF
Instruction setAMD64 (x86-64)
Physical specifications
Sockets
Products, models, variants
Core names
History
PredecessorBulldozer - Family 15h
SuccessorSteamroller - Family 15h (3rd-gen)
Support status
iGPU unsupported

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 (formerly Fusion), AMD FX, and the Opteron line of processors.

The changes over Bulldozer are incremental. Piledriver uses the same "module" design. Its main improvements are to branch prediction and FPU/integer scheduling, along with a switch to hard-edge flip-flops to improve power consumption. This resulted in clock speed gains of 8–10% and a performance increase of around 15% with similar power characteristics.[1] FX-9590 is around 40% faster than Bulldozer-based FX-8150, mostly because of higher clock speed.[citation needed]

Products based on Piledriver were first released on 15 May 2012 with the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), code-named Trinity, series of mobile products.[2] APUs aimed at desktops followed in early October 2012 with Piledriver-based FX-series CPUs released later in the month.[3][4] Opteron server processors based upon Piledriver were announced in early December 2012.[5]

  1. ^ Hruska, Joel. "AMD's FX-8350 analyzed: Does Piledriver deliver where Bulldozer fell short?". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  2. ^ "AMD launches widely anticipated "Trinity" APU". Press release. AMD. 15 May 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
  3. ^ "New AMD A-Series Processors Bring Faster Speeds, High Core Count and AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series Graphics to Do-It-Yourself PC Enthusiasts and Gamers". AMD. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  4. ^ "New AMD FX Line-Up Brings Faster Speeds and Higher Performance Core over Previous Generation to PC Enthusiasts and Gamers". AMD. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  5. ^ "New AMD Opteron 4300 and 3300 Series Processors Deliver Ideal Performance, Power and Price for Cloud Applications". Press release. AMD. 4 December 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2014.