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AMD's Zen CPUs to feature up to 32 cores and 8-channel DDR4

tr00per

Member
Team Red here.

My CPU is bottlenecking my system.

I'm waiting on Zen for my next upgrade. I really need to see the single core performance though.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
It's mostly stupidity of AMD managment chasing moar cores and frequency instead of IPC- smaller R&D and worse foundries are no excuse when they can't compete with 32nm Sandy Bridge from 2011 in 2016.

No doubt, Bulldozer was a disaster and I directly referenced that in my post.

R&D and Intel's bullshit from a decade ago are factors too, though. AMD didn't have the capability to bounce back like Intel did after Netburst.
 
source? amd has had 8 cores on desktop for quite a few years now. you don't think they will at least add 16 this time around?

The more cores you add, the less clock you'll push at the same TDP. For the overwhelming majority of desktop software out there, including games, you want less cores with higher clock rather than a bunch of cores at lower clocks, with a minimum of at least 4 proper cores. Most software just isn't parallel enough to make use of those cores. So yeah, I think 8 cores is what you'd expect on a desktop Zen with the highest clocks they can push on the silicon.

If you want to look at game performance today, few games see notable increases in performance on LGA 2011 6/8 core CPU's over the 4 core Core i5/i7's out there. Often when you do see an increase in performance, it's due to things like the higher cache on a LGA 2011 CPU rather than the core count.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
source? amd has had 8 cores on desktop for quite a few years now. you don't think they will at least add 16 this time around?

Bulldozer's cores and modules were a mess, their 8 "cores" were not most people's definition of cores.

Zen will actually use full, proper cores and not the module shenanigans they used with Bulldozer. 8 core Zen would still be a step forward.


Unless they had an 8 module desktop CPU, I admittedly haven't followed their CPUs in years.
 

Tworak

Member
The more cores you add, the less clock you'll push at the same TDP. For the overwhelming majority of desktop software out there, including games, you want less cores with higher clock rather than a bunch of cores at lower clocks, with a minimum of at least 4 proper cores. Most software just isn't parallel enough to make use of those cores. So yeah, I think 8 cores is what you'd expect on a desktop Zen with the highest clocks they can push on the silicon.
yeah I'm not sure why they called them cores. most software isn't parallel because most people don't have a lot of cores on their processors. something has to come/go first.

that's kind of the problem now. intel is being lazy because amd is being shitty.

Bulldozer's cores and modules were a mess, their 8 "cores" were not most people's definition of cores.

Zen will actually use full, proper cores and not the module shenanigans they used with Bulldozer. 8 core Zen would still be a step forward.


Unless they had an 8 module desktop CPU, I admittedly haven't followed their CPUs in years.

no I think it was 4 modules 8 cores at most. while 8 real cores would be an upgrade is it really that big of a deal after 3-4 years? I dunno. I feel amd has to go full crazy (and then succeed) to get people to buy their cpu stuff again.
 

dpunk3

Member
Yes, I decided to go with a PS4 for this year, but if AMD is competent enough for a properly priced mid-range Zen and their new GPU lineup, then I will go with them out of sheer respect. My FX-6300 and HD7770 is only good for LoL at this point, and damn do they heat up fast, even not in summer, and with non-stock coolers..

I got my buddy an FX-6300 for a new build this past summer. I told him straight up "If you want decent gaming performance you NEED a liquid cooler." Not bagging on AMD, but wow they really put out some heat.
 
I got my buddy an FX-6300 for a new build this past summer. I told him straight up "If you want decent gaming performance you NEED a liquid cooler." Not bagging on AMD, but wow they really put out some heat.

Running my fx 6350 with a cheap 3rd party cooler (not liquid) @over 4ghz and i don´t have any heat issues. And it runs every game i want decently in 1080p.

@Zen and NX: I don´t believe Nintendo would need Zen, but i don´t think it would be too expensive or new for a 2017 console ( NX homeconsole isn´t likely to come out before 2017). I could see AMD wanting Zen in a new console and making a good price as far as licences go and that also wouldn´t be a 32 core monster. People say Zen would be too new für NX. Why is that? Zen is in the pipeline for some time now.
 

V_Arnold

Member
I got my buddy an FX-6300 for a new build this past summer. I told him straight up "If you want decent gaming performance you NEED a liquid cooler." Not bagging on AMD, but wow they really put out some heat.

I think that my problem is less the heatsink, and more like the cheap $20-$30 value case thatI have, which basically has like..zero airflow. Zero. So maybe there is room to grow : D
 
I got my buddy an FX-6300 for a new build this past summer. I told him straight up "If you want decent gaming performance you NEED a liquid cooler." Not bagging on AMD, but wow they really put out some heat.

At that point when we factor mobo solid enough to survive 150W power drain for years you were probablyreally close in total price to cheapest i5+H81 mobo or in worst case i3.

CPU might be cheap but total setup to run highly overclocked FX is not.
 

PFD

Member
As a 4790K owner I got no horse in this race, as I don't see myself upgrading for another 5 years. But I will be cheering AMD from the sidelines, hoping they give Intel some much-needed competition.
 
Running my fx 6350 with a cheap 3rd party cooler (not liquid) @over 4ghz and i don´t have any heat issues. And it runs every game i want decently in 1080p.

@Zen and NX: I don´t believe Nintendo would need Zen, but i don´t think it would be too expensive or new for a 2017 console ( NX homeconsole isn´t likely to come out before 2017). I could see AMD wanting Zen in a new console and making a good price as far as licences go and that also wouldn´t be a 32 core monster. People say Zen would be too new für NX. Why is that? Zen is in the pipeline for some time now.

Zen's gonna be made using the latest CPU manufacturing processes when it comes out. AMD probably doesn't even know things like how high they can clock Zen yet, or what the yields will be. This isn't going to be something like Jaguar when it was using a very refined 28nm process when it was produced for the Xbox One and PS4 and even those SoC's take precautions to increase yields like having extra CU's for the GPU that can be disabled if others are faulty.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
The NX talk reminds me of the talk about Nintendo using POWER7 in the Wii U.

I'd say the likelihood is about the same.
 

ZoddGutts

Member
The horsepower has been there for better AI for ages. People who can write significantly better AI typically end up working in different industries, though. More cores isn't going to change something that isn't a hardware issue in the first place.

Yup, it all comes down to the A.I. programmer, F.E.A.R. 1 still has one of the best A.I. in FPS genre and that game came out over a decade ago. Ninja Gaiden Black has great AI enemies while the sequels/remakes the A.I. just got worse.
 
source? amd has had 8 cores on desktop for quite a few years now. you don't think they will at least add 16 this time around?

Zen uses simultaneous multithreading (SMT), which is what Intel's Hyperthreading (HT) is an implementation of. So, an 8 core Zen CPU could have 16 logical cores. If AMD's implementation of SMT is as good as HT, then 8 cores is all you would need, because HT scales very well.

But, calling it 'Symmetrical Multi Threading'?

SwvOhBV.gif
 

LordOfChaos

Member
In basic, AMD can do 2 things during one clock, while intel can do 8 things during one clock

That would be an even more dramatic difference if true, however their issue widths aren't so far apart as 2 vs 8.

http://www.lighterra.com/papers/modernmicroprocessors/

Issue Width Processors
1 UltraSPARC T1
2 UltraSPARC T2/T3, Scorpion, Cortex-A9
3 Pentium Pro/II/III/M, Pentium 4, Krait, Apple A6, Cortex-A15/A57
4 UltraSPARC III/IV, PowerPC G4e
4/8 Bulldozer/Piledriver
5 PowerPC G5
6 Athlon, Athlon 64/Phenom, Core 2, Core i*1 Nehalem, Core i*2/i*3 Sandy/Ivy Bridge, Apple A7/A8
7 Denver
8 Core i*4/i*5 Haswell/Broadwell, Steamroller

There's plenty else to explain the differences, with prefetcher differences, each module of two cores having 2 integer and 1 FP unit, meaning there's four FP units in an 8 "core* system (they bet on GPUs taking over floats - just far too early and now have to go back with Zen), etc etc.

Unless that was just an example and I'm overthinking this.
 

dpunk3

Member
At that point when we factor mobo solid enough to survive 150W power drain for years you were probablyreally close in total price to cheapest i5+H81 mobo or in worst case i3.

CPU might be cheap but total setup to run highly overclocked FX is not.

I got the CPU and MOBO on a really good sale with 8GB of RAM for $150, including shipping. I had a PSU and AIO LQ lying around spare, so I didn't factor either of those in.
 
At that point when we factor mobo solid enough to survive 150W power drain for years you were probablyreally close in total price to cheapest i5+H81 mobo or in worst case i3.

CPU might be cheap but total setup to run highly overclocked FX is not.

I got the CPU and MOBO on a really good sale with 8GB of RAM for $150, including shipping. I had a PSU and AIO LQ lying around spare, so I didn't factor either of those in.

Well, remember that most Mobos heatsinks designs rely on CPU coolers airflow. Using a CPU only AIO LQ on a system with a CPU that goes easily over 200W after some mild OC, pushing a massive strain on phases, is not a good idea without a proper case+auxiliary fans.
 

ISee

Member
Didn't want to start a new thread for this.

John Taylor (Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Marketing at AMD ) addressed a group of IT journalists during an investor meeting in Australia and he had a couple of interesting things to say:

Full story here

VR needs the horsepower that an x86 PC (or notebook) can provide and we plan to be a very big part of that with Radeon and AMD

For the first time since I have been at AMD, I can say with absolute confidence that AMD has the products and strategies to change any negative perceptions customers may have had

and the most interesting thing (imo):

By the end of the year, AMD will have moved on, to both its Zen CPU core as well as the Polaris graphics architecture. We are far closer to Intel than ever before – you always need a number two to keep them honest

And I agree having a strong competition is important (just look at the gpu situation atm), but this doesn't sound like they want to reach for Intels CPU crown at all (at least in 2016) (like with Nvidias GPU crown). That's a bit disappointing to be honest, I really wish they would be able to come back with a big boom and to shake up the market.

(I'm a 6700k / gtx 980 owner, just to make clear where this is coming from)
 
They spent so much of their time chasing their tails on the failed APU venture. All of their stuff is so outdated and middling. When you're in that position and you're still second to market? The only thing that can save AMD is if Zen really is the second coming of Jesus (a.k.a Jim Keller).
 

Dezeer

Member
They spent so much of their time chasing their tails on the failed APU venture. All of their stuff is so outdated and middling. When you're in that position and you're still second to market? The only thing that can save AMD is if Zen really is the second coming of Jesus (a.k.a Jim Keller).

That "failed APU venture" got them into two consoles. And while the CPU cores in their APUs aren't the fastest, the most performance limiting factor in terms of game performance has been the lack of bandwidth, and that should be lifted if and when AMD releases an APU with HBM.
 
As someone who's still chugging along with an FX-8350 and 8gb of DDR3 with a Raptor HDD, i'm really looking forward to my first big upgrade in a few years. Zen FX Cpu, 16gb DDR4, 1tb SSD.

They're just taking so damn long!

That's some commitment to AMD. I applaud you for your patience.
 

Red

Member
I like the idea of APUs. I bought a 5800k way back when in support of the initiative. But they're too pricey for the performance they offer. They have limited use in the desktop space. They are attractive solutions for low-powered, small form factor machines... And that's about it.

I still use my 5800k, and it's doing me pretty well. APUs are a good solution for HTPCs. Not surprising that they struggle to find a market, however. I recently upgraded to a GTX 950 after driving graphics with the 5800k for a few years. Couldn't keep up anymore. Performance often surprised me, though. Handled XBox 360/PS3 era games pretty well. Did an admirable job emulating games. Still, when you can get, say, an 8350 and 750ti combo for less than the price of AMD's current "high end" APU, there is little reason to consider one for a new build.

I look forward to the improvements Zen brings. More competition is always good. I'm always rooting for AMD.
 
Also, how the hell is AMD going to chase the value segment with their HBM APUs with a massive interposer weighing down the BOM? Or are they going to stick a full Vega set alongside the Zen cores? It's not like CPUs benefit from increased memory bandwidth as evidenced by quad channel X99 setups. None of this "HBM2 TO ZEN'S RESCUE!" makes any sense whatsoever.
 

c0de

Member
Intel already has 22 core server chips, and by the time 32 core Zen comes out no doubt they'll have at least the same amount.

You already have more cores in servers since several years as server boards feature more than one processor to be installed.
 

iavi

Member
I've been Intel for the past couple builds, but AMD looks incredibly promising with Zen. Not quite on board with Polaris basically being a 390x at a much lower wattage and price, but I could be on board with Vega.

Never thought itd be the day again, but I may have an all AMD rig again. Haven't seen that since the A.64 days and Ati was still Ati
 
Supposedly Zen is launching with only 8-core variants first, probably targeted for server applications. No one knows how yields will be but they might not have enough volume to sell to the end-user market right away.

Of course actual performance is still completely unknown at this time. It's pretty much a believe-it-when-I-see it scenario at this point, AMD has a long history of hyping up products which dramatically underperform. Their last CPU which actually performed in-line with hype was the Athlon 64/X2 back in 2003.

Not coincidentally, the last AMD CPU I owned was an Athlon 64 back when it was taking Pentium 4 out behind the woodshed and beating the living crap out of it. Then Core 2 Duo came out and I've only had Intel ever since.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Hopefully the manufacturers have this in their plans at some point, CPU power on consoles has stalled since 2005, a huge boost would really shake things up
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
The 8 core one sounds like their consumer part, probably sold as 4/6/8 core CPUs. There is also supposed to be a 32 core variant later that targets servers. AMD seems to like drawing on the "more cores" marketing, not to mention it would be awkward if they went backwards from "8 core"/4 module CPUs to just dual and quad cores outside the high end/enthusiast market.
 

DonMigs85

Member
Supposedly Zen is launching with only 8-core variants first, probably targeted for server applications. No one knows how yields will be but they might not have enough volume to sell to the end-user market right away.

Of course actual performance is still completely unknown at this time. It's pretty much a believe-it-when-I-see it scenario at this point, AMD has a long history of hyping up products which dramatically underperform. Their last CPU which actually performed in-line with hype was the Athlon 64/X2 back in 2003.

Not coincidentally, the last AMD CPU I owned was an Athlon 64 back when it was taking Pentium 4 out behind the woodshed and beating the living crap out of it. Then Core 2 Duo came out and I've only had Intel ever since.

Read the article I posted, if true it looks very promising.
The consumer FX processors we get first will be 8 and 6 core, no quad cores yet. IPC is at least Broadwell-level.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I doubt their plans for models are concrete enough to count out a quad core. Probably depends on their anticipated yields.

If they can match or surpass Broadwell performance and undercut Intel solidly on pricing I would probably be in for one.
 

ISee

Member
Read the article I posted, if true it looks very promising.
The consumer FX processors we get first will be 8 and 6 core, no quad cores yet. IPC is at least Broadwell-level.

They started to address themselves as the number two, even when talking about ZEN CPUs


and that's coming from John Taylor. Maybe (hopefully) he is referring to the high end (Broadwell-E) market and zen is able to challenge at least the mainstream skylake cpu line. But we'll see. This interview makes me a bit more worried about the future of AMD because we urgently need a strong competitor in the CPU and GPU market.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-competes-intel-performance-features-price-launching-2016/

I'm pretty excited for Zen, my next system build late this year or early next year will most likely have at least a 6-core/12 thread Zen FX CPU. Looks like its IPC will be somewhere between Broadwell and Skylake, but offering 8 cores for the price of a quad i5 of i7, finally making them competitive again. We haven't seen this since the Phenom II/pre-Sandy Bridge days.
Good. I like all the buzz around Zen. AMD can do impressive things when they're not, erm, digging in the wrong direction.

BTW, this part from the article:
The latency that results from branch mispredicts are quite significant. To combat this issue Intel introduced a micro-op cache with Sandy Bridge. It worked to considerably reduce mispredict penalties and it was the principle reason why Sandy Bridge had much better single threaded performance as opposed to Bulldozer. The latest Linux Kernal patch as well as a group of AMD patents indicate that the company has implemented a similar solution in Zen.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-competes-intel-performance-features-price-launching-2016/#ixzz49B9ac7Iw
Is largely wrong. While uop caches can help with branch mispredicitons indirectly, their main purpose is to help with decoding. What mainly helps with branch mispredictions is predictors and BTBs.
 

LilJoka

Member
It's mostly stupidity of AMD managment chasing moar cores and frequency instead of IPC- smaller R&D and worse foundries are no excuse when they can't compete with 32nm Sandy Bridge from 2011 in 2016.

Actually, no, the cores were part of the design. The high frequency was due to low IPC vs Intel. They didn't want to run those frequencies/TDPs.

The old CPUs use a single floating point unit shared over 2 cores. Only integer units are assigned to each core. This was one of the major pitfalls that lead to your post.

If the just follow some basic outlines like Intel CPUs they should inherit a nice boost without too much work to get close to Intel.
 

Renekton

Member
How big do you think is each core?

I hope it's not the tiny 3.1mm² Jaguar size, it would be nice for PS5X2 to have some CPU beef for once.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
How big do you think is each core?

I hope it's not the tiny 3.1mm² Jaguar size, it would be nice for PS5X2 to have some CPU beef for once.
No chances for Jaguar size. Physically impossible with the high IPC and SMT.
 

Xenus

Member
Actually, no, the cores were part of the design. The high frequency was due to low IPC vs Intel. They didn't want to run those frequencies/TDPs.

The old CPUs use a single floating point unit shared over 2 cores. Only integer units are assigned to each core. This was one of the major pitfalls that lead to your post.

If the just follow some basic outlines like Intel CPUs they should inherit a nice boost without too much work to get close to Intel.

I thought it was the opposite shared integer with their own fp units.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Even if it just gets Intel to lower the price on their 6-8 core CPUs it'll be worth doing

Heck yeah. Intel is able to get away with that price premium because there is no competition (server market is a bit trickier but it applies somewhat there as well). I was thinking about buying a new Intel 8 core when it arrives later in the year, and if AMD provides some good competition, that will be interesting due to probably a better price point.
 
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