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[chaosblade]

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

No, shared FP and separate integer. It was part of their "fusion" vision, with APUs being the end goal (and ultimately flopping, as we have seen). CPU FP was supposed to be marginalized because the relatively capable integrated GPU would handle that. It didn't work out and just hurt them in the long run.

 

[Locuza]

Who likes new (nearly worthless) slides?

From the recent investor slide deck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4k8lha/new_q2_amd_investor_presentation_includes_vague/

 

[Xenus]

Who likes new (nearly worthless) slides?

From the recent investor slide deck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4k8lha/new_q2_amd_investor_presentation_includes_vague/

I just love a footnote that says see footnotes and graphs with no reference points.

 

[chaosblade]

Clearly Zen is going to be exactly 2x better at literally everything. Slides wouldn't lie!

 

[Locuza]

Very interestingly there is a slightly different slide deck from AMD available, which does not show a Carrizo die-shot as a placeholder for Zen but a real wafer-shot of Zen...

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=263123&postcount=2740

The cores are fairly small and it seems like there is a lot of space between the clusters, probably a lot of interconnect glue not unlike we see in today consoles.

 

[Renekton]

Very interestingly there is a slightly different slide deck from AMD available, which does not show a Carrizo die-shot as a placeholder for Zen but a real wafer-shot of Zen...

The cores are fairly small and it seems like there is a lot of space between the clusters, probably a lot of interconnect glue not unlike we see in today consoles.

Agh not what I wanted to hear, but I guess the small size is to fit a variety of solutions from mobile to server clusters.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Agh not what I wanted to hear, but I guess the small size is to fit a variety of solutions from mobile to server clusters.

The actual CPU part of a CPU die is always tiny. Like take a look at a top end Broadwell chip:

Most CPU dies give the lion's share to either inbuilt graphics or cache. CPUs just don't take up that much die area.

 

[DieH@rd]

Who likes new (nearly worthless) slides?

From the recent investor slide deck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4k8lha/new_q2_amd_investor_presentation_includes_vague/

I'm hoping for the best.

 

[cyen]

Please dont fail AMD..

 

[shark sandwich]

I'd buy an 8c/16t Zen on day 1 if it really has better IPC than Broadwell.

Im trying not to get my hopes up though. We have been waiting for the second coming of Athlon 64 Jesus for a long time.

 

[cyen]

I'd buy an 8c/16t Zen on day 1 if it really has better IPC than Broadwell.

Im trying not to get my hopes up though. We have been waiting for the second coming of Athlon 64 Jesus for a long time.

If the IPC is the same as broadwell i will be there day 1 as well.

 

[Renekton]

Isn't Broadwell just a shrunk Haswell? Unless that L4 cache is a factor in the IPC.

The actual CPU part of a CPU die is always tiny. Like take a look at a top end Broadwell chip:

Most CPU dies give the lion's share to either inbuilt graphics or cache. CPUs just don't take up that much die area.

Yes though I assumed the person I replied to already took that into account.

 

[DouglasteR]

I really hope for AMD to deliver.

Spoiler

But i know they will not, sadly

 

[tuxfool]

Isn't Broadwell just a shrunk Haswell? Unless that L4 cache is a factor in the IPC.

Yes. But given the gains demonstrated by Skylake that isn't all that bad.

 

[Thraktor]

The actual CPU part of a CPU die is always tiny. Like take a look at a top end Broadwell chip:

Most CPU dies give the lion's share to either inbuilt graphics or cache. CPUs just don't take up that much die area.

This image is actually why people building gaming PCs should be hopeful about Zen. All consumer-level Intel CPUs come with integrated graphics on the chip, whether you're using it or, in the case of gaming PCs, not. Chips like the 6600K and 6700K don't have quite as much die area dedicated to integrated graphics as the Iris Pro chip above, but as you can see here it's still quite a large chunk of the chip:

This is relevant because Summit Ridge (the first Zen-based CPUs to be launched in October) don't have any integrated graphics. This means smaller, cheaper dies, which means AMD will almost certainly have the scope to be very competitive on price. Even if Summit Ridge only provides 80-90% of the performance of the latest Intel chips, if they can do that for 60-70% of the price they could be a very interesting value proposition.

 

[LeleSocho]

Refresh my memory for a second, if we take the 40% increase in IPC for good we are looking as the same IPC as Haswell/Broadwell right?

 

[shark sandwich]

Isn't Broadwell just a shrunk Haswell? Unless that L4 cache is a factor in the IPC.

Not exactly. They made a few other architectural improvements for a ~5% increase in IPC

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9482/intel-broadwell-pt2-overclocking-ipc

 

[Renekton]

Yes. But given the gains demonstrated by Skylake that isn't all that bad.

Yup, Anandtech puts Skylake about 5.7% better than Haswell.

So if Zen is around Haswell IPC, they can give an attractive 8-core at a fraction of 5960X price.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/9

 

[DieH@rd]

I don's seek highest possible IPC, I will be fine with "almost i7" performance but with much more affordable price.

Skylake is incredibly pricey, especially here where I live.

 

[CraigerGamer]

This image is actually why people building gaming PCs should be hopeful about Zen. All consumer-level Intel CPUs come with integrated graphics on the chip, whether you're using it or, in the case of gaming PCs, not. Chips like the 6600K and 6700K don't have quite as much die area dedicated to integrated graphics as the Iris Pro chip above, but as you can see here it's still quite a large chunk of the chip:

This is relevant because Summit Ridge (the first Zen-based CPUs to be launched in October) don't have any integrated graphics. This means smaller, cheaper dies, which means AMD will almost certainly have the scope to be very competitive on price. Even if Summit Ridge only provides 80-90% of the performance of the latest Intel chips, if they can do that for 60-70% of the price they could be a very interesting value proposition.

So what will this do for those that just need a desktop/mobile solution and no graphics card? Isn't that where most of the CPU business is these days?

 

[DieH@rd]

So what will this do for those that just need a desktop/mobile solution and no graphics card? Isn't that where most of the CPU business is these days?

AMD will also sell Zen-based APUs that have Polaris on-board.

 

[Renekton]

So what will this do for those that just need a desktop/mobile solution and no graphics card? Isn't that where most of the CPU business is these days?

For those, AMD will have APUs with Zen cores as well.

That pic is for desktop FX line with no iGPU.

 

[mrklaw]

I don's seek highest possible IPC, I will be fine with "almost i7" performance but with much more affordable price.

Skylake is incredibly pricey, especially here where I live.

I bet Intel could cut the price in the blink of an eye if they wanted to. They've been on small nodes for ages, haswell-e (and upcoming broadwell-e) only cost a lot because they can.

they could probably spit out a nice 6-8 core i7 with lower cache than the -e CPUs at a reasonable price, cutting the IGP to save space if they wanted to.

They probably won't though, because most people will ignore the AMD chips, at least in the short term.

 

[Thraktor]

So what will this do for those that just need a desktop/mobile solution and no graphics card? Isn't that where most of the CPU business is these days?

They've got Zen-based APUs (i.e. CPUs with integrated graphics) scheduled for next year, but this year it's just going to be pure CPU chips.

 

[DieH@rd]

I bet Intel could cut the price in the blink of an eye if they wanted to.

They won't do that easily. They hold majority of the market, and they like their fat profits.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Seems like AMD have a good opportunity here to shake up the market with ZEN coming in most sizes and form factors, and they have the incentive to sell as direct competition to intel...if they go aggressive, intel can't pretend they can continue to rip people off

 

[televator]

Think I'll now be sticking with AMD for my next PC. I just can't keep helping to bring the monopoly future any more. Besides, I've been more interested in performance that just bests console graphics for a long time now, and that really isn't hard to do with middling hardware specs for multi platform games.

 

[DonMigs85]

They won't do that easily. They hold majority of the market, and they like their fat profits.

Yup, especially now that the overall PC market is in decline and they stopped development of Atom for mobile devices.

 

[Nostremitus]

From the PC thread

Image of 8-Core AMD Zen Summit Ridge:

.
Double the performance of FX 8350 and comparable to Intel’s 8-core i7 5960X Extreme Edition

AMD has revealed that Zen will have double the performance of the FX 8350 and will trade blows with Intel’s eight core i7 5960X Extreme Edition. Not only that but a die shot of “Summit” what will be the basis of AMD’s long awaited next generation high performance FX Zen CPUs has finally been revealed.

AMD’s Zen 8 core enthusiast class Summit Ridge CPUs are reportedly slated for an October launch on the company’s brand new AM4 socket based desktop platform. These next generation FX CPUs will include eight and six core configurations. Which will deliver double the performance core for core of AMD’s current desktop FX 8300 and 6300 series lineup.

AMD’s Zen Eight Core CPU Delivers Double The Performance Of The FX 8350, A Real Challenger To Intel’s i7 5960X Extreme Edition

AMD has finally published additional performance figures for Zen beyond the 40% IPC improvement over excavator that the company talked about last year. The 40% IPC uplift figure represents the architectural performance per clock improvement of Zen vs

AMD’s last CPU architecture, code named Excavator. And while comparing the architectural capabilities of zen to Excavator may have been informative, it doesn’t offer a direct real-world product to product comparison. Thankfully, we do finally have direct real-world performance figures for Zen.

Compared to AMD’s “Orochi” quad module, eight core die powering the FX 8350, the Zen based desktop Summit Ridge eight core CPU delivers double the performance in Cinebench R15. This means that a single Zen core is in effect equivalent to two Piledriver cores in performance, which is incredibly impressive. This dramatic performance difference comes from the significant architectural performance per clock improvements in addition to Zen’s simultaneous multithreading capability.
it’s important to remember that AMD’s latest Orochi dies feature Piledriver cores rather than Excavator. Excavator cores are roughly 15% faster per clock than EXcavator. This in turn puts Zen at a lead in excess of 60% vs Piledriver in terms of performance per clock. Doubling the performance of the FX 8350 puts Zen in direct competition with Intel’s eight core i7 5960X.

 

[qa_engineer]

From the PC thread

Finally some competition from the red team on the power and price front. If they can deliver an 8 core CPU that goes toe to toe with the 5960x and be cheaper then they have a serious contender.

 

[AmyS]

From last year:

he APU, dubbed an “Exascale Heterogeneous Processor” or EHP for short is the mother of all APUs with 32 Zen Cores, an absolutely huge Greenland graphics die and upto 32 GB of HBM2 memory – all on a 2.5D interposer.

http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMD-EHP-APU-32-Zen-Cores-Greenland-HPC.png

Substitute the name Greenland for Vega 10. (Flagship GPU with HBM2, coming 2017, probably H1).

The existence of plans for a similar APU, a 16-core variant, was discovered not too long before the 32-core version.

http://wccftech.com/amd-x86-zen-bas...bm-memory-greenland-igpu-ddr4-memory-support/

First generation consumer Zen APUs are going to be upto quad core (Raven Ridge).

Yet there's every reason to speculate that the 16-core APU could be a sort of 'template' / starting point for whatever specific semi custom APUs AMD would do for future Microsoft and Sony consoles, meaning beyond whatever mid-gen upgraded PS4 / Xbox One consoles happen in the next 6-10 months.

 

[GhostTrick]

You guys forgot something else other than IPC... No more stupid overclock lock. Which means even low end models will be able to be overclocked, reaching better performances than non K models.

 

[Renekton]

Yet there's every reason to speculate that the 16-core APU could be a sort of 'template' / starting point for whatever specific semi custom APUs AMD would do for future Microsoft and Sony consoles, meaning beyond whatever mid-gen upgraded PS4 / Xbox One consoles happen in the next 6-10 months.

I'm not sure if they can deliver so fast. There are yield issues as suggested by AMD's computex low profile and Nvidia's Founder Edition.

 

[prag16]

Still relevant as ever.

This is what I immediately thought of when I saw the topic, after rolling my eyes. Too true. Maybe it'll be different this time. But probably not.

Could this be used on the NX console or is this too expensive.

Nah. Minimum three Watsons duct taped together. Go big or go home.

 

[AmyS]

I'm not sure if they can deliver so fast. There are yield issues as suggested by AMD's computex low profile and Nvidia's Founder Edition.

Not saying AMD isn't going to have yield issues, but hopefully better days ahead.

 

[ethomaz]

Welcome 32x Jaguar cores...

Spoiler

jk

 

[AmyS]

Welcome 32x Jaguar cores...

I think I see what you did there.

 

[VillageBC]

I'm nearing time to do a major overhaul of my current PC, i7-930 oc'd @3.2ghz. Hopefully Zen brings some competition to the table. I'm not wedded to either manufacture but Intel has for the last couple of generations delivered the better bang for buck I think.

 

[chaosblade]

I'm nearing time to do a major overhaul of my current PC, i7-930 oc'd @3.2ghz. Hopefully Zen brings some competition to the table. I'm not wedded to either manufacture but Intel has for the last couple of generations delivered the better bang for buck I think.

Understatement of the year. AMD hasn't had a product worth buying since Athlon 64, over a decade ago. Phenom II/Athlon II was an okayish step in the right direction, but still solidly behind Intel and followed by the total flop that was the Bulldozer family.

Really hope Zen is as big of a step forward for them as it's being made out to be. Haswell-Broadwell IPC with 6-8 actual cores and low prices could be a gamechanger in the CPU market.

 

[SRG01]

Understatement of the year. AMD hasn't had a product worth buying since Athlon 64, over a decade ago. Phenom II/Athlon II was an okayish step in the right direction, but still solidly behind Intel and followed by the total flop that was the Bulldozer family.

Really hope Zen is as big of a step forward for them as it's being made out to be. Haswell-Broadwell IPC with 6-8 actual cores and low prices could be a gamechanger in the CPU market.

If Zen does reach Haswell performance with a fraction of the cost, then Intel is in really big trouble.

The calculus is this: AMD has room to grow whereas Intel does not. Intel also cannot drop the price of their processors excessively because they're currently in (relative) financial trouble and must find new areas of growth... hence why Intel purchased Altera as well as trying to enter the IoT/5G space.

 

[Nostremitus]

Understatement of the year. AMD hasn't had a product worth buying since Athlon 64, over a decade ago. Phenom II/Athlon II was an okayish step in the right direction, but still solidly behind Intel and followed by the total flop that was the Bulldozer family.

Really hope Zen is as big of a step forward for them as it's being made out to be. Haswell-Broadwell IPC with 6-8 actual cores and low prices could be a gamechanger in the CPU market.

Those are 6c12t and 8c16t parts. If they price the 8 core against the i7 it'll be an amazing price/perf choice. Twice the threads with comparable IPC.

 

[HooYaH]

If Zen does reach Haswell performance with a fraction of the cost, then Intel is in really big trouble.

The calculus is this: AMD has room to grow whereas Intel does not. Intel also cannot drop the price of their processors excessively because they're currently in (relative) financial trouble and must find new areas of growth... hence why Intel purchased Altera as well as trying to enter the IoT/5G space.

Have you seen AMD financially? They are in way more trouble if Zen does not work out.

 

[Cow Mengde]

Have you seen AMD financially? They are in way more trouble if Zen does not work out.

AMD's been getting dangerous with their financials for years now, so it's not exactly news for people.

 

[ethomaz]

If Zen does reach Haswell performance with a fraction of the cost, then Intel is in really big trouble.

The calculus is this: AMD has room to grow whereas Intel does not. Intel also cannot drop the price of their processors excessively because they're currently in (relative) financial trouble and must find new areas of growth... hence why Intel purchased Altera as well as trying to enter the IoT/5G space.

I'm pretty sure Intel has new processors coming late this year.

Even if AMD manage to reach Intel in performance I guess they have some As to play yet.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I wonder if next gen consoles will go with an 8 core variant of Zen or higher...i wonder what the power requirements are on these things..

 

[Nostremitus]

Intel has 8c16t chips, but they cost over $1000 each. If AMD can provide comparable performance at regular i7 prices or the 6c12t chip at i5 prices they'll be WAY more than just competitive.

 

[DonMigs85]

Intel has 8c16t chips, but they cost over $1000 each. If AMD can provide comparable performance at regular i7 prices or the 6c12t chip at i5 prices they'll be WAY more than just competitive.

Indeed, especially for gamers that have no use for the IGP. I'm honestly hoping Intel is sluggish to respond so that AMD can build up much-needed market share and profits.

 

[AmyS]

I wonder if next gen consoles will go with an 8 core variant of Zen or higher...i wonder what the power requirements are on these things..

I'm thinking game devs would prefer 8 core Zen at higher clock frequency to a 16 core variant at a lower frequency.

8-core Zen+ or Zen 2.0 (both in development now) clocked to whatever is within reason for power draw / thermals,

 

[Renekton]

Those are 6c12t and 8c16t parts. If they price the 8 core against the i7 it'll be an amazing price/perf choice. Twice the threads with comparable IPC.

Just for fun, the cinebench comparison in the marketing materials can be extrapolated to mean the Zen 8C is around 5820K.

 

[Easy_D]

Looks like I'm going Zen if the price is right.

That said, quite surprised at how well my 6300's held up so far, I guess the current gen consoles having puny CPUs helps a shitload.