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AMDs Future of Compute: CARRIZO APU, 5 Samsung UHD FreeSync displays + more

AMDs Future of compute presentation, Singapore 2014-11-20 (day 1 of 2)

No keynote videos (yet?), but a official live blog with slides and photos can be found here:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/markets/future-of-compute-malaysia

PC gaming highlights:
* New CARRIZO APU
* Power efficiency improvements
* Asynchronous compute (i.e. GPU compute)
* More FreeSync details, advantages over GSync
* 5 new Samsung UHD FreeSync monitors (no price or availability)

Edit: Images for highlights:
1416466301415764oojxf.jpg
141646952560108538kwq.jpg

1416469823440896ccjiu.jpg
1416474778266210mhke4.jpg

1416475443498526s0j7p.jpg
1416475824819523hoj3g.jpg
My overview if you want to find slides
Code:
07:23 Keynote 1 - APJ : Unlocked Potential, David Bennett, APJ MRVP, AMD
07:42 Keynote 2 - HSA : Changing the Way We Work and Play,  Joe Macri, BU CTO, AMD
07:52 New CARRIZO APU with next generation Graphics Core Next
	Full HSA 1.0 support (unified coherent memory, context switching)
	Performance and battery life improvements
08:11 Keynote 3 - True Meaning of Compute Capabilities, Oliver Baltuch, President, Futuremark
08:29 DX11 vs DX12/Mantle Draw Call benchmark (FARANDOLE)
	7.5x DX11 performance
08:37 Keynote 4 - New Frontiers in Energy Efficieny, Sam Naffziger, Corporate Fellow, AMD
08:45 AMD's unique voltage adaptation feature recovers wasted power by operating at the average voltage and quickly reduce frequency for the brief period the voltage reduces.
08:52 Various new battery life technologies, race to idle, intelligent boost
08:55 Keynote 5 - Thriving in a Mobile First, Cloud First World, Alvaro Celis, APAC VP, Microsoft
(break with lots of show floor pictures)
09:39 Keynote 6 - AMD Vision of Graphics & Gaming, Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Scientist, AMD
09:42 The future of computing, low overhead APIs (Mantle, DX12, Metal, OpenGl NG)
09:44 Mantle: 4 game engines, 20+ games launched or in development, 10 publicly
09:54 Mantle benchmarks
10:03 Masaru Ijuin from CAPCOM talks about the benefits of low level APIs 
	and how Mantle makes multi-platform (PC/PS4/XB1) development easier
10:15 Take advantage of asynchronous computing to increase GPU usage.
	Improve lightning quality, including indirect illumination
	Render finer detail for skin
10:18 FreeSync (AMDs answer to GSync)
10:22 No proprietary hardware, closed standards or licensing costs
10:24 Advantages over GSync: 
	9-240 Hz vs 30-144 Hz for GSync
	no proprietary module required
	compatible with standard monitor features (OSD, scaling, color processing)
	no performance hit (note: 3-5% for GSync according to Anandtech)
10:29 Joe Chan from Samsung
10:30 5 UHD FreeSync monitors announced (no price or availability)
	All future monitors will come with FreeSync
	UE590 23.6" & 28"
	UE850 23.6", 27", 31.5"
10:33 Anneliese Olson from HP - VP & GM, Computing Category, APJ
 

Nikodemos

Member
So they've rebranded their netbook small core as Carrizo-L. Which they mention as being socket-compatible with the bigger one. And it would seem they might finally add dual-channel support and a larger GPU (the new roadmap doesn't mention number of graphics CUs like the older one). Absolutely necessary steps, since Beema was an adequate small core hobbled by single-channel controller and weak iGPU.

Pseudo-EDIT:

FreeSync works on all displays featuring a DisplayPort 1.2a (and higher) connector and relevant software. Many displays still come without a DP, even though it's the new VESA standard.
 

wildfire

Banned
Damn, should have held off on that G-sync monitor so I could experience a 9hz refresh rate without tearing or stuttering in AC:Unity.


*hands on hips*

Oh you.


Seriously though I don't get why AMD even bothers advertising being able to support refresh that low. Anything below fixed 16 FPS is going to be seen as intolerable for any human being.
That's the lowest anyone should go.


what exactly should we be getting outof these? Sorry ..a little confused.

An open standard initiative to remove the stutters caused by the display and the potential to have gameplay so smooth that details that would be a blurry mess when running at full speed in FPS can be as easily seen as if you were standing still.


I thought FreeSync works on all monitors, why are they announcing support for 5 new ones?

They misled you through omission of facts during their initial announcement. It's not a big deal since it still is difficult to buy a Gsync display.
 
this should be great news for the stock i hope.

New hardware announcements are clockwork, doubt that side of thing is going to have any real impact. And if there's no licensing fees and its all open technology for Free-Sync they aren't going to be tripping over themselves to buy stock for that either. That is really more about trying to eliminate one of Nvidia's competitive edges, rather than actually getting an edge themselves.
 

Nikodemos

Member
Nope, but many speculate that it will be used in carrizo, since AMD said the cores are much smaller.
Excavator cores are likely to be smaller, but the Carrizo die itself most likely won't. The GPU is the same one found in Tonga, which has more transistors due to beefier tesselator, rasterizer etc. So it will quite likely be just as big as Kaveri.
 

Nikodemos

Member
The biggest potential for FreeSync isn't in desktop displays (since 80-90 dollars isn't that big a difference in enthusiast/high-end), but in laptop panels. Laptops running a Carrizo SoC without a dedicated card could definitely benefit from adaptively syncing their refresh. And it wouldn't require an extra dedicated chip to do it.
 
New hardware announcements are clockwork, doubt that side of thing is going to have any real impact. And if there's no licensing fees and its all open technology for Free-Sync they aren't going to be tripping over themselves to buy stock for that either. That is really more about trying to eliminate one of Nvidia's competitive edges, rather than actually getting an edge themselves.

yup nothing going on premarket. :(
 

Locuza

Member
Excavator cores are likely to be smaller, but the Carrizo die itself most likely won't. The GPU is the same one found in Tonga, which has more transistors due to beefier tesselator, rasterizer etc. So it will quite likely be just as big as Kaveri.
According to eetimes Carrizo will feature the same size, 245mm².

AMD will disclose Carrizo, an integrated processor with its latest x86 core. The 28 nm chip measures 244.62 mm2 and packs more than 3.1 billion transistors. Its new Excavator core is 23% smaller and uses 40% less power than AMD’s previous x86 core.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?_mc=RSS_EET_EDT&doc_id=1324643&page_number=2
 

Nachtmaer

Member
Excavator cores are likely to be smaller, but the Carrizo die itself most likely won't. The GPU is the same one found in Tonga, which has more transistors due to beefier tesselator, rasterizer etc. So it will quite likely be just as big as Kaveri.

Probably. I think they're also integrating more south bridge stuff like SATA controllers and whatnot.
 

Doopliss

Member
My overview if you want to find slides
Code:
10:29 Joe Chan from Samsung
10:30 5 UHD FreeSync monitors announced (no price or availability)
	[B]All future monitors will come with FreeSync[/B]
	UE590 23.6" & 28"
	UE850 23.6", 27", 31.5"
Samsung guy really said that? It's pretty interesting if even their budget monitors will have Freesync.
 
Samsung guy really said that? It's pretty interesting if even their budget monitors will have Freesync.

Yeah, that's quite surprising. I'd assume there's probably a small additional charge to get the vesa adaptive sync certified, wasn't expecting that to be done on the cheapo models.

And what's the problem with that? Nvidia is free to implement Freesync compatibility, not that I see Nvidia supporting Freesync thanks to them pushing for Gsync.

Well, it'd probably be another adaptive sync implementation rather then gsync.

I'm 100% sure that adaptive sync will eventually win out and nvidia will adopt it, but I don't think they will ever use amd's freesync.
 

Nachtmaer

Member
According to various declarations, the entire Southbridge is integrated. That's why their latest (mobile) roadmap refers to Carrizo as 'SoC'.

Yeah, noticed it as soon as I posted.

There's still one thing I'm curious about regarding variable refresh rates. How well do they work in a (mixed) multi-monitor setup? Back when I was looking for a new monitor, I was considering going with a 120 or 144Hz one. Since I didn't feel like replacing both of my monitors, I googled around a bit to see how well 60Hz + 120/144Hz works out. The results seemed pretty mixed, so I fear it might be the same when using whateversync in combination with a 60Hz monitor. Maybe someone who has a Gsync monitor can chime in on this.
 

Akronis

Member
Samsung guy really said that? It's pretty interesting if even their budget monitors will have Freesync.

It's just that they will have the new revision of DisplayPort in them. There really would be no point to have newer monitors use older revisions of DisplayPort.
 

Akronis

Member
Yeah, noticed it as soon as I posted.

There's still one thing I'm curious about regarding variable refresh rates. How well do they work in a (mixed) multi-monitor setup? Back when I was looking for a new monitor, I was considering going with a 120 or 144Hz one. Since I didn't feel like replacing both of my monitors, I googled around a bit to see how well 60Hz + 120/144Hz works out. The results seemed pretty mixed, so I fear it might be the same when using whateversync in combination with a 60Hz monitor. Maybe someone who has a Gsync monitor can chime in on this.

Are you spanning the displays or just having the 60HZ one be an extension? I'm running a 144HZ G-SYNC with a normal 60HZ monitor and it works fine.
 

Serandur

Member
I'm more interested in future talk about the upcoming Zen μarch, not Carrizo or any future iterations of Bulldozer. Displays... meh, I settled for 1440p PLS recently and I'm planning on sticking to it for a very long time. I'll be interested in variable refresh monitors after the industry has some semblance of an established standard, much as I think the technology is long overdue.
 
I thought FreeSync works on all monitors, why are they announcing support for 5 new ones?
You need a monitor with DisplayPort 1.2a (or higher)
All mayor scaler chip manufacturers have announced support, so sooner or later nearly all DisplayPort monitors will support it (confirmed at PDXLAN)
Seriously though I don't get why AMD even bothers advertising being able to support refresh that low.
FreeSync isn't exclusive to gaming. It's a great way to save power in laptops when your screen isn't refreshing. In fact FreeSync is based on a embedded DisplayPort technology where it works already.

Besides that it's nice to have a low range if you can't maintain 30 fps all the time.

The biggest potential for FreeSync isn't in desktop displays (since 80-90 dollars isn't that big a difference in enthusiast/high-end), but in laptop panels.
As I said above, some laptops already support it, just not in games. Or something similar like Panel Self-Refresh in HP workstations.
But that would mean buying an AMD card.
Hopefully Nvidia starts supporting in as soon as it becomes too widespread.
It's not mandatory though, so I was expecting it not to appear in budget monitors.
It's also free with the next generation scaler chips (besides VESA certification)
 

Nachtmaer

Member
Are you spanning the displays or just having the 60HZ one be an extension? I'm running a 144HZ G-SYNC with a normal 60HZ monitor and it works fine.

By spanning you mean something like an Eyefinity (or Nvidia's equivalent) setup? I'm not using anything like that. I just use one monitor mainly for games and movies, the second for browser and other stuff.
 

riflen

Member
Free Sync is exciting, especially with Gsync so cost prohibitive.

G-Sync displays are rather costly because there is no competition at the moment and availability is still limited. You have no choice if you want a variable-refresh display today and the vendors know this.
I would expect prices to come down once displays supporting FreeSync are on sale. 2015 should be a better year for variable-refresh displays.

No-one should expect every FreeSync compatible display to carry no extra cost though. Manufacturers will use FreeSync like any other feature and charge more for it as necessary. As an example, you will get FreeSync displays that support up to 60Hz and those that support higher refresh rates. This and other high-end features such as low-persistence strobing will add to the cost of the display.
 

Nikodemos

Member
G-Sync will always be more expensive than purely-software driven solutions like FreeSync (which builds on AdaptiveSync's already existing instructions). Sync chip will always be more expensive than no sync chip.
 
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